I was surfing the web, procrastinating the novel editing I'm supposed to be doing, and washed up on the shores of:
http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke
http://www.eepiphanies.net/2012/07/16/you-can-get-the-rape-polite/
Um... does no one see the counterpoint to the whole argument? Maybe in the 415 replies someone has said as much but I only read about 20 or so of them which says, yeah, 1 in 4 women have been raped, it's in bad taste to make those jokes, poor them, and most men think rape is bad. But, HELLO, that means that there are SOME men in that audience who have done the raping and think it’s ok! Maybe only 1 in 8 men have been perpetrators because some have raped only one woman once and others have raped her more than once, and others have raped multiple women. However, and more my point, if you know this comedian is gonna make these kind of “on the edge” type of jokes, he is going to be a draw for that sort of person, so maybe the ratio would be different. Maybe 1 in 2? So, kinda like a pedophile going to the playground to get his fix of sweet baby cheeks, a high percentage of this audience is likely to be of questionable moral ethics. If my 'date' said, let's go see this comedian, and I knew nothing about this comedian, I would be horrified that my 'date' thought this was funny after seeing the show. Not because I thought the comedian was bad but the type of person to think it funny is not the person I would want to be around. It is a reflection on him. What he thinks is okay in life. People who think this comedy is funny are not good people. I would be looking at the tables around me and thinking the room is filled with rapists and morally reprehensible people. The comedian himself may or may not feel rape is bad or whatever, but he would normally only be one in a crowd. Something we can defend ourselves against. He has found a niche to make his career and he may or may not agree with his own spiel. But now he has gathered under one roof a bunch of people agreeing with his spiel, maybe not in word, but implicitly by paying the ticket stub. Agreeing about morally reprehensible things in life. And then we have people defending his right to say these morally reprehensible things and gather a larger crowd of like-minded morally reprehensible thinking people. That, my friends, is the potentially dangerous part. Context may change but it's how the Ku Klux Klan, Hitler, Bush, Obama (LOL!) etc., got started. If I walked in on a speech with Hitler going off, I'd be thinking, "that guy is nuts!" But then I'd be looking around at the crowd thinking, OMG, get me outta here cuz this place is gonna explode. One guy is powerless. He's could just be the crazy guy walking down the street talking to himself, gesticulating wildly. He may have the same ideas as Hitler BUT he doesn't have the power of a bunch of like-minded morally reprehensible people backing him up. He hasn’t been able to gather the crowd. He’s not a very good leader! Give that dude some charisma and *poof*, Hitler all over again. Make him into a nice guy? Now we have a potential Jesus Christ or Ghandi with his following. It's not really about what was said. It's about how the people who are listening to what is said, how they react. Are they disgusted or will they “buy that ticket again?” Are they believers? Are they willing to “go to the edge” with the speaker and defend his mantra by perpetrating it?
The lines are drawn. You must decide which side you will stand. I choose to not surround myself with people who think that sort of humor is funny.
