(trigger warning: rape, rape jokes) Here is why I refuse to take rape jokes sitting down…
Because 6% of college-aged men, slightly over 1 in 20, will admit to raping someone in anonymous surveys, as long as the word “rape” isn’t used in the description of the act—and that’s the conservative estimate. Other sources double that number (pdf).
A lot of people accuse feminists of thinking that all men are rapists. That’s not true. But do you know who think all men are rapists?
Rapists do.
They really do. In psychological study, the profiling, the studies, it comes out again and again.
Virtually all rapists genuinely believe that all men rape, and other men just keep it hushed up better. And more, these people who really are rapists are constantly reaffirmed in their belief about the rest of mankind being rapists like them by things like rape jokes, that dismiss and normalize the idea of rape.
If one in twenty guys (or more) is a real and true rapist, and you have any amount of social activity with other guys like yourself, then it is almost a statistical certainty that one time hanging out with friends and their friends, playing Halo with a bunch of guys online, in a WoW guild, in a pick-up game of basketball, at a bar, or elsewhere, you were talking to a rapist. Not your fault. You can’t tell a rapist apart any better than anyone else can. It’s not like they announce themselves.
But, here’s the thing. It’s very likely that in some of these interactions with these guys, at some point or another, someone told a rape joke. You, decent guy that you are, understood that they didn’t mean it, and it was just a joke. And so you laughed.
Or maybe you didn’t laugh. Maybe it just wasn’t a very funny joke. So maybe you just didn’t say anything at all.
And, decent guy who would never condone rape, who would step in and stop rape if he saw it, who understands that rape is awful and wrong and bad, when you laughed? When you were silent?
That rapist who was in the group with you, that rapist thought that you were on his side. That rapist knew that you were a rapist like him. And he felt validated, and he felt he was among his comrades.
You. The rapist’s comrade.
And if that doesn’t make you feel sick to your stomach, if that doesn’t make you want to throw up, if that doesn’t disturb you or bother you or make you feel like maybe you should at least consider not participating in that kind of humor anymore, not abiding it in your presence, not greeting it with silence…
Well, maybe you aren’t as opposed to rapists as you claim.
I’d always imagined the spread of birthdays across the year would’ve been even… apparently not.
This is an example of a gender and sexual minority using the word fagette to describe himself. This is an example of language evolving and a word being reclaimed.
This is an example of a straight guy thinking it’s funny to use the word faggot as a slur. Because Louis CK said it’s fine so it must be.
Bicycling is such an integral part of life in the Netherlands, you might think that Dutch people are born knowing how to cycle.
They aren’t, of course. What’s kind of wonderful is the way that they learn.
(Source: blackbutshining)
One of the most common arguments against same sex marriage is that “one man, one woman is the way it’s always been for thousands and thousands of years.” Yeah, but no. Humanity has and continues to practice almost every arrangement possible in the name of love, politics, religion and economics. While a man and a woman has been the most common due to biological impulse, it’s not everyone’s preference. Hell, between the 10th and 12th centuries, Christian churches had little problem performing same sex marriage.
So much love and support for Laura,
“Against Me! singer Tom Gabel reveals plans to begin living as a woman in the new issue of Rolling Stone. Gabel, who has dealt privately with gender dysphoria for years, will soon begin the process of transition, by taking hormones and undergoing electrolysis treatments.”
I wish all the warm fuzzies in the world for Laura Jane Grace.
Warm fuzzies, good cake and happy days from me to Laura, too! ♥
(Source: ryanhatesthis)
