Post about why rape jokes aren't funny

[fire_fly]

Hi all, I've been looking for a post made a while back, perhaps in 2005 or 06, which is a sort of '101' level article about why rape jokes aren't funny. I've looked through Google and found a couple of things, but I'm pretty sure this was on LJ so it would probably have been un-searchable by Google. If anyone remembers it, has it linked, in

Comments

[booklington]

I don't think that Jewish humour is entirely analogous, except in the case of Holocaust survivors. The analogy would be, I think, women generally who may or may not have experienced sexual assault making those sorts of jokes.

In general I agree with you, but I think it's more complex than this comment makes it out to be. I have never been raped, but my first boyfriend manipulated me into sex for most of our relationship, and, well, fucked up things happened, and now, many years later, I am still trying to deal with all the issues I have with sex as a result. I don't think of myself as somebody who has experienced sexual assault, but some kinds of jokes still make me feel pretty ill. It's not my place to tell other women how to deal with sexual assault, but, on the other hand, there are certain things I personally don't really know how to hear. I have no problem with survivors of sexual assault saying it (at all!), for them, but I don't want to hear it.

In any case, the number of rape jokes I have heard from survivors of sexual assault is a grand total of two; the number of rape jokes I've heard from men like Bill Maher is, well, uncountable. So that's where I focus my attention.