Trigger Warning
….because I really don’t see anything funny about these t shirts:
“Will buy drinks for sex” t shirt on sale now in the latest Joe Brown’s catalogue (hat-tip to Polly)
“Dead women don’t say no” and “9 out of 10 women are battered and I’m still eatin’ mine plain” t shirts currently on sale through Shock Horror International
Potential Rapist
Rohypnol, helping twats like me have sex since 1991
STALKER I love her so she has to die!
What’s the difference between a Ferrari Enzo and 20 dead hookers? I ain’t got a Ferrari Enzo in my garage!
All available from corpseclothing.com
I still miss my ex but my aim is getting better
Available in various places, including chargrilled.co.uk, blue man t shirts.com and ebay.co.uk
Problem Solved
Available from Cafe press.co.uk, ebay.com, and rockretro.com among others.
Sometimes no means yes
On sale at Lush t shirts.co.uk
You better shut your mouth or I’m gonna fuck it
Available at DeezTeez.com, along with this
Lady Killer
and these ones for the kids:
I tore mommy a new one
Whose tit do I gotta suck to get a drink around here?
Too Much To Say For Myself 
Actually I thought the first one was hilarious, particularly in the middle of a recession. The others are aggressive and unfunny, I agree.
I’ve got one that says: “I Love Your Mum”, which younger people often find amusing.
“I still miss my ex” and “problem solved” are quite easily gender reversible, the “I still miss my ex” one actually being quite funny.
I do get annoyed at these t-shirts though because while I like having something subtly amusing on my t-shirts, I don’t want to look like a twat.
When Burton went all trendy a few years ago they started with a great range of t-shirts, but within a matter of months they’d settled on the lowest common denominator, presumably because those ones sold better. The size of my cock (whilst considerable, obviously) is not something I deem necessary to advertise on my apparel.
The “Whose tit do I gotta suck” one is slightly amusing as an idea, but you wouldn’t actually put your child in one.
A couple of my friends came up with “Gay. It’s The New Black” as an inappropriate t-shirt idea a couple of years ago – which is genius as an idea, as long as you start from a point where you know the person making the joke is neither homophobic nor racist. So again you wouldn’t actually implement it because quite a few people wouldn’t understand the joke and either be offended or start vociferously expressing their racist/homophobic approval.
I have seen a version of the problem solved one where the second pic is of two men walking away together hand in hand. I thought that one was quite funny.
But I think in some ways the manufacturers of these t shirts are doing us all a favour. At least it makes it easier to spot the complete tossers in a crowd or at the bar…..
I have a friend who wears this one a lot, and I really like it:
http://www.tshirthell.com/funny-shirts/my-marxist-feminist-dialectic-brings-all-the-boys-to-the-yard/
I have to say I think the battered women one might bear a feminist interpretation. What the guy may be saying with that is a) I acknowledge that women face violence and b) I like giving head.
I’d have to *know* the guy to make the more charitable interpretation of his intent, and know that he’s not actually an asshole but someone who gets it, though; so it’s still not a great conversation starter for a guy who’s tying to draw the attention of women in a pub or something.
That’s true, indeed, infact I would encourage all men that find these T-shirts funny to go out and by them so that we can tell who to give a wide berth, or perhaps just have knob tattood on their forehead…
Ugh, those are reprehensible. I can’t believe people would wear those in public.
“But I think in some ways the manufacturers of these t shirts are doing us all a favour. At least it makes it easier to spot the complete tossers in a crowd or at the bar…..”
My thought exactly when looking at the t shirts – especially the ‘potential rapist’ one. I have to say I’ve never seen anybody wearing one like these, but last time I was out and saw somebody wearing a Clockwork Orange t-shirt I completely railed against him explaining why I thought it was such an offensive thing to wear. And then when I had sobered up I had to apologise the next day 😦
I’m guessing women are in the design/production/sales teams that culminate in the selling of these t shirts, WTF at them!!!
The problems with the first one gulfstream5 are:
a)it is incredibly UNFUNNY
b) that AT BEST it implies women are going to have sex with someone purely because they bought them a drink (which doesn’t say a lot about how discriminating they think average woman is)
c)At worst, it carries overtones of ‘date rape’ – why not just go the whole hog and buy a ‘potential rapist’ shirt dudes?
and d)you certainly won’t pull anyone sane or in the least bit discriminating wearing one – in fact you might as well wear a t shirt saying “I am a boorish idiot, avoid me like the plague”.
BTW Joe Browns idea of a suitable T shirt for women is one saying “I love musicians”. Not “I love music” note, just basically “I wanna be a groupie”, because no chance a woman could actually BE a musician is there?
http://www.joebrowns.co.uk/sp+Womens-Tee-Shirts-Musicians-Tee+LT229
I hope Joe Browns have realised that sending me their catalogue is pointless by now, especially as the clothes are overpriced tat.
But I do want a ‘my marxist feminist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard’ t shirt badly.
polly – did you notice that the site linked to with the marxist… t- shirt has styles of t-shirts called ‘boy beater’ and ‘wife beater’? I googled it to see if it is a standard t-shirt style description and came up with this lovely example of what not to wear: http://www.zazzle.com/wife_beater_tshirt-235347145409937652 How did it come to this state of affairs when people think it is ok to produce and wear these disgusting things on their chests?
The ‘I still miss my ex’ one is the only one that I think is remotely funny, and it would work on either gender. (It also doesn’t specify the gender).
The rest are misogynist crap.
But yeah, at least if a guy is wearing one of these, women with any sense know to avoid them. (Or, you know, throw a drink over them. After all, men shouldn’t wear these T-shirts if they don’t expect a reaction…)
I’m off t’ pub, hope I don’t spot any…
Mmmm yes I did E, which is why I’m probably not going to buy a tshirt off them. That plus if I can find a good enough version of the graphic I can print my own.
Polly – It’s funny because it implies that the guy is so desperate but hard up that the best he can do is to offer her a drink. The joke’s really on him.
It’s also the only one in the list that implies that the woman has complete feedom of choice. She can just ignore the invitation or say no. There’s nothing at all coercive or sadistic about it, as in most of the others listed.
If you don’t think there’s a funny side to it, it’s probably just another example of the differences between male and female humour.
The ‘ex’ one has a little picture of a ‘girl’ though BFW, and I’m guessing they’re not just knowingly subverting gender Judith Butler stylee…..
If you don’t think there’s a funny side to it, it’s probably just another example of the differences between male and female humour.
I doubt it Gulfstream5, it’s hardly Oscar Wilde is it? But maybe we can take a straw poll….
Seeing these all together is making me feel quite queasy. Hang, queasy would be in my stomach. It’s not queasiness, it’s an unignorable sense of threat. Yep, these t-shirts genuinely scare me. And those designs apparently for kids at the end are like the final shock of a horror film, after you think the story’s over, the one that tells you that actually, there is no escape, no resolution, the worst is still going to happen/continue/repeat – i.e. these people, for their slogans to work, picture babies and children as commanding and dominating women.
Thankfully I’ve never seen anyone wearing something like this, but it stands to reason that some men somewhere must be buying and wearing and laughing at these t-shirts, since the vendors & manufacturers think there’s a market for them.
PhilH: ““I still miss my ex” and “problem solved” are quite easily gender reversible, the “I still miss my ex” one actually being quite funny.”
Gender reversible they may be, but funny they are not, however they’re gendered. Both posit the ex/current partner as a problem to be dealt with by violence, by physical elimination. The smidgeon of clever wordplay is rather heavily outweighed by the fact that the message is one of killing someone who is annoying you or who has upset you.
It might be funny in a world where that kind of overreaction was incredibly rare and was greeted with genuine shock generally when it did happen. But right now rarely a day goes by without a news story of a man killing his partner or his ex partner. Not to mention all the non-fatal partner violence that occurs.
MarinaS: “I have to say I think the battered women one might bear a feminist interpretation. What the guy may be saying with that is a) I acknowledge that women face violence and b) I like giving head.”
I think that would be far too complicated a message for it to be the likely one that the wearer wanted to express. Am sure that a man wanting to be an ally to women could find a t-shirt that more directly expressed that.
I can see how it might mean oral sex, but I very much read “eat” as being “consume” on that t-shirt – to use up and destroy – simply because it’s juxtaposed with the idea of violence against women. The idea of “battered” in the food sense still makes the women into something non-human, non-living.
What most annoys me is that the makers and wearers think about a terrible social problem and at the forefront of their mind is not the lack of justice or equality, but ‘hang on, I can think of a clever pun or visual joke about words like “battered” and “miss my ex”‘. The supreme arrogance and obliviousness. The lack of empathy. The dismissal & minimisation.
There’s this huge range of “humour” generally that seems to come mostly from men that revolves around something cruel or unfortunate happening to someone else.
Just remembered the “You can’t beat a woman” t-shirts that I’ve seen in various places. Now that’s clever.
http://www.womensaid.org.uk/page.asp?section=0001000100140006§ionTitle=T-shirts
Gulfstream5 : “Actually I thought the first one was hilarious, particularly in the middle of a recession.”
Why would it be hilarious to be so desperate for money that you would let someone sexually use you because you couldn’t afford the price of a drink? Oh right, the wearer of the shirt isn’t the one in that position.
The shirt slogan on its won conveys the crappy enough idea that women have sex in exchange for something (i.e. not because they actually want to have sex with someone they find attractive) – but your “recession” spin on it just made it a whole lot worse.
(The other thing about seeing all these shirts together is that the power dynamics inherent in their messages is so stark – collectively they threaten, give orders, or attempt to assert advantage over someone)
Polly: “I doubt it Gulfstream5, it’s hardly Oscar Wilde is it?”
Nice one 🙂
Gulfstream5 – ok, I see I misunderstood you, you meant “recession” to mean that the man is hard up. But that’s still a weird misreading – are you positing that men usually have to offer a whole lot more materially to attract women? I read it as a quasi-punterish attitude to women, and as potentially conveying a coercive attitude because it implies what a woman is expected to do if the man buys her a drink.
Maria, I didn’t say it was funny enough to actually warrant making.
Maria S – As I see it, it implies that the woman isn’t likely to do anything at all, except possibly laugh.
Although I don’t think the author of the slogan was attempting to compete with Oscar Wilde, who probably made other arrangements anyway.
I think you’re right that women will laugh GS5. Followed by giving said dude a wide berth. But what I think is revealing is Joe Brown’s alternative for women. Who are meant to passively announce their love for guys with guitars on the off chance of getting a shag from their local crap indie band.
if i were single, i would suggest that they give these away for free, and anyone who would actually wear one in public be avoided. that wouldve made my life easier at one point. although now, imagining a sea of “potential rapist” tshirts everytime i went out makes me literally feel sick.
Oh the excuses and justifications for these misogynistic t-shirts because surprise, surprise they insult women not men. I wonder if reactions would be the same if t-shirts were available insulting men?
Note: not all the comments excused/justified the misogynistic and insulting graphics but I did note male commentators attempted to justify them.
But of course insulting women is now commonplace since no human being was hurt – unlike homophobia and racism which obviously affects males (and women too).
Why am I not surprised male violence against women is commonly dismissed as being exaggerated by ‘crazy anti-male feminists’ – look no further than these t-shirts which promote contempt and hatred for women. Or just take a look at how popular culture increasingly portrays women as ‘figures of fun/contempt.
I am not laughing – I am angry that such male hatred and contempt is deliberately being ‘trivialised’ as irony or humour.
“such male hatred and contempt is deliberately being ‘trivialised’ as irony or humour”
Jennifer – I don’t think people who make and wear these t-shirts are trivialising their hatred, rather they are proudly showing it off. And tbh, it is better than the misogony that has been hidden for the last couple of decades – at least it is out and open and we can see how much we are hated. Easier to fight an enemy who is out and open.
you know, i’m gonna go out on a limb and say i don’t mind these….
they make the job of identifying misogynist fuckwads a million times easier for me.
less guesswork!
I bet the pricks who see the ‘dead women don’t say no’ t-shirts as funny are the same ones who would be yelling ‘hate speech! Misandry!’ at a shirt saying ‘dead men don’t rape’, or some such.
And if anyone has trouble telling the difference between these two slogans, let me help by giving up a little Context: We live in a world in which women are frequently murdered by their exes, raped after being drugged, raped after being brought drinks, murdered by stalkers, in which prostituted women are tortured raped and murdered by johns and pimps en masse.
We do not live in a world in which men are routinely murdered when they rape or on suspicion that they may rape.
However, Jen’s comment is a good one- it sure does mark out the dickhead men very clearly.
I would prefer mandatory ‘I am a misogynist’ T-shirts for wankers, personally.
tattoos would be better.
Or branding (no offence to cows :))
Polly, yes, but it would work with a picture of a man, or as a gender neutral version, with just the text. You can get them – I’m fairly sure my mum had a fridge magnet saying something along those lines (bitter divorce…) No, they aren’t deliberately subverting gender. Just saying. I admit the military theme of that particular T-shirt makes it a bit more violent. But that was the only T-shirt I found vaguely acceptable. The others are horrible.
MariaS, interesting perspective about the context of gendered domestic violence against ex-partners – I hadn’t looked at it like that.
That said, I think there is a place for sarcastic humour; someone wearing that wouldn’t *literally* kill their ex, any more than saying ‘I could kill so-and-so’ when angry with them means you actually will.
I do think said T-shirt on a woman is different, than on a man, due to the power imbalance between the genders…maybe? Not in a cheap ‘war of the sexes’ way.
If that makes any sense, my self-expressions skills are lacking today…
My breastfeeding partner and I found the last one funny, but we also imagined a breastfeeding child wearing it. Not a grown man or a non-breastfeeding child. On a man it would be incredibly creepy. The others are just straight up awful.
I think regardless of what a t-shirt says, I generally try to avoid anyone that wants to have some lame-ass comment plastered across their chest. I’d say I’m more offended by people that wear Ed Hardy clothes. Hahaha
Jesus Christ, these are awful, immature, and fucking gross.
I definitely have a general rule of avoiding any dude who wears shit like this.
They are a nice way of identifying males you probably dont want to waste your time on.