I blame the 2004 election season. Maybe it was South Park’s giant douche vs. turd sandwich that got things started. Maybe it was Jon Stewart declaring Robert Novak a Douchebag for Liberty. These days, we’re awash in douchebags.
Wonkette declares presidential nephew Preston Bush Douchebag of the Day. Blogs feature douchebag tags. A guy named Douchebag1 shares with us his collection of photos of hot chicks with douchebags. One blogger ruminates on why he sees douchebags congregate in certain places and concludes there’s a such thing as douchebait. Peruse Flickr’s douchebags.
While generally derogatory, terms often seems to have a specific meaning pertaining to a groomed, yet still fashionably challenged, young man who’s manhood and heterosexuality are being questioned. Like this guy, or these guys.
So I was going to get all high and mighty about how the term is kinda sexist — the very existence of the product implies women’s bodies are unclean - and really shouldn’t be thrown around all that much, until I discovered a feminist defending the term. Her thesis: douches are stupid tools of oppression. So using “douchebag” to describe Robert Novak, another stupid tool of oppression, is A-OK.
Discuss among yourselves.
God I love the English language!
Comments
I did notice that one of the Patrick Mimran douchebag images equates him with a hot water bottle. Now, I don't know about the real deeper meanings of douchebag, but I do love my hot watter bottle and it ain't a douchebag.
Posted by: plantnerd | May 26, 2006 3:18 PM
I was entertained to no end by this post the first time I went through it, but then I made the mistake of going through the links again.
[link]
If you didn't take the time to read the text below the photograph, spend 3 precious minutes of your life and take it all in. Think about it. Who's the real douchebag here?
I think I've got just enough beer in me that it would not be prudent to elaborate.
Posted by: garmr | May 26, 2006 6:57 PM
It's clear to me that, from the people in the photo to the person who took the photo to the person who posted the photo and commentary, everybody involved is likely a douchebag.
Posted by: Mr. Guapo | May 26, 2006 9:26 PM
Plantnerd, last month I would have agreed with you. But then Mrs. Soul went on another school weekend in Seattle and I rented a couple of movies. Before you get too worried, they were: The Big Red One (WWII war movie) and Richard Pryor, Live in Concert. Now Richard goes into a riff about douchebags that his momma used to have around the house...a big red one that she hung over the bathroom door and would fill with water and stick in bed with her when she was sick. I said to myself, "so THAT's what all those 'hot water bottles' were for! I have never been able to figure out those damn things until now." And a little research confirms it:
http://narang.com/rubber_goods_surgical_medical/enema.php
Incidentally, for those of us that grew up listening to Bill Cosby monologues on the reel-to-reel, Richard Pryor totally rips Cosby off. One of his bits was even verbatim the same story that Cosby tells in a recording from, I think, 1966.
Posted by: doubleohsoul | May 27, 2006 12:39 AM
Wow! I stand corrected! I never suspected that all of those cold winter nights I thought I was alone I was really sleeping with a douche bag!
Posted by: plantnerd | May 27, 2006 12:18 PM