Srsly.

[krowface]

I just was unfriended by a dotcomrad of over 10 years because I demanded people are accountable for their own actions. 

Jokes don't rape people, people rape people. Blaming magazines and billboards for sexual assault is the *same exact mentality* that rapists use to blame women for their clothes they wear.

Also, I'm saying this on the authority of being a member of a family in which the majority of the women have been raped. My mother, my sisters, my niece.... countless others who I know and love who have been assaulted. Not one of them ever blamed anyone else but the person who did it.

Also, I'm saying this on the authority of being a victim, since I'm also a rape survivor. 

Comments

[fairyrune]

Ok, here's my take on it:

Rapists cause rape. That's definitely a fact. However, we live in a culture that tends to blame the victim and give rapists a pass. According to RAINN, 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail. That's at least partially due to our fucked-up culture, and rape jokes being seen as socially acceptable certainly contributes to that. It may seem like a small thing, but it adds up to an extremely harmful bigger picture.

Another thing is, you never know if someone has suffered from a sexual assault. Like you said, you and a number of your loved ones are all survivors. People all deal with trauma differently, and hearing people joke about rape could traumatize a victim even further.

[(Anonymous)]

So we should never mention anything traumatic for fear of further traumatizing someone? Are you going to censor every joke about murder, violence, suicide, war, or chronic illness that comes out of your mouth? No? Then don't tell me what I can and can't say. Rape is not some "special" trauma that gets sacred cow status.

Guess what kids, when you get handed shit, it's yours to deal with. I've had many traumas in my life (parental suicide, abuse as a child) but I dealt with it like an adult (through therapy, etc) instead of going on a rampage demanding no one ever speak about these subjects again.

[krowface.livejournal.com]

Trigger Warnings are for people who need help controlling their own emotions.

[krowface.livejournal.com]

Jokes do not commit atrocities, nor do they excuse them. If anything, they allow an outlet for those who suffer its traumas.

The point here is not excusing the rape culture. The point here is personal accountability. People use the media as a scapegoat, because it's easier to say "fuck MTV" than it is to sit down and talk with family members.

Stop pointing fingers at straw men, and let's start asking each other hard questions.

[fairyrune]

Our society treats rape quite differently from any of those other crimes/traumas, so it's not really a valid comparison.

I'm not saying you "can't" tell jokes about rape. You can tell jokes about whatever you want. However, if your compassion for other people doesn't trump your desire to tell a shitty joke, you should expect people to judge you harshly.

[fairyrune]

If you want to joke about your own trauma as an outlet, that's fine. As I mentioned earlier, not everyone handles trauma the same way, so when you make a joke about rape-in-general, you're also making light of everyone else's suffering. As I said above to the anonymous commenter, I'm not saying you "can't" make jokes about rape. I'm saying that if you do, you can't expect other people to not judge you harshly.

Your intent may not be to excuse rape culture, but intent isn't always clear. When you make a joke about rape, a rapist (who probably doesn't consider themselves a rapist) will take that as approval of their actions. There's a really good study discussed here about "undetected rapists."

From that document: "Sexually aggressive behavior is typically part of a belief system that views
women as sexual objects to be conquered, coerced and used for self-gratification.
Undetected rapists are much more likely to hold stereotyped beliefs about the “proper”
roles for women and men in society, and to rigidly adhere to those beliefs. They adhere to
“rape myths” that both justify their aggressive acts and foster them. Their adherence to
rape myths and rigid stereotypes frequently allows them to distort their perceptions of
their victims’ behavior. For example, because they tell themselves that “women say no to
sex even when they really want it,” they can disregard their victims’ obvious signs of
terror and resistance."

Those people don't think of themselves as rapists. They don't think they've done anything wrong, and when they hear jokes about rape, it only reinforces their belief that it's all in good fun or whatever.

Should they be held responsible for their own actions? Absolutely. That's not likely to happen, because society as a whole buys into many of the same fucked-up beliefs. (See: the ten year old girl who was brutally gang-raped in Texas, who the New York Times, of all papers, wrote an extremely victim-blamey article about.)

In short, even if you don't intend to excuse rape when you make a joke about it, that's what it comes across as. In that case, your intent doesn't matter as much as the perception of the people who are listening to you. I do sincerely hope that one day we will live in a society where rape is taken as serisouly as other crimes so that jokes about it won't be as harmful, but I don't think that's going to happen for a very long time.

[damnitnicole]

As a person who makes rape jokes but is careful about in which company, I endorse this comment.

[krowface.livejournal.com]

The point of this post wasn't about rape jokes, it was about a person I've known for over ten years, and one I've been incredibly aligned with on most social and political stances suddenly turning their back on me because they didn't agree with me.

THAT was the point.

Also, fuck that loopy bitch, she recently friended me on Pinterest.