On this particular thread, I thought it was the term "raped" being used casually that was disputed, not the act itself? I mean, people say stuff like "you KILLED it" or "we got murdered in that game", and no one cares, and it definitely wouldn't warrant a 19 page thread. Then again, I guess victims of murder aren't around to complain about it huh.
Backlash after WC rape jokes flood Twitter
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
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Seen some very rum humour after Brazil's defeat to Germany. This forum used to have it once. Now it may as well be called reddit.
The discussion does have a gender (feminism) context because the people doing the assaulting (in the very vast majority of cases) are male. Those it happens to are most often female.
Fewer jokes about it, less trivialization, taking (all) sexual assault more seriously as an 'orrible crime doesn't seem that unreasonable. And keeping the word 'rape' as only having its one nasty meaning is a start.
Fewer jokes about it, less trivialization, taking (all) sexual assault more seriously as an 'orrible crime doesn't seem that unreasonable. And keeping the word 'rape' as only having its one nasty meaning is a start.
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The non-sexual and now largely obsolete meaning of rape isn't an apt metaphor for beating someone either. Rape means the seizure of someone or something by way of a violation. It doesn't mean to beat the living shit out of someone you face in a struggle of some sort.
It's a shite analogy for defeating someone in a football match no matter what definition is used.
I initially avoided commenting on this thread as all rape discussions go, all opinions have to be black and white. As that's how it's turned out in this thread. Anyone with a different opinion is chastised. For instance it's not as though those with gray opinions are in support of rape and rapists. I don't know how Lothar's points have been made out as ignorant.
The word 'rape' is synonymous with 'abuse', 'attack', 'destroy' etc. The word does exist outside the context of sexual abuse. However most people tend not to use as it mostly infers to sexual abuse.
Rape to me was forcing someone, who is unwilling to, to have sex with you. It's brings up the image of the man standing in the shadows and pouncing on women. Psychologically 'the man in the dark alley' rarely do what they do for pure sexual gratification. It is an exercise of power and dominance. To them it's a mental health issue. I don't see why it's wrong to advise women to protect themselves here. So much so it becomes victim blaming.
Now let's cast that aside. As the stats show most rapes are committed by men who already know the lady. Now this is where I agree we need to educate men on the issue. I saw an advert on tv recently doing just that. Simply, if the girl is not in the right frame of mind to consent, it's rape.
I can use myself as an example. Some years ago I was at a party and this lady was coming on to me. As the night went on, things got more intense. Now she was a beautiful lady, so I was very welcoming of her advances. In fact the only reason nothing happened that night was the environment we were in at the time. There's always tomorrow I thought. No!
The following day, she couldn't look me in the eye the whole day and avoided me. She was embarrassed by what happened the night before. I knew she was drunk then but I couldn't care less; she was hot! Any other setting & we would've slept together. Judging by her behaviour the next day there's no way she would've consented to sex if she was in the right frame of mind. This would've technically made me a rapist!
Now I know better than to get involved with drunk girls but I can only imagine how many guys in my case would have gone on to rape that girl. Not out of malice or power but a sense of opportunism borne out of ignorance.
Like murder, there are degrees to what constitutes to rape. I remember Ken Clarke got in trouble for saying something similar but I thought he had a point. Throwing a blanket on the issue and claiming there is a rape culture perpetuated by men; thus men should stop raping won't solve anything. Both men and women need to be educated equally on this.
The word 'rape' is synonymous with 'abuse', 'attack', 'destroy' etc. The word does exist outside the context of sexual abuse. However most people tend not to use as it mostly infers to sexual abuse.
Rape to me was forcing someone, who is unwilling to, to have sex with you. It's brings up the image of the man standing in the shadows and pouncing on women. Psychologically 'the man in the dark alley' rarely do what they do for pure sexual gratification. It is an exercise of power and dominance. To them it's a mental health issue. I don't see why it's wrong to advise women to protect themselves here. So much so it becomes victim blaming.
Now let's cast that aside. As the stats show most rapes are committed by men who already know the lady. Now this is where I agree we need to educate men on the issue. I saw an advert on tv recently doing just that. Simply, if the girl is not in the right frame of mind to consent, it's rape.
I can use myself as an example. Some years ago I was at a party and this lady was coming on to me. As the night went on, things got more intense. Now she was a beautiful lady, so I was very welcoming of her advances. In fact the only reason nothing happened that night was the environment we were in at the time. There's always tomorrow I thought. No!
The following day, she couldn't look me in the eye the whole day and avoided me. She was embarrassed by what happened the night before. I knew she was drunk then but I couldn't care less; she was hot! Any other setting & we would've slept together. Judging by her behaviour the next day there's no way she would've consented to sex if she was in the right frame of mind. This would've technically made me a rapist!
Now I know better than to get involved with drunk girls but I can only imagine how many guys in my case would have gone on to rape that girl. Not out of malice or power but a sense of opportunism borne out of ignorance.
Like murder, there are degrees to what constitutes to rape. I remember Ken Clarke got in trouble for saying something similar but I thought he had a point. Throwing a blanket on the issue and claiming there is a rape culture perpetuated by men; thus men should stop raping won't solve anything. Both men and women need to be educated equally on this.
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Are you being deliberately disingenuous, or are you just unbelievably fucking stupid? That link clearly relates to prison inmates, not the general population. And given that male and female prisoners are housed seperately, and men do most of the raping, it's not entirely surprising that more men are raped in prison, is it? Unless you really think only 90,000 rapes happen outside of prison in the US, a country of 300,000,000
Its totally okay to say ''murder'' in football terms.. but no, never rape #feminism
Alright, don't bother answering my earlier question, we have our answer here. You're just unbelievably fucking stupid.
I usually made the experience that two (three) groups of (white) men who usually don't like this suggestion.
The first one are those who have worked really hard to get to where they are get a lot of confidence through their work and monetary related achievements. They probably feel that them belonging to a group that supposedly had it easier in life than other groups would diminish their achievements and invalidate their own hard work as the main factor to getting where they are now.
The second group of men who generally reject the notion of white male privilege are people who are actually treating everyone in their environment very much equal and for some reason can't see outside their own bubble and notice that the world outside of it often shows a different behavior. They think because they aren't treating women unfairly no one else does either and thus think the whole accusations coming from feminists are absurd.
Oh yeah and then of course there is the very small group of actual misogynists that think the patriarchy is the natural/biological/religious order of the world and a good thing.
In addition to this, it's about what line of work you choose to do. Equal pay for equal work and all that, which I'm pretty sure we have in Norway.
Flimsy argument.
Many women rapes go unreported.
Literally everyone has laughed at something that someone else, somewhere has found offensive (and found offensive for good reason).
I find the hypocrisy obnoxious.
I find the hypocrisy obnoxious.
And male rapes don't?
Exactly.... So it isn't an exact science, is it ?
Absoloutely not. I can never quite get my head around stats for unreported crimes being thrown about with any accuracy.
That report you called a "flimsy arguements" was not from unreported cases though.
I meant in general, not particularly that article, sorry.
Outstanding post.
I do probably agree, but it's an interesting issue.
Is joking about rape extra bad because of obvious issues raised by @montpelier, or just because rape is horrible?
Someone earlier brought up dead baby jokes. I think all agree that killing babies is pretty high up on the list of horrible things to do, yet I really don't think people making these jokes trivializes anything. The context obviously matters when deciding if it's tasteless or not.
Similarly, in certain contexts and situations I really don't see the problem with rape jokes (or racist jokes, jokes about pedophiles, misogynistic jokes etc.), but on a public forum like Twitter these lines are harder to get right.
Is joking about rape extra bad because of obvious issues raised by @montpelier, or just because rape is horrible?
Someone earlier brought up dead baby jokes. I think all agree that killing babies is pretty high up on the list of horrible things to do, yet I really don't think people making these jokes trivializes anything. The context obviously matters when deciding if it's tasteless or not.
Similarly, in certain contexts and situations I really don't see the problem with rape jokes (or racist jokes, jokes about pedophiles, misogynistic jokes etc.), but on a public forum like Twitter these lines are harder to get right.
How did this blow up into a 20 page thread?
I've only skimmed through but I can't believe some of the things being said in here. I'll try to tackle a few.
Rape isn't an innocuous word that can be thrown around freely to describe a sporting event, it invokes a real emotive response from many people who are rightly offended. Don't argue that the word's being used in a different sense when it comes to football because it clearly isn't.
Feminism isn't about screwing over the male population either, its about achieving equality between both sexes.
As for Rape culture and rape itself. It doesn't matter whether the victim is male or female its still a horrible crime that affects more females anyway so why even bring into the argument that more males are raped? What is the point?
In my criminal law class, we had a police officer as a student or former police officer, lecturer asked how would you feel if a woman was walking naked through an alleyway one night with a sign on her saying "I love sex" was raped, would you believe her? The police officer said "Well she must have been asking for it then". I am not joking and neither was he. Victim blaming is a serious problem.
We all know rape is wrong so why do seem feel that rape jokes are funny? They are not.
I've only skimmed through but I can't believe some of the things being said in here. I'll try to tackle a few.
Rape isn't an innocuous word that can be thrown around freely to describe a sporting event, it invokes a real emotive response from many people who are rightly offended. Don't argue that the word's being used in a different sense when it comes to football because it clearly isn't.
Feminism isn't about screwing over the male population either, its about achieving equality between both sexes.
As for Rape culture and rape itself. It doesn't matter whether the victim is male or female its still a horrible crime that affects more females anyway so why even bring into the argument that more males are raped? What is the point?
In my criminal law class, we had a police officer as a student or former police officer, lecturer asked how would you feel if a woman was walking naked through an alleyway one night with a sign on her saying "I love sex" was raped, would you believe her? The police officer said "Well she must have been asking for it then". I am not joking and neither was he. Victim blaming is a serious problem.
We all know rape is wrong so why do seem feel that rape jokes are funny? They are not.
In the same way that the Holocaust was pretty crazily wrong, yet jokes involving Hitler, Jews and gas chambers can be funny I would guess.
And yes, I mentioned Hitler.
And yes, I mentioned Hitler.
Hey Bacon, just out of curiosity, did you create this account specifically for this thread, so that you don't risk your regular account? I guess this thread has the potential to attract a trigger happy mod with a big ban-stick. Not that what you said is ban-worthy in my opinion...
Specifically for this thread, yes, but to calm fears of a hypothetical bacon shortage. This is my only account.
Many women rapes are made up
All the better to use to make a point then, how can you write satirically without hyperbole?
Please can you provide a list of what I am and am not allowed to find amusing.
Please can you provide a list of what people are and are not allowed to get offended by.
Alright, so it's quite clear you're just trolling now. And looking at your choice of username, I'm surprised I didn't pick up on this earlier.
He/she didn't say they were offended, they decided it wasn't funny, which is a different thing I think.
Why did I not follow my gut to not enter this thread?
A more appropriate way to look at it is that nearly 94% of rapes are committed by males, which doesn't speak well for primarily 30 and under males (the main demographic who rape) trivializing the use of the term for football or other reasons.
Well, the majority of the people who use the rape metaphor in the contexts we're talking about here aren't even attempting satire or comedy. They're just lazily using a term which was coined by teenage gamers whose vocabulary any intelligent person should shun rather than incorporate.
In theory you can make a cracking joke about rape, just as you can make a cracking joke about concentration camps and baby killers. It requires the right context, though, and a bit of wit. None of which is present when you thoughtlessly use rape as a metaphor for beating someone in a football match.
A clown? Vocabulary of a 12 year old?
The English language is used all over the world. Some words have multiple meanings and some people somewhere may know those meanings and use the word in a perfectly correct way. Usage is not always the same everywhere.
If I saw the halftime score of the Germany-Brazil game and I commented to my friend that Brazil was getting raped, he would know that Brazil was being badly beaten rather than sexually assaulted. It wouldn't be said or received as a joke. Simply a statement. There's your sentiment. Okay?
All that said, the sexual assault of any person is abhorrent, and to trivialize that by making jokes about it is repugnant.
What, you'd deny that the use of that particular word displays a lack of imagination and power of expression? C'mon, it's the go-to description of choice for those who ignorantly confuse right with might...
Yes.
Maybe the most ironic thing of all is that the "rape jokes" made in the context of football are most often blatantly meant to evoke male on male rape; for obvious reasons.
You actually have to decontextualise the language for it to evoke the literal rape of a female by a male.
It's somewhat akin to women claiming that Catholic child rape jokes are misogynistic, simply because they're about rape, because of this strange logic that all rape is about women, even when it's not at all. I've never heard of feminists taking offence to rape jokes about male children. There, context is seemingly understood by all.
Still, 20 page discussion on feminism
The hand-wringing condemnations by people who have made or laughed at countless politically incorrect jokes in their lives
You actually have to decontextualise the language for it to evoke the literal rape of a female by a male.
It's somewhat akin to women claiming that Catholic child rape jokes are misogynistic, simply because they're about rape, because of this strange logic that all rape is about women, even when it's not at all. I've never heard of feminists taking offence to rape jokes about male children. There, context is seemingly understood by all.
Still, 20 page discussion on feminism
The hand-wringing condemnations by people who have made or laughed at countless politically incorrect jokes in their lives
Whoever said rape isn't a word that means to beat the shit out of your opponents; If that's the way it's used then that's exactly what rape means. It's called language change. The definition of rape has broadened to mean something new and not just be associated with the crime. If it continues rape might soon only be associated with winning sports and you'll see headlines in newspapers "Germany rapes Brazil".
In this case it's more than likely a new word will come along to replace rape.
Still words are arbitrary and mean what people want them to mean not what 'language purists' say they do.
In this case it's more than likely a new word will come along to replace rape.
Still words are arbitrary and mean what people want them to mean not what 'language purists' say they do.
Sure. Language develops - often in ways nobody could've predicted.
"I skull fecked my own mother" could become an accepted synonym for "I did well". Who knows? But rape as a metaphor for defeating someone isn't universally accepted yet. It remains a term mainly used by infantile feckwits on the Internet. Some years down the line this may certainly have changed. Until then people will react to the word being used in certain contexts. That too is perfectly natural. Just because a group of people use a word in a certain sense doesn't mean it should be accepted by other groups as part of the natural evolution of language. Some terms never catch on in the mainstream.
You don't have to accept it but youth culture is accepting it and that's how language change happens. To many people rape is now an acceptable word to use in this context which means people can choose to be offended by it or accept that it is a part of the lexicon of youths today. The same way people may see 'lol' and other slang words as unacceptable. I don't see anyone jumping down the throats of people who say bloody for example and no one explodes into rage when someone says 'my eyes' which could be considered extremely offensive in another culture. youth culture is different to other cultures it's meaningless trying to stop it changing because you can't. Rather than rape being used by 'infantile feckwits on the internet' they could easily call you a troglodyte; of course there's no sense in mudslinging.
I suppose what us older / wiser / obnoxious 'peeps' are saying is that this particular change of word use isn't helpful in the wider societal context and personally I don't think it'll stick (see also the 'N' word) - you wouldn't use that in 'polite company' neither, even though that's been 'evolving' for what... 25-30yrs now.
Motherf**k*r hasn't gone completely mainstream either or it's evolved into ''mother of all... has it? - which is interestingly not the same 'word' in the sense of what we understand words to be.
It's an interesting debate but I think 'rape' in the 'harmless' sense is still in the infantile / niche / subversive category meself.
Motherf**k*r hasn't gone completely mainstream either or it's evolved into ''mother of all... has it? - which is interestingly not the same 'word' in the sense of what we understand words to be.
It's an interesting debate but I think 'rape' in the 'harmless' sense is still in the infantile / niche / subversive category meself.
What is the debate now?
Does everyone agree you need to be careful of who the audience is before saying certain things, therefore not a good idea to use words like rape on twitter and facebook.
We often used to have debates on the Wenger Paedo chants, there would surely be victims and kids within ear shot of this. So its the same thing, and this is wrong too.
But even though in some peoples opinion it makes me a “clown with the vocabulary of 12-year old" in the scenario you are out with your mates it is totally harmless and is not hurting anybody assuming you don’t have overly sensitive buddies. (Thankfully I don’t)
Does everyone agree you need to be careful of who the audience is before saying certain things, therefore not a good idea to use words like rape on twitter and facebook.
We often used to have debates on the Wenger Paedo chants, there would surely be victims and kids within ear shot of this. So its the same thing, and this is wrong too.
But even though in some peoples opinion it makes me a “clown with the vocabulary of 12-year old" in the scenario you are out with your mates it is totally harmless and is not hurting anybody assuming you don’t have overly sensitive buddies. (Thankfully I don’t)