First of all, let’s get this out of the way right now.
You weren’t joking about rape in a rape thread. You were joking about men who direct romantic comedies in a rape thread. It was a mildly insulting comment (to men who make romantic comedies), but I would not for a second label it ‘‘trivializing rape with humor’’ as some people in that thread perceived it. I’m not giving you an A+ for comedic timing or anything, I’m just sayin’.
I think humor does have its place when we deal with trauma. But I think the reality is that people are going to draw that line in all sorts of different places depending on the kind of person they are AND where they are at in the process of recovery.
Take the Robin Quivers example I used – at a Comedy Central roast of Joan Rivers, a comedian called out Robin Quivers for having been raped by her father. He said something along the lines of, ‘‘She’s so damn ugly she ought to thank him for the favor.’’
On national television, he said this. While she sat there and laughed about it.
Now I’m not an oversensitive ninny or anything, but that made me uncomfortable. That woman must have skin a mile thick. There was a time that I was really offended by jokes about sexual abuse, but I realized it was no different than me laughing at Hitler jokes, really, and I mostly got over it. But it’s good, when deciding when and whether or not to use humor, to consider the audience, and recognize that some people are further along in the healing process than others. It’s possible for you to both have good intentions and for someone to be rightfully upset. We don’t have to create this dichotomy where you either agree or you’re an asshole.
I do think we live in a culture that, to some extent, does ‘‘condone, normalize, excuse, or encourage sexualized violence.’’ I believe that because I have firsthand experience there, and the levels that some people in this society will go to ignore and excuse and minimize and justify sexual abuse would absolutely sicken you if you had witnessed it yourself. The narrative of each woman in my family goes something like this: ‘‘I was raped/molested by someone I trusted and nobody gave a shit.’’ Women are just as complicit in this abuse as men. In fact, it is often the women trying to silence the abuse victim through shame, guilt, and a twisted sense of solidarity – ‘‘You don’t understand. This is normal. We aren’t allowed to complain about this.’’
That said, I am not convinced that rape jokes are proof of this any more than I am convinced Hitler jokes are proof that we are living in a society that condones, normalizes, excuses or encourages ant-Semitism.
While I’m not totally convinced that sexualized violence is about the exertion of power, there is certainly a power dynamic, namely, that the strong exploit the weaker members of society, that the marginalized become marginalized even further. Children, as a previous poster pointed out in another thread, are vulnerable whether they are male or female. The men in prison who are victimized are also vulnerable. This would suggest that women in this society are vulnerable too.
I don’t think this says anything particular about men or women. I think it says a lot about human nature though. In a society where women were more powerful than men, I have no doubt we would be the ones doing the exploiting.
As to your question of why people do it, everything we know about behavioral psychology suggests that punishment is an effective behavioral deterrent ONLY if it is absolutely consistent. Punishment for sexual abuse, rape and assault is about the least consistent consequence I can think of. The majority of these crimes aren’t even reported, and those that are don’t typically get too far either. It’s true that a person convicted of these crimes stands to lose everything, but the likelihood of being reported much less prosecuted is vanishingly small. It’s probably the least risky crime we’ve got.
On preview: No, Wesley, you didn’t piss me off. I think you raised some great points. You seem to be someone who is genuinely trying to understand.