Something about offensive blokey jokes.

This might be a really obvious thought, but I've just had a moment of realising one reason (of many) why it feels so uncomfortable to call a friend or acquaintance or work colleague on an off colour comment or tasteless joke.

I'm choosing to avoid for this discussion words like "problematic", because I think they tend to muddy up the water a bit. Problematic is so broad and non-specific that it serves to tell you that something is unacceptable (to the person deploying the term) but doesn't tell you why.

I'm also talking about a specific kind of joke here - not a hate crime - nor usually a personal comment of the kind that would constitute racial or sexual harassment. Nor am I talking about the un-vitriolic generalisations of old codgers who haven't caught up to the swift-changing new fangled terminology, and who I find it hard to get much offended by.

I'm talking about the kind of joke people make in in groups of mates that is deliberately naughty or transgressive - the progressive guys who'll play with a slur that they know is off the table, for a punchline within closed doors. The kind of people who don't hate gay people but will say "that old fag" about Ian McKellen, whose movies they love.

In those cases, they know what they're doing is 'out of bounds' and part of saying it is a form of reinforcing their in-group trust. Part of saying these things is enjoying the shared knowledge of mutual transgression.

Which means (I come to my point eventually) that at least some of the time when someone makes an off-colour joke to you, they're inviting you in. It's a signal of trust. And rejecting that trust is a difficult thing to do.

In this instance, where the joke maker knows the subject or word or punchline is taboo, they are trusting you to get (as part of the joke) that the person making the joke is one of the good guys. They know they are making themselves vulnerable to attack, and all privilege aside, it's an offer of friendship.

While tasteless jokes can reinforce damaging stereotypes and contribute to environments that are unwelcoming, they are also a bonding exercise - sharing a secret norm that's outside the mainstream norm.

Which is why often if you make a big deal out of someone saying something that's out of line, you get called a spoilsport, or a goody two shoes, or another epithet that describes the person who's unwilling to take part in 'harmless fun'.

Whether it's harmless or not is beside the question - the point is, you have a choice in the moment of hearing that joke to be 'in' or 'out' of a gang. It's an awkward thing to reject.

Credit to the people who manage to do that with grace and panache, but most people won't, unless they're dead certain they have another better gang that they can get further in with by rejecting the first offer.

Most people's ethics are only as strong as their backup.

Anyway, those were some of my thoughts on the train today. Jetlagged and a bit spacey, I might rethink this tomorrow or it'll seem as obvious and facile as it probably is.

ETA: on Erica P's advice - it's worth mentioning that the hard left tends to articulate many of these things as really sinisterly motivated, as revelling in privilege and deliberate oppression, which strikes me as being a bit unhelpful. It's worth putting it to yourself as an analogy to the old rhetoric about drug addiction. (Drugs are baaaad, if you get dried out then it's just a matter of willpower not to relapse).

If you don't recognise what people are getting out of something, you're lying to them when you tell them it's all negatives. They know that's not true (heroin feels great!) so they can dismiss your whole rehab program. 

You need to figure out what hole they're filling with the drug - what 'good' purpose these jokes serve. If you're going to have a chance to counter them usefully, there needs to be a worthy substitute. For drugs, engagement in community, human connection, mental health support. For off-colour jokes, it'll be something else, but we should figure that out, rather than finger-wagging IF what we want is to actually enact change rather than just feel smug about knowing what's right and wrong.