After years of mercilessly chronicling America's politics, social mores and cultural hang-ups, cartoonist Gary Trudeau has discovered that there remains at least one private activity that remains taboo; masturbation, or, as one of the characters in the latest instalment of his famed Doonesbury strip calls it, "self-dating."
One-in-a-bed sex romp, masturbation; call it what you will, it's still a notion too far for an estimated 300 of the 700 newspapers across the US that regularly carry the cartoon.
Instead of enjoying a new strip yesterday in which Trudeau's characters discuss a recent study published in New Scientist suggesting that frequent masturbation might help prevent men developing prostrate cancer in later life, readers of those easily shocked newspapers offered a strip that was first published last year.
"We felt it was something our readers would not like, and we did not have a good reason for running it," said Diane Bacha, assistant managing editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, whose initial reluctance to publish the "self-dating" strip sparked a prudish debate among editors about masturbation.
"It seems kind of obvious to us that this was beyond the reasonable boundaries of good taste," said Frank Fellone, deputy editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "Other newspapers may feel differently."
Coming to Trudeau's defense was the St Louis Post-Dispatch, which did publish yesterday's Doonesbury "Our policy is not to censor our comic strips," a spokeswoman said.
Nevertheless, Universal Press, which syndicates the cartoon across America, agreed to offer newspapers an alternative instalment. "For some papers, the use of the m-word per se, no matter how deftly it is referenced, may cross the line," Universal's editor Lee Salem said.
This is not the first time that newspapers have refused to run Doonesbury. In the run-up to the 2000 presidential election, at least two editors pulled an instalment that accused US President George W. Bush of abusing cocaine.
Trudeau, himself, doesn't appear unduly woUrried about this latest spat. "There are certain words that trigger a response simply because they've never before appeared in a family-friendly context like the comics -- `Masturbation' is obviously a loaded word, but as a descriptor, it's not actually vulgar or coarse," he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in