I posted a link to this on twitter, but it really deserves wider distribution. Remember when I said that comedian, Rob Delaney can pull off a rape joke? Well, I meant it like the way I kinda make a rape joke here in this post, where the joke is on ‘rape culture’ and not rape itself.. where the point is that rape is bad and you are a fucking rapist if you rape someone. But the link I just put on twitter is not that.
This is a man telling a story about how he raped a woman one night and he genuinely thinks it is a funny story. Thinking rape is funny and normal is rape culture. The way lots of people in the audience understand that it’s not funny, including the professional comedians running the show, but they let it roll anyway, is also rape culture.
The clip is worth a watch interesting to me, if you can handle it (a very complete written description of it here), because while it is really unbelievably, incredibly disturbing it is also a classic example of how men who wouldn’t rape end up inadvertently supporting men who do rape. The situation goes on and on, gets more and more horrifying, everyone has less and less doubt about misreading the story.. and still it isn’t shut down.
This is bullshit and it should have been called out properly.
As an audience member, let me just say that his story filled me with a creeping dread. There is something so surreal about watching someone reveal something dark about themselves with a seeming total lack of self awareness, and with utter glee. Say what you will about comedians: most of us at least attempt to be self-aware. That being said, I know I’ve seen weird strains of misogyny rear their head at comedy shows before, though none as explicit (or, you know, real) as this one. As a white, nominally heterosexual woman I can’t speak to how LGBTQ comedians or comedians of color handle similarly ugly situations, but I have been at shows of all kinds where something deeply ugly boils to the surface of someone’s psyche, and I imagine the feeling is similar in those situations: one minute we’re all laughing and having a good time, the next we’re staring into the dark parts of a person’s soul, and they don’t even seem to realize that it’s there. Or that not everyone is laughing with them…
… The only good that comes out of this incident is that this guy is now preserved on film, revealing the graphic, unsettling details of a night most people would opt never to repeat out loud to anyone. However, the whole thing makes me think about how many times I’ve heard someone dismissed for “not being able to take a joke” or “just not getting the joke.” I think moments like this make it clear how profoundly and disturbingly different people’s viewpoints of the world can be. Not to get all Marc Maron on ya’lls asses (i.e. to get extremely Marc Maron on ya’lls asses), but I honestly believe that we as comedians are philosophers and poets and therapists, in addition to being normal fucked-up human beings. Even when we are telling butthole jokes, it’s a way to bring to the surface all the dark garbage floating around inside our humanity and expose it to the light. And when a person gets up in a public place and mugs to an audience about successfully fucking a woman who explicitly and repeatedly made clear she did not want to have sex with him, there’s a role for comedians to play, and to keep playing. And it’s not just to applaud.
blue milk 
The terms “psudo rapo” and “borderline rape” on those links bother me. From the story that he told, it was rape, and that man is a rapist.
I totally agree.. and this is his version of events, imagine what he’s left out?
I just got into a twitter argument with a comedian about a rape joke. Also about him being mean to my friend to pointed out the rape joke. I hate the world.
Kirstente, that sounds horrible.. times like that you wonder how fast we can get separatism going.
Separatism? Not sure what you mean, but I’m intrigued. In my part of the world, when we talk about separatism, we’re talking about Quebec separating from the rest of Canada.
Annie – I was thinking more, separatism, as in the feminists from the rest of the world. Less how do we live together in this mixed up world and more how do we colonise a new planet?
The description of it that I first read was here:
http://poupak.tumblr.com/post/9390393469/on-the-subject-of-rape
When I wrote about it, I slapped a big fat trigger warning on the video AND the descriptions. I don’t often do trigger warnings (I err on the side of making it clear what the post is about before it gets into details) but this was BAD. I warned people not to watch the video at all, because the smug bastard was just too much for me, and it’s not something that usually sets me reeling.
Thank you Anna, you’re right, this post needs to make it clearer just how disturbing that clip is.. have updated accordingly. Once in your mind, people, cannot be removed.
I find the clip interesting in terms of watching how everyone else around him is reacting. I think it is illustrates rape culture soooo well, but seeing it ain’t pleasant.
He describes rape. Not something somehow *akin* to rape. Even in the way he tells it, she’s not being coy – she doesn’t know this guy, doesn’t know if he’ll be violent with her. Oh she’s stronger than him so obviously he’s not a rapist? Surely a physically weak man can’t be a rapist?
Wow. I’m so filled with what-the-fuck over this. I know several women who have been nonviolently sexually assaulted and/or raped. There is very little recourse.
This is so incredibly disturbing. He chose to tell this story and thought it was FUNNY???
From the links and other posts I read about this, I had expected to watch the video and find the comedians and audience members becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the story and clearly show their disapproval.
Instead we can see very clear shots of all the men around him laughing the entire way through the story, laughter from the audience generally remaining, and the comedians on the stage laughing most of the way through, and one of them even clapping and doubling over with laughter when the guy finishes his story and other comedian says ‘and then you took it to the next level’.
This despite the fact that if they thought this was a fictional joke, it is beyond unfunny. And despite the fact that, seeing as they clearly thought it was not a fictional story, they should have pulled him up as a rapist the moment they heard his intention to have sex with a woman who he knew in advance was drunk and therefore unable to consent. And then at many, many other stages after that.
That there may be a man demented enough to tell do such an act and consider it an amusing anecdote is very, very disturbing. But as you said blue milk, what this clip illustrates is the absurd degree to which rape culture is perpetuated.
In other words….WTF????
Yes, I got sick of reading one of those links because in the comments they are talking about how well the people on stage handled it. I get that it was an awkward situation for them – especially not knowing exactly where the story was going. But they should have at the very least NOT LAUGHED. And better than that would have been if they pointed out it wasn’t funny, and even better than that would be if they had publicly shamed that man for bragging about raping someone.
Yes, I agree with you both.. from those written pieces I’ve linked to I, too, was expecting to find more overt rejection of this man from the comedians running the show.. but while I can see significant discomfort I don’t see condemnation. It amazes me how powerful the social drive to accept rapists is in comparison to the opposing drive to reject them.. that’s why I ended up finding it an interesting example of visual rape culture.
A friend of mine sent the story and video to Second City Chicago, and they responded within the day to say they were pursuing the case and planning to do whatever they could with regard to charges and all that.
Another friend actually KNEW the asshole, and is distributing the story around her neighborhood with his photo.
I’ve heard that too about Second City’s response. Thanks for updating here.
The rape-as-amusing-anecdote thing turns up in the most high-profile, ‘respectable’ places (documentaries, rockstar autobiographies, etc.). In the Chet Baker biographic documentary “Let’s Get Lost” an old friend tells a story about being in bed with a girl at a party, and Baker slipping in and raping her without her ever knowing it wasn’t it wasn’t the man she went to bed with. Of course he doesn’t call it rape, he just giggles about how ‘fast’ Chet was. There’s probably a whole film that could be edited together from pieces like this.
Actually yeah: “There’s probably a whole film that could be edited together from pieces like this”.
Someone needs to do that project, would be extremely telling.
[…] This is rape culture, and everyone is laughing (blue milk) […]
I watched it, feeling very disturbed, and then read a few comments on Jezebel that claimed it wasn’t rape-rape because she pinned him down (I don’t know if you’ve ever pinned someone down, but chances are that once you have, you’re stuck there, because whilst weight+strength might be enough to keep them there, the minute you move the whole equation gets recalibrated). The whole time, I just kept thinking about how much negotiating the woman in question was doing, to try to keep herself as safe as possible: the politeness, the avoidance of outright yelling at him, the drawing a line *here* but not *there*. It was so heartbreakingly clear to me, and it was just being read as, what, the usual womanly coquettishness or shyness or silly carryon to him and so many of the audience members? I can’t quite get over how all these hesitations and negotiations and stuff keep getting read as part of an acquiescence: the ‘do you at least have a condom?’ being read as assent when it’s really about self-protection. It was just so, so disturbing. Is it really so hard to hold enthusiastic participation as a standard of consent? Apparently so. I hate the world. A lot.
Yes, absolutely. Negotiation and survival, that’s what this poor woman was doing the whole time.
As far as I saw, the further comments went on to really take that first apologist to task. I say this as a former huge fan of Jezebel’s, who’s been since chased off by their lax attitude about rape.
Sure. I saw some of those, but I don’t tend to stick around long on Jezebel – too many of those kinds of comments for my taste. And the whole ‘someone says a shitty thing and everyone calls them out’ is irritatingly far away from ‘no one says anything shitty’. But very close to Jezebel.
[…] milk on some truly grotesque rape-as-comic-device bullshit. Deborah discusses the ridiculous “guidance” given to […]
Blue Milk, I just read through this and one thing caught my attention (it’s all interesting, don’t get me wrong) and that was the comment about going to colonize(sic) a new planet. Do you really want a single gender, like minded ie. feminist world or was it a reaction to the topic of rape. Truly interested.
Are you suggesting that I might miss those loveable rapscallion rape apologists after a while? ; )
I don’t know who these rapscallion’s are, I was thinking that the non-lesbian orientated women might want a Fu*k now and then. I’ve been told that women enjoy sex too, who knew!! 🙂 It’s just the idea of “Blokes world” and “Women’s world” is potentially so boring, once every one has expounded on how good it will be without having to explain everything twice, all the men have urinated on everything or the women have sorted out a nice clean place to go (with the seat glued down), then what?
There is no cure for rape yet and won’t be till we cure violence which is encouraged by greed and supported by all ruling class people (male/female) and so on, so on blah blah. Till then, I feel sorrow for all people that have been raped, assaulted, humiliated and hurt.
I’ve done what I can physically, I give my support digitally and verbally and until the cure is found this rapscallion will have to just say sorry to all the women and men that have been victims to that sub species of men and women that rape.
Thanks for your reply, I’ve been enjoying your Rants. Rant on,please.
Yeah, I like Bill very much and I want to continue having sex with him so he can be on my new planet.
I also like my brother, and my son and a bunch of male friends so I wouldn’t see my new feminist planet as being all women – feminist and pro-feminist people can live there together in non-raping harmony.
The big question here: is boredom really worse than living in constant fear?
Thanks for leaving the “door” open for some innocents to escape too, I’m not worthy but my nephew has and will never hurt anyone, so I’d be glad when he left this “pit”.
Living in fear must suck big-time, I got cancer and had a 3% chance to live. My fear was intense and uncontrollable but at least I knew that the threat had a self life. Constant fear is unimaginable to me, it must send people over the edge.
Sorry (oops) I had a coherent point to put forward but I’ve lost it. I hope it comes back, it was more intelligent than these. Guess I stay in the Gump isle for a while.
Happy ranting and peace to all.
[…] are targetting in your joke – like, is it making fun of rapists and rape apology or is it trivialising and normalising rape? Contrary to what anti-feminists think, you will probably find that a lot of other humorless […]