Amy Schumer Shuts Down A Sexist Joke On Twitter

If there's one comedian who is having a moment, it's Amy Schumer. Of course, Schumer's "moment" is guaranteed to last a lot longer than most, and for good reason: we've been waiting for her brand of feminist comedy for far too long. The comedian is capable of slaying you with jokes and making you think. She does both with the sketches on her Comedy Central show Inside Amy Schumer, the series that introduced us to the concept of "the last f**kable day." In 2015 Schumer proved that she could tackle the rom-com Trainwreck and turn it on its head by reminding us that you don't have to be super "together" in order to desire (or deserve) true love. Now, Schumer is using her fame as a platform to remind women that they don't have to stand for casual sexism in their daily lives, and she did so by tastefully shutting down a critic's not-so-sweet tweet.

Schumer can certainly take a joke (in addition to making plenty of them) but, apparently, the comedian has a line. That line was crossed on Monday, when Schumer saw a tweet from a critic whom she took a photo with at Sunday night's Critics' Choice Awards. The tweet, which featured the photo of Schumer, was a dig at Schumer's sex life, and, according to E!, stated: "Spent the night with @amyschumer. Certainly not the first guy to write that." The tweet has since been deleted, but not before Schumer responded to the comment:

Twitter user @LightsCameraJackson has since apologized for the tweet, and Schumer has accepted his apology:

Schumer's reaction may surprise fans of her work who know that she is sex-positive and has no qualms joking about her sex life on stage. After all, if Schumer can make jokes about casual sex, why can't this Twitter user? While I can't speak for Schumer or answer why she was truly offended, the big difference between Schumer making these kinds of jokes and a person on Twitter making them is agency. On stage, Schumer has the ability to talk about her sex life in her own way, and while she may talk about enjoying sex it's never in an apologetic way. Schumer never disparages herself or others for wanting, enjoying, or having lots of sex, but this tweet does.

I don't blame the Twitter user for making the joke: I blame society for telling us that a woman who talks about sex can only get one narrative. Schumer may joke about sex, but I like to think that her discussion of our more intimate lives isn't just a means of getting laughs: she's also making it okay for other women to admit that they, too, enjoy that aspect of their lives. When someone jokes that Schumer sleeps around, it's a subtle reminder that people aren't really okay with a woman speaking out about sex, and that there's something specifically unusual or wrong about it.

Like I said above, I don't blame @LightsCameraJackson for the joke: his joke echoes the statements made by so many other people, men and women, about sex-positive women. This tweet isn't the problem: it's a million people seeing these kinds of statements and saying nothing that is.