I also have heard lawyers express displeasure over lawyer jokes. My wife and I are both lawyers. We don’t share those feelings, but who am I to say they are not valid? At least as valid as someone objecting to jokes about their profession/gender/sexual preference/ethnicity/race/religion/etc. It seems odd that someone would say, “Hmm, I don’t object to making jokes about MY profession.” Or, “No x has ever told me that THEY were offended by jokes about X.”
And folk who think all lawyers are wealthy and privileged clearly have not met a wide range of practicing lawyers.
As I see it, the only option is to differentiate between jokes that are so clean that no one could reasonably take offense - the typical “dad jokes”,* and all the rest. There might be some challenges WRT the borders of dad jokes - would an ASPCA supporter take offense at, “What do you call a dog with no legs?”
But other than innocuous wordplay about inanimate objects, SOMEONE could possibly take offense at any joke about the Rabbi and priest, or the Englishman and Irishman who walk into a bar, women/men, tall/short people, etc. Not to mention lepers, dead babies, men with no arms/legs, stupid people, Helen Keller, …
Just struck me as really odd to single out “rape jokes” among the multitude of jokes in that thread that someone could possibly take offense at.
*And don’t get me started at my dislike for the term “dad jokes.” These are exactly the same jokes I found funniest when I was a kid. No one called them dad jokes back then. Googling consistently dates that term back to 1987. I’m a dad and a jokester, and I’m offended by it. Perhaps it should be banned?