Stuart thinks he’s funny. Today he came into the office with some socks (I think, hope, they were socks) tucked down the front of the short shorts he was wearing, which I found quite confronting. When I looked at his crotch and laughed, he pretended he was offended. He said how would I feel if he laughed at me and my uplift bra like that. Then Ronald had to join in and said he was offended on behalf of all men (because he’s a man, apparently). OK, I get it.
Although, on another level, I don’t. But, as someone once said, who sins most, the tempter or the tempted? In our culture it seems to depend on the respective genders of the looker and the lookee.
And, getting offended on behalf of other people, even if we haven’t checked with them whether or not they want us to speak for them (because obviously we know how they think and are more capable of expressing ourselves than what they are, we arrogant cretins) does seem to be the current zeitgeist.