It's like the penny-arcade d kwolf joke over again. Or the spiderwoman crawling pose. From the article feels like they were joking about everyone getting raped, including men. Anyway, rape is a serious crime, no doubt about that and the joke might have crossed a line. But were do we draw a line by getting offended or not? These lines are pushed further out every time and sometimes limiting freedoms. Also, men can be…
Why not just hold your tongue instead of saying a joke about rape? Doesn't really seem like that much of a limitation of your freedom, and it might really have a positive impact on someone who has been through a terrible and traumatic experience. Doesn't really seem like not joking about rape is pushing the line out too far.
I can understand victims feeling violated by rape jokes. That's no laughing matter.
Rape jokes aren't nice and can be rude. I don't want tell rape jokes and neither should anyone, but context does matter.
Penny-Arcade's d__kwolf joke (which I was referring to) wasn't actually a rape joke. The act of rape was just a part of it. It was the crime that was overlooked by the hero because he already finished a quest not related to the crime. Even with the plea of the people, he didn't care about the crime and did nothing to help. And it still was considered offensive because having a reference to rape, whilst it wasn't promoting it in any shape or form. For me it wasn't a rape joke, because the main target of the joke wasn't the rape, but the behavior of the main character ignoring people in need because of his selfish acts. This is actually a common thing when you play an RPG games, where you have to decide which quests you're going to take. And on the top of that the person pleading for help was an actually a man. So it wasn't even painting women as being rape victims.
Now the joke in this issue was about rape. Rape was the main theme, but there was no actual target. There was no reference to gender. The joke was gender neutral. It was still in bad taste and shouldn't have been said. But in the end it was picked up by one individual and made it into a big issue. This is the problem of painting the act of rape to be against just one gender. I agree there are more rape victims of women then men. But rape is gender neutral. Everyone can be a rape victim regardless of their gender.
I'm not a promoting rape jokes.
I'm against harsh punishments for things that clearly are minor offences, like a joke with no actual target.
Also read my other reply. I hope that clarifies my stand on this.
Rape jokes are bad. Harsh punishments for a bad jokes are worse.
These issues just widen the gap between genders and not close it.