Cuthbert

I empathise with rape victims and I don't think there's a problem with rape jokes. Or any jokes (provided you choose your audience accordingly). Almost every joke is at someone/something's expense. That's a big part of how jokes work, whether it's Frankie Boyle taking the piss out of Jordan's disabled son, or it's a group of bards from the middle ages writing ditties about the king having a big nose.

The degree to which the butt of the joke suffers is what people tend to take umbrage at. But in doing so, that creates a sort of "scale of offense", whereby there is a point at which something is only just over the line, therefore offensive, and a point at which something is just about within the boundaries of taste, therefore not offensive.

And that's when it becomes problematic. Who should determine where that line is? We've already established that most jokes need a "victim" in order to be funny, so in that regard there will always be someone who takes offense at a joke, because there will always be someone who can relate more to the victim than the joke teller.

Therefore, there are only two fair, realistic ways of defining what is acceptable and what isn't - either everything is fair game, or nothing is. And no-one wants to live in a world where you can't joke about anything. So "everything is acceptable" wins. Rape jokes are fine.