Trollheart

No sorry 216, but when you make a stupid comment like "If I was a rape victim I wouldn't be offended" you are, mate, talking out of your hole. We as men know nothing about rape and how it affects women. DJ, yes I know men CAN be raped, but whether it just doesn't happen as much or the stigma is different so it doesn't get reported as much I don't know, but nine out of ten times when you hear about a rape it's a woman it's happening to, and when we think of rape this is the picture we get.

Which is the more offensive joke (I use the word loosely)? : Woman being raped --- "Rape! She cried hopefully"

or Man being raped
"He should be so lucky!"

Answer: neither. But the idea of men being raped is still looked at --- wrongly of course --- as the man being somehow "lucky" that a woman is having sex with him, albeit without his consent. Stupid and totally wrong, but indicative of the role women play in society and the macho image men are supposed to project. If a woman is raped, the initial reaction from others is shock and sympathy. If a man, then it's disbelief and some sort of schoolboy humour, grinning and saying "Yeah? Really? Are you SURE you were raped?" (Nudge, nudge, wink wink)

Neither reaction make the act less reprehensible: nothing could. But society as a whole still sees men as the aggressors and women as the victims, especially in rape, and by and large (I dont know the figures, maybe you do) the higher percentage of rapes would I think be women as the victims.

Ki, to say "if I were a rape victim" and compare it to "if I were a blind man" is no comparison at all. You can find out what a being blind is like by closing your eyes and walking on the street. Okay, only temporarily, and it doesn't give you the first idea of what the life of a blind person is like at all, but to compare it to rape? How do you find out what it's like to be raped? You can't --- unless you ask someone to rape you --- and these sort of comments from 216 and to some extent CB are ill-founded, mean and trying to trivialise the serious subject of rape. Given that they're talking to a rape victim in JD I think your insensitivity guys has reached new lows. You can't say you didn't know because she told you. And you still think she's overreacting?

This kind of has nothing to do with humour, and it's going OT a little, but the comment that guy made to her is not acceptable, in my view, at any time, and certainly not from a stranger. Whether he's talking to someone who's experienced the ordeal of rape or not is somewhat beside the point. The fact is that EVERY woman --- yes, DJ, and man, but men generally can fight back and it's not I think that common --- fears being attacked, so you can't really say oh he didn't know she was a rape victim. It's not a case of her being or not being one: he should not say it to a woman, who is gender-disposed to worry about such a thing, whether she believes it will happen or not. And why then shoudl she not fear for her safety? Who knows if the guy is going to follow her and make good on his "threat"?

216, you're like a baby screaming that people shouldn't be telling you what you can and can't say, when you've trodden on very thin and sensitive ice here. You've been told it and yet you're still whining about your "rights". Why don't you just admit you made a gross faux pas and leave it at that, instead of insisting you're right to claim knowledge of rape? I'm losing so much respect for you in this thread, I really am. I know: that makes you sit in a corner and cry, doesn't it?

But come on guys: is there no room for pure human compassion here? At all?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Cuthbert

I knew it would turn into this.

I've not said anything mean and I'm not trivialising rape. My comments weren't specifying rape either.

Need a hand moving those goalposts?

See above, I was talking about offence. I did not say she shouldn't feel threatened. I was not talking about what is and isn't acceptable.

Key

Woah woah woah, first off. I wasn't using blindness as a comparison to rape. I was using it as an example of how I would take a joke that would offend someone who was blind. My whole point and it still stands is why someone should be made to feel bad about a joke if they didn't know the joke would offend someone without even knowing the person. I also never said anything about anybody overreacting, or anything. So, to be honest, your criticism is uncalled for. I've never even said a single thing about her experience nor have I made light of it, i'm just trying to ask questions and debate like adults. But everybody is jumping on the first sign of so called disrespect.

Scarlett O'Hara

Didn't you say that people who are offended by rape jokes (that most likely have been raped) are weak?

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Cuthbert

Is what I said. Now I'm being goaded into saying rape victims are weak, which is quite sly tbh.

Scarlett O'Hara

You seriously have no idea how ridiculous it sounds. How does being offended by a rape joke (whether you've experienced it or not) make you weak? Does it mean to laugh at rape jokes mean your strong?

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Key

Look again, he said nothing about rape in his statement. He said a general statement about being offended by something.

FRED HALE SR.

God this thread sucks. LOL

Trollheart

Well, too late it would seem.

I intended to post here to say that the tone of my last post probably seemed a little too vitriolic, and I apologise if I painted anyone in a light they should not be seen in.

That said...

Just about everyone here has said that if they knew that a joke offended someone they would stop, maybe apologise or move away. Yet Steph (JD) has told you all that she was raped, and is offended not only by the comment made but, I have to believe, the defence of that comment by people here, however misguided. Now you can't have it both ways guys: if this argument is going on and suddenly someone says "Hey! I was raped and find this offensive!" the only logical and human thing to do is APOLOGISE to that person. But so far as I can see, nobody who "defended" or tried to excuse the comment has done so: you're all more concerned with how it could have been taken --- as a joke --- but nobody has said we understand, you went through that, it is therefore not a joke. You're basically telling her to get over it, it's no big deal, he didn't mean it.

This I have a serious problem with.

Are your words just empty air? You say one thing, then do another. Which is it? You now know --- without any ambiguity at all --- that Steph is upset/offended/annoyed with your reaction to the "ha ha rape joke" and yet you're still bloody defending it? I thought you said you would stop? Yet you're all still going on? I thought it was a joke, moving the goalposts (what does that even mean, CB, in this instance?) and trying to make it seem like she's STILL in the wrong for taking offence, even though she was the one raped and we won't ever feel like she does or know how she feels?

Yeah, started out as a sort of apology but the last few comments have made me more or less retract that. You're a bunch of insensitive jerks, you know that? How can you talk freely and openly about this being a joke when you know what you know? I just don't get it.

Maybe I never will.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Cuthbert

No it means you probably find the joke funny. I think being able to laugh at yourself can be considered strong though.

Anyway lol at being offended by a joke, why let it bother you? It's a joke, it's not to be taken seriously, so why take it seriously?