Re Frankie Boyle - my dad did teacher training with him and said he was "quiet" (no tea or scandal), said it before on here long ago. I don't consider myself a prude - and enjoy dark humour in the right context and company - but why would a man (who already has an audience in his thrall) humiliating a female stranger by talking about violently mutiliating her vagina be funny?
If you don't laugh along in a comedy club everyone just looks down on you. It's a very particular and horrible sort of mob humiliation where you feel you have to go with the status quo.
It doesn't mean that Boyle is capable of doing what he says - he's upping the ante for shock value - but you can bet there will be some in the audience who don't understand the difference and are more on board with the subject matter than others realise.
(Don't believe me? Just count the racists at a Jerry Sadowitz concert - I'm absolutely not kidding here - I saw some in the crowd do Nazi salutes in the King's Theatre one night). I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
(There's a lot more to this story but I'd be going wildly off-topic - one of the guys doing this was actually chatting me up in the queue - and I would say we were lucky to make it out alive when him and his crew of pals realised whose company I was in - we had one of the stewards keeping an eye on us and we had to leave early).
I watched someone stomp out of a comedy club because he had a racist joke told about him (he has an English accent but was born in Scotland, his mother is Scottish and he endured years of bullying in Scottish and English schools) and the audience (and "comedian") were vicious and laughed even louder when he stormed out. Yes, he was triggered, and I don't believe we should ban all jokes - at some point *someone* will be offended - but at the same time no-one sympathises with you if you're upset.
But then, I've never particularly liked Frankie Boyle, even though I understand what "shock" humour is all about. Don't credit all of your audience with the same understanding, though - that's where it gets on dodgy ground.
