At risk of being dangerously offensive:

DISCLAIMER ALERT: I do not intend to make light of cancer or AIDS or HIV, all of which are life threatening diseases and are capable of immense damage. I wholeheartedly support any donation to their cure. They both need to go.

But still:
Why are people so sensetive about cancer and aids?
Not to belittle them or anything, since they are both very nasty afflictions, and I pity anyone who has had them. And apologize if I offend them GREATLY.

People have a real problem with ANYTHING to do with these topics.
Other diseases, such as gut worms, flu, black death, pneumoconiosis, bronchitis, sleeping sickness, cholera, dengue fever, hepatitis, malaria, measels, bronchitis, dysentry, osteoperosis, heart failure, typhoid, typhoid, lockjaw, and many many many many many more conjure up less offended reactions.

I'm fairly sure all of these diseases can at the very least kill old people.
Okay, maybe not all of them are as SEVERE, and all are curable, but to an extent, so is HIV, and cancer. New cures are being developed and they are the most researched diseases on the planet.
Awareness about these is everywhere and neither of those is a surefire death sentence. Sure, AIDS has a 99% death rate, but HIV is different. And since you can avoid both HIV and AIDS by being cautions, it's not like cancer in that it is not heriditary. You have to CATCH it.

So why are they such a big deal? If I wrote a song about, say, hepatitis, the response would be significantly less that if I wrote a song about cancer. (Sorry everyone, I have.)

It seems that cancer and aids are taboo topics. If anyone knows anyone with/who has died/is dying/has/had relatives who are dying from either, and you mention it, you are on the death row.
And not even for making jokes about it. You can mention it, refer to the fact that people are less likely to die from it, say that other diseases are worse, that dying in a certain way kills more/is worse, and so on.
I've done all of these, and once, when I said that getting burned alive in a pit of scorpions would be worse than cancer of the crotch, some bitch slapped me. I said it out loud to myself, because I'm a weird person, during lunch in the canteen line, and the girl in front of me slapped me and ran away crying. Now, that was a bit weird, and I felt kinda guilty. But, I later overheard her outside our clasroom telling her friend that I was a heartless bastard and, (I kid you not) I deserved to die of cancer of the genitals, then be reincarnated and burned alive in a pit of scorpions, and then reincarnated and die from cancer all over again for the rest of eternity. What the HELL? I felt a little less sympathetic. But I still was going to apologize, until I heard that the only relation to cancer she had ever had was her great-grandmother. Come ON!
I might have been able to understand it if, say, her mother or grandmother even, had cancer. But her GREAT grandmother who had (as I later found out) died before she was born.

The facts of the case lie before me and are as stated below:

Exhibit A: Death by being dropped, while on fire, into a pit of scorpions, all of which are venomous.
Observations: Being on fire is reportedly one of the most excruciating things to suffer from, according to many witnesses. Being stung by scorpions repeatedly is also very painful, possibly likened to being stabbed with needles repeatedly. Risk of being stabbed in crotch, armpits, eyes, mouth and other sensitive spots. Please note that ALL of subject will be on fire.

Exhibit B: Death by testicular/cervical cancer.
Observations: Cervical cancer symptoms include periodic pelvic pain, especially during urination, sensitivity, bleeding after contact, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, leaking (ew) and the spreading of the cancer to other organs, continuing the cycle.

Testicular cancer (which has one of the highest rates of being cured in all cancers) causes lumps, sensitivity, swelling, loss of sexual ability and interest (ouch) ache in crotch area, blood in semen and occasionally urine, spread of the cancer, and tiring and weakening of subject.

Conclusion: Given that dying of cancer would be a slower process, (1 point) but less painful, and any subject would have the option of taking medication for the pain, and to slow the cancer, (we are taking it as definite that the subject would die, as is the topic), but it is a more emotionally devastating affliction (1 point) and traumatic for those around you (1 point) and also an invasion of the most private and treasured part of your body (1 point), I give crotch cancer a a rating of 4.

Dying of being on fire all over the body (2 points) while being stabbed by scorpions all over (2 points) is much faster, and a rather sudden one. Also noting that your CROTCH would be on fire, and stabbed by scorpions. You would go blind, (1 point) and possibly get scorpion in your mouth, though that would be the least of your worries. Rated 5.


It's therefore a matter of personal preference, but I do believe that dying by the scorpion/fire thing would be worse.

I think that the offender overreacted, and when confronted was not able to form a coherent argument, only that "Cancer is really bad, and it's not cool to make light of it and..." followed by several rather vocal opinions of my future and its relation to cancer.

Okay, I think I've carried this far enough and offended enough people. I've argued my course, and intend in no way changing my opinion. One is not enough to show the opinions of all, but certainly many people overreact about cancer, at the very least. The facts are shown. I rest my case.