I know, and that's a problem. I was in that number, too.
To be clear, I didn't say that this is what people who tell the joke think. I was explaining why, as you said, rape is a bad choice of humor to the parent commentor, who didn't see it as such.
>It's gallows humor, more or less.
Gallows humor would be me saying, to another Jewish person, that we'll going to be debating whether a particular act was antisemitic or not all the way to the concentration camp.
A sexual assault survivor telling that rape joke would be gallows humor, too.
> When somebody says, "I'm gonna kill the next telemarketer who tries to sell me an extended car warranty!" do you think they are literally glorifying murder???
No, but that has to do with the reality that telemarketers aren't being actually murdered en masse (whereas, as #metoo showed, women are raped en masse).
But if somebody said "I'm gonna kill the next n----- that touches my driveway", I wouldn't feel easy - because shit like that does happen [1].
> The idea is that you're laughing because you know that rape/murder/whatever is wrong
Hate to be Captain Obvious again, but if the idea of rape was, indeed, as outlandish as murdering a telemarketer, every other woman wouldn't have a sexual assault story to tell.
Also, "rape is wrong" alone doesn't make the joke funny.
Here's another joke to consider:
Why did the Kenosha police shoot Jacob Blake seven times? Because they ran out of bullets.
Instead, the judge judged the person making the joke as too biased to be on the jury.
The ability to judge people by the kind of jokes they make, when, and to whom is what we're talking about here.
>You don't have to make it more horrifying than it already is by assuming that everybody who jokes about a disturbing topic is actually endorsing it in a literal way.
The assumption is not there :) In the sense that perpetuating a stupid joke like that does not mean the person is endorsing it consciously.
But the net effect amounts to the same.
Going back to rape, we'd live in a better society if men were taught by the culture that sexual intercourse with an unwilling participant is inherently unenjoyable.
Just imagine that, for a second. Would that joke be a single bit funny?
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/us/texas-driveway-killing...
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P.S.: You seem to have assumed that the question I asked ("What mind finds deliberately hurting another human being an enjoyable pastime?") was rhetorical, with an obvious answer. It's not. It's a question to think about.
My personal answer is: "a mind that I don't want my mind to be". What's yours?
However...
Hate to be Captain Obvious again
[unlike a rape joke, the joke about murdering telemarketers
is okay because of] the reality that telemarketers aren't
being actually murdered en masse (whereas, as #metoo showed,
women are raped en masse)
Gallows humor would be me saying, to another Jewish person,
that we'll going to be debating whether a particular act was
antisemitic or not all the way to the concentration camp.
A sexual assault survivor telling that rape joke would be
gallows humor, too.
However, you can joke about concentration camps, and that's gallows humor, despite not having actually been sent to one? As one of Jewish descent, I do not dispute that the reality of the holocaust has affected you in myriad direct and indirect ways that I can not fully understand.[1] But the same could be said of sexual assault. The statistics are stark: essentially, literally everybody has been affected by it directly or indirectly. I haven't been raped, but loved ones have.
And how does this relate to the telemarketers example? You say it's okay to joke about killing them, because telemarketer murder is not really a thing and therefore we recognize it as a joke, however, you can joke about Nazis when Nazis (and their ideological cousins/descendants) are still very much a thing?
In the sense that perpetuating a stupid joke like that
does not mean the person is endorsing it consciously.
But the net effect amounts to the same.
But I think you're overlooking some key things here. When examining humor it's crucial to understand not only the topic being joked about, but the target or butt of the joke.
If I say, "so-and-so is a shitty person; he probably rapes gerbils in his spare time" then that is a pretty bad choice. I wouldn't say that. But it also is pretty impossible to frame that as even an implicit or unconscious endorsement of rape. While a poor choice, it can't be compared to a "joke" like "9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape" or whatever.
Going back to rape, we'd live in a better society if men
were taught by the culture that sexual intercourse with
an unwilling participant is inherently unenjoyable.
Other forms of rape are probably more about a lack of empathy and/or communication. Partner 1 understands that unwilling sex is bad, but has deluded themselves into thinking that sex is really what Partner 2 wants.
---
[1] However, my grandfather (Jew) nearly died in a Nazi labor camp, so I'm not entirely disconnected from that reality either... at least we can hate Nazis together.
>OK, so let me get this straight. Only actual, literal sexual assault survivors can joke about it and have their jokes justified as gallows humor?
I never said only, did I? I said that in this context, it would be gallows humor.
By definition, gallows humor is joking about a grim situation that the person making the joke finds themselves in. A rape victim joking about rape in that way would be an example of gallows humor.
>However, you can joke about concentration camps, and that's gallows humor, despite not having actually been sent to one?
Yes, because I am Jewish, if that was not clear from the context, and the possibility of being killed for being Jewish isn't a remote fantasy, as you know full well. 2 of my great-grandparents died fighting, grandpa on father's side went to Berlin and back. That doesn't matter for my argument, though; what matters more is that the Pittsburgh shooting happened here and now.
Joking possibility of being killed for being Jewish is an example of gallows humor when you are a Jew and that possibility exists for you.
>you can joke about Nazis when Nazis are still very much a thing?
You can always joke about the Nazis. This doesn't have to do with them being a thing or not. It has to do with who is the butt of the joke.
The fine print to "jokes at someone's expense = bad" is "...when someone is defined by characteristics they didn't choose". Rape victims didn't choose to be raped. Jews didn't choose to be Jewish. People don't choose who they are attracted to, or what color their skin is.
But being a Nazi is a choice. Joke away.
Whether something is a thing or not a thing has to do with whether what you say will be perceived as a figure of speech or an actual concern, that doesn't really factor in here.
>But I think you're overlooking some key things here. When examining humor it's crucial to understand not only the topic being joked about, but the target or butt of the joke.
To the contrary, that was exactly my point from the very beginning :)
>If I say, "so-and-so is a shitty person; he probably rapes gerbils in his spare time" then that is a pretty bad choice. I wouldn't say that. But it also is pretty impossible to frame that as even an implicit or unconscious endorsement of rape.
Well of course, because gerbils being raped is not a concern. We're on the same page here.
>The rapists aren't under the illusion that what they're doing is enjoyable.
They enjoy the power. They aren't raping out of obligation, after all.
>Other forms of rape are probably more about a lack of empathy and/or communication. Partner 1 understands that unwilling sex is bad, but has deluded themselves into thinking that sex is really what Partner 2 wants.
Potato potato, and it's incredibly common.
And if they clearly don't want it, then the rapist thinks they should, so it doesn't matter.
I know at least two women who's been raped by their spouses over extended periods of time off the top of my head. Many more who were raped / sexually assaulted at some point.
Rapist Brock Turner's father complained that his son getting justice is a "steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action". That's how these people see it - it's "just some action" to them.
Jokes like "9 out of 10 people" help perpetuate this view.
Do we still need the help of Captain Logical Consistency? :)
Listen, though: your heart's in the right place. That's really the important thing.
I mean, I'm not here to "win" a discussion, just hoping to present my point of view. And it looks to me like we agree on everything, so I'm surprised to leave you with this impression.
In any case, it was great to talk!
First, I agree: rape is a bad choice for humor. For a number of reasons.
Second, sexual assault is a huge problem and it has affected my own life in various ways. People I love have been sexually assaulted. I've seen the damage and I'm sure that the damage runs deeper than I can truly know.
However...
As somebody who used to employ/enjoy that sort of humor (long ago) I assure you that's rarely what anybody is thinking when they tell that sort of joke.It's gallows humor, more or less. The idea is that you're laughing because you know that rape/murder/whatever is wrong. The jokes generally make no sense otherwise. For many it's even sort of a coping mechanism. It's not entirely dissimilar to the appeal of horror/slasher movies - folks generally aren't watching them because they think murder and torture are "enjoyable pastimes" in a literal sense.
Or when somebody says, "I'm gonna kill the next telemarketer who tries to sell me an extended car warranty!" We understand that they are using hyperbole: murder (a thing we acknowledge is wrong) would clearly be an unethical and disproportionate response. Therein lies the humor.
Again, please let me restate that I agree with you: rape is a very poor choice for humor. But your posts lead me to believe there is a deeper misunderstanding at work.