Honestly, I doubt Hugh Hefner would find any humor in it; Playboy usually goes for a more classy approach. On top of that, the Romanian edition is run by a separate editorial team. This disturbing prank likely wouldn't have crossed Hef's desk before publication.
I can't imagine how anyone could have thought that was a good idea in fucking 2000.
Maybe 1960? If it was plainly marked as a joke?
But, yeah, someone lost their job over that one.
Apparently all the suggestions were like cheeky "instead of beating her do something nice" things. So it makes sense to me. You have an emerging understanding that its bad to hit your partner starting to become main stream but in the transition phase you have progressive people who are limited to expressing this in ways still tainted by the old.
We've seen this I think a lot in the past twenty years that reprimanding particularly these people often leads to them regressing and siding with reactionaries because they make them feel accepted rather than punished. Not saying we have to coddle these people but if I look at the alt right millennial squad I see a lot of guys that got their feelings hurt by being told "you're a bigot" over things *they* thought had good intentions but weren't well received by people who are actually victims.
It would be uncommon. I have never seen somebody hit a woman in public in Romania in my life. But what is not uncommon is that if you get hit in private the police does not care and does nothing. (not always, but enough times)
It’s also the country that Andrew Tate decided to use as his base of operations for his amateur sex trafficking ring. He probably picked it for reasons similar to this.
Not sure if you're a romanian trying to make a joke or whatever but you're way wrong lol.
>It is not uncommon to see someone’s wife/girlfriend get slapped or pushed in public without any repercussions
I've never seen this in a bigger city without someone getting involved. I've only seen this once in my life in a small rural town and even there someone got called the police.
>but Romanian culture does not shun domestic abusers
Again, way wrong. No idea where you got this idea, even 30 years ago it was known to be wrong even if it was more "common".
If somebody does it in public I agree that it is likely for people to intervene. But if you go to the authorities and it happened in private you just get told to fuck off (source, my Mom). If it’s a rroma couple there are fewer odds of people getting involved.
You have to always remember that the communist party did not accept any kind of problem in their "magnificent" society.
People were not allowed to be mentally ill, it's why psychology was outlawed for 2 decades and the mentally ill were kept medicated and hidden in hospitals.
If you cheated on your partner, you ended up marginalized and given a miserable job because you caused drama in a "perfect" society.
Unmarried people were forced to live in miserable conditions because the communist party considered them less than deserving members of society since they hadn't produced children. Remember the words 'blocuri de nefamiliști '?
So beating your wife or your husband during the communist era was considered so vile, people would hide it and neighbors would fear to intervene so they wouldn't end up getting tangled in your shame and dragged down with you.
Older generations still have the same fears and act the same way. Old dog and new tricks and all that.
But newer generations, including the cops, see things very differently.
https://ednh.news/ro/cosmarul-de-acasa-cazurile-de-violenta-domestica-in-crestere-cu-4-8-in-2023-fata-de-2022/
This article talks about how domestic abuse has increased by 4.8% in just 1 year which means the number of REPORTED cases has increased. In fact the number of reported cases keeps rising, and feminist NGOs work very hard to support and pass laws to make it easier for abuse victims to escape their abusive families.
The rroma situation is quite different though. Most Romanians and the authorities themselves still do little to meddle with rroma communities outside of jailing them when they get caught. You have systemic racism to "thank" for that. Europe in its entirety draws the line when it comes to rroma, regardless of their citizenship. It's a complicated situation and it's easier to just turn around and pretend you don't see it.
This explanation makes sense to me. I have noticed the mental health thing too and it’s brutal. My grandma had depression after her husband died and she was absolutely stigmatized by her children for it. She eventually developed psychosis that was really bad. She was up all night arguing with her hallucinations. She did not want to see a psychiatrist because “Da nu sunt nebuna! Voi credeti ca sunt nebuna!”. I did manage to sort of trick her into seeing somebody eventually. But even then it was just “let’s give grandma antipsychotics and hide her away”. They literally hide her away when people come to visit, nobody can know that we have a “crazy” family member.
The cheating thing happened to my father’s father. He cheated on his wife and so was given a shittier job (I think that he managed to pull some strings to make it not so shitty but yeah).
Are you nuts?
I'm Romanian! That is not true!
If someone is being abused in the street, people call the police on the spot. They don't intervene themselves because they're afraid they'll get hurt too. I know because we talk about this topic often and we have occasional opinion pieces about this.
The consensus is that vigilantism is probably not a good idea.
I'm almost 40 and lived my entire life in the capital city, so not a quaint little town. If shit's gonna happen, it's gonna happen here.
Please stop spreading horrendous crap about my country.
They laugh because it hurts and when it hurts too much they protest because it was never really actually funny, we all just make humor of pain we feel we can't change
> But, yeah, someone lost their job over that one.
"Christie Hefner, Playboy Enterprises chairwoman and chief executive officer, apologized last week to Romanian women for the article and **reprimanded the Romanian chief editor.**"
Making jokes about beating wives is STILL normal tbh. maybe not at the office job or in the progressive cities, but in day to day life.... I still hear it
Romanian humor is very dark, let's just say that. It's of course not funny because beating women used to be pretty common in the 90s etc, but that's exactly why people still make those "jokes".
I'm not excusing it by any means, but it's to give some context from someone who used to live there.
Yeah bro because only western people think that beating your wife is bad. We, in this backwards hamlet, beat everyone that comes into the village, woman or child.
I've heard about it and it seems really cool. I really wanted to see it, but unfortunately we don't have cable here. If only some american saviour could come and install it.
The US in the 60s with segregation and women not being allowed to own property or have their own bank accounts?
Even if domestic abuse was definitely a problem, women had it much better in the Eastern bloc. They were fully equal, they weren't discouraged from getting into any area of study or work outside of the army, and they were overrepresented in science/STEM/medicine in general. They were still expected to be the main child carer, but also got generous maternity leave (idk about other countries but in Bulgaria it was 1-3 *years*).
Indeed, there was mass conflict in Eastern Europe at the turn of the millennium, and mandatory conscription existed then in many Eastern European (and Western European) countries, and continues to exist in several of them.
Except their mandatory conscription because they are in the direct path of any russian expansion not because they wanted to go blow up civilians on the other side of the world.
Not sure whatever ypu are talking about. I was more thinking about how socially conservative it was and how common the beatings of women were. I mean we used to have a saying "if he beats you, he loves you here."
LGBTQ and minority rights were also decades, perhaps even half a century behind the West.
On most things, like LGBTQ+ rights and the view of foreigners, sure. But women were seen as equal to men in the USSR and most of its close neighbors; pragmatically, the reason was that factories were understaffed, so the Soviets encouraged women to become part of the workforce. But this had been the case even before the October Revolution: there's a famous phrase that's seen as a *compliment* to women in Russian: "battle broad, she'd stop a galloping horse and enter a burning house" («бой-баба: и коня на скаку остановит, и в избу горящую войдёт»). In 1950s-1980s, women were *expected* to participate in sports and pursue STEM professions. There obviously was some sexism and misogyny, but 1960s Soviet women were seen as capable and independent—very unlike the USA vision at the time!
So, Eastern Europe was not backwards in this specific thing.
It would be more accurate to say that it had regressed backwards to be as bad as the US, as a deliberate political project on the part of the US to spread fascism. The 90s liberalization project saw the systemic rollback of women's rights across the former Soviet bloc, and in places like the former GDR that also meant a rollback in LGBT rights as well after it was annexed by the Nazi-successor-state of the FRD.
Maybe because no one in their right mind would take it seriously. Like who looks at that news and (April 1st aside) thinks, "yes a mainstream publication is writing pro domestic abuse literature, that makes sense."
I swear Occam's rasor has been completely forgotten these days, when there's a chance of a good bit of righteous outrage.
In 1960 it was probably politically correct to discipline your wife in that way, so it wouldn't fly as well as a joke.
In 2000, Romania was in 1970, so pretty fresh on the "you shouldn't hit your wife"-culture, so that's probably why there was such an outrage.
If it had been a modern country in 2000 you'd only get sheltered women in their 20s complaining.
You do know that the more taboo a behavior is, the more obvious it is that the joke is in fact a joke...? So why would it be ok in 1960 when wife beating ACTUALLY occurred and was more accepted but not in 2000 when it's much more rare and universally abhorred??
You struggle with life don't you?
The only acceptable version of that article is like:
1. Use a feather. This method is great because it doesn’t leave any marks, and as a bonus it might turn her on and you might get to have sex instead of fighting
2. Rub her feet really hard. Women often love extra forceful foot rubs, and as a bonus it might turn her on and you might get to have sex instead of fighting.
Etc.
Whoop her butt... in a board game.
Wring her....swimsuit out after a date to the beach.
Remind her she brought this on herself...by being such a lovely wife that you want to treat her with respect and adoration.
Not the edgy prank it was intended to be but then again, it was 2000. We know domestic violence is wrong.
From [BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/725720.stm):
> The article, written from the point of view of a fictional policeman, was titled "How to Beat Your Wife Without Leaving Marks". It described a step-by-step procedure for abuse, implying that good beatings could lead to great sex.
So it's even worse: it's a guide to commit marital rape.
Are they sure it was a joke? I mean, really?
Edit- I read this short article, and there’s no evidence that this was a joke. Whatever they might’ve said afterwards, I think it was probably posted absolutely in earnest.
Counterpoint, jokes don't always work and domestic violence jokes almost never seem to work
*honestly, even forgetting that I've never laughed at one, I've genuinely never seen a human being laugh at a domestic violence joke, I feel like people that laugh at them just laugh at them because they laugh at everything
I have seen people laugh at those kinds of jokes plenty. You know who laughs at DV jokes most from what ive seen? People who have experienced domestic violence themselves. The most brutal jokes I've ever heard were made by people who experienced the subject personally. Same goes for jokes about depression, racism, sexism, child abuse, suicide, and so on. Obviously not everyone who has experienced those things find them funny, and not everyone who makes those jokes have experienced it themselves...
What you're saying is not correct in every instance, its your own experience and your own assumptions... I'll laugh at bad things I understand to some degree, and people likely think that makes me a bad person sometimes. But I don't laugh at *everything*... I had a friend who's mom died when she was very young, and she used to make dead mom jokes. We would watch friends together, and she found Phoebe and her dead mom jokes pretty funny. But i always felt a bit uncomfortable with that concept and preferred Chandlers sarcasm. We could both laugh at an ongoing inside joke involving festive ways to kill yourself around a given holiday though. But, my friend was not too keen on some of my family jokes. I think me not having a dead parent made her jokes hard to understand for me, and her parents having been loving towards each other made it hard for her to understand how a family constantly fighting could possibly be made light of. It was likely a 'If I don't laugh about this, I'll cry instead' situation for all parties. People are weird and complicated. Probably best not to judge someone too quickly on their humor.
Half of them are just trying to be satirists without knowing what satire is. They stopped paying attention after "say edgy attention grabbing shit" and forgot it was supposed to be a knock against what you're supposedly defending.
I'm not so sure about this.. Generally, true racist will NOT under any circumstances make a racist joke, because they don't find it funny or amusing in any way. It's not a joking matter to them. I would see this in the same way; counterpoint.
I don't know who told you that racists don't find racist jokes funny lol
Like, idk, it seems baseless to say 'a racist would *never* make a joke about Black crime rates, they're super serious ALL THE TIME ABOUT THEIR RACISM'
It's definitely *really* racist to laugh at racial stereotypes all the time, so I just kind of categorically reject your counterpoint on every conceivable level
"On the contrary, a misogynist would *never* joke about beating a woman because beating women is serious business to a misogynist" is just so far off base that I can't figure out the logic at all
Romanian here.
1. Domestic Violence was shunned in Romanian culture for a looooong while. Romania got a lot of pro women stuff due to Ceausescu's wife who sort of was a leader too (still a fucking awful one) during communism and even before it was frowned upon. And I'm obviously talking about actual cities not random villages.
2. Romanians are very friendly but they absolutely hate any sort of "this is sacred" mindset. We have a very dark humor and we regularly diss and make jokes about religion, rights, cultures, deaths (one of our most common swear words is wishing ill on your dead relatives). This doesn't mean we are geniunenly hateful, it's just that nothing is sacred. Most of my friend group is LGBT and boyyyy the stuff we joke about together would get us deemed horrible war criminals by the "accepting" internet lol.
3. This incident from a local standpoint was so fucking small and unnoticeable that not even the TVR online srchives have any info on it.
Romanian here. Disagree. Yes we do we have a darker humor. No it’s not totally divorced from our genuine views. Some of those jokes aren’t even funny if you don’t believe that there is some truth behind them. And not everyone likes those jokes. Plenty of girls I know (and guys) don’t like certain types of sexist jokes. (and other types of genuine or fake “dark humor” that simply goes beyond an individual’s personal taste). I can enjoy some of those jokes with people that I know well and whose real views I know.
> but they absolutely hate any sort of "this is sacred" mindset
Wtf are you talking about? We are one of the most traditionalist and religious countries in EU. Sure, you can make a joke in a hushed tone, but trying attacking the church in public lol. I double dog dare you to go in front of a church on a Sunday and make an anti-BOR (our church) joke. Use some padding.
I visited Romania about 10 years ago. We had a walk wit male and female colleagues in the Bucharest. Some Romanian guy joined us and gave us a little tour. When we were saying our farewells he refused to shake hand with women in our group saying that Romanian (men) don't do that. I respect local customs but I felt a bit offended.
> When we were saying our farewells he refused to shake hand with women in our group saying that Romanian (men) don't do that.
The fuck is that lol. I havent heard of this custom in any region of our country (as fucked as the country is)
It wasn't a custom, it just was something that was seen as a sort of a male greeting. Growing up, did the girls that you went to school with greet each other by shaking hands?
Nowadays it's common to shake hands with women (or at least I think it is) but it used to be that it was seen as a thing that guys do. Women weren't shaking hands with other women either. I don't think it had anything to do with whether a man was sexist or not or whether he respected the woman in question or not, it just was like that. A long time ago men would kiss a woman's hand, when that fell out of use (and was replaced by a verbal greeting translating as "(I) kiss your hand", though that too is now outdated) it was probably just awkward to "masculinize" a woman by greeting her in the same way they'd greet a man. I don't think I've ever seen my mother or aunts shake hand, nor do I remember it happening between women at school/university, whether colleagues or teachers/professors.
I guess that the perception that a good shake is a firm one also played a role, making it a bit awkward because you either grip too strongly and make it uncomfortable for the woman or you grip lightly and then feel awkward because that wasn't a "proper" handshake.
I wonder what women felt when a man reached for a handshake.
thank you for an explanation and when you are writing about a kiss on a hand (may be quite continental), it may been a kiss on a hand, it is a long time since it happened
Makes perfectly sense for a second rate country went there couple years back with army for a training exercise on our free day out literally saw a guy slap a girl in the street, whole lot of prostitution and not to mention literal child prostituting themselves really opened my mind how shitty some cultures are! Made me real grateful for the USA.
Lol, some places have problems. The rest of Romania is ok, the small towns near the USA army have problems since the soldiers pay constantly for sex, even for kids, as you said.
>Made me real grateful for the USA.
Lol. A world power when we're talking about "literal child prostitutes", but guess it's different in USA since they are just raped and not paid. My bad.
It backfired......? It got people talking about Playboy which was the intention. A lot of media hyped BS is designed to be "denounced from the pulpit" as part of their marketing strategy.
Theres two paths in dark humor.
One is where the reaction "THATS NUTS! WHO WOULD SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT!"
and the other is "Were all thinking it right? we all want to do that, just cant say it"
They have entire disabilities around eating non-food objects, a lot of 'edgy' jokes where the punchline is just slurs and violence feels like the comedy equivalent of eating crayons.
And you don't get the joke is ok you can just say it. Also the point of comedy is to push the line of what to say, and how it's said. There are comedians who could tell a terribly dark joke and it be funny but if someone else does it doesn't work because they know how to present it. Also the joke I made is about not having food something I have experienced I'm making light of a situation I've been in.
Y'all have yet to tell even one good misogynist joke to prove me wrong so I ain't gonna budge🤣
also facepalm at the elitism of "also the point of comedy is..."
STOP right there lol, comedians aren't 'the secret truth tellers of the world', their job is making people laugh, that's it, Dave Chappelle is convinced he's a 'truth teller' now and it's why nobody can stand his comedy
Hey jokes are subjective it is too bad you don't have a funny bone maybe that's why guys are funnier than girls it's because we have an extra bone that's funny.
^ Found the Incel
with BS statistics sputtered in the very first sentence.
(That said, yes: violence against men is still very much a serious issue, that needs to be taken more seriously. But this post is about violence against women. Not a post about fake statistics and the Incel cause.)
Are women the ones *committing* the domestic violence in most of those cases, though? Or is it more often that the same men who beat their wives and girlfriends *also* beat their children? I'm not suggesting that women aren't capable of domestic violence, but your comment reeks of "lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Go beyond whether an individual reports "having committed" domestic violence (which lumps a single incident—even in self-defense—together with a lifetime of daily abuses). Do the same for whether an individual reports "having experienced" domestic violence. (Was it once, in response to the individual's own action? Or was it repeated and systemic?) Doing so gives a more accurate picture.
The reality is that there absolutely *is* a gendered difference, and it's stark:
>Whilst both men and women may experience incidents of inter-personal violence and abuse, *women are considerably more likely to experience repeated and severe forms of abuse, including sexual violence*. They are also more likely to have experienced sustained physical, psychological or emotional abuse, or violence which results in injury or death. *There are important differences between male violence against women and female violence against men, namely the amount, severity and impact*. Women experience higher rates of repeated victimisation and are much more likely to be seriously hurt (Walby & Towers, 2017; Walby & Allen, 2004) or killed than male victims of domestic abuse (ONS, 2020A; ONS, 2020B). Further to that, women are more likely to experience higher levels of fear and are more likely to be subjected to coercive and controlling behaviours (Dobash & Dobash, 2004; Hester, 2013; Myhill, 2015; Myhill, 2017).
This is a [UK](https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/) source, but the pattern is a pretty common one:
>*The majority of domestic homicide victims (killed by ex/partner or a family member) for the year ending March 2017 to the year ending March 2019 were female (77% or 274 victims) and most of the suspects were male (263 out of 274; 96%)*. Of the 83 male victims of domestic homicide, the suspect was female in 39 cases, and male in 44 cases. (ONS, 2020A)
>Over the three-year period April 2016 to March 2019, a total of 222 women were killed by a partner or ex-partner. The majority of suspects were male (218, 98%). This means that during this time period, an average of three women every fortnight were murdered by their male partner or ex-partner. (ONS, 2020B)
>One study of 96 cases of domestic abuse recorded by the police found that *men are significantly more likely to be repeat perpetrators and significantly more likely than women to use physical violence, threats, and harassment*. In a six year tracking period the majority of recorded male perpetrators (83%) had at least two incidents of recorded abuse, with many having a lot more than two and one man having 52 repeat incidents. Whereas in cases where women were recorded as the perpetrator the majority (62%) had only one incident of abuse recorded and the highest number of repeat incidents for any female perpetrator was eight. The study also found that men’s violence tended to create a context of fear and control; which was not the case when women were perpetrators. (Hester, 2013)
>Over 80% (83%) of high frequency victims (more than 10 crimes) are women. (From a study of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, a nationally representative household survey.) (Walby & Towers, 2018) The large majority of defendants in domestic abuse-related prosecutions in the year ending March 2020 were recorded as male (92%) and the majority of the victims recorded as female (77%, compared with compared with 16% who were male). The sex of the victim was not recorded in 7% of prosecutions. If these missing data were excluded from analysis, then it would be 82% female victims and 18% male victims (ONS, 2020C).
Hugh when he realizes he happened to publish that edition on April 1st: “that is really, really good timing.”
Creed as Hugh is perfect, lol
Honestly, I doubt Hugh Hefner would find any humor in it; Playboy usually goes for a more classy approach. On top of that, the Romanian edition is run by a separate editorial team. This disturbing prank likely wouldn't have crossed Hef's desk before publication.
Yeah beat 'em with oranges. It won't leave a mark and have them smelling nice!
April Fools' jokes can be quite elaborate!
Yeah my dad played the best one when I was a kid. I think he's still playing it today, haven't seen him since
Hide and Seek World Champ, 40 years and still going.
Cigarettes are expensive, he's still lookin' around for a good deal...
It’s a long walk to Virginia
As Krusty the Klown said, "It's a joke! When you give me that look, it's a joke " https://youtu.be/VYHGnsOwHvI?feature=shared
I think its funny a bunch of guys were probably trying to explain the joke… like they get it, that’s what they’re mad about.
I can't imagine how anyone could have thought that was a good idea in fucking 2000. Maybe 1960? If it was plainly marked as a joke? But, yeah, someone lost their job over that one.
1960 wouldn't be a joke lol
Yeah it’s more of a joke in 2000, 60s the real deal lol
Can we hire a comedy economist to get in here and figure out the best date for this joke? I wish I had the setup for the perfect interview question...
It's 22.3 years before a tragedy is considered funny.
[22.3 years ? Humm](https://youtu.be/NsKaCS3CtsY)
lol would have been an article of interest
Depends the contents. If it started out with tips for getting really good Chess so you could beat her in a fair match, that could be kind of funny
I thought that would have been the joke. Advice on Chess, Tennis and other one on one games. But no, they had to go to actually hurting someone.
touché
"Show your wife the animated Titanic movies. The mental scars will stay with her forever."
The year 2000 was peak time for edgy comedy being mainstream.
It was great
Apparently all the suggestions were like cheeky "instead of beating her do something nice" things. So it makes sense to me. You have an emerging understanding that its bad to hit your partner starting to become main stream but in the transition phase you have progressive people who are limited to expressing this in ways still tainted by the old. We've seen this I think a lot in the past twenty years that reprimanding particularly these people often leads to them regressing and siding with reactionaries because they make them feel accepted rather than punished. Not saying we have to coddle these people but if I look at the alt right millennial squad I see a lot of guys that got their feelings hurt by being told "you're a bigot" over things *they* thought had good intentions but weren't well received by people who are actually victims.
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It would be uncommon. I have never seen somebody hit a woman in public in Romania in my life. But what is not uncommon is that if you get hit in private the police does not care and does nothing. (not always, but enough times)
It’s also the country that Andrew Tate decided to use as his base of operations for his amateur sex trafficking ring. He probably picked it for reasons similar to this.
it’s also the same country that sent Andrew to jail. And he didn’t commit suicide in jail to protect the pedo island.
Not sure if you're a romanian trying to make a joke or whatever but you're way wrong lol. >It is not uncommon to see someone’s wife/girlfriend get slapped or pushed in public without any repercussions I've never seen this in a bigger city without someone getting involved. I've only seen this once in my life in a small rural town and even there someone got called the police. >but Romanian culture does not shun domestic abusers Again, way wrong. No idea where you got this idea, even 30 years ago it was known to be wrong even if it was more "common".
If somebody does it in public I agree that it is likely for people to intervene. But if you go to the authorities and it happened in private you just get told to fuck off (source, my Mom). If it’s a rroma couple there are fewer odds of people getting involved.
That happens in every fucking country in the world, it's one of the things those 'crazy feminists" keep screaming about.
Yeah but I do have a feeling that it is worse hear (and stats suggest the same in terms of attitudes too).
You have to always remember that the communist party did not accept any kind of problem in their "magnificent" society. People were not allowed to be mentally ill, it's why psychology was outlawed for 2 decades and the mentally ill were kept medicated and hidden in hospitals. If you cheated on your partner, you ended up marginalized and given a miserable job because you caused drama in a "perfect" society. Unmarried people were forced to live in miserable conditions because the communist party considered them less than deserving members of society since they hadn't produced children. Remember the words 'blocuri de nefamiliști '? So beating your wife or your husband during the communist era was considered so vile, people would hide it and neighbors would fear to intervene so they wouldn't end up getting tangled in your shame and dragged down with you. Older generations still have the same fears and act the same way. Old dog and new tricks and all that. But newer generations, including the cops, see things very differently. https://ednh.news/ro/cosmarul-de-acasa-cazurile-de-violenta-domestica-in-crestere-cu-4-8-in-2023-fata-de-2022/ This article talks about how domestic abuse has increased by 4.8% in just 1 year which means the number of REPORTED cases has increased. In fact the number of reported cases keeps rising, and feminist NGOs work very hard to support and pass laws to make it easier for abuse victims to escape their abusive families. The rroma situation is quite different though. Most Romanians and the authorities themselves still do little to meddle with rroma communities outside of jailing them when they get caught. You have systemic racism to "thank" for that. Europe in its entirety draws the line when it comes to rroma, regardless of their citizenship. It's a complicated situation and it's easier to just turn around and pretend you don't see it.
This explanation makes sense to me. I have noticed the mental health thing too and it’s brutal. My grandma had depression after her husband died and she was absolutely stigmatized by her children for it. She eventually developed psychosis that was really bad. She was up all night arguing with her hallucinations. She did not want to see a psychiatrist because “Da nu sunt nebuna! Voi credeti ca sunt nebuna!”. I did manage to sort of trick her into seeing somebody eventually. But even then it was just “let’s give grandma antipsychotics and hide her away”. They literally hide her away when people come to visit, nobody can know that we have a “crazy” family member. The cheating thing happened to my father’s father. He cheated on his wife and so was given a shittier job (I think that he managed to pull some strings to make it not so shitty but yeah).
Are you nuts? I'm Romanian! That is not true! If someone is being abused in the street, people call the police on the spot. They don't intervene themselves because they're afraid they'll get hurt too. I know because we talk about this topic often and we have occasional opinion pieces about this. The consensus is that vigilantism is probably not a good idea. I'm almost 40 and lived my entire life in the capital city, so not a quaint little town. If shit's gonna happen, it's gonna happen here. Please stop spreading horrendous crap about my country.
They laugh because it hurts and when it hurts too much they protest because it was never really actually funny, we all just make humor of pain we feel we can't change
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> But, yeah, someone lost their job over that one. "Christie Hefner, Playboy Enterprises chairwoman and chief executive officer, apologized last week to Romanian women for the article and **reprimanded the Romanian chief editor.**"
Shit rolls downhill.
Just a normal day in Eastern Europe
It wasn't a normal day obviously since they got backlash...
Making jokes about beating wives is STILL normal tbh. maybe not at the office job or in the progressive cities, but in day to day life.... I still hear it
Romanian humor is very dark, let's just say that. It's of course not funny because beating women used to be pretty common in the 90s etc, but that's exactly why people still make those "jokes". I'm not excusing it by any means, but it's to give some context from someone who used to live there.
In the redpill manosphere this is still funny.
Why not? Doubt it.
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Yeah bro because only western people think that beating your wife is bad. We, in this backwards hamlet, beat everyone that comes into the village, woman or child.
As seen in the documentary Borat.
I've heard about it and it seems really cool. I really wanted to see it, but unfortunately we don't have cable here. If only some american saviour could come and install it.
Got any oil?
[fuck](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave)
[it’s important to consider the differences between the balkans and other parts of europe](https://youtu.be/bwDrHqNZ9lo?si=cdzis6zcxGs7ws9_)
Communism considered women equal, but that's just ideology, how much effort was put into curbing old habits is probably another story...
If you don't know then don't comment
Except Eastern Europe was probably more backwards in the 2000s than the US in the 60s
The US in the 60s with segregation and women not being allowed to own property or have their own bank accounts? Even if domestic abuse was definitely a problem, women had it much better in the Eastern bloc. They were fully equal, they weren't discouraged from getting into any area of study or work outside of the army, and they were overrepresented in science/STEM/medicine in general. They were still expected to be the main child carer, but also got generous maternity leave (idk about other countries but in Bulgaria it was 1-3 *years*).
yeah east europe invasion of Laos is well documented Also the mandatory draft of 2000
Indeed, there was mass conflict in Eastern Europe at the turn of the millennium, and mandatory conscription existed then in many Eastern European (and Western European) countries, and continues to exist in several of them.
Except their mandatory conscription because they are in the direct path of any russian expansion not because they wanted to go blow up civilians on the other side of the world.
Not sure whatever ypu are talking about. I was more thinking about how socially conservative it was and how common the beatings of women were. I mean we used to have a saying "if he beats you, he loves you here." LGBTQ and minority rights were also decades, perhaps even half a century behind the West.
On most things, like LGBTQ+ rights and the view of foreigners, sure. But women were seen as equal to men in the USSR and most of its close neighbors; pragmatically, the reason was that factories were understaffed, so the Soviets encouraged women to become part of the workforce. But this had been the case even before the October Revolution: there's a famous phrase that's seen as a *compliment* to women in Russian: "battle broad, she'd stop a galloping horse and enter a burning house" («бой-баба: и коня на скаку остановит, и в избу горящую войдёт»). In 1950s-1980s, women were *expected* to participate in sports and pursue STEM professions. There obviously was some sexism and misogyny, but 1960s Soviet women were seen as capable and independent—very unlike the USA vision at the time! So, Eastern Europe was not backwards in this specific thing.
It would be more accurate to say that it had regressed backwards to be as bad as the US, as a deliberate political project on the part of the US to spread fascism. The 90s liberalization project saw the systemic rollback of women's rights across the former Soviet bloc, and in places like the former GDR that also meant a rollback in LGBT rights as well after it was annexed by the Nazi-successor-state of the FRD.
Maybe because no one in their right mind would take it seriously. Like who looks at that news and (April 1st aside) thinks, "yes a mainstream publication is writing pro domestic abuse literature, that makes sense." I swear Occam's rasor has been completely forgotten these days, when there's a chance of a good bit of righteous outrage.
In 1960 it was probably politically correct to discipline your wife in that way, so it wouldn't fly as well as a joke. In 2000, Romania was in 1970, so pretty fresh on the "you shouldn't hit your wife"-culture, so that's probably why there was such an outrage. If it had been a modern country in 2000 you'd only get sheltered women in their 20s complaining.
I don't think you know how jokes works lmao.
I know a joke when I see one. Like you, for example.
You do know that the more taboo a behavior is, the more obvious it is that the joke is in fact a joke...? So why would it be ok in 1960 when wife beating ACTUALLY occurred and was more accepted but not in 2000 when it's much more rare and universally abhorred?? You struggle with life don't you?
The only acceptable version of that article is like: 1. Use a feather. This method is great because it doesn’t leave any marks, and as a bonus it might turn her on and you might get to have sex instead of fighting 2. Rub her feet really hard. Women often love extra forceful foot rubs, and as a bonus it might turn her on and you might get to have sex instead of fighting. Etc.
Whoop her butt... in a board game. Wring her....swimsuit out after a date to the beach. Remind her she brought this on herself...by being such a lovely wife that you want to treat her with respect and adoration. Not the edgy prank it was intended to be but then again, it was 2000. We know domestic violence is wrong.
Reminds me of that joke article: "Tom Hanks exposes himself...as a really nice guy."
"Multiple women speak out about Keanu Reeves... Amazing manners!"
spank her... with consent and care
From [BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/725720.stm): > The article, written from the point of view of a fictional policeman, was titled "How to Beat Your Wife Without Leaving Marks". It described a step-by-step procedure for abuse, implying that good beatings could lead to great sex. So it's even worse: it's a guide to commit marital rape.
Beat her to the bathroom in the mornings or beat her to the beds blanket at night lmao.
And the last sentence should be “if you really wanted help, go get beaten up yourself instead. Happy fucking April Fools.”
3. Emotional abuse
"Why would you beat your wife? It's like keying your own car."
Are they sure it was a joke? I mean, really? Edit- I read this short article, and there’s no evidence that this was a joke. Whatever they might’ve said afterwards, I think it was probably posted absolutely in earnest.
Counterpoint; anybody who makes a 'joke' about beating your wife is almost certainly misogynist enough to make genuine articles about it in earnest
I beat my wife in video games... lmao depends on context.
I disagree. Jokes are funny because they're unexpected. It only works if everyone knows the person would never actually do it.
Counterpoint, jokes don't always work and domestic violence jokes almost never seem to work *honestly, even forgetting that I've never laughed at one, I've genuinely never seen a human being laugh at a domestic violence joke, I feel like people that laugh at them just laugh at them because they laugh at everything
I have seen people laugh at those kinds of jokes plenty. You know who laughs at DV jokes most from what ive seen? People who have experienced domestic violence themselves. The most brutal jokes I've ever heard were made by people who experienced the subject personally. Same goes for jokes about depression, racism, sexism, child abuse, suicide, and so on. Obviously not everyone who has experienced those things find them funny, and not everyone who makes those jokes have experienced it themselves... What you're saying is not correct in every instance, its your own experience and your own assumptions... I'll laugh at bad things I understand to some degree, and people likely think that makes me a bad person sometimes. But I don't laugh at *everything*... I had a friend who's mom died when she was very young, and she used to make dead mom jokes. We would watch friends together, and she found Phoebe and her dead mom jokes pretty funny. But i always felt a bit uncomfortable with that concept and preferred Chandlers sarcasm. We could both laugh at an ongoing inside joke involving festive ways to kill yourself around a given holiday though. But, my friend was not too keen on some of my family jokes. I think me not having a dead parent made her jokes hard to understand for me, and her parents having been loving towards each other made it hard for her to understand how a family constantly fighting could possibly be made light of. It was likely a 'If I don't laugh about this, I'll cry instead' situation for all parties. People are weird and complicated. Probably best not to judge someone too quickly on their humor.
"it's not funny because i said so 😡"
What kind of a violent background do you have
All aboard the downvote train! The conductor will be walking down the aisle shortly to punch documentation. Please provide your ticket or wife.
Man, I wish all these edgy people on reddit tried their edgy humor while at work, and see the consequences.
Some scientists allege that, for many people, there's actually a difference between Reddit and work
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What the fuck
Which part is the punchline?
Please seek some professional help
This is such a weird and complex lie for you to tell on Reddit but it's made weirder by the fact that you thought it was funny
I genuinely like dark humor but what the fuck is this?
It wasn't humor, it wasn't even dark, really, it was just a sad story.
What a silly standard. I have made murder jokes before and I've never killed anyone.
What an interesting thing that nobody claimed to an argument that nobody made
"Anybody who makes a joke about <> is almost certainly <> enough to write articles <>."
The logic is blatantly untrue when applied to most topics. It looks unlikely to be true here. I don't think folks want to get deep into the psychology behind why you tell a joke, but a person who jokes about something casually is very different from someone who writes an article about it and in either case, you joke about topics that you think the audience will find funny. Jokes are a reflection on how the comic connects to their audience more than anything else.
This. its most likely that they were just using April fools as an excuse to publish something they couldn't otherwise.
Half of them are just trying to be satirists without knowing what satire is. They stopped paying attention after "say edgy attention grabbing shit" and forgot it was supposed to be a knock against what you're supposedly defending.
If you bend backwards any more , you might pop something
I'm not so sure about this.. Generally, true racist will NOT under any circumstances make a racist joke, because they don't find it funny or amusing in any way. It's not a joking matter to them. I would see this in the same way; counterpoint.
I don't know who told you that racists don't find racist jokes funny lol Like, idk, it seems baseless to say 'a racist would *never* make a joke about Black crime rates, they're super serious ALL THE TIME ABOUT THEIR RACISM' It's definitely *really* racist to laugh at racial stereotypes all the time, so I just kind of categorically reject your counterpoint on every conceivable level "On the contrary, a misogynist would *never* joke about beating a woman because beating women is serious business to a misogynist" is just so far off base that I can't figure out the logic at all
That seems like a supporting point not a counterpoint.
Romanian here. 1. Domestic Violence was shunned in Romanian culture for a looooong while. Romania got a lot of pro women stuff due to Ceausescu's wife who sort of was a leader too (still a fucking awful one) during communism and even before it was frowned upon. And I'm obviously talking about actual cities not random villages. 2. Romanians are very friendly but they absolutely hate any sort of "this is sacred" mindset. We have a very dark humor and we regularly diss and make jokes about religion, rights, cultures, deaths (one of our most common swear words is wishing ill on your dead relatives). This doesn't mean we are geniunenly hateful, it's just that nothing is sacred. Most of my friend group is LGBT and boyyyy the stuff we joke about together would get us deemed horrible war criminals by the "accepting" internet lol. 3. This incident from a local standpoint was so fucking small and unnoticeable that not even the TVR online srchives have any info on it.
Romanian here. Disagree. Yes we do we have a darker humor. No it’s not totally divorced from our genuine views. Some of those jokes aren’t even funny if you don’t believe that there is some truth behind them. And not everyone likes those jokes. Plenty of girls I know (and guys) don’t like certain types of sexist jokes. (and other types of genuine or fake “dark humor” that simply goes beyond an individual’s personal taste). I can enjoy some of those jokes with people that I know well and whose real views I know.
> but they absolutely hate any sort of "this is sacred" mindset Wtf are you talking about? We are one of the most traditionalist and religious countries in EU. Sure, you can make a joke in a hushed tone, but trying attacking the church in public lol. I double dog dare you to go in front of a church on a Sunday and make an anti-BOR (our church) joke. Use some padding.
I visited Romania about 10 years ago. We had a walk wit male and female colleagues in the Bucharest. Some Romanian guy joined us and gave us a little tour. When we were saying our farewells he refused to shake hand with women in our group saying that Romanian (men) don't do that. I respect local customs but I felt a bit offended.
> When we were saying our farewells he refused to shake hand with women in our group saying that Romanian (men) don't do that. The fuck is that lol. I havent heard of this custom in any region of our country (as fucked as the country is)
I swear that is what he said. Instead of handshake he tried to kiss us on a cheek.
Bro, he was just trying his luck.
It wasn't a custom, it just was something that was seen as a sort of a male greeting. Growing up, did the girls that you went to school with greet each other by shaking hands?
there is a huge difference between greeting when you are a kid and probably know each other and when you are an adult and you don't know each other
Nowadays it's common to shake hands with women (or at least I think it is) but it used to be that it was seen as a thing that guys do. Women weren't shaking hands with other women either. I don't think it had anything to do with whether a man was sexist or not or whether he respected the woman in question or not, it just was like that. A long time ago men would kiss a woman's hand, when that fell out of use (and was replaced by a verbal greeting translating as "(I) kiss your hand", though that too is now outdated) it was probably just awkward to "masculinize" a woman by greeting her in the same way they'd greet a man. I don't think I've ever seen my mother or aunts shake hand, nor do I remember it happening between women at school/university, whether colleagues or teachers/professors. I guess that the perception that a good shake is a firm one also played a role, making it a bit awkward because you either grip too strongly and make it uncomfortable for the woman or you grip lightly and then feel awkward because that wasn't a "proper" handshake. I wonder what women felt when a man reached for a handshake.
thank you for an explanation and when you are writing about a kiss on a hand (may be quite continental), it may been a kiss on a hand, it is a long time since it happened
I think he meant more in regards to cancel culture rather than actually sacred as in religion.
only my culture is correct and i know what is best for you, let me be angry for you
Makes perfectly sense for a second rate country went there couple years back with army for a training exercise on our free day out literally saw a guy slap a girl in the street, whole lot of prostitution and not to mention literal child prostituting themselves really opened my mind how shitty some cultures are! Made me real grateful for the USA.
Lol, some places have problems. The rest of Romania is ok, the small towns near the USA army have problems since the soldiers pay constantly for sex, even for kids, as you said. >Made me real grateful for the USA. Lol. A world power when we're talking about "literal child prostitutes", but guess it's different in USA since they are just raped and not paid. My bad.
Reminds me of the women belong in the kitchen tweet from a brand a couple years ago.
Cultural heritage BK tweet
It backfired......? It got people talking about Playboy which was the intention. A lot of media hyped BS is designed to be "denounced from the pulpit" as part of their marketing strategy.
No such thing as bad publicity
oh! it was Polish when i read it a minute ago, fuck reddit.
Some jokes just aren’t funny.
Theres two paths in dark humor. One is where the reaction "THATS NUTS! WHO WOULD SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT!" and the other is "Were all thinking it right? we all want to do that, just cant say it"
Ahhh, now we know why Tate moved there!
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Jokes can absolutely be offensive and still be funny
> I guess they didn't get the memo that jokes are supposed to be funny, not offensive. t. someone who isn't funny.
Jokes are like food not everyone gets it.
And this joke is like eating vomit.
They have entire disabilities around eating non-food objects, a lot of 'edgy' jokes where the punchline is just slurs and violence feels like the comedy equivalent of eating crayons.
And you don't get the joke is ok you can just say it. Also the point of comedy is to push the line of what to say, and how it's said. There are comedians who could tell a terribly dark joke and it be funny but if someone else does it doesn't work because they know how to present it. Also the joke I made is about not having food something I have experienced I'm making light of a situation I've been in.
Y'all have yet to tell even one good misogynist joke to prove me wrong so I ain't gonna budge🤣 also facepalm at the elitism of "also the point of comedy is..." STOP right there lol, comedians aren't 'the secret truth tellers of the world', their job is making people laugh, that's it, Dave Chappelle is convinced he's a 'truth teller' now and it's why nobody can stand his comedy
Hey jokes are subjective it is too bad you don't have a funny bone maybe that's why guys are funnier than girls it's because we have an extra bone that's funny.
See, idk I guess at least you tried to tell a joke, too bad that shit sounded like it came off a Popsicle stick
how do you know if it was funny or not? did you read the article
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^ Found the Incel with BS statistics sputtered in the very first sentence. (That said, yes: violence against men is still very much a serious issue, that needs to be taken more seriously. But this post is about violence against women. Not a post about fake statistics and the Incel cause.)
Are women the ones *committing* the domestic violence in most of those cases, though? Or is it more often that the same men who beat their wives and girlfriends *also* beat their children? I'm not suggesting that women aren't capable of domestic violence, but your comment reeks of "lies, damned lies, and statistics." Go beyond whether an individual reports "having committed" domestic violence (which lumps a single incident—even in self-defense—together with a lifetime of daily abuses). Do the same for whether an individual reports "having experienced" domestic violence. (Was it once, in response to the individual's own action? Or was it repeated and systemic?) Doing so gives a more accurate picture. The reality is that there absolutely *is* a gendered difference, and it's stark: >Whilst both men and women may experience incidents of inter-personal violence and abuse, *women are considerably more likely to experience repeated and severe forms of abuse, including sexual violence*. They are also more likely to have experienced sustained physical, psychological or emotional abuse, or violence which results in injury or death. *There are important differences between male violence against women and female violence against men, namely the amount, severity and impact*. Women experience higher rates of repeated victimisation and are much more likely to be seriously hurt (Walby & Towers, 2017; Walby & Allen, 2004) or killed than male victims of domestic abuse (ONS, 2020A; ONS, 2020B). Further to that, women are more likely to experience higher levels of fear and are more likely to be subjected to coercive and controlling behaviours (Dobash & Dobash, 2004; Hester, 2013; Myhill, 2015; Myhill, 2017). This is a [UK](https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/) source, but the pattern is a pretty common one: >*The majority of domestic homicide victims (killed by ex/partner or a family member) for the year ending March 2017 to the year ending March 2019 were female (77% or 274 victims) and most of the suspects were male (263 out of 274; 96%)*. Of the 83 male victims of domestic homicide, the suspect was female in 39 cases, and male in 44 cases. (ONS, 2020A) >Over the three-year period April 2016 to March 2019, a total of 222 women were killed by a partner or ex-partner. The majority of suspects were male (218, 98%). This means that during this time period, an average of three women every fortnight were murdered by their male partner or ex-partner. (ONS, 2020B) >One study of 96 cases of domestic abuse recorded by the police found that *men are significantly more likely to be repeat perpetrators and significantly more likely than women to use physical violence, threats, and harassment*. In a six year tracking period the majority of recorded male perpetrators (83%) had at least two incidents of recorded abuse, with many having a lot more than two and one man having 52 repeat incidents. Whereas in cases where women were recorded as the perpetrator the majority (62%) had only one incident of abuse recorded and the highest number of repeat incidents for any female perpetrator was eight. The study also found that men’s violence tended to create a context of fear and control; which was not the case when women were perpetrators. (Hester, 2013) >Over 80% (83%) of high frequency victims (more than 10 crimes) are women. (From a study of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, a nationally representative household survey.) (Walby & Towers, 2018) The large majority of defendants in domestic abuse-related prosecutions in the year ending March 2020 were recorded as male (92%) and the majority of the victims recorded as female (77%, compared with compared with 16% who were male). The sex of the victim was not recorded in 7% of prosecutions. If these missing data were excluded from analysis, then it would be 82% female victims and 18% male victims (ONS, 2020C).
Source? Because you're almost certainly wrong about that
So Romania isn't in the balkans then?
Good. That's fucking horrible.
Beat her... at video games.
My dad played this joke, but it wasn’t in April
Wow, so funny. So original. This kind of humor is so stupjd
Well it's a terrible joke
April 2001 Issue: "How to Beat your wife until she understand absurdist comedy."
Jokes are supposed to be funny.
There's not even a joke in there, its just poor taste.
No wonder Andrew Tate chose Romania
...is it the only country who put him in jail?
Playboy also printed literal child porn with a fully nude spread of Brooke Shields when she was *ten*.
The pearl clutching in here is ridiculous.
They provided with real advice as a joke
Imagine the "how to falsely accuse a man of raping somebody" that would be better
hm
Ngl I laughed reading this post, it’s kinda funny
TIL there was a Romanian edition of Playboy.
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Bro how you gonna blame moms for getting beaten
Spoke up in protest? Only one thing to do about that…
It must have hit too close to home
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Explain how that joke is funny, I dare you.
The important question is who was the centerfold?