Columns

Today, I want to talk about rape. Jesus, I had better get this one right.

Specifically, I want to talk about rape jokes. Last week, Critic’s comics contained a rape joke. Three weeks ago, the same comic also contained a rape joke. Over the last few days I have been flooded – or at least, lightly doused – with emails complaining about the comics, and accusing Critic of enabling rape and sponsoring rape culture.

The first comic, published in issue 15, depicts a man having a conversation with his car. “This was going to be a Maori joke but the editor refused to print it,” the man says. “Print a rape joke then,” the car suggests. “No way,” the man replies, “they’re always forced.”

The second, published in issue 17, shows a man telling his wife that he’d bang Selena Gomez, and his wife reacting angrily. The final panel shows a judge awarding custody of Gomez to her mother – Gomez having been the man’s daughter all along. (Some people have expressed confusion as to why this would qualify as a rape joke. Statistically speaking, father-daughter incest is almost always rape.)

The debate about rape jokes and whether they are ever acceptable has received a lot of attention over the last few years – particularly in the last year, after “comedian” Daniel Tosh made his now-infamous remark that it would be “funny” if one of his hecklers were gang-raped. I have followed this debate with interest, but also with a certain amount of intellectual detachment. I have never found rape jokes funny and feel nothing but contempt for Tosh. But I am also extremely uncomfortable with declaring entire topics off-limits. Until recently, I believed that it was possible to make a largely unproblematic distinction between rape jokes that trivialised the act itself and mocked its victims, and rape jokes that attacked the culture of rape and the attitudes of those who rape.

The issue 15 comic was, uncontroversially, the “wrong” sort of rape joke – it was a simple play on the word “force,” with little comedic value, insight, or commentary to make on the topic of rape. I apologise for publishing this first comic, which on reflection was an inappropriate and substandard piece of work. Critic has rightly received flak for this decision.

The issue 17 comic was more in line with what defenders of rape jokes view as an “acceptable” rape joke. Taken the wrong way, the punchline could be read as “haha, she got raped” – which is always the danger – but the intended target of the joke is not the victim but the perpetrator. The comic is a (dark) commentary on the male psyche – that some men have, and act on, thoughts of incest – and, significantly, the comic shows the man being punished.

When I first drafted this editorial, I stood by the decision to publish the issue 17 comic, citing the debates I’d read online, sticking up for free speech and listing, for context, a series of “acceptable” rape jokes from comics such as Louis CK and Sarah Silverman. Something about it didn’t sit right. I knew that I was hardly an expert on rape, so I took what was probably the best decision I’ve made all week, and ran the editorial past two female friends whom I could trust speak their minds.

They tore strips off me. “Print an apology and move on,” they urged. I protested that as I did not fully understand the problem, such an apology could not be sincere.

“Have you ever walked down the street holding your keys between your fingers because you’re afraid of what might happen?” one asked me. (I have not.)

Some of the McChesneys were hanged by the English for sheep-rustling, and my grandfather was once detained in Iraq on suspicion of being a Jew (on account of his nose). This aside, there is nothing much in my backstory that speaks of oppression. As a white, middle-class male who scores around 1 on the Kinsey Scale, I simply cannot recall any context in which my identity has counted against me. This has been nice, obviously, but it also means I am less attuned to the kind of offence that Critic has caused with these two comics.

When you cannot empathise with the experience of being raped, or with the fear that the threat of rape inspires, it’s difficult to understand just how traumatic the topic can be. And without this understanding, it’s easy to dismiss objections as over-reactions, or to see the objectors as unreasonable, over-sensitive, and misandric, or to lapse into talking about “free speech,” or some other such bullshit. When you exist in a male-dominated echo-chamber – which, for whatever reason, the Critic office unfortunately is – this attitude can ossify into knee-jerk defensiveness.

It’s frustrating to be told that you are fundamentally unqualified to comment on a topic. It’s a characteristically male attitude that with introspection and deep, abstract thought, one can figure out most problems. Hence the obsession with free speech and other such rights: if I have my rights, I can exist in my own bubble, and I do not need to do any of my thinking outside of this bubble. In this way, many men (including myself) have been happy to “learn” about the problems with rape jokes by analysing certain abstract properties of the joke itself: does it have a certain motivation, does it have a certain target, does it reduce men’s inhibition to rape. Of course, these are all problems, but they’re not the only problems, or even the main problems, with rape jokes.

The main problem with rape jokes is, quite simply, that rape is horrible. It is an utterly traumatic experience, and to raise it in a comic context – even where the comic means to condemn rape or express solidarity with rape survivors – is inappropriate, hurtful and disrespectful. As someone who writes for a living, and who tries to raise a few laughs along the way, this was a disappointing realisation, but it’s one I think I’ve finally come to terms with.

Learning about these matters involves not abstract theorising, but listening. This is hard work at the best of times, made even harder in this case by the subject matter. I can sympathise, but as someone who has (and hopefully never will) go through these experiences, I won’t fully understand. At the end of the day, though, it’s good that these issues have been brought up – this will help me to make this magazine a more enlightened and accessible publication.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, can we please stop calling those moments where someone else accesses your Facebook profile and posts something offensive or embarrassing under your name “fraping”? Come on, “Facefucking” is a much better term.