this thread was about rape; it's over now

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The petition.

An article about the matter, somewhat conflicting to what the first link says.

Daniel Tosh, offensive jokester extraordinaire, crossed the line a few days ago in a comedy club. During a skit in which he made jokes about rape, a young woman stood up in protest of the offensive jokes. In response, Daniel Tosh "joked" about how "funny" it would be if she were to be raped by "like five guys" right then. His jokes continued and the laughter in the club grew so loud that the young woman had to flee in fear.
In her defense that was very offensive. I could see how his joke could be considered a threat. However, I don't believe the lady fled in fear, more like embarrassment.

In his defense it's a comedy show, and he's offensive to everyone, what did she expect? She shouldn't have interrupted him in the middle of his show also.
 
That's not the story, that's the petition. The story would not be trying to push one side of the issue or the other.

I can easily see how someone could think that was a threat, people have almost certainly been charged for less. However she interrupted him in a middle of a show, which was almost certainly going to draw ire. Don't go to a comedy club and expect not to get offended, that's not how it works.

If the woman wants to press criminal charges for threatening to rape her or something like that, then the courts can decide if what he did was actually an offence. Trying to get his show off the air is just stupid.
 
I'm a little confused about how anyone can defend Tosh as a comedian... I thought you had to be funny to qualify as one? It probably explains why he can't deal with hecklers in any sort of smart way as well, and instead resorts to saying shit that could easily be taken as a threat and isn't funny (HUR WOMEN GETTING GANG RAPED IS HILARIOUS! WHO AGREES WITH ME? THAT'S THE JOKE). Anyway, not personally offended, can definitely see why someone would be (it's a fucked up thing to say to anyone), also wouldn't be sad to see him off the air.
 

DM

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No surprise that there is already an astounding amount of douchebaggery in this thread...

I'm actually disappointed in Tosh. I have watched his standup and have found a lot of it to be quite damn funny, and I haven't minded when he has pushed the envelope in the past. When it comes to a subject such as rape, you'd better have some DAMN witty jokes, or else don't even bother. Just like AIDS; if you're just throwing it out there as its own punchline for the "LOL AIDS" quick laugh, you suck at life and should quit comedy.

That said, this woman obviously shouldn't have opened her mouth. When you go to a comedy show, you should expect to be offended. That's the way live comedy shows work, they're nothing like they are on TV. I fucking hate hecklers and people who interrupt shows, and I approve strongly with them being dealt with.

Just... not like Tosh did here or Michael Richards did. That's bad.
 
Do either of you guys (Luco/Fabbles/Expert Physics) want to explain the joke? I mean, obviously the rest of us just need a sense of humour, so feel free to teach us how "wouldn't it be funny if she was raped by like 5 guys" is funny? Or how "rape is always funny" is funny? I'm all for hecklers being dealt with, but the key is that you don't "deal" with it by threatening rape or screaming about how you wish they'd be lynched or throwing punches. None of that shit is funny.

Also, if men understood what a seriously horrible crime rape is, why is it that (assuming 5 different women raped by the same rapist) 1/30 men are rapists? Are those acceptable numbers or something?
 

Myzozoa

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a woman walks into a rape, uh bar required reading

Welcome to a post about rape jokes.

Let me tell you a thing you might not know: the inability to hear rape “jokes” without flashbacks, Hulk rage, and “air quotes” is one of the enduring parting gifts of a rapist.

Here is how this goes:

It is a lovely summer day. You have some beers, and you and some friends are sitting on a front porch in the breeze and the sun, shooting the shit. You start talking about politics, and then the Army. You mention that you have considered joining the Army in the past, but won’t, because you can’t pledge loyalty to an organization that discriminates against gays (a round of agreement ensues, so hugely moral are we), and as a woman, you can’t reasonably aspire to join an organization that is far more likely to brutally rape you (and brutally cover it up) than the general population.

One of your friends says, “But isn’t that actually a benefit of the Army? Hur hur hur.” Oh, how you wish your friend were an ardent feminist, so you could interpret his comment as a dry observation of the brutal truth, framed humorously to prevent suicide all around. But no, you know he is making a funnay, the punchline being you and every woman you know.

Several options flash through your head.

Say Nothing. Hope the conversation does not continue extolling the virtues of rape, making saying nothing harder. Hate yourself for saying nothing. Notice girl sitting on the porch of the house next to you who has heard what was said. Notice her similar reactions. Hate yourself more for saying nothing, because she has probably been raped, too, because you don’t know any woman who hasn’t. Hate your friend, because he doesn’t know that every woman he knows has been raped. Have minor flashbacks of what was done to you. No feeling the sun, the breeze now, just his hand on your shoulder to get leverage. Simmer with stopped-up rage that this thing he did, his hand on your shoulder, has just been joked about as fun and exciting. Simmer with stopped-up rage that you said nothing then, too, even though that’s not really true. You just said nothing that was listened to, deemed important. Like your silence and obvious rage is being ignored now. Stop enjoying the day. Stop enjoying the company of your friend. Make a mental note to withdraw from others before they can casually, “jokingly” remind you of your rape. Feel bad. It’s not like they know you were raped. Feel angry. It’s not like you’re ever going to tell them, now. Feel alone and angry. Assume bitterly that you will feel this way forever.

Be Edgy! Jump in with some even MORE offensive humor! Run with the rape joke! Make it even more rape-y! Now your friend will never guess you have been raped. Bonus prize: if he ever finds out, he will respect you for not making a “big deal” out of your rape, for not making it the centerpiece of your life and his on a hot and lazy summer day. Settle in with the smug knowledge that you are not like those other broken, damaged, traumatized victims. Withdraw from “those” kinds of victims, who might try and drag you down into their hysteria with them. Throw them to the goddamn wolves. Throw your flashbacks to the goddamn wolves. Toast to rape!

Initiate a Very Serious Conversation, out of nowhere, like. Tell your friend that joke was not funny. Tell him rape is never funny. Keep talking after his face has pinched up in resentment and disgust, because you are RUINING his day and his BEER and his FUNNY. You know you are actually ruining his sense of himself as a good and decent person, but you cannot communicate that to him, because he is smug and disengaged, and you are shaking and stuttering and trying to explain the experience of women to a man who has grown up among women, known women, loved women, and somehow doesn’t know this already, which means he doesn’t want to know, doesn’t care. Feel vulnerable. Feel angry that you feel vulnerable. Consider stopping mid-sentence, getting up, and walking away. Promise yourself that after this you will never speak to this friend again. Immediately break the promise, because you know if you don’t, he will tell everybody that you stopped being friends because you are Andrea Dworkin all of a sudden.

Initiate A Very Serious Conversation Version II: Follow version one, except also disclose to your friend (who thinks rape is funny and exciting) that you have been raped. Be surprised, all over again, that this does not immediately change his perspective, the way it changed yours. Realize that to him, rape is conceptual, even when it has really happened, even when it is real. Wonder if he has raped, without knowing it, because it was just a concept. Realize you now wonder this about every man. Are you Andrea Dworkin? Do you have any right to ruin this lovely summer day by dumping your rape on everybody? Did he? After this, will he now tell everybody that you FREAKED OUT just because you were apparently “RAPED” and you can’t GET OVER IT when it was just a JOKE, SERiously? Will everybody know you have been raped? Will everybody think you are a humorless rape-bot from now on? Feel like shit afterwards. Be reminded that you cannot trust anybody, now. Because you were raped. Because you are Andrea Dworkin. Because you didn’t prosecute. The reasons don’t matter anymore; the result is the same. You are Angry About Being Raped, which just compounds the stain of Being Raped. Add in Unable To Take a Joke, and you are officially Female.

Find Some Other Way. Can’t count on this one; sometimes an alternative pops into your head, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you manage to say “Rape is funny!” and laugh away in such a sarcastic, biting voice that it communicates everything you wanted to say, and you all move on. Or you do what I did, which was threaten to break my beer bottle on the railing and stab my friend in the fucking neck with it if he didn’t shut his fucking maw. Ha ha! I said. A joke! Not really, man. Ha! Am I kidding? Am I? Fun-nay. The simmering rage remains, the distrust, the wondering if you should speak to this person ever again, the flashbacks. But the day moves forward rather than grinding to a screeching halt.
All us Raped And Very Excitable types (RAVE! Awesome) can spend an entire lifetime trying to explain to the general population that Rape Jokes Aren’t Funny. And I can think of a thousand reasons RJAF, ranging from the Sober and Serious epidemic of rape that really! truly! exists, to the fact that I’ve never heard a rape joke that actually meets the criteria of “funny” or “joke.” Which is the bigger question to me: not why aren’t rape jokes funny, but why are they funny? What is the punchline? What is the humor? What is the part that is supposed to make me laugh? And why is that supposed to make me laugh?

As far as I can tell, the “joke” is usually that it wasn’t really rape at all, or it wasn’t a “real” rape, or it was a fun rape, or it was a deserved rape. Which, seeing as how rape victims get to hear that shit, completely seriously (and with completely serious consequences) from their rapist, friends, family, and cops, you might see as how it doesn’t come off as a joke so much as it comes off as same shit, different day. And, as far as I can tell, the “funny” of rape jokes seems to depend on 1) the same part of the brain stem that thinks farting in public is funny – that is, the part of the brain that operates in befuddled and childlike amazement at the doing of things that ought not be done because they horrify Ms Manners, or whatever externalized visualization of a degraded superego one has, 2) the assumption that your audience secretly thinks rape isn’t such a big deal and is yearning for you to tell them so, 3) nervous laughter.


Like, let’s try this: WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYBODY NEED TO BE TOLD RAPE JOKES AREN’T FUNNY is kind of like WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYBODY NEED TO BE TOLD GIGGLING ABOUT LYNCHING IS JUVENILE AND CRUEL. Or, here’s another: laughing at/telling rape jokes is a pretty clear indicator of how little you can personally identify with the very real consequences of a very real act, just like laughing at/telling lynching jokes is a pretty clear indicator that you’re so so so white, and have never known and will never know somebody who was lynched (though you might know somebody who did the lynching). But, let’s boil this down to its common denominator: laughing at torture that has historically been directed at one class of people who were not allowed access to societal protection or defense is a very clear indicator of where your loyalties lie.

And before it comes up: ignorance is not a defense. Ignorance of the prevalence of rape, of the possibility that you are making a joke in front of a rape victim, and ignorance of the vastness of racism, is only a further indicator of just how much more fucked up and shitty the experience of the victim you are joking at has been. And refusing to see that ignorance for what it is, and own it, and make a commitment to educate yourself, is the second very clear indicator of where your loyalties lie. And don’t think that’s lost on the people who have to hear your nervous giggles.

It’s also, let’s not forget, a pretty clear indicator of how this whole oppression thing works. If the torture and abuse of real people were to be taken seriously as a horrible offense, well, we might not do it. So, something has to be made not serious for the situation to become funny, and you’ve got two options: the abuse and torture, or the subject of the abuse and torture. Usually, we choose both! Rape is fun, and women aren’t real.

So, here’s the thing: why are rape jokes funny? I’m asking this rhetorically, because I’ve never heard one that was, though I will leave open the possibility that somewhere out there is a rape joke that is hilarious (edit: I have personally been amusing myself with RAPE CHOP SANDWICHES lately, but that is my own bag). So let me amend: why are rape jokes supposedly funny? Looking at my experience in seventh grade, I think there’s a lot of similarities. What we grow up knowing about rape – if we haven’t personally experienced it – fits into a series of tropes, scenes, characters, and stereotypes that are ham-fisted and ridiculous. We are not meant to take rape seriously; it is meant to be a joke, a misunderstanding, something that happens to somebody else, out there, who possibly deserves it or even liked it. The rapist is a shitty frat boy with a scarlet R on his chest, or a crazy man in the bushes. The rape victim is drunk and stupid and has totally had sex before. Afterwards she is hysterical and crying and worthless, if she isn’t a man-hating feminazilesbot. Or, you know, maybe she gets a Lifetime show, which is an eye-rolling adventure in musical swells. Or, maybe she’s killed, so we can all focus on her muscular boyfriend who now has a reason to AVENGE.

There is very little in casual, accessible culture that depicts rapists or rape victims as multi-faceted, complex human beings — and they all are. They are not depicted as people who survive, who go on to read trashy novels and get angry in traffic and learn a new hobby and think about volunteering sometimes but never actually do and get their degree in marketing but actually go into accounting because the job market these days, you know, and if they had never left that one significant other their lives probably would have been different. And rape is not depicted as an event that has complex meanings and consequences for men or women. Rather, it’s depicted as sex to advance the plot, define a (male) character, and/or be a super sweet hidden porno in the middle of your movie. Aside from victim-blaming, rape in movies and books and TV doesn’t focus on what women remember from their rapes (can’t say what rapists remember), because rape is not meant to be depicted as an experience of women, to resonate with women, and to acquire an audience of women. These are scenes created by and for men to identify with, and they are created to depict rape as another exciting form of sex that can be had with women. I do not remember, I do not think about my boobs, or about physical pain, or what my face looked like. I think about his hand on my shoulder. I think about what the trees looked like as I stared out the window. I think about how bright the room was. But I guarantee you, go find some rape scene to watch, and you will have close-ups of boobs and a woman’s face contorted in pain and fear. Because rape, as depicted in culture, is a reflection of our current cultural mindset: women’s bodies, and women meek and fearful and in pain, are supposed to be sexually titillating to heterosexual men (whether they actually are is a whole different bag of rocks).

So when rape is not depicted as a serious act, something that affects real people, something that women live with for the rest of their lives (because women aren’t real people), of course it’s not considered a serious topic. The stereotypical representation of rape is as serious as a fat waddling Southern man with a belt the size of a hula hoop. So when we trot out rape a a topic, unless the audience has personal experience with rape, we are all thinking of the Lifetime channel, or some hot hot scene from a movie, or angry-faced women on the news marching down the street all frumpy and queer. Of course it generates nervous giggles, and “edgy” humor, and is allowable conversation for not-so-secret misogynists — that’s what the cultural depiction of rape is meant to do. Humor that is degrading or offensive to oppressed populations has always operated as a pressure release valve for the things we know we are not “supposed” to say or think anymore. You might not be able to say you really don’t think 1 in 4 women are actually being raped, and if they are, they probably deserved it, and there are some circumstances where rape is okay – but you can sure as shit make a joke about it! And if somebody objects, well, here’s the built-in beauty of an oppressive system: that somebody is probably going to be a member of the oppressed class you are mocking. And it’s very easy to dismiss the opinions of oppressed populations. If we valued the thoughts, feelings, and desires of oppressed populations, we wouldn’t be able to rationalize and minimize the rape, torture, and murder of them.

I have another story. When I was a junior in high school, one of my classmates was murdered. I didn’t know him very well. We’d gone to the same school since junior high, he was dating a friend of mine, and it was a very small school, so even though I didn’t know him, I was hit pretty hard with the sudden loss of him. We found out later that he was murdered in a random drive-by shooting. The real shitkicker was, my best friend had lost her virginity to the guy who drove the getaway car, and knew the shooters (she didn’t find that out till they got arrested). They wanted to start robbing folk, and figured it was best if they killed them after. They didn’t rob my classmate; he was just target practice.

My classmate was murdered while riding his bike down a peaceful road next to a river. Found by a jogger. He bled out pretty quick. The hospital didn’t know who he was – there was just a shoe with his name scrawled on it. When he went down, the shooters later testified, he said “ow.” And he lay there, saying, “Ow,” not really knowing what had happened, bleeding out on the pavement.

These were the things that ran through my head, day after day. Couldn’t get them out. And suddenly, I was completely and uncomfortably aware of how I couldn’t escape from murder. I had to stop watching television, stop cracking open books, stop checking the news, stop watching movies, because there I’d be, trying to relax, trying to forget THEY SHOT HIM HE SAID OW ALL THEY HAD WAS A SHOE, escaping into some movie about who-knows-what, when suddenly the movie fills with blood and gore and there’s a gun and somebody has to die because the plot has to move along. And I’d just get so sick. I was trying so hard to “get over it,” to “move on,” to get back to my normal life. But murder was everywhere. Violence was everywhere. I hadn’t seen, hadn’t realized before just how pervasive it was, and as a joke, as a plot device, as an afterthought, as a vicarious experience. But now that every drop of blood, every flesh wound, every attack immediately made me think of my classmate, immediately made me imagine him experiencing his death, his pain – I couldn’t watch any of that shit anymore.

And I thought of the boys who killed him. The paper reported that after killing him, “ow” became an inside joke. They’d drive around going, “Ow!” and laugh and laugh. That’s horrible, but I get that. They had just done a horrifying thing. They had crossed over into a new world, a world where you can kill people. They are alive one second, dead the next, at your hand, at your whim. That’s a different sort of world to inhabit than the one the rest of us live in, where that shit doesn’t happen, or if it does, it’s out there, somewhere. There’s a line in Lolita, after Humbert Humbert shoots Quilty. He is driving away, and thinks to himself: now that I have transgressed against the laws of man, why shouldn’t I transgress against the laws of traffic? And he begins to drive in the oncoming traffic lane. I view the joking of those boys the same way. They had transgressed against the laws of humankind; why not joke about murder? Why not laugh at his pitiful, dying “ow”? All the rules were unmoored, if they could do this thing. And I consider joking about rape, about torture, in the exact same vein. This is why rape victims get to choose how they want to joke about it, if they want to joke about it: only they live in that world without rules, without safety, unmoored from the reality the rest of us know. Only they get to know what’s funny about it. And this is why, for the rest of us, our jokes are crude, cruel, and ignorant: if you don’t know what the world is like on that other side, your jokes are weak sauce, they are jokes about how that other side doesn’t exist, isn’t important, isn’t real, isn’t horror. And you don’t know that, because you have the privilege of never going there, if you want.

For those of you who wonder why rape victims get all super sensitive about rape jokes ‘n shit, well, this is why. Before you’re raped, rape jokes might be uncomfortable, or they might be funny, or they might be any given thing. But after you’re raped, they are a trigger. They make you remember what was done to you. And if the joke was about something that wasn’t done to you, not in quite that way, you can really easily imagine how it would feel, because you know how something exactly like that felt. Rape jokes stop being about a thing that happens out there, somewhere, to people who don’t really exist, and if they do they probably deserved it, and they start being about you. Rape jokes are about you. Jokes about women liking it or deserving it are about how much you liked it and deserved it. And they are also jokes about how, in all likelihood, it’s going to happen to you again.

And until you’ve been raped, you don’t really wake up and see how much rape is out there for the casual consumer. You didn’t really hear those offhand comments when walking down the street – “oh, you know she totally made that up for attention” – you didn’t really notice that the sex scene in Blade Runner actually really looks like a fucking rape scene, you didn’t really hear how the TV news focuses on what she was wearing, and calls it “sex,” and digs for details about where and how he penetrated her, when you don’t really need to know that, do you? And you don’t realize how many of the people you know and love do not take rape seriously, because they have been sucking up all the same TV shows and movies you do, and they don’t think they know a real person who has been raped. Of course, some of them you might tell, and they can accept that, accept the secondary trauma, begin to start thinking of you whenever they see a rape in a movie, hear of one on the news, hear a rape joke. Or they can disqualify you as a real person. Guess which one happens most.

So, here is my challenge for those who want to tell rape jokes:

Ask every woman in your life if she has been sexually assaulted. Ask her to tell you her story. This means your mother, your sister, your girlfriend, your grandma.

Once you have heard all their stories, go watch a movie with a rape scene in it. One you didn’t mind before. One you thought people were overly offended by.

Now tell me a joke.
 

Hipmonlee

Have a nice day
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Not a big fan of tosh, I dont mind offensive comedy, I just dont think he is very good at it. This is a pretty good example of why..

But I think the level of outrage this scenario deserves is something along the lines of "that wasnt funny" rather than anything else.

Maybe they should make people sign a legal disclaimer before they go to comedy shows saying they understand that the jokes are supposed to be offensive..
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
Not a big fan of tosh, I dont mind offensive comedy, I just dont think he is very good at it. This is a pretty good example of why..

But I think the level of outrage this scenario deserves is something along the lines of "that wasnt funny" rather than anything else.

Maybe they should make people sign a legal disclaimer before they go to comedy shows saying they understand that the jokes are supposed to be offensive..
I think you're sort of missing the subtext of this whole thing.
 
tosh isn't funny so yeah he can do what he wants i don't care

but jesus, being offended is one thing, but whining about it to the source is another

people do what they want, comedians often cross the line, there's a point where you need to man the fuck up and deal with it

if you don't like it leave, jeez...
Well, everyone has different tastes. Tosh is, to me(and millions others), very funny. But that's not the point. I agree 100% with you. I get offended by a lot of things people say, but does that mean i have an obligation to take their rights away and make them say what i want? This is further proof of how stupidly sensitive this country has gotten.
 
Also, if men understood what a seriously horrible crime rape is, why is it that (assuming 5 different women raped by the same rapist) 1/30 men are rapists? Are those acceptable numbers or something?
Anyone who says these things deserves nothing but your contempt and scorn.

Maybe if they could think logically for 3 fucking seconds they'd realize why it's retarded. But i'll bullet point it for the mentally ill.

1. There's not a single fucking man in america who doesnt know rape is illegal
2. There's probably not a single fucking man in america who wants to be in jail for rape

That's 100 fucking % saturation. We've already told men not to rape. We reached the ENTIRE population. They're all well aware that rape is illegal and the consequences are terrible.

3. people still rape
Rape happens. No one denies that. However it's incredibly unlikely that the rapists were unaware that rape is illegal.

4. Because of this, we can assume rapists are generally not going to stop raping because we ask nicely.

If the threat of jailtime and breaking the law doesnt discourage them, your tiny signs arent going to do shit. They're rapists, they dont care about you.

5. Therefor the most pertinent course of action is to teach potential rape victims how to defend themselves, and avoid rape

This is NOT "rape culture" it's not "sexist" it's not "misandry" it's COMMON FUCKING SENSE. If you cant prevent rapes by getting every male person in the world to abide by the law, then you look into making potential victims safer in other ways.

Im not about to go walking to the ATM at 4am, get mugged, and then call it "Mug culture" when people tell me I shouldnt be walking around downtown at 4am with a wallet full of money. That's just common fucking sense. But apparently when the crime is rape common sense goes out the window.
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
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These are feminists looking to sell ad revenue on their website by "attacking" a popular comedian. This is slacktivism at its finest. These people will forget about this in two weeks time and move onto the next popular person to ride on their coattails for 15 minutes. You don't get clicks for actually trying to solve a problem, just be the loudest and you'll have the money come pouring in. Seriously, how many people make rape jokes every day? Better yet, how many people are actually raped every day? This wouldn't be a news story if Daniel Tosh wasn't already famous, and the people making money off of this story know that. It's mutually beneficial, the PC hate-something-new-every-day groups get their name in the paper and Tosh gets his name out there and seems edgier than a nerd making fun of youtube videos.

Tosh's reaction to this was clearly written by a PR person. He shouldn't have apologized, because there is nothing to apologize for. He made a joke and it was pretty funny IMO. It would be hilarious if someone heckling a comedian about rape jokes was immediately raped, but I guess not everyone appreciates irony and ridiculous consequences as much as myself. Tosh should have made this into an even bigger mockery but I don't think he has the balls to do it.

Also, if men understood what a seriously horrible crime rape is, why is it that (assuming 5 different women raped by the same rapist) 1/30 men are rapists? Are those acceptable numbers or something?
Yeah I'm calling bullshit. Even with the modern "if I change my mind the next morning its still rape" definition, 1/30 is a laughable number. Please give us a real source if you're going to accuse ~233 million men of rape (~6 million in the US alone)
 

VKCA

(Virtual Circus Kareoky Act)
Also, if men understood what a seriously horrible crime rape is, why is it that (assuming 5 different women raped by the same rapist) 1/30 men are rapists? Are those acceptable numbers or something?
Wait what?
I know at least two hundred men personally. I know like, six rapists? What? Hold on, I've got to be missing something.


But yeah, I think most people can agree that tosh's response was inappropriate.. and err, not funny.
But, so was everything that woman did, so we're one for one right!!!
who says rape jokes cant be funny?
Is that a rape joke? Thought it was just a racist joke.
Im not about to go walking to the ATM at 4am, get mugged, and then call it "Mug culture" when people tell me I shouldnt be walking around downtown at 4am with a wallet full of money. That's just common fucking sense. But apparently when the crime is rape common sense goes out the window.
So, these women should uhhh, do what alternative? Not go out clubbing? I'm always one to advocate not getting fucked off your face without someone who's willing to take care of you, but how exactly do you avoid walking around late at night with your vagina? You don't have to be piss drunk to be raped.

Not that I'm at all agreeing with the idea 'rape culture' (whatever the fuck it is), but I've never been a fan of the comparison between women walking around late at night vs not carrying around your expensive computer/wallet around with you through a thuggin neighborhood.
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
since no one read the article i posted, which addresses 100% of the idiocy on this thread I'm going to quote one relevant passage:

When rape is not depicted as a serious act, something that affects real people, something that women live with for the rest of their lives (because women aren’t real people), of course it’s not considered a serious topic. The stereotypical representation of rape is as serious as a fat waddling Southern man with a belt the size of a hula hoop. So when we trot out rape as a topic, unless the audience has personal experience with rape, we are all thinking of the Lifetime channel, or some hot hot scene from a movie, or angry-faced women on the news marching down the street all frumpy and queer. Of course it generates nervous giggles, and “edgy” humor, and is allowable conversation for not-so-secret misogynists — that’s what the cultural depiction of rape is meant to do. Humor that is degrading or offensive to oppressed populations has always operated as a pressure release valve for the things we know we are not “supposed” to say or think anymore. You might not be able to say you really don’t think 1 in 4 women are actually being raped, and if they are, they probably deserved it, and there are some circumstances where rape is okay – but you can sure as shit make a joke about it! And if somebody objects, well, here’s the built-in beauty of an oppressive system: that somebody is probably going to be a member of the oppressed class you are mocking. And it’s very easy to dismiss the opinions of oppressed populations. If we valued the thoughts, feelings, and desires of oppressed populations, we wouldn’t be able to rationalize and minimize the rape, torture, and murder of them.

link again to the whole very enlightening article http://fugitivus.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/a-woman-walks-into-a-rape-uh-bar/
 
Yeah I'm calling bullshit. Even with the modern "if I change my mind the next morning its still rape" definition, 1/30 is a laughable number. Please give us a real source if you're going to accuse ~233 million men of rape (~6 million in the US alone)
There are multiple research cases on this fact alone and almost every time it is confirmed by reinforcing the statistic with the number of college-age men who would rape if the wording of rape was changed to "forced into having sex", at around 55-60%. 30% of men would rape if "they could get away with it." 6% of college age men have raped or have attempted rape. (All of these statistics come from Body Wars by Margo Maine. Some more reinforcing literature.)

Also, RE rape jokes, this is a good read for about 98% of you in this thread.
 

Atlas

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i find tosh's comedy routines funny and his show hilarious. once again a joke a bout rape has been blown out of context garnered a cult following in a way that only this subject can get. anybody remember this snafu.

apparently the manager as well as other attendees have stated that what this woman said hasnt entirely been true.

Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada, who claims to have been present the night of Tosh's show, has told Buzzfeed that the comedian's exchange with the offended audience member didn't happen the way she described.

According to Masada, Tosh didn't make a joke about the woman getting raped and the topic arose when the comedian asked the audience what they wanted to talk about and someone said "rape." He says that this is when the woman called out to Tosh, and that he responded like so:

"Daniel came in, and he said, 'Well it sounds like she’s been raped by five guys' — something like that. I really didn’t hear properly."

He also alleges that the woman stayed for the entire set and did not complain to management until after the show.
but you know what, people say things and others scramble to defend their business so lets all assume that this wasnt what happened and believe what the woman said as truth.



Just... not like Tosh did here or Michael Richards did. That's bad.
oh please there is a far far difference to what tosh did and what kramer did. what kramer did, even if he intended for it to be a joke, came off as a hateful rant. i can only assume tosh played it off a lot more cooly.

The defense is, "It's comedy." However, nothing he said was funny.
if only there was some way in which a person could gauge whether what they said or did was funny...hmmm...

"It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh,"

must have been a small audience since no one finds it funny!

Do either of you guys want to explain the joke? I mean, obviously the rest of us just need a sense of humour, so feel free to teach us how "wouldn't it be funny if she was raped by like 5 guys" is funny?
well the joke would be based on the irony of the situation. a person standing up and complaining about how rape isnt funny, only to be immediately raped can be seen as humourus.
 
Tosh's reaction to this was clearly written by a PR person. He shouldn't have apologized, because there is nothing to apologize for. He made a joke and it was pretty funny IMO. It would be hilarious if someone heckling a comedian about rape jokes was immediately raped, but I guess not everyone appreciates irony and ridiculous consequences as much as myself. Tosh should have made this into an even bigger mockery but I don't think he has the balls to do it.
I giggled like a little girl when i read Tosh's response to the dumbass heckler(that's what she is for going to a Tosh show and getting offended). And agreed. Irony is actually very funny and would have giggled more if it had happened.

I've met Tosh and can safely say he is a better person than most people who got offended by this and are trying to bring "justice". He is a great guy, not gay and rape is funny.
 

WaterBomb

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summary of thread:

tosh isn't funny
don't heckle a comedian at a live show
lists are always better in 3s
 
Sigh. This is why it annoys me that rape statistics are almost always framed around the victims and never the offenders, though I suppose it is much harder to know for sure with them considering 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail (Sal, also a reason your response is ridiculous, because most rapists will know they won't suffer any sort of negative repercussions because rape is so rarely taken seriously, assuming it even gets reported to anyone).

Stats are for the US, for what it's worth. It may be different in other countries, though I doubt things are widely different. According to https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/172837.pdf, 18% of women have been the victims of a rape or attempted rape over their lifetimes, with approx 3% of them being attempted rapes and the rest completed. That's a bit over 1 in 6 women raped (so chances are if you know any women, one of them has probably been a rape victim). Of course, you also need to remember that rapes are something that people do (mostly men, the proportion of women rapists is ridiculously small)... so, assuming one man only rapes one woman over their lifetime, 1 in 6 men are rapists (I'm assuming a 50/50 population split even though I'm pretty sure it's something like 51% women 49% men). One would assume that a man that is willing to rape one woman would do it to another, so assuming 5 rape victims per rapist, that comes to 1/30... 10 rape victims per rapist, 1/60. Remember, most rapists are friends/family/partners/acquaintances of the victim in question, and not usually the evil rapist in the bushes type, so that's why I came to 5 per rapist... could be more, could be less. I don't know if there are any official stats on that.

So yes, you and me both probably do know a lot of rapists. Some of the users on Smogon are probably rapists. I'd imagine they justify it to themselves so they don't qualify what they did as rape (she deserved it and all that other bullshit people tell themselves when they read about rapes), but that's what happens unless the people who got raped were small children because people are dismissive arseholes. I read a study once where some college guys were asked questions about whether they had raped someone without actually using the word rape (can't remember the questions specifically since this was awhile ago, but it was probably something like "have you ever forced a woman to have sex with you")... then there was a question at the end where they were asked if they had ever raped (using the word this time). None of them said yes to that question, no matter how many of the other questions they had answered yes to. Puts it in perspective, no?

Also since I'm sure someone is going to bring this up eventually (it's a classic deflection manuever), around 10% of rape victims are male... so 1/33 men have been raped at least once over their lifetime.
 
I giggled like a little girl when i read Tosh's response to the dumbass heckler(that's what she is for going to a Tosh show and getting offended). And agreed. Irony is actually very funny and would have giggled more if it had happened.

I've met Tosh and can safely say he is a better person than most people who got offended by this and are trying to bring "justice". He is a great guy, not gay and rape is funny.
Irony? Read David Foster Wallace if you wan't to know what irony is.

You can't be serious with the bolded part of your post. What does it matter if he's gay? How exactly is he a better person? And rape isn't funny, only fucking idiots think so. I hope you're trolling here.
 

verbatim

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Honestly, I think we're blowing this way out of proportion. If she feels that he was legitimately threatening her then she should sue him and not his show. If she doesn't then she has to realize the consequences of calling out a comedian mid act.
 
How many threads does a single forum need about someone being offended by a rape joke?

Holy shit, you people never get bored of talking about the same thing.
 

Oglemi

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Saying that Tosh should not have done what he did is dumb tbh. He's a comedian, his job is to entice laughs. If I were in his shoes on stage, I would have assumed that the girl was heckling me and trying to get laughs or something. Saying "wouldn't it be funny if she were raped by 5 guys right now" was probably a bit classless, but it shouldn't have led to any kind of public scandal. This is as jrrrr pointed out as slacktivism.

Saying that we shouldn't talk about or joke about rape is also dumb. No topic should be taboo for comedians. Are dead baby jokes funny? To some. Are homophobic jokes funny? To some. Are teacher/student relationship jokes funny? To some. Are war, pestilence, famine, and disaster jokes funny? To some.

If I went around campaigning for comedians to stop making fun of gay people I'd be called crazy. Is what happened to the rape victims terrible? Yes. But I can't imagine it being such a terrible experience that you'd never be able to function again with comedians making fun of you, especially to the point of getting so upset that at a comedian's (who is well known for being crass and offensive) show, which she paid for, that she'd want to get up and say something to the extent that he shouldn't make fun of rape victims.

But also placing any sort of blame on the woman (or man) getting raped is equally as dumb. Why shouldn't we be able to go partying and get sloppy drunk and walk down a dark alley without worrying about getting raped? Yes it is dumb to do so because you could get raped, but rape also shouldn't exist, nor should murder/etc. It's a bit of a conundrum.

For my Human Sexuality course a couple semesters ago we read a book called Guyland, by Michael Kimmel which really delves into the conundrum that I just mentioned above. It's a good read for those that have the time to do so, and has a ton of interesting and rather surprising facts and survey results that moot alluded to earlier. He describes the "culture of rape" that was mentioned earlier in this thread, as instead a "culture of silence" and a "culture of protection".

Basically, even if someone at a party or club or whatever does see a situation in which an over-intoxicated girl, or guy, may be taking advantage of, nobody will say anything in the fear that they may be interrupting an actual couple or "cockblocking".

The culture of protection refers to the fact that even if a guy, or girl, may have taken advantage of someone, their parents/coaches/teachers/etc. will protect them from seeing jail time or a court appearance because of their "normally reputable character and they just made a mistake" or were themselves too drunk to know that what they were doing was wrong.

Another interesting thing to note. While the 1/30 men are rapists statement is probably a little exaggerated, the actual number of rapes taking place in the U.S. and the world is probably much higher than what is reported to the police. According to Kimmel, only 10% of all rapes are actually reported, mostly due to the fact that the victim is afraid of turning in the rapist, or for not knowing that what they actually experienced could be classified as rape.

For the record, rape is classified as any sexual encounter without a clear, verbalized, and consensual "yes". So this could mean that if you have sex with anyone who didn't explicitly say "yes let's have sex, etc." they could then turn you into the police for rape.

I think I've spent too much time on this lol, but yeah, I've spent a lot of time on this subject so I wanted to dispel some of the things flying around in this thread.

EDIT: lol this thread moved fast
 
Hey if she interrupted him then she was totally asking for it

On a more serious note, some people just need to find a better issue to be an extreme activist towards. It's Tosh's job to make stupid offensive jokes, whether you find them funny or offensive

Rape=bad
Rape jokes=not as bad
Therefore, people should focus on fighting rape instead of fighting rape jokes.
 
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