Pistoff said:
What does the harassment of a child have to do with this?
You are missing the point. The point is that the society is so obsessed with sex and masturbation that someone vetted this video, even with the hilarious ASL translation complete with great (and unnecessary) facial expressions, and decided it was good copy, good doctrine, and should go on a public website.
There is NO disrespect for ASL, only the puritans at the top of the WT heap.
No, you are missing the BIGGER point:
The signs you find "hilarious" ARE an accepted part of the ASL, as confirmed by many deaf posters and translators.
The parallel between the Hunter case and this masturbation video is that BOTH signs (in Hunter's case, the hand gesture of a pointed finger simulating a gun; in JW video, emulating masturbation) ARE signs that are part-and-parcel of ASL. Making fun of his finger sign isn't to be tolerated under all basic principles of human decency (not to mention the ADA); same thing here.... What you call "hilarious" IS someone else's PRIMARY means of communication in public with others: do you make fun of people with Chinese accents, too, or mock people with speech impediments? Same thing, no matter how you want to spin it.
Some non-translators will think that the 10 words of 'masturbation' should be spelled out to avoid the embarrassment, but the problem is that spelling it out takes much more time, and for live translations the public speaker doesn't introduce a pause, or slow down their speech cadence to allow extra time every time they say the word, so the translator quickly falls behind, and the words get "crowded" and harder to read. There's a reason the facial expressions are used: it's a more expressive way to supplement the gestures, in a more compact time-frame.
My concern is YOU may not think it's being disrespectful for ASL, but being that many here clearly ARE ignorant of ASL, then it's not your call: this IS a case of cultural insensitivity, due to general public's ignorance (eg bigots see nothing wrong with using racial slurs: they just truly don't see how it could be offensive to others, as they're so wrapped up in THEIR World).
If the World operated as you suggest, then sexual harassment laws would depend on the intent of the harasser, and not the subjective experience of the target of sexual harassment. I can assure you that it's ALL about the perception of the target, as it is here....
