This text-as-image comment, posted to Reddit, has 468 net upvotes the last I checked. (Here’s the original post it’s responding to.)
Truly, the most heart-wrenching thing about rape is that those courageous souls who make jokes about it are sometimes made to feel a little bad about it on the internet.
Goddamn, J_b is giving me deja vu of another poster. You guys really need to get more original with your butt-hurt.
Heterosexual white dudes no longer get to decide what’s funny, and this bothers MRAs. That is what I claimed.
So they don’t have all the power anymore? Well then I guess they should no longer be acceptable targets for ridicule, either?
KathleenB – A house is private. This is more like walking into a public space where a clique of friends are having a smug intellectual masturbation session, you disagree with them and they all try to shout you down, failing that they tell you to go away. If you just want another echo chamber, why not create a private forum? There you can agree with each other all day in peace and air out all your lofty opinions without fear of having them questioned or challenged. I won’t try to get in, I promise.
“Don’t try to alter the range of humour simply because it doesn’t suit you.”
I’m ok then! I want to frown instead of laugh at rape jokes, and make other’s feel bad about telling rape jokes, in an attempt to in some small way, make rape less acceptable in our culture. So it’s not just to suit me – phew!*
*Seriously, way to depoliticise and personalise the whole issue :I
Oh, and let me address this too while we’re at it:
Some of your friends bring in some people you don’t like, who are rude, call you names, maybe make shit up about you.
Can you show me one instance where I initiated something like that, as opposed to responding in kind to one of you?
“Well then I guess they should no longer be acceptable targets for ridicule, either”
Violently deluded, hate-mongering bigots will always be acceptable target for ridicule, no matter what their privilege status is.
“smug intellectual masturbation session, you disagree with them and they all try to shout you down, failing that they tell you to go away.”
Just as an aside, I get pretty cranky when people interrupt one of my masturbation sessions, and my usual response is to tell the intruder to go away…
Violently deluded, hate-mongering bigots will always be acceptable target for ridicule, no matter what their privilege status is.
Which is what you see white, heterosexual men as being. Makes sense now.
Johnny: It was an example, nitwit. That’s why it was phrased in the hypothetical. What the hell do you expect on a blog whose tagline involves mocking misogyny? Cake and sympathy when you get all butthurt because the womyns don’t respect your manly right to do whatever the fuck you want?
Not my blog, not my rules, but all I’m saying is that coming into a feminist space and bitching about how you can’t make rape jokes isn’t going to get you named Commentor of the Year.
A house is private.
OK, so you’re like that homeless guy who was standing on the street outside the cafe where I was eating on Wednesday and yelling “Fucking Jews! Go back to Israel!” when the owner tried to make him leave.
But forget metaphors. You show up here and act like you have the right to be heard and responded to in a way that satisfies you, while simultaneously ignoring anyone you decide you don’t like. You don’t. You can post here if you like and we can call you a jackoff if we like. In fact, I think I’ll do so now. You’re a jackoff.
Can you show me one instance where I initiated something like that, as opposed to responding in kind to one of you?
Ah, the time-honored “You started it!” defense.
“Which is what you see white, heterosexual men as being.”
Nope. It’s what I see MRAs as, in the main. With few exceptions.
Men in general, not so much.
FIrst if feminist had no humor then man boobz would not exist. Obviously mra’s have no sense of humor because the vast amount of moderate mra’s that come to this site to post can’t make fun of their extremist compatriots.
A couple of days ago I watched for five minutes a show called my strange addiction. This weeks addiction was a woman who was addicted to her late husbands ashes, she took them everywhere with her. I turned if off after she stated she also eats them and is afraid she will run out (and they showed her doing it…ick).
So I’m at work with two colleagues. I say, “I just saw the worst thing I’ve ever seen on t.v” and then remembered that one of them had just lost their spouse. Should I have continued to tell him what I had seen on t.v or change the subject?
Oh this is rich. On a thread about rape jokes, we have a troll whining about someone being insufficiently civil in the discussion.
Your concerns have been duly noted. Please feel free to go fuck yourself while you’re waiting for one of our trained staff to get back to you.
Apparently Johnny b is unaware that most television writers are white men.
And what happened to knowing your audience? Who would most of Chis Rock’s auidence be?
Notice the naming of BET, Lifetime, and Oxygen, Are there not many other channels and shows that cater to the white male demographic? I suppose discrimination is white men not being portrayed in the best light all the damn time and anything that might be of interest to someone that’s not a white male existing.
Oh, and hand up.
xtra: I don’t think Bobbit jokes are okay either. :/ Let’s not joke about bad shit that actually happens to people…
Hand up!
Sorry to be late; I was out all day.
“I suppose discrimination is white men not being portrayed in the best light all the damn time and anything that might be of interest to someone that’s not a white male existing.”
Yeah, pretty much.
Okay, these feminist jokes are killing me*. The only one I already knew was the “lightbulb/that’s not funny!” one but I’m adding these to my repertoire asap. 😀
As for rape jokes, yeah, sometimes I think they are funny too. Ditto dead baby jokes, race jokes, sexist jokes, whatever. But like a million people have said already, it’s all about context and audience and the target of the humor — not to mention who’s telling the joke. So while my college friends (who I’ve known for ages) and I might giggle over some very inappropriate stuff, I wouldn’t expect an equally cheerful reaction from the public at large because the entire public and I are not total besties. Fooling yourself about that is just dumb as hell.
*as a feminist with alive-privilege I really shouldn’t use this metaphor, though. Sorry, zombie! D:
Should’ve gone for it, and followed that shit up with a joke about how heaven doesn’t really exist and everyone dies alone. Anything less would be betraying the principles of free speech.
@ kave: Well, you could have covered your gaffe and started talking about Dance Moms or Toddlers and Tiaras, which are, I understand, the absolute epitome of Bad TV.*
* should give a quick disclaimer and say I don’t watch either of these shows, and only know about them through Jezebel. They could be awesome and life-affirming, and Jez is just wrong.
Some rape jokes are funny, some are not.
Funny rape joke: the Onion fake news story about how corporate polluters (who are often described as “raping the environment in non-fake news stories) claimed that the environment was totally asking for it, with its lush green valleys and flowing, clear streams.
Not-funny rape joke: when Will Ferrell and a couple of other “comedians” in a “Funny or Die” skit (uh-oh, good thing the website’s title isn’t literal) decided to try to mock over-zealous environmentalists by playing the environmentalists as violent thugs. They see a young woman toss aside a drink can on the side of the road, run over to her, lecture her about littering, then drag her behind a dumpster and rape her. They don’t show the rape, but it’s clearly implied. Not funny.
Can anyone tell me the crucial difference between these two humorous devices?
Anyone?
Beuller?
In one joke the victim is a living feeling being that deserves respect and autonomy, but in the other joke the victim’s just a woman, so it’s funny.
…Did I get it right?
The difference is whether the joke is against the rapist, or against the rape survivor.
I’ma go my own way with Rutee also. Johnny can go fuck himself sideways with a tobasco covered porcupine.
The difference is that you agree with one but not the other and you’re just here to circle-jerk with people who agree with you, duh.
/johnnyb
Johnny can go fuck himself sideways with a tobasco covered porcupine.
There’s a… vivid mental picture.
Poor porcupine. 🙁