We’ve all heard the classic, “that test raped me,” when walking out of exams. A couple years ago, at face value, this comment didn’t mean a whole lot to me. Sure, I knew rape jokes were bad, but it never occurred that a statement as common as the one above was having a much larger impact on our culture and society.
My freshman year of college I befriended a group of students that was split just about 50/50 male-female. As I got to know them better and spent more time with them, one thing became very clear — the guys liked telling rape jokes. These weren’t jokes for the meek of heart, either. It got so bad that at one point I went to ask a homework question and overheard them saying they were “going to rape this girl” in their videogame. I asked the other members of this group if the constant “jokes” bothered them in any way; I was met with astounding confirmations. The whole situation was downright awful. I confronted the guys in this group and asked them why they thought rape jokes were so funny. Here are the responses I got:
“Well it’s not hurting anybody!”
“We’re trying to take back the word!”
“It’s starting a conversation!”
“We only say them around other guys!”
…. Needless to say I was not impressed.
I sat down with Becky Redetzke-Field, a legal advocacy coordinator for the University of Minnesota’s center for sexual violence and stalking, The Aurora Center , to discuss the actual impact of rape jokes. Let’s back up a minute and discuss… Why are rape jokes so bad? Well according to Becky, “ It would be a lot different if our society took rape and sexual assault seriously, and we’ve seen lots and lots of evidence as to how it was not taken seriously from public evidence from various criminal investigations and court cases” [cough, cough Brock Turner].
She said the main problem behind the use of rape jokes is the constant validation and repetition of the de-humanization of the language. “Of course, because we have the institutional validation of saying, ‘yeah this isn’t that big of a deal,’ that message gets cycled through society and leads to not taking sexual assault seriously. This mindset just continues in a vicious cycle. When will we take that [sexual assault] seriously?”
To put it plainly:
Joke: Simple Definition of joke
: something said or done to cause laughter
: a brief story with a surprising and funny ending
: someone or something that is not worth taking seriously
(Merriam Webster Dictionary)
This, my friends, is why your rape joke will never be funny.