Samantha Pressdee says she's leaving stand-up 'to find a husband with balls'

I’m leaving live comedy to find a husband (with balls)!

As a single woman looking for love, I thought I would meet lots of sexy Funny Men on the live comedy circuit, but I’m left disappointed, frustrated and unsatisfied. I have only ever slept with one male comedian. He wears a dress now. Massive turn off!

Where are the alpha males? Where are the men who unapologetically say what they think? Where are the heroes who take a stand for freedom of expression? Not at an arts festival, ironically. 

As a divorced woman who lives alone, I’ve felt lonely being a comedian on the road. Rarely did I see the same people twice. I found it hard to get to know my peers and make friends. The Edinburgh Fringe was my respite from a solitary existence. There was more of a sense of community. With something for everyone, I saw the festival as a place to freely express myself and find my tribe. 

Unfortunately, the post-pandemic fringe didn’t feel free anymore. Jerry Sadowitz was cancelled and hardly anyone took a stand. Jokes used to be accepted as jokes. Us clowns are supposed to be the only ones who can make fun of the king. Morality police now dictate what we can and can’t say. The culture of comedy has become so dysfunctional, it’s unbearable. 

Comedy has been castrated, there is no potency, no joy, no truth, no risk or substance. We now live in a bizarre backwards reality where politicians have become comedians and comedians have become politicians. An Orwellian nightmare where many comedians call themselves artists, while pushing an ideology that aims to curtail freedom of expression (and women’s sex based rights!)

Many comedians are compromising artistic integrity for industry popularity. Impotent men have pandered to warped ‘feminist’ ideals to avoid the fear of being labelled a misogynist. Mollycoddling women have bowed down to the trans lobby pushing the utopian ideal of self ID for fear of being labelled a Terf. 

Then the working class, who maybe still have some semblance of vitality, are being pushed out because it’s too expensive to do the Edinburgh Fringe, or they are just not getting past the mostly middle-class moral gatekeepers unless they tow the party line.

We’re left with a community of self-censoring wimps, with limp dicks and dry pussies. I’m too young to be in the kind of sanitised environment you’d find in a nursing home. 

Freedom has been compromised for the illusion of safety. Political correctness has taken the fun out of funny. What happened to the industry that gave us Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and Bill Hicks?! Seems like everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid.

Evangelists of identity politics do not stand for the marginalised groups they purport to defend. They will attack women, if they are the wrong kind of feminist. They will ostracise trans people, if they do not agree with potential changes to gender recognition laws and they will discard working-class people if they are not socialists. 

Proposed changes to gender recognition laws have dominated media narratives over recent years. There is a campaign for trans people to be able to get a gender recognition certificate without medical opinion and without state interference. Personally I believe that the state should have no say in what someone's gender is, but medical opinion is valid so that trans people can get the medical care they need. Medical evaluation also acts as a safeguarding boundary to stop dangerous men exploiting trans identity to get into women's prisons – something that is already happening. 

I have been vocal on proposed changes to gender laws since 2017, when an anarchist acquaintance, a trans woman, had punched a grandma who was attending an event about changes to the gender recognition act. I condemn such violence. 

Many debates have been cancelled by lobby groups under false cries of transphobia and ordinary women organising them or speaking out against changes and how Self ID could affect sex based rights have been harassed and had their livelihoods put at risk.

I support people expressing themselves how they want. I support people being who they are but also, single sex spaces are valid. We live in a democracy and women’s right to vote was hard won. I think it’s mad that people calling themselves feminists want to stifle the voices of other women.

Very few comedians have been talking about gender politics this side of the pond. Whereas American comedians Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle have been vocal from the off.

A British comedian I used to adore was on a livestream when JK Rowling was dominating the media narrative. Rowling spoke out in defence of women’s sex-based rights, smeared as transphobic by some.

Someone in the comments asked the comedian what he thought. He said ‘I have really strong opinions on that’, before his girlfriend interrupted and said ‘We don’t have an opinion on that.’ I completely lost respect for that comedian at that moment. 

Dave’s Chappelle’s show, The Closer, is the best comedy show I have ever seen. It evokes the common humanity that unites us all, rather than taking a polarised political stance. Hopefully, his Grammy win for the show is a sign that the tables are turning on the dogma of identity politics. 

Chappelle says ‘Comedians have a responsibility to speak recklessly.’ I couldn’t agree more! If more people start speaking recklessly, I might come back to live comedy but first, I need to find a husband. The environment is too hostile to participate in without ride-or-die support.

My farewell show/ divorce party Clown Pray Love is on Friday  February 17 at the Leicester Comedy Festival. It’s about overcoming heartbreak through following your dreams. I won’t be holding back and I’m doing something really fun at the end which is unrepeatable. My show is for anyone who believes in love. Hope to see you there!

CHORTLE SAYS...

We print this personal opinion piece, not because we agree with it – frankly ‘I’m quitting comedy because of trans rights,’ seems a bizarre non-sequitur in any case – but because we don’t want to feed the nonsense narrative that such views are being ‘silenced’ by rejecting it. That views like this  are predominant in the mainstream media – and that some of the world’s best-paid comedians, such as Dave Chappelle, Joe Rogan and Ricky Gervais – hardly hold back in expressing  them, never seems to satisfy the ‘you can’t say anything any more’ squad.

Also, it seems the height of arrogance to assume other people agree with you but are just not brave enough to say so. Could it not be that, perhaps, they genuinely hold a different opinion to yours? One that’s more welcoming to trans folk? Especially on a comedy circuit that is traditionally more liberal than the rest of society.

And even if stand-ups don’t want to talk about such a divisive issue, from whatever standpoint, who can blame them? You have to be a brilliant comedian to address the topic without alienating and enraging half the audience who only came out for a good time. If Dave Chappelle can’t manage it, what hope for lesser mortals?

Published: 10 Feb 2023