Last night, comedian Samuel J. Comroe was performing stand-up at a college, something he’d done “hundreds and hundreds” of times before. But this time was a bit different for the comedian, he was a Houston Baptist University. The night appeared routine enough, Comroe arrived early and struck up a conversation with the folks in charge to talk about any restrictions they had on stand-up material. Something many comedians choose to do as a courtesy at college and corporate gigs to make sure the evening goes smooth and limit the chances of offending at such gigs.
Comroe was asked by the woman in charge (whose name he does not remember) to not curse during his act. Makes sense they’d have this request as a Baptist College. According to his statement, Comroe followed up some more topics that might be taboo including sex and he was given the green light on that topic as long as he was not extremely vulgar about it.
Comroe, has Tourettes Syndrome and it manifests itself as visual tics, it’s also something he addresses in his act. Comroe did his show and after about a half hour of performing stand-up he held a Q&A with the college audience. It was there things started to go wrong for the comedian.
A person in the audience proceeded to ask Comroe “how’s sex with tourettes?” When Comroe went to answer the question, the show was disrupted by the woman in charge who shouted in the middle of the show, “No, you’re not going to answer that question!” bringing things to an awkward pause and the police to be notified. Comroe stated that the students, who were so sweet, were completely into the Q&A and one person’s disagreement with the topic shut the show down.
This once again raises the question about free speech and some people trying to enforce taste and conversation in the current “I’m offended” culture we find ourselves in. Comroe added that the students at the show gave him a standing ovation, were really sweet, aplogetic about their representatives, and we’re “curious about things, asking questions and trying to learn,” and one person tried to remove that experience from them.
Comroe recounts the entire situation in a video he shot moments after the incident.