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Comment by ben0x539 | Hacker News Reader

Sure. But goat rape jokes still contribute to an atmosphere where rape is treated as a joke.

The fundamental difference between literalists and those of us who view the world in a humourous, ironic way is that, for the latter, nothing is off-bounds for a joke. We'll always offend those who believe that some matters are sacred, and the literalists will always annoy and disappoint us. It doesn't do much good for the two sides to argue over who's right, as they can't even agree on first principles.

Personally, I'm fine with goat rape.

I know ben0x539 can speak for himself, but you seem to accuse him of some form of rabid fundamentalism in order to get a half-baked point across. He didn't make any demands, he just voiced an opinion, which is totally fine, and your attempt of framing him as a dimwit devoid of a sense for irony offends me on his behalf.

Personally, I am not affected much by the use of rape in a joke, except that in general I find it cheap and unoriginal, therefore boring. If someone like Louis CK uses rape in one of his bits, it's funny because he is a comedic genius. Otherwise it's just thoughtless, or stupid even, and possibly brings up hurtful feelings in some people for the gain of nothing.

Annoyed and disappointed that people are concerned about rape. Wow.

He's changed it now. He's a pretty sensible guy!

Annoyed and disappointed that some people seem incapable of viewing a subject, and humour about a subject, as distinct phenomena.

I see them as distinct phenomena. I don't think making jokes about rape is literally as bad as rape. I'm not concerned that notch might be abusing animals because of his jokes. I don't think rape jokes are dangerous directly because I don't like rape.

I still think people should exercise more caution before making jokes about rape. It's very easy to get them wrong.

Are you also fine with racist jokes?

As long as they're funny. The more potentially offensive a joke, the sweeter the payoff if the teller hits the right note, and the harder it is to do so.

Are you seriously suggesting that some things can't be joked about?

I'd suggest that this particular joke isn't very funny or meaningful and in my eyes detracts more from the message than it adds to it.

I wouldn't want to have an offical list of things you can't joke about, but that doesn't mean that all jokes are necessarily funny, and won't make me think less of the person choosing to tell them.

You are issuing the point entirely. Notch is highlighting the fact that Callahan presented a loaded argument: that he only supports open platforms. He then highlights the sheer unfairness of the argument with an absurd and controversial statement of his own: that of goat rape.

That's not a joke, that's a form of argument ad absurdum.

My point is that his choice of absurd and controversial statement detracts from his point. I see what he's doing there, but I don't like it.

No one said you had to.

I don't believe the point was missed, the article could still use absurdity without the absurd act being rape. It was distracting to use rape as the absurd action and weakened the message delivery.

Actually, I think it strengthened the delivery. It made you and everyone else think about it and discuss it. Pretty effective really!

P.S. the iPad spellchecker sucks.

Looks like he read the concerns and changed it to murder. He's a pretty reasonable human being :-)

"Rape jokes are not jokes. Woman-hating jokes are not jokes. These guys are telling you what they think. When you laugh along to get their approval, you give them yours. You tell them that the social license to operate is in force; that you’ll go along with the pact to turn your eyes away from the evidence; to make excuses for them; to assume it’s a mistake, of the first time, or a confusing situation. You’re telling them that they’re at low risk."

http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-pre...

If you're speaking to a randomly selected adult American audience, on average, roughly 1 in 12 people in that audience have been raped. You're probably going to make a good portion of those people feel even more awful about being a victim -- never mind the PTSD. That should be good enough reason not to joke about it.

Every rape is one too many but these 1 in 12 (or 1 in 4) figures that we hear about, are dubious:

http://triggeralert.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-1-in-12-rape-st...

I am not saying that joking about rape is okay if "only" 1 in 40 women in the audience has been raped. Just that the figures are questionable.

>I am not saying that joking about rape is okay if "only" 1 in 40 women in the audience has been raped. Just that the figures are questionable.

They certainly are. FBI labs, who had every incentive to find otherwise, has discovered that, of every 100 sex crime reports filed by women, between 20 and 40 of them are false:

"False Rape Accusations May Be More Common Than Thought":

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194032,00.html

Researched by Wendy McElroy, editor of ifeminists.com (who also had every incentive to find otherwise, and who expected to).

Along those lines:

This study by forensic science researcher, Birgitte Schmidt Astrup, found that consensual sexual intercourse often produces genital lesions:

http://www.fsijournal.org/article/S0379-0738(11)00563-9/abst...

It's interesting, because the finding of genital lesions sometimes decide the outcome of rape cases.

Are you seriously suggesting that there are some contexts where rape is funny?

Yes, that is clearly what he is suggesting, and it's true. Dead babies, testicular cancer, and genocide can also be hilarious in the right circumstances.

However, the author must have decided that this wasn't actually one of those times, seeing as he changed the title to Don't be a goat murderer...

There may be some that are funny even if they are a bad idea and it generally shouldn't be the only criteria. Think at least twice before making a rape joke. If in doubt think of another joke.

Generally they are a bad idea and need to be carefully thought about. You should probably also stick to a few guidelines: the victim of the joke should not be the victim of the rape, it should not be trivialised (this includes inappropriate comparisions and probably the original title), it shouldn't be threatening and it shouldn't blame the victim. If you are not following these you probably need to think about it ten times and consider different viewpoints on it. Those more likely to be victims [women, maybe some other subgroups] (or who have actually been victims) have much more leeway.

Note that I don't think they should be banned unless there is a seriously threatening, harassing or inciting aspect but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be criticism.

I don't think any malice was intended by Notch but I think it fell in the trivialising category and I am glad that he has decided to change it. Being about an animal helped make it ridiculous but probably made the word rape unnecessary. The British 'shagger' or Australian 'rooter' would probably have worked OK although I don't know if there is a US equivalent lighter than the F-word. 'XXXXer' might have worked.

The verb "shagged" would have worked well in this case in the US. Not really American slang, but it would be understood.

I don't pretend to be an expert in comedy, but I would say George Carlin was...

A common theme you hear from just about every comedian out there is that anything can in fact be made into a joke. Nothing is off limits.

Two notes:

* That is not to say that everything is a joke.

* That is an answer to "Can it be joked about?", not "Should it be joked about?".

Here's someone suggesting that: http://www.thenation.com/blog/168856/anatomy-successful-rape... (among a number of other points)

I'm not entirely convinced that it is ever a good idea to make a rape joke, but I see where her argument is going.

Well, those two jokes, in context, are about how rape is bad. In this particular case, and in Daniel Tosh's case - it's nowhere near as clearcut. Notch was casting around for something bad, and happened to pick rape :\

And goat murder jokes contribute to an atmosphere where murder is treated as a joke.

Seriously?

Yeah this is political correctness gone wild. You can tell a good joke about anything, and you can tell a joke in poor taste about anything as well.

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