I’ve been doing some trend-spotting recently and this is the trend I have spotted: it is OK to sell products that encourage women to stick knives in men. Maybe I’m having a sense of humour failure over it, but I just felt slightly uneasy when The Sun reported that as part of Ann Summers’s new Freedom Parties for the Recently Single, partygoers will be encouraged to play a game called “Pin The Knife On The Picture Of The Ex-Boyfriend.” Admittedly it’s only a picture of an ex-boyfriend – it’d be preposterous to think that any girl would actually stab her ex-boyfriend.
When you Google for boyfriend stabbing incidents, you enter a depressing world of abused women stabbing violent partners. And of women stalking men. And vice versa. And of things that, well, you probably wouldn’t laugh about much.
So yes, I have had a sense of humour failure over that one.
Further along the scale is online gadget retailer Firebox, which sells a product called Voodoo Knife Display, which is an admittedly arty effigy of a man for keeping (sticking) your kitchen knives in.
“Crafted in rich red or black ABS plastic, the highly stylish Voodoo has five strategically-positioned slots in which to place five quality knives, which are also included,” says Firebox.
I think that product is just about OK – you’d have to be overtly PC to object to it.
But what would the reaction be if the effigy was obviously female?
And then there’s LoveHoney and our Bad Boyfriend Voodoo Doll. “Whip your boys into shape with the Bad Boyfriend Voodoo Doll! Perfect for any girlfriend whose other half needs to be better, the doll comes complete with 10 pins for pin-point hoodoo results!”
We don’t sell a female version of that. And I’m not sure if we could.
I’m going to have to stop now or my sense of humour will have failed permanently. I know, I’ll listen to Morrissey to cheer myself up:
Stepchild, there’s a knife in a drawer in a room downstairs
And you, you know what you must do
So the stepchild ran with a knife to his sleeping frame
And slams it in his arms, his legs, his face, his neck and says
“There’s a law against me now”
And the father who must be killed
With his dying breath, he grabs her hand
And he looks into her eyes
He says “I’m sorry” and he dies
ROFLMAO!