Tumbling Like Alice

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.

Jessica V, in response to the ongoing discussion about Penny Arcade’s strip “The Sixth Slave" and the resulting “Dickwolves" discussion, in an open thread on the topic at shakesville.com back in 2011. Found on Time-Machine. (Note that the comments are Disqus powered and you’ll need to wait a little bit for the original to come up if you click the source link.)

thusspakekate

Oh dammit. Now I ship The US/Great Britain

thanks silly graphic.

rageofthenerd

“Listen, you have to let me be represented. I can’t just…keep giving you my heart and my taxes and not be a bigger part of your government. I want more than that. I deserve more than that.”

“You know I can’t. You knew that from the moment you went so far away. I just…this is what I have to give. I don’t have anymore. For God’s sake, there’s an ocean between us!”

“Fine. You know what, fine. Here, just, see all this goddamn tea you gave me? Well you can take it back. Here, fish it out of the harbor for all I care.”

“Don’t do this.”

“I have no choice. I’ll never be anything more than a colony to you.”

“America—”

“No, Britain. Don’t.”

“I can’t just let you go, you know that. I’ll fight for you if I have to.”

“And I will fight back.”