It's COMEDY people!

Last Sunday’s entry was a re-post. At the time I originally posted it I also was contributing pieces to the HuffingtonPost. (I stopped when they sold the site for $340 million and still refused to pay writers.) But I posted my porn article there as well.

The article is clearly a satire. Maintaining that it is more degrading to ask porn stars to get laughs than perform all forms of depravity seemed like a funny twist. It also seemed so utterly absurd that it would be easily recognized as satire. I mean, who with a straight face maintains it’s okay for a woman to have sex with an animal but not be asked to deliver jokes? At the very least I thought some people might not find it that funny. But at least they’d know that I was spoofing.

Uh… wrong.

The HuffPost piece resulted in a flood of comments from people defending the practices of the porn industry. Here were some of the comments:

They're not asking the porn stars to do "degrading acts" with five guys, they're paying them to do so.

Without condemning the individuals taking part in scenes of this sort, I'd love for someone to explain to me why trying to inject humor into porn is more objectionable.

So what you are saying is that Beastiality and Bondage scenes are okay but not cleaner porn that mimics popular sitcoms? Ummmm, okay. Whatever turn you on.

What is the point of this article?

Well Ken, if no one bought it, they couldn’t sell it. Apparently, some people find it inoffensive and they are buying it in sufficient quantity to make it profitable.

Unless these newbies are being held against their will or some such thing, they have made a choice to do this.

"Don't let this situation get so out of hand that Congress has to step in..." There are those who would try to do the same thing to you, for what you write.

Prude.

Sadly, with very few exceptions, people don't give a damn about exploited or even enslaved women and children. They care more about the power kick they get from watching the weakest of us hurt and degraded.

Usually, I don’t comment but in this case I felt compelled to respond. Here’s what I wrote:

I find it astounding and hilarious that so many of these commenters took my article seriously. I guess I give people too much credit for being able to spot obvious satire. Maybe I should add a warning. "Not for the literal minded with no sense of humor!" Really. People took this seriously? That's the biggest laugh of all.

Now you’d think that would end it. Uh… wrong again. More comments followed.

If people were truly concerned about the exploitation of women, they should focus on the jobs in mainstream society.

It is quite unreasonable to support a system that makes women into second class citizens and then claim that all pornography is exploitation.

I've noticed that people who say porn is not degrading, tend to be horrified at the thought of their own daughter/mother/sister doing it...."Great!...but not in MY back yard!" If you're fine with your own kid doing it, great!

Well welcome to America, the land of the free, if these pornstars want to express themselves in more creative work, and there is a market for that genre, then i say Go Forward!...afterall they are all over the age of consent and are not breaking any laws, so my motto is...live and let live!

First of all, why is having sex with five guys 'degrading'? Sounds very self-righteous to me.

These are funnier than anything I could write. And horrifying. In fairness, most of my blog readers totally got it.  (Some of your suggested TV porn titles were hilarious!)

But this is a constant reminder to funny people that no matter what you write or say, there will be those who don’t get it. There are those who take everything literally. No matter how absurd.

Another example: A few years ago I was broadcasting a Seattle Mariners game from Detroit. The longtime voice of the M’s, Dave Niehaus, had recently passed away and I commented that the Mariner players all wore patches on their sleeves that saluted Dave. I then said, the Tigers are also paying tribute, which is really remarkable considering Dave Niehaus never broadcast in Michigan. I told the listeners that if they ever see a Tiger home game they’ll notice a big ornate “D” on the front of their uniforms. That’s for Dave.

That night on Mariner blogs angry fans were posting, “Ken Levine is an idiot. That D stands for Detroit.”

Yeah… I’m the idiot.

The point is, always remember when doing satire or putting someone on that there will always always always be people who won’t get it. They don’t know that THE DAILY SHOW and THE COLBERT REPORT are comedies. Someone once said to me that they didn’t like Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog because he was rude to the people he was interviewing. Phil Hendrie has been putting people on on his radio show for over ten years. Every “guest” on his show is really him doing a voice arguing a ridiculous incendiary position. Irate listeners continue to call and argue with his “guests.” Ten years he’s been doing this. You’d think in ten years people would get it. But nope.

So this is another reason I no longer contribute to the HuffingtonPost. Call me crazy, but I still believe it’s possible to write satiric pieces without having to end every sentence with a ☺. And for the record, I don’t care that they’re being paid, porn actresses should not be forced to get laughs.