Every few days, it seems, Reddit has some thread asking the regulars there what horrible thing they would do if they could get away with it. And invariably someone says rape.
The good folks in ShitRedditSays recently highlighted one such comment, from a fellow calling himself nickfromredcliff. As you can see from the edits to his comment below, poor Nick felt somewhat embarrassed and even affronted by the attention.
When I checked his comment again this morning while writing this post, I found he’d edited it again. Gone was his plaintive plea for tolerance; in its place, a bunch of new rape jokes. (You can find a screenshot of his original comment here; at the time it had 39 upvotes.)
Let’s all use this as a learning experience.
And while we’re at it, let’s have a toast for the douchebag.
“Sure, I said an awful horribly douchebag thing… but I was JOKING! LAUGH AT MY JOKES WOMAN.”
“Sure, I said an awful offensive thing… but I was JOKING! CODDLE MY PRECIOUS FEEFEES LIKE I DIDN’T CODDLE YOURS WOMAN.”
“Okay, not feeding into my entitlement? I’M GOING TO MAKE MORE HORRIBLE JOKES AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT HAHAHAHAHA!”
I swear, sometimes I feel like these people are punchlines in a Manly Guys Doing Manly Things strip.
It’s not actually a rape joke if you just say “I’d rape someone.” That’s severely lacking in setup, punchline, and humorous juxtaposition. It’s really more of a rape statement.
No, no Cliff, it’s FUNNY because we all KNOW he wouldn’t ACTUALLY rape someone! It’s funny because it’s ostensibly untrue and ostensibly absurd because RAPE!
It’s like how when I say my lease doesn’t allow giraffes in the yard on harvest moons, people laugh. Because it too is as absurd! Almost as absurd as rape!
HAHAHAHAHA god I want my forehead to make savage sadistic love to a brick now.
If the rest of his jokes are as ‘funny’ as the ones in his “OMG THIS IS SO HARD GAIZ” post, I can see he’s the next incarnation of Oscar Wilde.
Hooray! I work with people with disabilities and donate blood too, so I must be super awesome to do that AND not make shitty rape ‘jokes’.
That or this guy is a complete tool, I guess!
1: terrible rape “joke”
2a: I’m sorry I did a terrible rape joke
2b: Why are you telling me I did a terrible thing, I’m sad about it.
3: Therefore I withdraw 2a and will make more of 1, instead.
Imaginary SRS: I feel bad about what you said!
Completely believable (/sarcasm) 4: Oh, sorry I shouldn’t have that, I will go outside help a disabled person to atone.
Are they incapable of coming up with a single illegal thing that isn’t violent? I’ve got a few places I’d like to take an acid trip if I could get away with it…not violent!
LBT, that’s one thing I find the DSM good for — bashing against my head as needed, nice thick soft cover book, it works nicely.
I love the way he sees srs people making him feel bad as absolutely horrible but somehow completely fails to get the problem with what he said offending other people. Whats also great is how he somehow came to the conclusion that no one from srs has ever done any voluntary work. Its like he lives in some sort of bubble where he is the only person who does anything good and is the only one with any feelings.
Aside from the straightforward awfulness – including the discomfort of imagining this guy working with disabled kids – the details of the original comment are an example of something that’s been stuck in my craw lately. By specifying that the hypothetical acts would not be “damaging beautiful women psychologically for the rest of their lives” he seems to be showcasing a common, ignorant misunderstanding regarding the fundamentals of why rape is bad. The trauma that rape can cause is part of what lends the crime its gravity, sure, but it’s unethical because the coherence of our ethical system rests on a foundation of mutual respect for bodily autonomy. Rape violates that respect, end of. Whether the woman is personally traumatized above and beyond awareness of the violation and its implications (which are frightening enough, especially when characteristics innate to a person, like appearance or womanhood, are cited as motivating factors) is somewhat beside the point. It doesn’t make the act less awful in a way that’s overly relevant to the sort of judgment he should receive, though I think he tried to position it that way.
On the other hand, could be he figures he’d be making trouble for himself by “psychologically damaging” women he may try getting with properly in the future.
Yep. In SRS-speak:
Hurting people’s feelings by triggering rape survivors, encouraging rapists to think “these are natural male desires”, trivializing rape and threatening women? LOL.
Hurting people’s feelings by complaining about a rape “joke”? NO. NOT LOL.
If the srsters were hjst a liiiitttle nicer then we probably could have converted the “most fragile ally ever” into our midst.
jk rowling, that sounds terrible.
RE: Puella Sapiens
Note he said “beautiful women.” I suppose the rest can just go hang.
Also, seriously, all the illegal things I’d want to do would probably involve copyright and patent law. I BE SERIOUS GANGSTER FORSOOTH. (Ted Kord would be able to speak on Justice League Unlimited!)
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know that *this* disabled person doesn’t want “help” of any kind from someone who would seriously-joke-okay-but-joke-but-seriously that he’d like to rape people. D:
I’d do some truly epic graffiti.
RE: katz
Ooh! Good idea. Should’ve thought of that too…
Also, you know all those stupid little laws that make you go buh, the weird random ones like, “You can’t take your moose into the town square after four?”
I WOULD BREAK ALL OF THOSE. AT THE SAME TIME.
PS to katz:
I swear to god I really will respond to that e-mail because you say good things augh I fail.
@LBT: “Do not tie giraffes to telephone poles” is my personal favorite. WHERE’S MY GIRAFFE LEASH?
Can someone please explain to me WTF is so funny about rape jokes? No really, I want to understand why its so funny.
I can’t help but think if someone (preferably with a user name that suggested the user was a woman) posted “Kick random guys in the balls LOL!” the mother of all shitstorms would erupt with Redditors crying about how it isn’t funny, it’s violent, how badly it hurts men, etc.
But rape? Totes LOLLERCOPTER!
I would smoke a LOT of pot, wander around outside topless, and spend a lot more time at OWS.
… seriously, there are amazing acts of social justice that you could do if you didn’t have to fear police brutality.
pillowinhell, I’d like it explained too. I just don’t see the humor in rape jokes.
QFT.
One thing I wouldn’t do? Rape anyone.
I would probably break and enter a lot of places after dark. Like the White House. 😀
The humor is that this guy isn’t a rapist (obviously not, because, come on, it’s not like rape exists, we’ve been over this), so him saying he would rape someone is funny because it’s so ironic.
The majority of racist jokes these days work the same way. “It’s funny because of course I’m not a racist!”
I’ve tried to tell jokes about being a software engineer, because it’s funny because I’m not really a software engineer, but for some reason people still aren’t laughing. Nobody’s even angrily yelling at them to laugh! 🙁
I have several rape survivors in my family. I don’t understand the “humor” either. But he wasn’t joking. His original comment was very specific. He attempted to pacify by explaining that no one would get hurt mentally and that they would be beautiful. And I’m disturbed that he said “a lot of rape”.
Any rape survivor reading that was most definitly triggered and and rapist or potential rapist had to have been vindicated by that. And he could just apologize for real, say that he shouldn’t have said that. Not try to pass it off as a joke.