I again find myself not being well versed in U.S. culture. So please help me with this question.
Why is a party where people hang their scrotum into another persons mouth seen as a protest against taxes?
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April 14, 2009
Culture Question
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😀 😀
I think it’s supposed to be a reference to the Boston Tea Party.
Posted by: andrew | Apr 14 2009 19:08 utc | 1
Why is a party where people hang their scrotum into another persons mouth seen as a protest against taxes
Thats suppose to be the Daddy parties dirty little secret of molesting the innocent at the behest of raw naked power. For their own good, of course.
Posted by: anna missed | Apr 14 2009 19:14 utc | 2
b
must be getting late over there… tea bags are in reference to the boston tea party as andrew posted. The other is… well the other must just be one of those things people who’ve had too much sex invent as a way to mix things up.
Of course if you were born into some backwards repressive lifestyle, sexual tea bagging might be a very political statement 🙂
Posted by: DavidS | Apr 14 2009 19:22 utc | 3
I’m a little disappointed that the previous (two at the time of writing this) posts didn’t try to answer b’s question properly…
In my opinion the chain of events goes as follows: the original Boston tea party occurred, this lodged itself in American culture primarily as a protest against taxation without representation. Now some people have decided to protest their taxes and have decided to hold their own tea parties. Tea often comes in the form of a tea bag (rather than lose tea) and since most people don’t have access to a barrel of lose tea, the tea bag is probably a common symbol that will be used at the event. In English the actor doing an action often gets an “er” or “ing” at the end, so if you throw something you are a thrower or are throwing something, if you (sport) box you are a boxer or are boxing. So if you are using a tea bag in protest then you are a teabagger and you are teabagging.
Unfortunately, teabagging (and I don’t know the whole history of the word) has already been taken to mean the definition you quoted from the urban dictionary. I also think teabagging isn’t a well known slang word (especially since I think it is used more in the gay community) so honest tea-partiers (notice this name is awkward) may not realize this connection.
This whole thing is really quite silly…
Posted by: socketplug | Apr 14 2009 19:38 utc | 4
i don’t think b is seriously asking for help understanding this; just poking fun at the blatant stupidity.
Posted by: Lizard | Apr 14 2009 20:46 utc | 6
actually sucking balls predates both boston and teabags. when teabags were first invented the term teabagging was coined because the wet teabag resembled (in size and shape) the balls.
sucking balls can be very taxing indeed. one doing all that taxing work, has needs that should be represented hence the choice of using tea @ boston harbor to demonstrate taxation without representation. first came teabagging, then came boston, of course! naming the anti taxation parties after the popular under represented taxing work of teabaggers seems like the most natural thing in the world.
Posted by: obviously! | Apr 14 2009 21:33 utc | 7
I also think some on the Right are just daring some on the left and center to make an issue of the sexual meaning of the the term, thereby allowing the Right to claim those on the left are libertines, gay lovers, gay, commies, etc., etc.
But it so snicker over….
Posted by: jawbone | Apr 14 2009 22:20 utc | 8
Digby has a pretty good take on the tea bag thing. Her theory is that the Republican operators are using the anti-tax theme as a way of translating frustration over the bailout into blaming the Democrats – as in Obama is using our tax money and giving it to the rich bankers – as a way to deflect blame away from the rich bankers themselves for the problem – which of course they have no problem with, as its their primary constituent.
A pretty good theory but, the tax structure for most people is the same as under Bush, not to mention current dissatisfaction with tax rates in the U.S. are at a 50 year low (according to a recent poll).
Posted by: anna missed | Apr 15 2009 1:42 utc | 9
You foreigners just don’t understand liberty. Matt Taibbi, who is almost eqully foreign because he lived in Red communist Russia which is more disloyal than even Germany, also does not understand and so he seems to think there is some kind of slippery slope from scrotum-sucking to felching, which is not true at all.
Posted by: …—… | Apr 15 2009 1:49 utc | 10
i just ran across this fascinating you tube clip from my state congressman, rethug rehberg, and it’s a disturbing illustration of what anna missed is scratching at @ 9.
the hilarious moment for me is when rehberg mentions more “oversight” of the federal reserve. there is a strategy emerging, and tomorrows tantalizing teabagging is just a shot across the bow. the right is going to dig deep in their fringe for extreme chunks of wingnuts, and apparently co-opting conspiratorial talking points will be part of the strategy. alex jones could have a very lucrative four years and a strange amount of attention from seemingly unlikely sources.
Posted by: Lizard | Apr 15 2009 2:34 utc | 11
I grew up here in the US, and I never heard of anything like the description the Urban Dictionary gives. Maybe I’m just too naive to have picked up on that description, or maybe I’ve led a sheltered life (not hardly). I just assumed it was republicanese for some sort of tax giveaway for the uber-wealthy.
Posted by: Jim T | Apr 15 2009 2:35 utc | 12
…—…: thanks for the Taibbi link and the descriptive alliteration. a picture is coming into focus, and its bizarre.
Posted by: Lizard | Apr 15 2009 2:55 utc | 13
A 9) Huffington Post covers it here: http://tinyurl.com/cktfjn
Posted by: Paul Lazar | Apr 15 2009 3:11 utc | 14
Err … here: http://tinyurl.com/dkoglr Sorry.
Alla time same-same. ‘I lub you long time, Joe.’
Posted by: PL | Apr 15 2009 3:14 utc | 15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY&feature=player_embedded
Posted by: Larry Silverstein | Apr 15 2009 3:23 utc | 16
fucking lou dobbs. greasing the channels of dissent. may have sustained brain damage. from watching.
Posted by: Lizard | Apr 15 2009 4:18 utc | 17
I really liked it when David Shuster said, on National T.V, that obviously, if you wanted to have a “Tea-bagging party” you needed a “Dick Armey.” The “tea-baggers are full-throated about their goals”, wanting to give Obama a “good tongue lashing” and “lick” public spending.
There’s more, but i haven’t heard anything more overtly sly on “serious” T.V. in ages.
‘Course i live in Asia, but….
Ho-ho-ho!
Posted by: china_hand2 | Apr 15 2009 13:42 utc | 19