Chris Matthews joked about drugging Hillary Clinton before an interview.

[Ye We Can]

Has nobody heard of dark humor?

Sure have.

As a woman, the fact that I should just shut up and deal with it because it's funny is exhausting.

Sure, it was a "joke." That doesn't make it okay. It's /not/ funny and it's not okay. Culture has covered for this kind of stuff for too long with "it's just a joke ahaha" and "can't you relax?!" for way too long.

Imagine this: Every day while you're at work or school or whatever, someone comes up behind you and pokes you in the shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt or even really bother you the first time. But this person does it every time they walk by. So, you know, 3-4 times a day. Whatever. The first day, you can shrug it off. The next day, they do it again. So you tell them to stop. "I'm just messing with you man, can't you take a joke?" So you put up with it for the rest of the week.

You come back from the weekend, feeling ready to tackle the week, refreshed, yeah! And then, just as you sit down to really do something amazing, p-o-k-e. You jump up from your chair and smack the person's hand. "Stop TOUCHING me." "DUUUUDE It's just a joke. I wasn't even hurting you. Chill out!" Likely, your coworkers only saw this one poke, so now it also looks like you're overreacting to this one interaction, even though your reaction is, in truth, appropriate.

Now, the person poking you probably lays off for the rest of the day, and maybe even the next day. Maybe you even tell your coworkers that this person has been doing this, and ask them to keep an eye out. Of course, they're busy, and the poker stays away for a little bit. But on Wednesday, he pokes you again. Maybe some people notice, maybe they don't. It still doesn't look like that big of a deal. Like, they're not even really touching you. And it was only that one poke for the whoole day. That's not that big of a deal, right?

But then on Thursday it's back up two or three pokes. And by Friday, every time they go by. You do your best to ignore it, but now you're feeling defensive. Your work is interrupted and distracted because you're keeping an eye out for this person. You're tensed up, waiting for that annoyance and also trying to self-talk yourself into ignoring it, because if everyone else says it's no big deal, then why are you so uptight about it? Maybe you were overreacting and you should just get over it?

So, you go home over the weekend and think about it. Everyone said you were overreacting, so you figure you might as well just deal with it. Some of your coworkers did notice on Friday. Maybe some of them even told the poker to chill out. But they're not the ones being poked, so their request was pretty low-key and they didn't follow up.

This goes on for months. In some ways, you get used to it. It's just part of life. Most days you can almost always ignore it. Sometimes the poker pokes a bit more, just to get your attention. Sometimes they walk by more often. Sometimes there's days where they're out of the office, and those days are a blessed relief. You get so much more done, even though you're to the point where you're not actively thinking about it. Maybe the poker even goes on vacation and you have the most productive week you've ever had.

And then... then they come back from vacation. And you enjoyed that time off you had. Or maybe you're just having a really bad day. Maybe you're stressed out about something at home. Maybe you have a really big project. Or maybe you're just absolutely tired of this person constantly poking you. But there they come... and they poke you again, this time a little bit harder than they normally do, and there's a smirk on their face. You take it to your boss. They investigate, but seriously? It's just a gentle little poke. Can't you take a joke? They do ask the poker to stop, because they can see how it would be distracting. Likely the poker stops for a while again.

But then... it starts again. You can't take it anymore. You flip out. You curse this person out, shove them away from you. You end up looking like a crazy person for such a reaction. You ask that the poker be moved to a different department, or something. Why couldn't you just take a joke? This isn't that big of a deal, is it?

Imagine that. For years. Every day of your life. From multiple people. You get good at ignoring it and not saying anything about it, and maybe even covering for the people who do it. "Oh, I don't mind." "It's just office banter." "I mean, that's what happens at work." "Oh, I know they're just kidding."

It's. Exhausting.

So, yeah. It's just a joke. Hahaha. This isn't his first joke like this, and we are all exhausted. I don't care what they do to him. I'm just glad he's getting called on it. It's disgusting and it's time we acknowledge that. I'd like to see him fired, because Hillary has had to put up with really disgusting stuff for way too long, and that was completely unnecessary.

So, yeah, no. It's not just a joke and it's not funny.

 You know I read the Aziz Ansari thing and thought "wow this person can't be serious" and then i read this which made that look like a serious case of violence against women by comparison.

Anyway the joke is tasteless (and not even funny, i mean where's the hook) but you people really wanna go down the whole "ruin lives for off the cuff remarks" road? We gonna start jailing people for dirty jokes and ill-timed statements?