this thread was about rape; it's over now

[RBG]

Just as a note, the owner of the Comedy Club allegedly claims that the original post exaggerated what happened.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/amyodell/comedy-club-owner-says-daniel-tosh-incident-has-be

 

[Ouro]

At the risk of the cliche of being accused of being a rapist, sentiments like this show a poor understanding of the relationship between inebriation and inhibition. Americans have a shit ton of inhibitions when it comes to sex, and many drinkers of both genders do it for the excuse to act without inhibitions in general. It's why I can get my friends to drunk dial. Yet having a mixture of straight and bisexual friends, none of the straight guys have ever given in to the advances of one of my bisexual friends (even though he comes on strong every other party). Being drunk just isn't a magical state where you'd do things you'd never want to when sober. Drinking brings out people's true character. Some people who are meek most of the time always make angry drunks. Some people who are fun when sober just start crying when drunk. And most people enjoy sex. It is SEX for god's sake. People only regret the choices they make the morning after when their inhibitions return (and with a hangover). I've regretted having sex with two women (separate occasions) who took advantage of me. With the second one I have no good excuse for not just turning her down, cause I had regretted the first such situation. But I'd have to feel like a real shithead to accuse either one of rape.

So what you're saying is that you made a decision you would not normally make if not for the effects of alcohol? Thanks!

Alcohol is often used as a social lubricant but that does not justify rape. If a woman (or male) is in a condition that their basic motor skills are severely impaired how can you expect them to consent to sex?

I'm not saying if she had any alcohol that night it is rape but if she can barely walk a straight line or speak without slurring her words than you most certainly are taking advantage of them.

For example, Blondie and you have been flirting for a while now. Every time you guys go out she teases you. She winks at you from afar, occasionally grinds her sweet, sweet ass on your dick, and maybe even kissed you once or twice. This particular night your dick is extra hard for her but she drank more than she usually does. She drank so much in fact, that before you guys even left the bar she was in the bathroom puking with her friends. Her friends slightly annoyed, consider her a burden and think its okay for you to take her home by yourself. Once your inside her place she says something like "oh my God, you're such a nice guy. I wish you were my boyfriend" or some shit like that. Do you think it would be okay for you to have sex with her in that situation?

 

[wickdaggler]

you should be able to joke about anything. if someone tells a good joke and you are offended about it for whatever reason you have issues that you need to work out.

 

[Avatar Korra]

Just as a note, the owner of the Comedy Club allegedly claims that the original post exaggerated what happened.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/amyodell/comedy-club-owner-says-daniel-tosh-incident-has-be

I think that link is similar to my second one in the OP. But anyways it seems the woman highly exaggerated, or this is the usual business way of stating "things aren't as bad as you think they are."

 

[vonFiedler]

I make the decision to have sex when sober quite often actually. I only regretted both cases because, inhibitions lacking, I didn't use condoms (didn't bring any, the girls were waaaay too comfortable with this fact) and in fact I regretted it mid act which made it all kind of pointless. You regret doing dumb things when drunk, but you are still driven by inner want and desire.

I feel you are intentionally blurring the line between wanting sex when really drunk, being forced into sex without any ability to defend yourself, and rape while someone is passed out. The later two cases are rape, and there are definitely frat parties where that happens. But there should be a huge difference between drugging someone and sharing some drinks with them.

 

[Ditto]

Okay, first off I want to say that I'm annoyed by how much I am seeing this topic around on Facebook, Twitter, and other such places. Not because of the subject itself so much, I guess, but more the fact that I hate it whenever people make a big deal about anything with celebrities. Deaths, relationships, or statements in general. Who gives a fuck? They are just people too.

Now I want to say that I personally think that any subject can be funny if told with enough wit and style. Someone mentioned it before (can't be bothered to find out who) that just using it as a punchline like "LOL AIDS" is just a poorly written joke and doesn't deserve to be said, regardless of subject.

The thing that really disturbs me about this thread is that we are really only talking about women being raped. I have friends of both genders who have been raped or molested, but people don't stop making Catholic priest and Altar Boy jokes or seemed to get as offended by them, except for Catholics who are enraged that people are accusing their priests of that. In that instance it's not about the subject of rape itself. This all comes from my limited life experience. I can't speak like I know everything, cause I don't. I'm just speaking about my life experience in Maryland/DC, with the majority of my schooling being from a Catholic or Jesuit background. Rape is a terrible thing for women, but if we are trying to inform the world about it we have to remember that there are men who have also been raped. I have a friend who was raped/molested as a child and refused to acknowledge that he was gay for the longest time because he felt that the experience, even though he hated it, had somehow caused his homosexuality. He refused to believe the feelings he was having because he did not want to be defined by this traumatic event. I have also known women who have gone through similar experiences because of being raped, but I feel like the world at least acknowledges their struggle. Even though women are the majority, they are not the entirety of rape survivors.

I will say that reading this thread, while utterly annoying, was eye opening to say the least. From statistics to people's viewpoints on the subject, I have learned how uninformed I was. I think that this is a problem in today's world personally, especially after reading things like Jellicent's story. I had a similar experience at a bar in which a girl, who was heavily intoxicated, was trying to get away from this guy she was dancing with, but he would not let her go. I eventually stepped in and pushed him back until it seemed like there was gonna be a fist fight and the bartender stopped it. I had figured that it was only because people didn't know her there, but to hear a story like that happening within a group of friends is saddening.

I just wanna end this with some final thoughts.
1. I think one of the problems with understanding rape is that there is no good definition of it. As someone mentioned earlier, the fact that a girl was intoxicated and regretted it doesn't mean she said no or that the guy knew that he was taking advantage of her in any way.

2. Just remember, you never know who around you has had a traumatic experience like this. Whether this thought gets you to stop saying offensive jokes or not is not the point of it, just remember that they have different experiences than you and will act accordingly. Just because they think it isn't funny does not mean they need to get a sense of humor or that you need to change yours, it just means that your senses of humor do not match.

I think that's all for now. I really don't want to go on and on, because I really didn't want to post anything in the first place but felt I had to after reading.

 

[Seneschal]

you should be able to joke about anything. if someone tells a good joke and you are offended about it for whatever reason you have issues that you need to work out.

I think a lot of people are missing a fundamental point about comedy when making comments like these: yes, you should, theoretically, be allowed to joke about anything, but that doesn't mean you ought to joke about anything. In my experience offensive jokes are rarely funny, because most comedians who go for offensive humour tend to be the type who think they can make up for not actually being funny just by being offensive, and unfortunately a lot of people seem to think that breaking social taboos is hilarious in and of itself. But, as George Carlin says here (I'll paraphrase it), if you know how to construct a joke with intelligence then you can make any topic funny without personally offending anyone.

Now, in this particular case, it's probably true that the woman shouldn't have heckled in the first place, as it's quite a rude thing to do, generally speaking. But there are ways of dealing with hecklers which don't involve making vile "jokes" at their expense (a simple 'Lighten up' would have done), and this seems like an especially sick example. If what the woman claims can be believed (the article RBG linked to makes the joke seem a lot more tame and a lot less offensive, so I don't want to presume too much) then he essentially said to her 'It would be funny if you were raped by five guys right now' which is disgusting and completely out of proportion with her initial complaint, and if you genuinely think that the idea of a woman being raped by five guys is funny then it's you who "has issues that you need to work out", and of a much more serious variety.

EDIT: The Onion nails it again: Daniel Tosh Chuckles Through Own Violent Rape

 

[vonFiedler]

But, as George Carlin says here (I'll paraphrase it), if you know how to construct a joke with intelligence then you can make any topic funny without personally offending anyone.

No, he said that if you know how to construct a joke you can make any topic funny even if it is offensive. Considering that his standpoint on rape jokes is "Fuck you I think it's hilarious" you are all kinds of off with this link.

 

[jumpluff]

Rapists are committing a (particularly heinous) crime out of their own free will. No one is making them do anything. I don't know how you can even try to make the argument it's anyone's fault but the person committing the crime in good faith. You're making feeble excuses for criminals.


EDIT: It's probably worth adding you're also (indirectly) making the assumption that rapes predominantly happen to girls who are drinking and/or dressing "provocatively." This is, of course, incorrect.

Thanks, Synre. I think I might be a little more amused by rape jokes if the predominant attitude I see towards people's rape -- the inclination to make the rape not matter by shifting blame onto the victim -- was less sickening. In the light of that, and knowing just how many people really don't take rape seriously, it's harder for me to laugh.

Don't put words into my mouth. It matters because I can hardly imagine 1/30 of the male population going out at night and raping women in the bushes. There is a difference between that and, say, date rape or statutory rape.

I'm not going to presume to say whether you or whether you haven't been raped, but this post makes you look really ignorant about the subject. Who are you to say one type of rape is less traumatic than bush rape? Being raped by someone you trusted -- your brother, your boyfriend, your friend, your teacher, your friend's cousin -- is traumatic too. Being raped is traumatic. Being coerced or forced, physically or emotionally, into sex is traumatic. Where do you get off saying there's a difference between your stereotypical image of rape and a type of rape that is statistically the most common ('acquaintance rape') but carries its own traumatic connotations? Date rape is exactly that: rape.

2. Just remember, you never know who around you has had a traumatic experience like this. Whether this thought gets you to stop saying offensive jokes or not is not the point of it, just remember that they have different experiences than you and will act accordingly. Just because they think it isn't funny does not mean they need to get a sense of humor or that you need to change yours, it just means that your senses of humor do not match.

Thank you, that is a greatly more eloquent way to express what I've been trying to say in previous posts.

 

[Stagnant]

Tosh is known to not hold back in regards to his jokes. You are at a comedy club and interrupted him. You deserve any and all shit thrown at you.

 

[DM]

Although I feel bad for being away and missing most of the shitstorm in this thread, one thing I want to point out:

Percentage of male posters in this thread: about 95
How they come out on this topic: seems to be pretty evenly split
Percentage of female posters in this thread: about 5
How they come out on this topic: what appears to be complete unison
Percentage of male rape victims: 9
Percentage of male rape offenders: 99

Every man who says "rape is funny" or "these feminists annoy me" either have their head firmly placed up their ass or are 15 year olds with no real world experience trying to be internet tough guys. Get a fucking clue.

Just saying how rape is funny and Tosh has the right to say whatever he wants whenever he wants.

Erroneous on both counts.

For example, Blondie and you have been flirting for a while now. Every time you guys go out she teases you. She winks at you from afar, occasionally grinds her sweet, sweet ass on your dick, and maybe even kissed you once or twice. This particular night your dick is extra hard for her but she drank more than she usually does. She drank so much in fact, that before you guys even left the bar she was in the bathroom puking with her friends. Her friends slightly annoyed, consider her a burden and think its okay for you to take her home by yourself. Once your inside her place she says something like "oh my God, you're such a nice guy. I wish you were my boyfriend" or some shit like that. Do you think it would be okay for you to have sex with her in that situation?

According to the law, absolutely not. (Unless you're drunk too.)

 

[PK Gaming]

I've got nothing to add... Well, nothing that hasn't been stated before. I will say this, that most of the users who have posted in this thread should be grateful to the A. forum moderation staff. It takes a special kind of man (or woman) to stop themselves from getting mad whenever a person says any sort of fucked-up thing. Had this been posted on any other forum at a quarter of the posts made in this thread would be moderated, and a good dozen users might have gotten banned. So yeah, i'm basically dedicating this post to the a. forum moderation team for keeping their trigger finders under control.

And let's be honest here, some of things that are being said (on both sides) have gone way over the line.

 

[Ordinando]

alright, i think i took enough time away. i see a lot more people on my side here now.

kinda funny how behind a lot of posters itt are, still thinking it's actually about the alleged incident and not the community's attitudes on sexual assault/rape and closely related topics. to respond to that, i say you are valuing the right to offend more than the right to be offended/threatened. fucked up how you think someone (the woman in the story) being rude (heckling) gives another (tosh) the right to harass/demean/threaten.

next, fucked up how you jump to defend a hypothetical man accused of rape. the reasoning being he could be innocent and there's not always a way to 100% prove a rape. to you, it is better another guilty rapist walks free than risk an innocent man's reputation. would you like to show me your statistics on how many accused men were actually framed by "an attention whore" as you disgustingly put it?

idk man, there's a lot of like-minded people in here, but it just disturbs me that so many can spout off horrible statements about women and no one bats an eye. one day i will be an old man in a rocker and the guy next to me will talk about how everything went to shit when "them crazy feminists" took over. you will be that guy. i will shit in your tapioca. i will.

 

[DM]

to you, it is better another guilty rapist walks free than risk an innocent man's reputation.

Like it or not, the burden of proof in US criminal courts is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". Unfortunately, all too many sexual assault cases boil down to the contradicting testimonies of the parties with little (or no) corroborating or circumstantial evidence for either side. The prosecution is fighting in uphill battle in such cases, and it often loses.

Fortunately, the formerly prevalent and incredibly primitive views on sexual assault are slowly being phased out of the societal consciousness. 100 years ago, a woman could not claim she was raped unless she physically attempted to stop the man from completing the act. We've come a long way, but there's obviously still much room for improvement.

 

[-Eddie-]

I'd say cut Tosh a break. While I'm sure comics are can think on their feet, he said whatever he said on his feet without thinking it all the way through (he's on stage, he has to say something).

I know rape is a serious issue and I'm not going to touch 'what and what isn't acceptable' with a ten foot pole, but being angry with someone who possibly said (I have no idea what he actually said) something offensive because his mouth moved faster than his brain seems dumb.

EDIT: And he apologized, he can't do anything else.

 

[DM]

That article posted by someone earlier (Myzozoa?) was incredibly overlong and wordy and aimless, so here is one I just read that is utterly spot on:

http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke

Someone posted in this thread mentioned John Mulaney. Just because the man made a "rape joke" doesn't mean rape becomes funny. Read that article.

 

[Fishin]

It's kind of disappointing the way that most people seem to think of rape as merely a concept that doesn't actually affect real people. It most definitely does and what rape does to people is nothing to laugh about.

 

[Ravix]

I think we've gone way off topic. Tosh was completely within his rights to say whatever the hell he wanted to at his show. Not only is there a right to free speech in the USA, but the woman had to purchase a ticket in order to attend the show and therefore agreed to certain terms.

Only an idiot tries to heckle a comedian and expects it to go their way. You don't go to a crass comedians show and expect him to respect your "sensitive subjects". Screw these sensitive ninnies.

 

[cim]

Not only is there a right to free speech

This is a bit of a straw man argument. No reasonable person is arguing that someone is not legally able to make a rape joke. You have the freedom to say whatever you want, but that can still make you an insensitive asshole threatening a complete stranger with rape.

 

[jumpluff]

I think we've gone way off topic. Tosh was completely within his rights to say whatever the hell he wanted to at his show.

If this thread were only about Tosh's right to make jokes about rape, then the discussion would be over already and nothing meaningful would have been said. What we are discussing here are natural and logical extensions of the underlying issues that have been raised by this incident, and by those who want Tosh off the air, and by the woman in question herself.

Such a comment has nothing to do with the content of the discussion itself that has been ongoing for several pages, and is an easy way to dismiss the legitimate arguments being made here.

 

[iDunno]

So to the people here that think he doesn't have to apologize, Dannyboy just one-upped you in the human decency department methinks.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/11/showbiz/daniel-tosh-jokes-apology-ew/index.html

So now you guys can go on with your life knowing you are a worse person than one of the most crass and unapologetic people the world has ever seen :)

 

[6-Dimension]

that could be (and probably is) a purely PR move...

 

[elcheeso]

I know I've probably said far too much on this subject already, but I think even if the apology was a PR move (and it probably was, whether initiated by Tosh himself or his handlers), it was the right thing to do... even if it was preceded by a "oh this totally isn't what happened I'm innocent you guys" statement.

On a more background note (some would say off-topic, but I disagree), I didn't think it was possible for this thread to get any more depressing in terms of the responses, but somehow you guys managed it. Waterbomb/Impetus, I'm assuming you both have good intentions and don't mean to sound like rapists making excuses for previous encounters, and are instead focusing on the social and legal definition of rape/trying to protect victims... but jesus, your responses are horrifying. Focusing on Waterbomb's posts first... according to wikipedia (obviously the most trustworthy source since my net is weak and can't load anything more direct), the FBI defines rape as "The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim." Emphasis by me.

So basically, if a person doesn't say yes, then what you (general you) did is rape. Socially speaking, it shouldn't fucking be 'it's not rape until he or she says no', it should be 'it's rape until he or she says yes'. Honestly, it really comes off like you think the right of someone to get their rocks off comes (hur hur) first.

Would you suggest that if I waited until you got too drunk to walk around and do anything besides lay down and slur your own name, and then invited a few of my friends around to have anal sex with you (because obviously, having alcohol means you were putting up a sign saying "all dicks welcome"), we wouldn't be rapists, we'd just be douchebags. Obviously the real rape victims would feel bad if you were allowed to say you were raped. Rape is serious unless it happens to a lot of people? Now, granted, alcohol and drug consumption is a bit of a grey area because it can be difficult to know when the line is crossed and the person is too far gone to still be able to say yes, but your example is pretty clearly past that point.

The second thing is pretty clearly sexual assault if Myzozoa didn't stop when Oglemi first said stop. Stop or any sort of safe word doesn't mean 'try harder', it means stop or you're a damn rapist. I don't think anyone would consider the third example rape unless the person is being threatened into it, but I absolutely believe that if someone tells you to fuck off and they aren't interested, you should get lost and not "try harder".

Basically the idea is respect other people's rights to decide what goes into their own bodies, don't keep on trying or scare them into submission. Rape has everything to do with consent, which can be given in verbal and/or non-verbal ways (so if you're one of those people who has trouble understanding body language, switch to getting verbal confirmation about it). It has nothing to do with what the rapist or rape victim was wearing, it doesn't matter where they were, it doesn't matter whether they were strangers or lovers or friends or relatives. If you haven't got someone's consent and still have sex with them (or do anything sexually penetrative), you've raped them.

Honestly, I don't think I can respond to Impetus' posts without getting really angry, so I'll just point to the previous paragraph and leave this here:

Before I get chewed out and say I'm justifying rapists, I'm not.

Saying that it's 100% the rapist'S fault is definitely unfair

What I tried to show by saying it isn't the rapist's fault 100% is that you can't just scapegoat the damn guy

 

[Glen]

how would this be an effective pr move at all?

 

[billymills]

The public apology was probably a PR move, Jrrr brought it up about 100 posts ago. The joke itself probably not.