To dominatrixes and kinky King of the Hill followers alike, Hank Hill’s signature catchphrase of “propane and propane equipment” can pertain to extra than simply his former profession at Strickland Propane. “If I used to be an expert dominatrix, I’d promote myself as professional ache and professional ache equipment,” reads one viral tweet lately shared to the King of the Hill subreddit. “My firm can be known as Kink of the Hill.”
This propane/pro-pain gag is nothing new. The pun first emerged roughly a decade in the past, and has impressed memes, T-shirts and intercourse employees like London-based dominatrix Trans Princess Jezebel, who provided her stamp of approval on the Reddit submit, remarking, “Talking as an actual life professional dominatrix, I approve this message.”
And whereas she isn’t able to bear a Mike Choose-inspired rebrand simply but, she’d be open to the concept if her shoppers all “had the identical King of the Hill reference factors.” “In the event that they did, I’d roll this time period out instantly!” she tells me.
Papa Titty, a drag performer and dominatrix from Portland, Oregon, says they, too, would undoubtedly make this pun in entrance of shoppers, arguing that the prevalence of focused on-line censorship — and the possible wrath of Fox/Hulu/Disney’s attorneys — has seemingly stopped intercourse employees from actually embracing the King of the Hill bit. “I haven’t seen many of us use the propane/pro-pain line, however which may be due to the actual fact many SW-ers get shadow-banned on social media,” Papa Titty says.
It is sensible that King of the Hill has left a hurts-so-good pink welt on the dominatrix neighborhood. Trans Princess Jezebel, who’s watched the animated sequence since she was a teen, says that Season 5’s “Ho, Yeah!” highlights the sequence’ “leftist ethical compass” by means of its grounded tackle Tammy Duvall, a intercourse employee who stays with the Hill household after leaving her life in Oklahoma Metropolis.
“You’re actually allowed to see the humanity in her character,” she explains. This illustration is “completely not” good, she admits, however King of the Hill’s largely constructive portrayal of Tammy was undoubtedly forward of its time. “For an animated present fashioned within the ‘90s, it actually does higher than most exhibits of its time on issues of race, intercourse work, gender and sexuality,” she provides. “There’s all the time an underlying message of acceptance to be taken away.”
To Papa Titty, the present “helps white, working-class Individuals perceive primary empathy for individuals totally different than them.” “The present does an important job of representing consent to people who would in any other case by no means hear that form of language,” they clarify, citing Season Six’s “Bobby Goes Nuts” as a very pertinent instance of expressing one’s autonomy.
Alongside these strains, Trans Princess Jezebel says that at the same time as a “left-leaning individual,” the present has helped her garner extra compassion for these throughout the political aisle, offering a much-needed reminder “that most individuals are basically good and respectable individuals, regardless of what you’re led to imagine in an more and more polarised world.”
“King of the Hill represents a comforting imaginative and prescient of the world the place the variations between left and proper are lower than we’re conditioned to imagine by media and politics,” she says, noting that regardless of her many variations from Hank and firm, she’d nonetheless really feel proper at residence on Rainey Avenue.
“I’m certain that if I may stand out within the alley having a beer with Hank, Dale, Invoice and Boomhauer, even a transgender, pansexual dominatrix like me may clarify about my pro-pain and pro-pain equipment, and I’d be welcome.”
There’s undoubtedly nothing painful — or propane-ful — about that.
