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Comment by Jensson | Hacker News Reader

> The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind.

Rape jokes aren't at anyone's expense. A joke at someone's expense would be making fun of someone, a rape joke is just something like "9 out of 10 enjoys gang rape" etc, that isn't what people mean when they say "joke at someone else's expense".

So to me your post just shows that you lack the social awareness to understand these things, and if you grew up in a different environment you would have happily made rape jokes.

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Rape jokes normalize sexual violence, and create an intimidating atmosphere for anyone who may potentially be a victim, or may unfortunately have already suffered. To me, they are also a clear marker of someone who never matured enough to express their sexuality in a healthy fashion.

SA may have had a lot of that shit back in the day (and may still in some corners, I’ve never spent much time in FYAD), but it shouldn’t take long at all for anyone to notice that the community there has evolved well past that kind of exclusionary behavior.

> Rape jokes normalize sexual violence

And it's still claimed that violent video games normalised violence, despite research suggesting otherwise. So is the above claim something that is researched fact, or your opinion?

It's a very well researched fact. Evidently, you didn't try Googling "rape jokes link to violence" before asking this, or you would find many studies, like [1].

Exhibit 1: A bad-faith question: something that is very eaisly answered with a single Google search, but instead asked in a conversation to cast doubt on what the other person just said.

[1] https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/sexist-humor-and-rape-proclivity...

> Evidently, you didn't try Googling..

Google isn't research. Search results only have to look right, they don't need to be right. That aside, it's not my claim to provide evidence for, that burden is on the claimant.

Attacking my character with an ad-hom, and suggesting I'm acting in bad-faith doesn't impress me either - notice how I say "the burden of proof is yours" without calling you lazy, or implying you have an agenda.

wrt "Sexist Humor and Sexual Aggression Against Women" - do you have a link to the original study and/or methodology (e.g. the paywalled pdf)?

The claim being explored here is "Rape jokes normalize sexual violence" - how that is to be interpreted is open to question, but:

- The study appears to focus on sexist and/or "control-primed" men specifically, so not a representative sample of men in general. The original link even specifies "sexist men" - again, I'd like to know how this is defined.

"[men in the study] scores in hostile sexism reported a higher rape proclivity when exposed to sexist (vs. neutral) humor"

- How is "rape proclivity" gauged/determined? Incidentally, I'm suspicious of "self reported" anything unless it is explicitly confirmed as "self validated" as well - that game has already played out in studies describing "self reported victims of sexual assault" who didn't incidentally agree with that label, but who'd descriptions where matched against a pre-determined definition of assault, whether the subject agreed with that definition or not.

- what timescale does this represent? I consider the original claim to be one of long-term, or persistent effect per the term "normalize"; not a short-term suggestive one.

I never said that people should continue making rape jokes, I don't find them funny either.

> So to me your post just shows that you lack the social awareness to understand these things

Your first comment used autistic people as an example to advance your argument. When an autistic person used personal experience to counter your argument, you defended your argument by accusing the autistic person of lacking the social awareness needed to understand the point they just made.

Frankly, your comments aren't making any sense.

My point was that people who make rape jokes as young adults stops with it when they realize that other people gets disturbed by them. An autistic person who never made rape jokes isn't a counter example for anything, and that autistic person saying that other autistic people should just naturally understand that rape jokes are bad doesn't prove anything either.

>An autistic that never made rape jokes isn't...

Seems like you're referring to me here, and again, are making unsubstantiated assumptions. Is that a hobby of yours?

I've told this particular joke, and didn't find it problematic in the past. I learned.

See, it doesn't have to do with social aweareness. After thinking about it, I figured it's bad to think that way (as explained above).

>other autistic people should just naturally understand that rape jokes are bad

Never said that. Please don't lie.

>doesn't prove anything either.

Your claim that autistic people are more likely to make that joke because of their autism is

1) incorrect, as proven at least by this counterexample, plus the analysis above, and observation that autistic women aren't seen telling rape jokes at the same rate as all men;

2) offensive to autistic people, by implying that figuring this out is a-priori beyond their reach;

3) not a claim you are qualified to make.

Please stop.

Autism doesn't make people douchebags, making rape jokes does.

What an idiotic comment. Not liking and making rape jokes = "lacking social awareness"?

The fact that somebody would act different if they grew up in a different environment isn't an argument for anything. If I grew up in Jim Crow era America, my likelihood of being a segregationist is increased which proves nothing about the virtue of that belief.

Also, "baby burning jokes" are exclusively funny to 14 year olds and the perpetually adolescent mind. They're not considered the height of comedy in any mainstream circle.

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