On the subject of rape...

There's an attention grabber for you.

I hadn't planned on writing a blog post about this. It just kind of pisses me off... and frankly I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I think people are way too sensitive in these hyper-politically correct days, or maybe it's the attack on one of my favorite comics. Either way I just kind of want to vent.

So last week Penny Arcade ran this comic. I read it, laughed and went on with my life. I found it funny because it's true. In World of Warcraft there were several quests where I had to free X amount of people from some horrific situation. You're tasked to free five slaves from some horrible slave master... but there's always more than five of them. So essentially you're freeing five people from this horrible life, but leaving the rest of the people to suffer after you leave. That's the joke. That's why it's funny.

Well not to everyone I guess. Apparently there's a small group of people out there that think this is some sort of horrible joke about rape. Somehow.

Let me be the first to say that I think rape is a bad thing. I doubt there are many people out there who think rape is a good thing. Rape is an awful crime that should never be tolerated or advocated.

Penny Arcade responded with this comic the following day. As well as a blog post responding to some of the critics of the comic.

I think Gabe summed it up best with this:

For the most part I think that people are perfectly happy to laugh at offensive jokes until the joke offends them. Then it’s not funny anymore. There is no way we can know what each and every person who reads the comic has decided to find offensive.

I think he pretty much summed up my feelings on that. I thought that would be the end of that... until there was this. This is a guy selling a bunch of his Penny Arcade merchandise... not because of the dickwolf comic, but because he seems to feel that the following comic and the blog posts were a "...big fuck you out to all concerned and compared victims of rape to fruit." Which Gabe didn't, he stated that they had a rapist character, Fruit Fucker, which rapes fruit. He didn't really compare the fruit to the victims. Though if you want to get technical this comic insinuates (at least to me) that he might have raped Brenna's ear, so he is perhaps a human rapist as well.

Penny Arcade deals with all sorts of subjects that may offend. If you read the comic at all you would know this. Except this one gravely offended people... why? Hell, it's not even a comic about rape. It's a comic that mentions rape, and frankly mentions rape as a horrific thing. He doesn't want to leave because the dickwolf gives him candy and sings him to bed each night.

Though what really angered me was a blog post that was linked off of that eBay sale. This is it.

Right off the bat they got things wrong. They keep calling it a rape joke. It's not. As I said, it's a comic that mentions rape, but the punchline nor the focus is on rape. If I say "What's the difference between a dead baby and a BMW... I don't have a BMW in my garage!" would you say you heard a BMW joke? Nope, that's a dead baby joke right there. If I said "What's the difference between a BMW and a Porcupine? When it comes to a BMW, the prick is on the inside." That's a BMW joke. Both of them have BMW in it, but only one is a BMW joke. Just because this comic mentions rape, does not make it a rape comic.

Their criticism is that "rape jokes are triggers for survivors of sexual violence (and/or attempted sexual violence)" and that "Rape jokes contribute to a rape culture in which rape is normalized." I'll get to the first one in a moment, but for now lets focus on the second.

"Rape jokes contribute to a rape culture in which rape is normalized." On the website they have a blog post titled Rape Culture 101 which explains more about what rape culture is. Their examples range from sad, and truly something that we should strive to stop to absolutely fucking ludicrous. At the end of the day is the Penny Arcade comic (which isn't about rape, only mentions it) contributing to the downfall of society and making people think that rape is okay? No. I'm sorry, but just no. If I read a comic like this every day, while watching violent porn and playing RapeLay on my computer would I think rape is okay or normal? No. Of course not. Rape is never okay. Rape is never normal. Rape is horrible, and no matter how many things I saw or heard that contributed to "rape culture" I still wouldn't think it's okay. Something tells me I'm part of the majority on this as well.

To me this reminds me of the violence in video games and violence in the media argument. People when playing violent video games, or watching violent movies, etc. will become violent. Are there people out there that play violent video games and become violent? I'm sure there are. Are there millions of other people out there that play the exact same game who don't become violent? Yep.

When rape becomes normal to a society it's generally due to major changes like wars, civil wars, or a group wanting to show their dominance over another group. Rape does not become normal because it is mentioned more in movies, or is used in a joke.

"Rape jokes are triggers for survivors of sexual violence (and/or attempted sexual violence)." You know what, I agree with this. There are triggers. Not just rape jokes, but many other things. A smell, a texture, there are numerous things that trigger memories. And that is why rape is awful, it is something that will affect you for the rest of your life.

The first thing I will point out again is that they were not making a rape joke. They were making a joke about World of Warcraft that happened to mention rape. Should we not be allowed to mention rape?

I hate to say this because it will make me sound like a huge asshole, but I have to. I say it meaning no offense towards anyone. I'm going to use "raped" as an example but it applies to many different things: I'm sorry you were raped, it's horrible. But the world and other people cannot revolve around you. At some point you will have to realize that you experienced something that others may not understand. They may say or do things that trigger feelings in you, but that they do not get. There will be times when you are right in situations, there will be times when you are wrong and there will be times when neither is right or wrong. I am not saying it is no big deal and I'm definitely not saying get over it. What I am saying is that if we took everything that might offend someone and weren't allowed to say it we would live in awful, boring, censored world.

Bear with me while I explain.

Rape is awful. I've been over this. Should we censor certain mediums that may contain rape? What should we do with movies that contain rape? Or books, or TV shows, or news reports? Any one of these could have the same trigger as a rape joke. All of them are for entertainment. Are they any less better or worse then the joke? The joke is a joke about possibly the worst time in your life, something that will haunt you forever. On the the other hand is the TV show any better? Is trying to pull in viewers or sell movie tickets for a story about rape any better? The most horrible moment in certain peoples life used as compelling TV?

What about murder? Another awful crime. Another thing that will stick with victims forever. The person may be dead, but what about the family? If a son is beaten to death with a baseball bat do you think the mother is going to want to sit down and watch Casino? If someone is killed by a drunk driver do you think the family of the deceased is not going to have memories triggered by scenes of this season of Rescue Me? Should World Trade Center or Flight 93 not have been made?

What about war? Are soldiers coming home gong to want to turn on the TV and see Iraq all over CNN, MSN, and Fox News? Are they going to want to sit down and watch Black Hawk Down or countless other modern day war movies? Some survivors of D Day reportedly had to walk out of Saving Private Ryan because it brought back such haunting memories. Should they have pulled it from the theater? Should Schindler's List have been made? Should Band of Brothers have been written? What about fictional stories set in real life wars? Your selling death and destruction for entertainment purposes.

If comedian makes a joke about a horrible tragedy, should it be taken differently then a comedian telling a joke about rape? Should comedians never cross the line of decency? If we did we would have very boring comedies and comedians. Many very good movies, TV series, and books could not be written with out being offensive to someone.

On the Shakesville blog they talk about The Invention of Lying and it's "rape joke" (honestly, I didn't see it as one). What should be done about that? Should we take it out of the movie? I found it to be one of the funniest scenes in a already hilarious movie. Also the movie is very funny but also has some very strong athiest tones to it. I'm sure there are a lot of religious people who would find it horribly offensive... what should be done? Should we not show this movie? What about The Last Temptation of Christ? It also offended a great deal of people.

Let's talk about the movie Irreversible. Irreversible is probably one of the most powerful movies I've ever seen. At it's heart it is about a brutal rape and the revenge, anger, emotions and everything else that follows. It features a several minute long very realistic, brutal rape scene. If you could walk away from that movie and still think that rape was normal or anything but horrific I question your state of mind. If you want to talk about things that could trigger emotions, this would be the movie. At the end of the day though it's purpose is to sell tickets, and is entertainment featuring rape and revenge. Should we allow that?

What I'm really getting at is: At what point do we have to realize that if we have at any point suffered some sort of tragedy there are going to be things that will bring back a surge of feelings and emotions we felt when that tragedy happened to us. At what point do we have to realize that not everyone has the same experiences that we do and that things that might be perfectly okay to that person may affect us differently.

Gabe was very much correct when he said that we laugh until something offends us, then it's not funny anymore. Let's go to the top of my post where I made a dead baby joke. Do I find it offensive? Not really. In fact I may have chuckled the first time I heard it. Would someone who's baby just died or who just had a miscarriage find it funny? Nope, probably not. Should I have not have used it as an example? At the end of the day I didn't find it offensive, I could see how someone could, but I didn't. There are others who probably found it incredibly offensive. There's others who probably found it funny. I'm not going to take it out just because it might offend someone, sorry.

Should a comedian take a rape joke out of his routine because it might offend someone or bring back horrible memories? It's their choice to make that call. I wouldn't blame them if they did and I wouldn't blame them if they didn't. It's also your choice to walk out and never see that comedian again if you were offended. It's your choice to not see or do something that offends you, it is not your choice to not let me see, say or do something because it offends you.

When I read the Penny Arcade comic did I laugh? You bet I did. I thought it was hilarious, as I said I ran into that situation many times in WoW. I've also read comments by people who were the victims of rape/sexual assault who said they laughed as well. There were also people who were offended. What should we do? Should the guys at Penny Arcade take it down? I don't think so. I thought it was hilarious comic, and in fact still do. I also think their rebuttal is funny and as well as makes a point.

After reading more of Shakesville blog I think I've found what set me off the most on this subject. It's that everything in that blog feels like an attack. It feels angry. It feels pretentious, it feels like they are right and you are wrong, it feels like if you disagree with them you're helping cultivate this rape culture they talk so much about. It's trying to tell me how I should feel and that if I laugh at a comic that mentions rape I'm helping build a rape culture where rape is normal.

Well go fuck yourselves because I still think it's funny and I still think rape is horrible.

Squid.