Not thinking that something like that is 'funny' does not indicate someone is lacking a sense of humour.
Calling something a joke doesn't mean it's funny. For example, jokes about children being sexually abused is not something I would find 'funny'. Perhaps there are some people that would but I would not draw the conclusion that people that find it funny have 'a sense of humour' and I don't.

Regardless of the situations that children are put in by their parents, the children should be protected by our society and that includes speaking out when they are joked about in this sort of way. It's the same when someone tells you a racist 'joke' at a party. It's not 'just a joke' and we should stand up and say so.

Well said!

My mother was 16 when she had me. I have a young daughter. And I write for teens.

The fact that Ms. Estes writes beautifully is not the point. She's attacking a comedian for telling a joke. She lards that attack up with prose and poetry but the essence of it is that she's attacking a comedian for making a joke.

Comedy is rough. It has to be. That's what makes it funny. If it were politically correct, it wouldn't be funny. And demanding that every joke be vetted through the lens supplied by the most easily-offended among us is an attack on the very concept of humor.

There's a truth which is rarely spoken but I'll do it: lots of people have no sense of humor. Literally none. They may recognize that a joke has been told and may have learned to react appropriately. But nevertheless they have no sense of humor. It's like being color blind. Or lacking taste receptors for sweet or sour. Or being tone deaf.

I strongly suspect that Ms. Estes is one of those people. Judging by what I read in many of the comments, she's not the only one.

Those of us who do have senses of humor are not willing to give them up for the comfort of those who don't. Any more than we should expect art lovers to surrender Cezanne for the comfort of the blind, or refuse chocolate so those without taste buds won't feel bad.

As for your comment, “”Aren't we past the era of phony outrage, of victimization by imaginary oppressors, of humorless denunciations by the eternally aggrieved?”

Phony outrage? Imaginary oppressors?
I'm not a phony. I do not think Dr. E or anyone else I know who are “aggrieved” by what Mr. Letterman said, are phonies.
We are very concerned about the smut and slander he threw all over our media with his bizarre sense of what “funny” is and he did so at the expensive of young women and girls all over our nation (and global village as well) who are faced with situations where the love and support of community is so very much needed.

Young women and girls who are pregnant (without a marriage license) NEED our support, not our ridicule, cruelty and unkindness. Attempting to call what Letterman pulled, “humour,” to me, is pathetic.

My two cents worth,
Ghost

How different the joke sounds now with the insertion of different names, right?

While this comment is not necessarily directed at the writer of this particular article, which I feel brings up a very valid and heartfelt discussion about the treatment of women, there is something I want to mention that has been bothering me about this entire event. I know people just love a good piranha media frenzy to express their indignation towards the “The Fifteen-Minute Public Enemy of the Week”, but I have to ask…where were all these people when another seventeen year old got pregnant out of wedlock and was dragged through the proverbial mud with all sorts of name-calling, nasty jokes and comments? I'm not a fan of Jamie Lynn Spears, but I have to wonder how many of these self-righteous people picketing, bashing and demonizing Letterman had no problem regarding Jamie Lynn like the dysfunctional whore of Babylon while right now Bristol is being regarded like a victimized saint.

What Letterman said definitely crossed a line, but plenty of similar jokes were made about Spears and almost no one, including Sarah Palin, stood up to defend her honor and self-esteem as a young woman in this country who made the same mistake that Bristol did. IMO, Bristol stopped being the inaccessible child of a politician when she started making the rounds on talk shows and doing photo spreads in magazines which created somewhat of a celebrity status. Letterman, to his own misjudgment, just treated her like he would any other celebrity who was in the news for making a big mistake in the spotlight. That was wrong, and he acknowledged it. But, I'm sorry…Palin saying that he's a pervert and that his joke was insinuating child rape feels like an obvious ruse to utilize all this media attention to her advantage and play the “outraged mother card” to promote her own political agenda. And it's working – mothers everywhere are empathizing with her furiously – but where the hell were all these mothers with their righteous anger over the mistreatment of Jamie Lynn all those months ago? Why should a politician's daughter be treated any more special than a pregnant teen on a television show or any other pregnant teenager in America? Why is it taking a bad joke about Bristol Palin to garner all this outrage now when the same things happened with Jamie Lynn much earlier?

It is true that women are not sexual objects and should be treated with respect by men, however, that's a very complex problem for longer discussion and only part of the issue here. There is a lot of disrespect coming from everywhere. I thought the Letterman joke was tasteless, but the inconsistency going on with this issue makes me ill. Jamie Lynn Spears was just a young kid who made a mistake in front of the whole world and deserved the same respect that people are having for Bristol right now, but she didn't get it. She got vilified and unapologetically portrayed as a white trash whore by the media and by some of those same sanctimonious people holding signs against Letterman and I just feel that's large amount of hypocrisy.

What kind of cultural privilege you talking about? What kind of privilege do you yourself have that you didnt earn, but somehow seem to amazingly imagine you know so much about everyone else's so-called 'privilege'?

The only “pearl clutching” going on here, is you clutching your own little pearl and wah-ing about something the author never said, such as your reference to “…what a monster he is.” Reading comprehension seems to be your real issue.

Sure, some don't want their souls cared for by others. They want to stand on their own. Fair enough, that. But the corrosive commentary here, offered in response to a piece which seeks – at obvious great personal cost to the author – to maturely address a question which is of the moment in today's news (and also as old as the hills), reminds me of the firebug who sets a fire to something of meaning to people and then stands by to watch it burn.

Yes, of course you're all entitled to your opinions; we all agree on that. But certain responses here seem to come from a blind spot created by anger, not from a place which seems ready to engage in open and meaningful debate about the issue.

No, wait, now that I think about it, let me disregard your opening up of your veins to write this important piece, Dr. E., and accept, and indeed propagate, the incensed messages of those who spew their anger outward without apparently considering the tone, or spirit, in which the message to which their response is directed was offered.

So yes, I appreciate this piece, and suspect that most will think it quite beautifully adds a more expansive dialog on the topic, which dialog surely seems to be valuable to so many of us. Valuable even to the firebugs among us, that is.

Best,
Stolios

As for those who have commented something to the affect, “What about us men?”
Well,in my opinion, Doc E writes ongoing about men and women, every colour, sexual orientation, etc. and the anxiety and pain and hurt that all of us suffer. She writes about it all the time. It's not just women she discusses in her work. As a matter of fact, it has always seemed to me that Doc E goes out of her way to make sure that she is inclusive of women and men (and all people), when discussing these issues.
Have you ever hear/read her work, “The Boy that Married an Eagle? (Myths and stories about male individuation)? I loved it but it was seemed to me that it was obviously written to discuss predominately male issues.
Or did you ever hear heard/read, “Theatre of the Imagination?”
There's a poem she reads that she wrote years ago (How to Silence a Woman Retrieving Her Voice) when 90% of the work published was written only by men, critiqued only by men, most every award went to a man, however, before reading the work Doc expresses that today (long since the writing of the poem) she feels that the poem refers equally to men and women and that it would be appropriate to call it “How to Silence a PERSON Retrieving their voice.”
I could give many more examples but I would suggest that if you haven't read or heard her work, that you do so before jumping to accusations of sexism.
It's evident that the Doc wishes for unity, compassion and understanding to be wrought from her work. Not division, separation and hate.

One last comment, women who get pregnant before or without being married deserve badges of courage in our society…not ridicule.
I, too, thought we had progressed further than this …
That we have people defending Letterman and saying that the Palin's are over reacting?
Wow.
We really need to take a long deep hard look at ourselves as a society (and btw, I cannot STAND Sarah Palin…she just makes me .. ill however.. she has every right .. no ..not right, it's her DUTY to defend her children!)

My two cents worth
Ghost

PS if this has typos etc.. it's cuz I had to write it on the run! Sorry about any boo boos.

after reading your column here i first thought of your article a while back in NCR about “he without sin cast first stone”, because remembered it was not so long ago David Letterman was bit red faced for finding out that his much younger girlfriend was pregnant out of “wedlock”. . .

so i decided to check on the web if my memory was accurate. . .this is from Blogcritics titled,

“David Letterman and hope for a new day.” by Al Barger

“It's been a rough week, people dying all around. Indeed, there are always people dying. Some of my favorite children lost a grandmother last week. This week has just featured a couple of names important to a lot of us. The passing of Warren Zevon was sad. Poor nice John Ritter will probably get lost in the mix, going out the same day as the legendary Johnny Cash.

On the other hand, the human seed is strong and resilient. As us old ones start to wear out, there's a new crop coming up to give us hope and comfort and to eventually take our place.

David Letterman is about to become a father. Within minutes of hearing of the the passing of Johnny Cash, I read about Letterman's announcement. Taping yesterday (9-11-03) for Friday broadcast (9-12-03), 56 year old Letterman announced that his girlfriend is six months pregnant.

Charmingly, he's a little embarassed to have conceived his child out of wedlock. “I realize we kind of got the cart before the horse here.” Not very many people in his high entertainment industry social strata would even recognize such a consideration.

A couple of years ago, Letterman was having critical heart surgery. He narrowly escaped death. Now, even just reading the text of his remarks, he's obviously giddy. Imagine finally becoming a father at 56. He's got renewed hope and joy for the rest of his days.

Let us conclude, then, with the lyrics of Steve Earle's greatest and most beautiful song:

NOTHING BUT A CHILD

Once upon a time in a far off land
Wise men saw a sign and set out aross the sand
Songs of praise to sing, they travelled day and night
Precious gifts to bring, guided by the light
They chased a brand new star, ever towards the west
Across the mountains far, but when it came to rest
They scarce believed their eyes, they'd come so many miles
And the miracle they prized was nothing but a child

Nothing but a child could wash these tears away
Or guide a weary world into the light of day
And nothing but a child could help erase these miles
So once again we all can be children for awhile

Now all around the world, in every little town
Everyday is heard a precious little sound
And every mother kind and every father proud
Looks down in awe to find another chance allowed “

such a strange world we live in Dr. E. . . . as always glad your light is here. . .

Here's a truth that we don't like to teach our children: A lot of people are pricks. Nice people can be mean and mean people can be nice (notice how we never talk about the bravery of the Nazi hospital corps?). It's easier to think of people as being one-dimensional.

I've never defended David Letterman's comments. I didn't think they were funny, but, honestly, I've heard much more offensive things no matter which daughter he thought he was talking about. He's a comedian, and comedy is often cruel. No one mistakes David Letterman as speaking for anyone except his own foolishness.

Shall we talk about all the mean things say to little boys when they are growing up? Let's talk about how our hyper-masculinized culture looks at emotions other than anger as a symptom of weakness. Let's talk about how many men stagger through their lives emotionally neutered in the name of making them more manly. How many men are pushed into sexualized relationships because “that's what guys do?”

The guy made a sexist joke about an 18 year old woman getting “knocked up” by a sports star. It was inappropriate, he got called out on it, he apologized.Could we drop all the nonsensical cries of “he apparently thinks its OK to make jokes about raping children!” and the utterly inane hyperbole about what a monster he is?

His ‘comedic comment’ flensed open that putrid bag of slander: the first erroneous assumption being that a girl or woman in such circumstance will now lay with anyone. The second erroneous assumption is that maybe if you call her out, hound her, harass her, publicly shame her, debase her enough, attack her sense of human selfhood, maybe she who is such a slut, will lay with you too. At least in fantasy. The third assumption, being that since she is such trash, she is worthy of being raped without conscience.

This paragraph has got to be the most ridiculous, over-the-top mother-lode of melodramatic pearl clutching bullshit I have seen written about this incident. Screeds like this are the reason many ordinary folks who have never been challenged to examine their cultural privilege (whether racial, cultural, or gender based) roll their eyes and close the subject with a dismissive snort when they are so challenged.