Time to scrub out my mind. Must share.

[elfs]

I was flipping through the dial this morning on the way into work when I stumbled past Air America, you know, the left-wing radio feed, and I heard this from Stephanie Miller:

I'm pretty sure in Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera's sex dungeon the safeword is "mizrahi."

The image is disturbing, but it's a heck of a giggle that Ms. Miller expects her audience to have a grasp on the idea of a safeword.

Comments

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Count this as a moment of cultural confusion; I get "safeword" - but what does mizrahi signify?

In Hebrew it is a word meaning Eastern; it's a common family name; it is a euphemism for Jews of Arab countries (Morocco is fairly far west, for example).

[elfs.livejournal.com]

"Mizrahi" is Los Angeles slang for middle Eastern food.

To explain why this is funny, well... Bill O'Reilly, a notoriously idiotic talk show loudmouth was once hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit, and one of the things his accuser produced was a voicemail in which he described a sexual fantasy (http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/billoreilly/a/oreillyquotes.htm) about taking a shower with her. During the course of his monologue, while we're pretty sure he meant to describe a luffa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loofa), what he actually said was "... and then I would take the other hand with the falafel thing and I'd just put it on your pussy but you'd have to do it really light."

Grief, that image is even more disturbing than Geraldo and O'Reilly in harnesses and Crisco. Anyway, his detractors have been referring to O'Reilly as "Falafel Boy" ever since.

Ruining a joke always explains it.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Oh. Ohhhhhh. Ewwww.

Now I finally understand the whole "falafel sex" references.

So the Hebrew word "Mizrahi" (literally "Eastern") traveled from Israel, where it was a euphemism for Arab Jews (because the idea of Arab Jews was untenable) and it now describes the food traditionally eaten in Arab countries (which was brought to Israel by these same Arab Jews and then brought from Israel to LA by the Israeli descendants of those Arab Jews). And the preponderance of Israelis in and around LA led to the euphemism being adopted in English. Neat etymological story, there.

Thanks for the explanation!