Understanding Rape Jokes and Satire

Recently, there have been a lot of posts in the feminist blogosphere about rape jokes. I’m someone who long ago came to the conclusion that no topic should be universally excluded from humor, including topics that are serious and painful. I suppose this belief comes from the fact that humor is often used as a way of coping with pain.

When I became aware of the fact that most other feminists regard rape jokes as inherently wrong, I struggled to understand why.

Here I think a bit of background information is necessary. I grew up very sheltered from rape culture. I grew up around people who recognized the horror of rape, regardless of whether it was perpetrated by a stranger in a dark ally or by ones spouse. There was never any victim blaming. Rape was understood as an act of violence where “sex” was a weapon that had nothing in common with consensual sex. These understandings were considered self-evident and non-controversial. I was totally unaware of rape culture until I began actively researching rape, domestic violence, and the history of womens rights in the US. (This is not to imply that women are the only victims of rape or domestic violence, only that they are disproportionately impacted by it.)

My friends all grew up as sheltered as I did, and occasionally would make rape jokes. The only particular one I remember was “It’s not rape if you yell ‘surprise sex!’ first.” When we laughed, we were laughing at the absurdity of the idea that yelling “surprise sex” makes any sort of difference. Of course its still rape, how could anyone possibly be stupid enough to think otherwise?

So, I started reading some of the many feminist blog posts out there, to try to understand why rape jokes are considered so universally wrong. I understood that rape jokes can be triggering to rape victims, and that given how common rape is and how stigmatizing it is for victims, it’s never possible to know who is a victim and who isn’t; however, the criticism was regardless of whether the joke triggered someone or not.

The first thing I realized, is that the jokes in question were all very different in nature than the one I just described. These jokes usually involved laughing at rape threats or laughing at rape victims. (i.e. “I’m going to rape that bitch! Isn’t that fucking hilarious?”)

Because I grew up so sheltered, I had never really been exposed to jokes like these, and I certainly had no idea how common they are. I didn’t grow up in a situation where jokes like this were normal, so these jokes immediately struck me as offensive. My first thought was simplistic:

That’s not funny, thats just mean. Anyone who has ever been taunted as a child (i.e. everyone), understands that jokes can be used as a form intimidation and demoralization, so why are rape jokes like these not recognized as such?

This got more complicated when I considered rape jokes that don’t target any particular individual and rape jokes that take place in fictional settings. No one’s really getting hurt, so that should make it OK, right?

It’s just a joke right?

The only way I could make sense of this, was to compare it to other forms of comic violence.

Like many children, I enjoyed watching violent cartoons. The characters in most of these cartoons were animals. As a thought experiment, I imagined the cartoons with humans instead. The cartoons still seemed funny, though not quite as much so. Then, I took the experiment a step further. I imagined the cartoons with an aggressor and a victim who is a member of a group that suffers from violence and discrimination. A white person beating a black person, a straight person beating a gay person, a man beating a woman, etc.

As soon as I did this, the humor vanished and was replaced with a visceral feeling of disgust. I could not separate this imagined violence from the very real violence that occurs today. I can’t imagine watching a cartoon of a straight man beating a gay man without feeling as though the cartoon is condoning violence and hatred against gay people, even though I can watch other violent cartoons without feeling like the cartoon is condoning violence and hatred in general. If we lived in a post-homophobic society perhaps I could have viewed the victims sexual orientation as coincidental, or even if it was intentional perhaps I could have viewed it without feeling like it condoned real life hatred and violence towards gay people. But we don’t live in a post-homophobic society.

So, whats the difference between rape jokes and other jokes involving violence? Context.

As long as we live in a rape culture, there is no separating rape jokes from real rape.

I’m now realizing that my inability to understand other feminists on this issue was due to my privilege of being raised without rape culture affecting me. Even though I’m a woman, I have a lot of the same privilege as the the people that make and laugh at these jokes.

Despite my reading on the topic, there is one thing that still is not clear to me. Where does satire fit into all this? The “surprise sex” joke? What about jokes that make fun of rapists or rape culture?