Self-Dating and Cancer

Posted on September 7, 2003 in Censorship

Warning: This post might offend those who feel that contact between the hands and the genital region is unnatural and/or sinful.

Gary Trudeau’s been banned again. He said the M word. Which one? Oh please, don’t let my tender little fingers type it out for you. Why they would turn blackish blue and tips would fall off from the shame. Just go read the cartoon for yourself and then read the reaction of national editors:

This is not the first time newspapers have refused to run “Doonesbury.”


Just before the 2000 presidential election, at least two newspapers pulled an installment that accused George W. Bush of cocaine abuse. In February 1998, at least four newspapers refused to run “Doonesbury” strips about accusations that President Clinton had sex with a White House intern.

….Trudeau said the comic “isn’t really about masturbation or the cancer study as such, but about the shifting nature of taboos and the inability of two adults to have a certain kind of serious conversation.”


“Still,” Trudeau said, “I understand that the mention of certain words per se will not be acceptable to some family newspapers.”

I think Zonker had the answer: “Hey, did you guys hear that self-dating prevents cancer?” I bet Trudeau visits some of the same chat rooms that I do. I’ve been using that euphemism for a long time:

<ChatterBox> You’re dating yourself, Norton.



<EmperorNorton> No I’m not! I assure you that my hands are on the keyboard, not in my lap!

Show that to your kids. See if they get the joke. Ninety nine out of a hundred teenagers on IRC didn’t. Ninety eight out of a hundred adults didn’t either.

Whew! My fingers didn’t fall off! A good thing because there’s a few things that I need them for like —

Shamelessly expropriated from Andrew of Byte Back.