“A lot of people accuse feminists of thinking that all men are rapists. That’s not true. But do you know who think all men are rapists?
“Rapists do.”
– A comment from time-machine on this post (warning: 1,000+ comments, may take a while to load).
I do not know how to link to comments in a Disqus thread, so I am pasting the whole thing Update: Here is the link to the original comment! It was actually posted by the author later in the thread. I’m still only halfway through; it’s a long thread. However, it still deserves to be quoted in full:
“To all those who don’t think the rape joke was a problem, or rape jokes are a problem.
I get it, you’re a decent guy. I can even believe it. You’ve never raped anybody. You would NEVER rape anybody. You’re upset that all these feminists are trying to accuse you of doing something or connect you to doing something that, as far as you’re concerned, you’ve never done and would never condone.
And they’ve told you about triggers, and PTSD, and how one in six women is a survivor, and you get it. You do. But you can’t let every time someone gets all upset get in the way of you having a good time, right?
So fine. If all those arguments aren’t going anything for you, let me tell you this. And I tell you this because I genuinely believe you mean it when you say you don’t want to hurt anybody, and you don’t see the harm, and that it’s important to you to do your best to be a decent and good person. And I genuinely believe you when you say you would never associate with a rapist and you think rape really is a very bad thing.
Because this is why I refuse to take rape jokes sitting down-
6% of college age men, slightly over 1 in 20, will admit to raping someone in anonymous surveys, as long as the word “rape” isn’t used in the description of the act.
6% of Penny Arcade’s target demographic will admit to actually being rapists when asked.
A lot of people accuse feminists of thinking that all men are rapists. That’s not true. But do you know who think all men are rapists?
Rapists do.
They really do. In psychological study, the profiling, the studies, it comes out again and again.
Virtually all rapists genuinely believe that all men rape, and other men just keep it hushed up better. And more, these people who really are rapists are constantly reaffirmed in their belief about the rest of mankind being rapists like them by things like rape jokes, that dismiss and normalize the idea of rape.
If one in twenty guys is a real and true rapist, and you have any amount of social activity with other guys like yourself, really cool guy, then it is almost a statistical certainty that one time hanging out with friends and their friends, playing Halo with a bunch of guys online, in a WoW guild, or elsewhere, you were talking to a rapist. Not your fault. You can’t tell a rapist apart any better than anyone else can. It’s not like they announce themselves.
But, here’s the thing. It’s very likely that in some of these interactions with these guys, at some point or another someone told a rape joke. You, decent guy that you are, understood that they didn’t mean it, and it was just a joke. And so you laughed.
And, decent guy who would never condone rape, who would step in and stop rape if he saw it, who understands that rape is awful and wrong and bad, when you laughed?
That rapist who was in the group with you, that rapist thought that you were on his side. That rapist knew that you were a rapist like him. And he felt validated, and he felt he was among his comrades.
You. The rapist’s comrade.
And if that doesn’t make you feel sick to your stomach, if that doesn’t make you want to throw up, if that doesn’t disturb you or bother you or make you feel like maybe you should at least consider not participating in that kind of humor anymore…
Well, maybe you aren’t as opposed to rapists as you claim.”
7 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 8, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Feminists don’t think all men are rapists. Rapists do. | A Division by Zer0
[…] chickwithmonkey I have discovered this excellent comment from Time Machine explaining just how rape jokes are […]
February 17, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Anon y muss
Ai haz tweeted u!
Really, awesome post.
February 17, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Personal Failure
Well, that was embarrassing. I have the above alias because I lurk on a lot of fundy blogs, and every now and then I feel compelled to say something encouraging or supportive and I know if I did as myself they would freak out and be all “AAAAHHH! An atheist said something nice! I must be possessed if atheists like me!”
So I use an alias.
February 17, 2011 at 8:46 pm
chickwithmonkey
Why thank you! I was confused for a second there. Props of course go straight to time-machine, who wrote the comment.
February 23, 2012 at 4:13 am
Mark
I agree that rape is not at all funny and neither are rape jokes.
What about male genital mutilation? Castration? Cutting off a man’s penis?
Is _that_ funny? A whole room full of women seemed to find it hilarious that the wife of a man who wanted to leave her drugged him and cut off his penis ignoring his pleads and put it down a garbage disposal unit.
Rape is not funny to the vast majority of men, why is castration such a hilarious topic for women? Why do women have fan clubs for people who do this kind of thing? Imagine if men had fan clubs for serial rapists.
Why do women want men to feel that rape is outrageous heinous crime while at the same feeling free to joke, laugh uproariously and delight in the suffering of a man suffering a sex crime that not only violated him but resulted in the permanent loss of his sex life?
You can watch it on
February 23, 2012 at 4:27 am
chickwithmonkey
LOL @ “Rape is not funny to the vast majority of men”
I don’t know what men you know, but they aren’t on the internet.
October 14, 2013 at 9:48 am
Bart
To Mark
Two points: it’s not that one group of women made distasteful jokes about a horrible crime, that all women therefore think that stuff is funny. If you think that devaluates the arguments against rape, acid attacks, domestic violence, breast cancer, wage gaps, and for equality, then you really seriously need to reconsider your priorities. ALL these crimes and afflictions are awful and need to be prevented.
Secondly, come back with that argument when you find that a man whose junk is mutilated can’t go to the police without being victim blamed and without the case being thrown out because of ‘insufficient evidence’, even when the case is clear.
Can we all stop with the men vs. women thing now? Classifying each other as one group based only on gender helps no one and only serves to deepen the gender divide. There is no need and no point.