On Rape Jokes and Sensitivity

CannibalCorpses

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There are no taboos on jokes as far as i'm concerned. Everything is fair game providing it isn't said to hurt someone specifically. Joke about rape/murder/torture/ all you like, just don't tell it to a rape/murder/torture victim....not sure how that works with murder but hey, it's funny thinking about it ;)
 

Chemical Alia

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There's a time and a place for all kinds of jokes, including rape jokes. Every time I drive past Arapaho road with some friends in the car, I do a dirty old man laugh. In professional environments and around people you don't know that well, it's probably wise to show some sensitivity. Subjects like rape, the Holocaust, and probably even dead babies (miscarriages) are things that affect LOTS OF PEOPLE and their families. Unless you think it's actually hilarious to potentially hurt someone emotionally over past trauma they have experience, it's probably better to just not make it if you're not sure. Those are the major types of crude jokes I won't make towards people I'm not well acquainted with or in earshot of strangers, and I just see that as common courtesy in general.

Rape isn't something I've ever had to deal with, so I wouldn't make any judgments of the sensitivity of people who have. But I will say, every time I hear the fairly harmless phrase "thrown under the bus", it does take me right back to when one of my close friends was actually crushed to death by a schoolbus in front of his mother when he was ten. I don't get offended by it, if course, and I've said it often myself. But it's an instant connection in my brain every time that makes me think of the day that happened to him, so I can see how certain jokes and comments can cause people to recall something they're trying to forget. :(
 

BurningWyvern90

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I've never really understood the extreme reaction to rape jokes, or 'distasteful' jokes in general. I mean, there's a time and a place for everything, sure, but that doesn't mean you can't joke at all. A lot of it for me also has to do with how well I know the person/their sense of humor and whether there's actually any malevolence behind it.
 

arkady

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Given the sensitive and divisive nature of this topic, I'm pleasantly surprised this thread is still pretty level headed and reasonable. Everyone talk kudos for that.

afroebob said:
"I do agree however that putting rape jokes above things like murder and what not is really fucking stupid, no matter what the situation.
I'm going to quote again the words of a real life victim: "I'd rather he'd have just killed me."

The taboo on rape jokes over murder (and other severe crimes) is not to do with the relative severity.

We could all argue whether a murder or a rape is worse until we're blue, and not get anywhere because some rapes are worse than others, some murders are worse than others and it, frankly, goes into territory where most of couldn't really comprehend it without having been there ourselves.

It's to do with trivialisation.

We are pretty much agreed that - worse than murder or not - a rape is horrible act. But a woman who has been raped is likely to be told it's not a big deal, or even that it's her fault. The police are unlikely to put in a serious investigation - and that's just the obvious stuff. (Read the @everydaysexism twitter feed to see some alarmingly common responses...)

Murder/violent crime, on the other hand, usually triggers full investigations. It's always taken seriously. Conviction rates are much higher.

That's why we can joke about murder - because it's not seen as trivial, and that dissonance can be used to create humour. Rape jokes are often just laughing at those who have already been victimised.

EDIT: Fix bracket error which made the quote format come out wrong.
 

CannibalCorpses

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RT said:
Father Time said:
RT said:
Rape is the worst. Crime. Ever. Yes, worse than murder: at least killing somebody is fair: disgracing, shaming them and traumatizing their minds as well as their bodies is just inhuman, everybody that has raped should be quartered while being fully conscious.
You're suggesting that people have their limbs be torn off by horses and that's not inhuman?
No, I suggest rapists having their limbs be torn off is not inhuman. Rapists, not people.
What do rapist drug addicts get from their dealers?...quarters hur hur *groan*

I know, it's a shit joke that barely even works but it's the best i could come up with off the top of my head.

I find many things offensive but in the context of a joke, anything is possible and nothing is taboo. If you can't find any way to laugh about something then you have a major problem with it that needs dealing with. I laugh about all sorts of things that cause me pain...the death of my dad, the bullying i endured at school, the brutal slaughter of innocents in countries all around the world...it's all relative. The joke isn't trying to upset me, the person telling the joke isn't trying to upset me, they are trying to get people to laugh and see something out of context in a way that is silly enough to generate humour. If they are being personal for other reasons then i will get personal with them
 

Stasisesque

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Father Time said:
ThreeName said:
Abomination said:
What's more funny? Rape jokes, dead baby jokes or slavery jokes?
Dead baby jokes. They never get old.
Are you kidding? Those get old really fast.

There's jokes about eating, mutilating and fucking the dead baby and once you hear those they just lose all shock value. And then most of them cease to be funny.

There are offensive jokes that remain funny even when the shock value/offensiveness wears off. I've only heard a few dead baby jokes that qualify for that.
That was the joke. He was making a joke about the dead babies in question never getting old. Because they're dead.
 

Fox12

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Lonewolfm16 said:
Ok, so first off, yes popular subject oft discussed. Yes its a ongoing debate, and yes there are alot of threads surrounding this subject. If you are sick of it then very well, I don't blame you. But I do remind you that you don't have to be on this particular thread. Plenty of other ones on the website, and the internet in general. Also, would those in this thread please keep things courteous? Lets try to maintain a spirited debate without a flame-war. Thank you, moving on.

So, the recent E3 Microsoft "rape joke" controversy made me think of something. Now I don't personally believe it was a reference to rape, but for the sake of argument lets assume it was a intentional rape reference rather than poorly chosen words. There is already a thread debating which one it was, if memory serves. But it made me question why rape in particular is treated with such sensitivity.

Now before I continue I feel the need to first establish something, lest I be misunderstood. Yes, rape is a abhorrent crime and a awful thing to happen to anyone. It should be severely punished and never viewed as a act of moral acceptability. Everyone got that? Good.

Why is rape such a massive controversy when it comes to jokes? I mean, yes it is a awful crime, but just look at how people treat equally brutal and horrible crimes. Murder, brutal assault, torture, arson all these are horrible crimes, yet they are all less controversial than rape. To give a example of a joke being fairly light-hearted about horrible crimes. Demetri Martin is a comedian I like. He once had a bit, I can't remember where it was from and its been awhile so I might not remember the whole thing precisely, where he joked that he had the super-power of being invisible to bartenders. He ends the joke by pantomiming stabbing the bartender and saying something to the effect of "Oh! Didn't see that coming, did you?" There was hardly controversy about this. But come on, stabbing a person with a knife is just as awful as being raped, and both can lead to physical injury and mental trauma. To switch examples, I imagine being held down and brutalized would have similar mental effects to rape (feelings of disempowerment, mental trauma, shame at being unable to prevent it, etc) but it is far less controversial to make a joke about that then rape. I mean, the Microsoft conference thing was during a fighting game. How is a game where two people attempt to harm, brutalize, and eventually humiliate each other any less awful than rape? Of course its fictional, but so are jokes. You could argue that rape jokes might lead to psychological trauma for victims of sexual assault, but I imagine many video-games could have bad effects on those who have suffered gang violence. Yet one is controversial and the other isn't. To use another example, the Tomb Raider controversy was already pretty dead by the time the game was released, but I seem to remember the fact that Laura is merely strangled to death instead of raped if you fail the QTE having a quelling effect on the whole thing. How is that better?

This whole thing is very confusing for me, and from a objective point of view makes little sense, so Escapists, what is your opinion on the whole thing?
Rape is a far more personal crime then assault or simple violence. While those things are terrible, they rarely leave the longterm mental scarring that rape does. A rape victim is disempowered in every way imaginable, and tends to leave horrible mental scars, even if there are no physical scars. The reason rape is treated differently from violence is because they are NOT the same.

I don't know if you've met anyone close to you who has been raped, but I know several people. I also know people who were physically assaulted by their parents as children, and while that is horrendous and leaves scars as well, they were not as affected as the rape victims, who often felt like they didn't even own their own bodies anymore. That pain will never go away. One of the two girls I'm friends with cuts herself on a regular basis, is a heavy drug user, and relies on other things to numb the pain. My other friend still suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome, and would wake up in the nights screaming, thinking she was being raped again. It's especially painful because he got away with it, and she had to see him on a regular basis. She also became a heavy drug user for a long time. Her later boyfriends were highly abusive, but she wouldn't leave them because she felt she deserved it. You would never know it by looking at her, because she seems so normal and outgoing, but the people who suffer from this don't fit into stereotypes. They don't dress in black and act "emo." They're normal, preppy people to the outside world until you see the pain they're struggling with on a daily basis.

There's a sense of shame that exists with rape that doesn't exist with violence. If you get attacked, you're probably going to be more than happy to tell the police about what happened. Rape victims keep it to themselves, hoping it all just goes away, and rarely report it. There's also a strong rape culture that exists in this country. Rape culture is the idea that the rape was the victims fault, and that she deserved it, asked for it, or is lying about it. This may seem crazy, but my friend witnessed it first hand, as her rapist got off scott free and was at the same school as her. Her councler told my friend that if she reported what happened, she would make sure my friend never entered into a college. The rapist was handsome, popular, and charismatic, being the class president. His friends turned on her as well, calling her a liar, telling her she was either a liar or it was her fault. I even witnessed some of this myself when I met her in college. Victims of violence aren't usually blamed for the crime, but rape victims are.

Rape is a sensetive subject that I don't find funny. I believe these people have the right to tell these jokes because I believe in free speech, but I don't care to listen to it myself. There's a massive difference between rape and violence, and obviously murder victims don't have to live with their trauma.
 

Jegsimmons

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My opinion:

Comedians who tell rape jokes: Usually (not all ways) not good or witty comedians in the first place, shock humor and crass is easy. Clean wit takes skill.

Women who do nothing but ***** about rape jokes even when its not really rape but the word being used as a synonym for 'devastated, dominated, owned, powned, beaten, defeated, butt-ravaged, and demolished' Have no lives.

Don't ban rape jokes, ban shitty comedians and people who want to ban speech.


"Boo hoo, we should ban something because it hurts muh feelings!"
We should ban you because your pussified sense of self superiority offends me.
"But it's offensive and degrades women!"
No, feminist who want to ban shit and think they're opinion matters because they have political correctness on their side degrades women.
 
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Res Plus said:
thaluikhain said:
Rape has a special place in society.] There is a massive amount of rape in our society, and a tiny conviction rate, and few people seem to want to really do anything about it.
Er, what are you basing the "massive amount of rape" on? Vague, exaggerated assertions are as dangerous as ingoring a problem. Oh and what is "our society"? Western society? If Western society has "massive" amounts what about areas of Africa where it is genuinely endemic?

The thing that scares me about rape and "doing something about it" is that many cases boil down to one person's word against another's during intoxication and there seems to be a belief that in the case of rape fiddling the system to increase conviction is somehow acceptable, beyond that desirable. This is not good law.

Having watched a family member go through a false accusation, during which every protection was handed to the "victim", only for her to withdraw her accusation at the last minute and admit she hadn't even brought the charge; her boyfriend had called the police after she'd told him she'd slept with my family member. Her boyfriend decided it must have been rape because she wouldn't cheat on him. She then admited she'd willingly slept with my family member. The moment the process started she was caught up by support services who bundled her and her false claim toward court, never stopping to verify the facts.

This was after cross examination showed her claims of having drunk two Barcardi Breezers all night were false and in fact she'd drunk a half a bottle of vodka, taken ecstacy and cocaine, plus drunk about 10 Breezers. All in all, not an edifying 6 months.

So, yeah, off hand assertions about "massive amounts of rape" and people "not doing enough about it" worry me and seem a simplistic take on a complex issue.
Nailed it.

If anyone has a solution to the "massive problem of low conviction rates" that doesn't involve completely compromising on burden-of-proof, they should speak up and be hailed as the revolutionary genius that they are.

Am I somehow victim blaming?
 

Relish in Chaos

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I honestly think there?s nothing off-bounds when it comes to comedy, as long as you?re not taking the piss out of a specific victim. For example, you can make a joke about Fritzl if it?s in the right context and is genuinely and intentionally satirical, but not if it?s to rip on his daughter for ?being a slut? or something like that. Plus, jokes that are primarily used for shock value tend to be empty and the comedy can be found in nothing other than, ?Ooh, look how edgy I am!? Some people criticise the comedian Jimmy Carr for these, but I personally think he makes a lot of his dark jokes work because of his execution. I mean, I don?t like to play on the whole ?slippery slope? thing, but if we somehow ?ban? rape jokes, what about Holocaust jokes? Muslim jokes? Emos? AIDS? Drug addicts? Dementia? If all comedians simply ?played it safe?, then you?d have critics complaining that they never branch outside of their boundaries ? one of the reasons why some people don?t like the comedian Michael McIntyre, because he?s ?too generic? (I happen to agree, but I don?t find him funny because I don?t find him funny, not because he doesn?t joke about race or rape).

I mean, no, this isn?t exactly the same thing, but I?m black and my friends rip on me all the time because of that. Sometimes, I do get pissed off about it because I kind of got bullied by people that I hung around with who only pretended to be my friends and passed off their racist comments as ?banter?, but also because most of the jokes are tired and repetitive. But one of my friends sent me a clip of Black Mean Girls on YouTube (made by a black guy, too), which was full of racial stereotypes, and I still found it funny. I can laugh at self-deprecating humour sometimes; I?m not entirely humourless. I wouldn?t want to play the victim all the time, and I don?t doubt that numerous rape victims wouldn?t either about some rape jokes. Some just don?t want to be patronised all the time and get on with their lives.

As for dead baby jokes?while I don?t find them offensive, I?ve almost never found them funny. Even the ones that are well-executed, because they always put an image in my head of, well, a dead baby and that nullifies the intended effect of the punchline.

As for the ?worst crime??I don?t really know. It is entirely subjective. You can?t compare rape and murder because they?re such different crimes. I mean, if pushed, I might say ?child sex trafficking? is the worst crime, because it?s more prolonged and can fuck with the delicacy of the child?s physical, mental and sexual development, but even then, just saying that might perpetuate the emotionally-fuelled kneejerk stereotype that victims of child sexual abuse can?t get over what happened to them and make it even harder for them to do so because everyone goes on about how terrible it is and focus more on the retribution of their perpetrator rather than the rehabilitation of the victim (because we know just how much people love to form hate mobs!).
 

Lonewolfm16

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thaluikhain said:
Rape has a special place in society.

On the one hand, it is flat out wrong, there is no justification for it. Other crimes can be given a good spin, you have stealing from corrupt businesses or individuals sorta seen as noble, the line between murder and justifiable homicide is oftne argued over etc.

But there's never a justification for rape.

Secondly...more or less everyone says they are against rape, and probably mean it, until it actually comes up, in which case many people will, "in this particular case" turn a blind eye or blame the victim. There is a massive amount of rape in our society, and a tiny conviction rate, and few people seem to want to really do anything about it.
To be fair, I think the conviction rate has more to do with the way courts work. Rape is a crime generally only seen between two people, and a crime that leaves very little evidence, so alot of trials essentially go like this:
"Did this man rape you, mrs.x?"
"Yes your honor."
"Did you rape mrs.x, mr.Y?"
"No your honor." And then everything kinda stalls from there. Even if you can prove sex, you can't prove it was non-consensual. The whole thing can be rather difficult without other witnesses or evidence like defensive wounds ect. Its the result of the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing. Still, I wouldn't want it changed, better to let a guilty man walk free, than to imprison a innocent one.
 

Lonewolfm16

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RT said:
Rape is the worst. Crime. Ever. Yes, worse than murder: at least killing somebody is fair: disgracing, shaming them and traumatizing their minds as well as their bodies is just inhuman, everybody that has raped should be quartered while being fully conscious.
Everybody is sensitive about rape jokes nowadays because much, much more people realize how much of a horrible crime it is. People have been really desensitized to rape because of gender inequalities and such and nowadays, when everybody is equal, people are sensitive about this. As they should be.
I disagree. Murder ends every single possibility and ends every single thing about life. And if most rape victims truly believed death to be a better alternative than rape there would be almost no living rape victims. Also, torture has all the same effects as rape with a bonus of far more physical pain and damage. Rape is nowhere near murder, and torture is far worse than rape.
 

Lonewolfm16

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afroebob said:
I really don't have a problem with 'offensive' jokes, but if this really was a rape joke (I don't think it was) there is a time and a place for it, and I don't think it is at a God damn press conference. I do agree however that putting rape jokes above things like murder and what not is really fucking stupid, no matter what the situation.
But why is rape more controversial than what was going on on-screen at the time? Namely, two people horrifically beating and maiming one another. Both are fictional, yet one caused a controversy and the other, well, the other didn't at all. And if its because rape victims can be upset by hearing references to rape, why can't victims of violence, whether it be something like domestic abuse, or gang violence or a mugging etc etc, be equally upset by video games portraying violence?
 

OurGloriousLeader

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There are a couple of main reasons why jokes about rape come under greater criticism than other offensive jokes.

Firstly, there is an inference made on the joker about how they feel about a subject when they joke. In most jokes about murder, violence, theft, up ethnic cleansing, it can usually be safely assumed that they're not OK with it. However, with rape (and the kind of jokes that end up making the news), that's not always clear. Remember that guy a while back - "wouldn't it be funny if you were just raped here?" It's kinda difficult to take some implicit condemnation from that, and when combined with the phenomenon that many don't condemn rape when the situation is described to them, and it's easy to see that the joke can make people step back and go - wait, how does this person really feel? Same goes for a lot of racist jokes - a good joke goes 'look at this great injustice, let's mock it', a bad joke goes 'haha black people'.

Secondly, in any given audience that has more than a few women, it becomes increasingly likely that you're speaking to a rape victim. Think about that for a second - when you're indulging in your hilarious rape humour at the pub, or a vehement defence of our right to make rape jokes on the internet, it's highly likely that you're telling this to a rape victim, and that these jokes (often being aggressive) can be triggers for them. Further, think about the demographics. Rape victims are mostly women (although the stats for men are probably under-represented, especially prison rape which has a similar situation, people think male prison rape is hilarious for...some reason?) and rapists are almost always men. In these comedy situations, it's almost always men making the jokes - now this isn't to say all of the men are evil rapists, but rather that we just don't think about it. We just go 'hehe rape is a controversial thing', whilst for women it's a real threat, something they consider frequently.
 

Ren_Li

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Lonewolfm16 said:
Why is rape such a massive controversy when it comes to jokes? I mean, yes it is a awful crime, but just look at how people treat equally brutal and horrible crimes. Murder, brutal assault, torture, arson all these are horrible crimes, yet they are all less controversial than rape.
Rape is a thing women have to fear.
Sure, we all know we might be murdered. We might be a victim of a crime. Probably not, but statistically, it's possible. But women know that this is a constant potential thread- not a "yeah sure it might happen but probably not", but a "actually, it probably will happen at some point. If it hasn't already."
And every joke, every off-the-cuff comment, reinforces that fear. And not just that fear, but the way rape is often treated- as if it's the victim's fault, as if she should have dressed differently, not gone out at night, not been drinking, not lived her life as if she felt safe.

This is, of course, ignoring the differences between rape and other crimes, but I'm going to quickly put it into perspective for you; which means outing myself as transsexual (please don't make me regret this, Escapist.) I grew up as female and started transitioning to male shortly after I was legally old enough to do so.

I was sexually abused as a teenager.
I was raped when I was 16.
I ended up in an abusive "relationship"- I was unemployed, I had nowhere to go, and the man I was living with told me I had to have sex with him, or he would kick me out (even though I was contributing financially what I could via benefits.) Just to make it clear to anyone unsure- that's rape.

So that's sexual assault and rape by three different people before I started transitioning to male at the age of 19.
To continue to put it into perspective, almost everyone I told treated my experiences with derision and scorn. When I told my mother about the rape at the age of 16, she told me it was "my fault" for not fighting this six-foot-four, rather heavy man- or for not yelling so that I could be found in the incredibly humiliating situation of being raped. My own mother told me my rape was my own fault.

Ten years later, I am accepted entirely as male and I know nobody who looks at me walking down the street sees a potential rape victim- they just see a man. But that fear has been instilled in me since I was a teenager. And occasionally, I'm still afraid- not of rape, exactly, but specifically as being treated as a "thing", an object, rather than a person. Because that was what my two rapists, and my sexual abuser, reduced me to- an object for them to exert power over and take pleasure in, nothing more.

And that's something all women have to fear, all the time. And that's why rape jokes, and rape comments, aren't okay.