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Why do these people assume that raped people want them putting on such a noisy rape-is-bad awareness show of "support"? How about advocating for changes that ma

Why do these people assume that raped people want them putting on such a noisy rape-is-bad awareness show of "support"? How about advocating for changes that make rape less likely and, if possible, the social consequences to victims less severe? For example: more men than women in the U.S. are raped (though a woman not in prison does have more to fear, rationally). Getting offended by crude humor is fine as a personal aesthetic choice. Drawing attention to it seems futile.

drhayes9 13y ago
It's not the original comic that's at issue. It's Penny Arcade's response to the criticism they've received about it. It's not a "noisy rape-is-bad awareness show", it's protesting against a company that, quite literally, profited from a rape joke. And then said that they regretted not profiting from a rape joke. As far as advocating against rape, that's what this is. Poking fun at people who've been raped contributes to rape culture. Rape culture contributes to the conspiracy of silence around sexual assault (i.e. "They're gonna make fun of me too"). It's not that all taboo topics are off-limits for humor. It's that PAX bills itself as a safe space except for those times when the creator of the property wore a shirt making fun of rape victims' fear.
- mhurron 13y ago
  > It's not that all taboo topics are off-limits for humor. Unless it's rape, then even mentioning it is 'poking fun at people who've been raped,' right?
  - drhayes9 13y ago
    Nope. And, as a bonus, you're deliberately misinterpreting what I'm saying. Cool. Good humor punches up. Making a shirt that makes rape victims uncomfortable is punching down. Easy, right?
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      I think his point is that the original joke was punching at video game heroes (and the humans who play as them, the same people who are presumably the audience of the comic...), not at rape victims. What followed was obviously a bit less benign... but the original joke was not "punching down". (Also, the quality of humor is pretty subjective, I don't think there is a productive conversation to be had there.)
      - drhayes9 13y ago
        Honestly, I thought the original comic was spot-on and loved it. The dickwolves thing didn't get past my rape joke barometer. Still doesn't. Of course, I'm a mostly-white, cismale, upper-middle class programmer who's never been sexually assaulted so I'm skewered by all kinds of privilege here. But I'm talking about PA's reactions, about what came after. So's the post on Wired. And it seemed clear to me that he was trying to bait me by throwing my words back at me without context without contributing to the discussion.
        jlgreco 13y ago
        I don't disagree. It seems to me that many people involved in this situation are purposely being imprecise to cause drama. Specifically there are two waves of people who got offended; the people who were offended by the comic, and the people who were offended by the reaction to the first wave. It seems like people like mhurron are purposely conflating the two waves to cause strive, though it is possible it wasn't intentional.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- clavalle 13y ago
  Whenever the word 'culture' enters into an argument like this I tune out. The word is just not a useful label for anything anymore. It has been stretched far beyond any coherent idea it may have once described. It can be contorted to mean anything and often is, from argument to argument and even sentence to sentence.
dominic_cocch 13y ago
"For example: more men than women in the U.S. are raped" Where does this stat come from? Most stats I've seen on this issue say that about 9/10 sexual assaults are crimes against women.
- alecbenzer 13y ago
  Don't have a link but I recall seeing stats that implied men were raped more often when prison rape stats are included.
  - Anechoic 13y ago
    The one source I know of [2] claims 216,000 victims of "sexual abuse", but doesn't say specifically is sexual abuse means "rape" or if those numbers are only for male prisoners. 1. http://nplusonemag.com/raise-the-crime-rate http://nplusonemag.com/raise-the-crime-rate
- wutbrodo 13y ago
  A 2010 CDC study: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335603 Far be it from me to say that this is conclusive evidence or anything, but CDC data is generally accepted as quite reliable, and I can see why people would trust their data. Part of the confusion about this is that the CDC's definition of rape does not included "made to penetrate" (though their data does separate it out). Most people reasonably include this in their definition of rape, since all the arguments against doing so are the same rape-apologia nonsense you hear all the time, like "well clearly his [or her] body was responding, so while it sucks, I don't think you can call it rape". Also, the fact that rape in correctional facilities skews heavily towards men and is generally not included in statistics like this.

drhayes9 13y ago

It's not the original comic that's at issue. It's Penny Arcade's response to the criticism they've received about it. It's not a "noisy rape-is-bad awareness show", it's protesting against a company that, quite literally, profited from a rape joke. And then said that they regretted not profiting from a rape joke. As far as advocating against rape, that's what this is. Poking fun at people who've been raped contributes to rape culture. Rape culture contributes to the conspiracy of silence around sexual assault (i.e. "They're gonna make fun of me too"). It's not that all taboo topics are off-limits for humor. It's that PAX bills itself as a safe space except for those times when the creator of the property wore a shirt making fun of rape victims' fear.

mhurron 13y ago
> It's not that all taboo topics are off-limits for humor. Unless it's rape, then even mentioning it is 'poking fun at people who've been raped,' right?
- drhayes9 13y ago
  Nope. And, as a bonus, you're deliberately misinterpreting what I'm saying. Cool. Good humor punches up. Making a shirt that makes rape victims uncomfortable is punching down. Easy, right?
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    I think his point is that the original joke was punching at video game heroes (and the humans who play as them, the same people who are presumably the audience of the comic...), not at rape victims. What followed was obviously a bit less benign... but the original joke was not "punching down". (Also, the quality of humor is pretty subjective, I don't think there is a productive conversation to be had there.)
    - drhayes9 13y ago
      Honestly, I thought the original comic was spot-on and loved it. The dickwolves thing didn't get past my rape joke barometer. Still doesn't. Of course, I'm a mostly-white, cismale, upper-middle class programmer who's never been sexually assaulted so I'm skewered by all kinds of privilege here. But I'm talking about PA's reactions, about what came after. So's the post on Wired. And it seemed clear to me that he was trying to bait me by throwing my words back at me without context without contributing to the discussion.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        I don't disagree. It seems to me that many people involved in this situation are purposely being imprecise to cause drama. Specifically there are two waves of people who got offended; the people who were offended by the comic, and the people who were offended by the reaction to the first wave. It seems like people like mhurron are purposely conflating the two waves to cause strive, though it is possible it wasn't intentional.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
clavalle 13y ago
Whenever the word 'culture' enters into an argument like this I tune out. The word is just not a useful label for anything anymore. It has been stretched far beyond any coherent idea it may have once described. It can be contorted to mean anything and often is, from argument to argument and even sentence to sentence.

dominic_cocch 13y ago

"For example: more men than women in the U.S. are raped" Where does this stat come from? Most stats I've seen on this issue say that about 9/10 sexual assaults are crimes against women.

alecbenzer 13y ago
Don't have a link but I recall seeing stats that implied men were raped more often when prison rape stats are included.
- Anechoic 13y ago
  The one source I know of [2] claims 216,000 victims of "sexual abuse", but doesn't say specifically is sexual abuse means "rape" or if those numbers are only for male prisoners. 1. http://nplusonemag.com/raise-the-crime-rate http://nplusonemag.com/raise-the-crime-rate
wutbrodo 13y ago
A 2010 CDC study: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335603 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335603 Far be it from me to say that this is conclusive evidence or anything, but CDC data is generally accepted as quite reliable, and I can see why people would trust their data. Part of the confusion about this is that the CDC's definition of rape does not included "made to penetrate" (though their data does separate it out). Most people reasonably include this in their definition of rape, since all the arguments against doing so are the same rape-apologia nonsense you hear all the time, like "well clearly his [or her] body was responding, so while it sucks, I don't think you can call it rape". Also, the fact that rape in correctional facilities skews heavily towards men and is generally not included in statistics like this.