#rape jokes

I am not offended by rape jokes. Offended is how my grandmother feels if I accidentally swear during a conversation with her; the word describes a reaction to something you think is impolite or inappropriate. It is a profoundly inadequate descriptor for the sudden pinching in my chest and the swelling of fear and sadness that I feel when someone makes a rape joke in my presence.

I’m offended by fewer and fewer jokes, lately. I’ll give you an example: I used to be offended when I heard a joke hinging on stereotypes about native people. I’d think, in a detached way, that it was in poor taste, a bit rude, maybe inconsiderate- offensive. I stopped feeling offended by native jokes when I watched my friend start crying in the middle of our grade twelve law class. We were discussing racial profiling in Canada, looking at the example of a native man who was (most likely) pulled over for his physical appearance but was found to have suitcases of illegal drugs in his trunk. When people started spouting stereotypes to defend the police officer’s actions, my friend broke down. Through sobs, she tried to explain how the casual prejudices that she hears, all the quick jokes that try to wrestle a laugh from mocking her identity, how all the little cruelties add up to make her feel like shit.

Now, when someone spits out some bile-disguised-as-humour about native people, I see my friend’s face scrunched up as she tried to hold in tears and I am not offended. I feel angry. I’m indignant, upset that the person doesn’t understand the harm their words can, and have, done. This isn’t the same chest-pinching I feel when similar jokes are directed toward my identity, but I think it’s a more powerful and more relevant feeling than a detached offendedness.

So I want to share a story that I hope will stop people from being merely offended by rape jokes. It’s a story that I don’t tell very often, and when I do tell it I tend to frame it flippantly, because I don’t like to acknowledge how scary it was.

When I was fifteen, I pushed a man off me and ran out of his house. He was my neighbour; he lived half a block down the street. I ran out his door, ran the half-block to my parents’ home, ran up the stairs and into the bathroom, where I filled my mouth with hand soap and tried to scrub out the taste of him. I ran to the shower and scrubbed my body until my limbs were red, yet still felt dirty. I felt like I’d done something wrong, since, even if I hadn’t wanted him to kiss me, I’d let him. He’d invited me into his house to show me some of his watercolor paintings and I’d followed him, assuming he was just being friendly. I felt afraid. My neighbour is an old man, but if he was younger, if I was not stronger than him, I’m don’t know what would have happened. The possibilities frighten me. I still cross to the other side of my street when I walk past his house.

It is experiences like that one which make it so difficult to hear rape jokes. I wonder, if I hadn’t been stronger, if I had been raped, how would that joke sound? I wonder, if I hadn’t run away, would I feel able to tell my friends my story, having heard them congratulate one another for “raping” their exams? I am reminded of my fear, the fear I feel walking down my street, the fear I now force myself to feel when I meet a friendly older man. The joke also alienates me, because I suspect its teller has never felt that fear. I find it difficult to imagine that anyone who has thought to themselves “if I don’t run now, I will likely be raped” would make a rape joke.

Does that sound like feeling offended to you?

When you make a rape joke and, seeing me cringe, apologize for offending me, you have misunderstood my reaction. When you say to your friend, “hey, don’t make rape jokes, they offend me,” although I commend you for speaking up, you are making this less than it is. Rape jokes are triggering and depressing and maddening and hurtful. Rape jokes remind me, and others who have had to confront rape, or the possibility of it, of the fear. The feeling that a rape joke engenders is not offendedness; the strength of the feeling is often so sudden, so disarming that I’m not able to respond to a joke before the conversation has left it behind.

I wrote this partly so that I’ll have something ready to say, next time, so that maybe I can shake the feeling quicker and address the joke before it’s been forgotten. I also wrote it with the hope of someday sharing it with people who are offended by rape jokes. If you are offended by rape jokes, please reconsider. Next time your hear one, please try to imagine me at fifteen, with soap bubbles sputtering out of my mouth as I try to hold in tears, and do not feel offended. Feel angry, feel ashamed, feel indignant that the person doesn’t understand the harm their words can do. I want you to feel these things, because you, you who are detached enough from these jokes that you could feel only offended, you can help.

Please, for the sake of us who are still trying to push down the clenching in our chests enough to speak, say something. If you do, it will make it easier for us to swallow the feeling, knowing that we have an ally nearby. If you are going to speak up, though, please call the joke what it is- hurtful, unacceptable, cruel- not offensive.

feministfuckdolltrainer:

expertcosmotips:

if he thinks rape jokes are funny go on a romantic boat ride with him and leave him in the middle of the fucking ocean to die

Sometimes Cosmo’s spot on.

talking about rape now.

I’m sure this person is referring to the torture I went through these past couple years, and not passive aggressively accusing me of something they have zero evidence of but have decided I deserve to die for, other than fellow QAnon cops conjecturing about what it must be like in Thailand, although none of them have lived there and wouldn’t know.