Rape

[Triple Zero]

not sure if there's a more recent thread on this subject, but I just came across this very interesting article:

http://fuckyeahfemalemarines.tumblr.com/post/12766127286/to-all-those-men-who-dont-think-the-rape-jokes-are-a

It's about why rape jokes are always bad and while feminists don't actually believe that "all men are rapists", all rapists actually DO believe this.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That was kind of chilling.

[Cain]

The "rapists think all men are rapists" bit does not surprise me at all.  Most people generalize people are pretty much like them, plus it allows them to rationalise away their actions with the "everyone wants to do it, I just have the balls to go through with it" angle so many of them take.

Tying it into how they can receive incorrect signals through rape jokes is an interesting angle though, and one I had not previously considered.

That said, statistically speaking, 9/10 people do enjoy gang rape.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The "rapists think all men are rapists" bit does not surprise me at all.  Most people generalize people are pretty much like them, plus it allows them to rationalise away their actions with the "everyone wants to do it, I just have the balls to go through with it" angle so many of them take.

Tying it into how they can receive incorrect signals through rape jokes is an interesting angle though, and one I had not previously considered.

That said, statistically speaking, 9/10 people do enjoy gang rape.

It does make perfect sense that rapists think all men are just like them.

It also makes something my ex said make me feel really uncomfortable. He told me that all men want to rape, and have to suppress the urge. I guess what that means is that he has that urge and assumes that all men do.

Ick.

[Cain]

It could be.  Or that he hung around with those kind of people and picked up on the signal from them, half-convincing himself it was true just so he didn't have to confront them and their ickier natures.

[LMNO]

not sure if there's a more recent thread on this subject, but I just came across this very interesting article:

http://fuckyeahfemalemarines.tumblr.com/post/12766127286/to-all-those-men-who-dont-think-the-rape-jokes-are-a

It's about why rape jokes are always bad and while feminists don't actually believe that "all men are rapists", all rapists actually DO believe this.

The "rapists think all men are rapists" bit does not surprise me at all.  Most people generalize people are pretty much like them, plus it allows them to rationalise away their actions with the "everyone wants to do it, I just have the balls to go through with it" angle so many of them take.

Tying it into how they can receive incorrect signals through rape jokes is an interesting angle though, and one I had not previously considered.

That said, statistically speaking, 9/10 people do enjoy gang rape.

Cain once again finds a loophole.   

[Cramulus]

I hadn't heard that angle before, and is chilling.

A month or two ago, SNL had this skit about Dominique Strauss-kahn. He goes to prison, is very nervous, and the twist is that the thugged out black convicts want to discuss finances with him. And at the end of the skit he thinks it's all going to be okay -- then they're like, "okay we're going to rape you now"

and the only reason I'd ever seen the skit is that a feminist blogger friend of mine wrote a screeching post about how rape is never ever funny under any circumstances. (And also that it's racist to use SNL's only two black cast members to depict a prison population) She was disgusted that the audience's laughter indicated they thought it would be funny that Dominique Strauss-kahn got prison-raped.

I was kind of annoyed by this position because I did kind of think it was funny... At the time I mentioned that humor is a really powerful defensive weapon. If we can laugh at the monster under the bed, he loses a little of his power over us.

That's not to say that I think it's a particularly funny topic... To my memory, I don't think I've made a rape joke (or a racist joke) in 10+ years. I don't TEND to find them funny. But sometimes they make me laugh, and I can't help that.

In Dominique Strauss-kahn's case, it's funny because he's in jail for sexual assault.. the audience laughs because it seems like he's getting what he deserves. It seems not far out of line with giving somebody the death penalty for killing people, which people joke about all the time. I wonder why rape is more taboo than murder. Is it because rape is more prevalent, and rapists blend in? I wonder.

As a Discordian, I tend to want to push buttons and laugh at forbidden jokes--as long as they're not at somebody's expense. I was one of the assholes telling 9/11 jokes on 9/12. I just wanted to break the ice on everybody's face.

The reporter asked Malaclypse, "why do you deal with so many negatives?"
and Malaclypse answered, "to dispel them."

I tell you this -- from here in, I will probably think twice before laughing at those jokes - funny or not.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I also laugh at some rape jokes, for that very reason... but I will certainly be more conscious of who the audience I am laughing in front of is. And often even though a joke will hit my triggers (I mean, once you've been raped it's almost impossible not to flash back when someone jokes about it) I will laugh, or at least fail to object, as a sort of self-defense mechanism.

[Eater of Clowns]

I don't think the conclusion necessarily follows from the premesis.  So rapists think all men are rapists.  That makes sense.  It's this paragraph that I'm not sure about, and it's a pretty crucial one.

Virtually all rapists genuinely believe that all men rape, and other men just keep it hushed up better. And more, these people who really are rapists are constantly reaffirmed in their belief about the rest of mankind being rapists like them by things like rape jokes, that dismiss and normalize the idea of rape.

I don't think jokes necessarily dismiss and normalize anything.  It's actually a bit of a leap that a rapist might hear a joke about rape and think to themselves "see, everyone's totally cool with it after all."  That's just not something that can actually be determined, and while I won't say it's impossible, it's definitely not certain.

A lot of different factors go into jokes.  Timing, delivery, etc.  One of them is surprise.  Jokes about sensitive subjects are funny because we don't exactly expect them.  That's the entire foundation of many, many types of jokes.  Whether or not they're okay, people laugh at things like dead baby jokes, rape jokes, cancer jokes because it's so outlandish that anyone would actually say them.  It doesn't make dead babies, or rape, or cancer any less serious.

Tasteless, yeah, probably.  Always definitely wrong, maybe.  Affirming the beliefs of the perpetrators of the act?  I'm not convinced.

Saying a type of joke is off limits just leads to more things being off limits.  Like Nigel said, it's about knowing your company and knowing your audience as best as you can.

[Triple Zero]

Yeah okay, that particular line of reasoning isn't very solid. I kind of glossed over it, in fact.

The main reason I took from the article that rape jokes aren't okay is because they trigger the PTSD in rape victims and there's a good chance one is around, even if you don't know about it.

The bits about rapists believing all men rape is just an additional chilling fact to me, not really relevant to rape jokes.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If you make a joke involving something non-absurd like straight-up man-on-woman rape, it's probably worth keeping in mind, though, the odds that at least one person in your group has been raped and will involuntarily flashback to it as soon as they hear the joke. Even if they laugh.

So if you're gonna tell rape jokes, and you care about not hurting people, they should probably be of the implausible/absurd type. Not of the gritty "oh shit, that actually happens all the time" kind.

[Eater of Clowns]

Well, yeah.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I also laugh at some rape jokes, for that very reason... but I will certainly be more conscious of who the audience I am laughing in front of is. And often even though a joke will hit my triggers (I mean, once you've been raped it's almost impossible not to flash back when someone jokes about it) I will laugh, or at least fail to object, as a sort of self-defense mechanism.

I was told a fairly absurd rape joke in all-male company and laughed. But that's exactly the reason why it instantly becomes unfunny to me in mixed company. I know that chances are disgustingly high that a female has been subjected to some kind of sexual abuse and is also not likely to broach the subject or convey how hurtful the joke actually was.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The apple/worm joke is good though. It's pretty much always funny.

[Triple Zero]

If you make a joke involving something non-absurd like straight-up man-on-woman rape, it's probably worth keeping in mind, though, the odds that at least one person in your group has been raped and will involuntarily flashback to it as soon as they hear the joke. Even if they laugh.

So if you're gonna tell rape jokes, and you care about not hurting people, they should probably be of the implausible/absurd type. Not of the gritty "oh shit, that actually happens all the time" kind.

That's exactly what I took from the article.

The apple/worm joke is good though. It's pretty much always funny.

But one in six apples in the Illuminatus! Trilogy got raped.