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Well, the article is rather haphazardly written, but from what I gathered there was no rape joke. Rather, the statement was, quoting the author's context: One

Well, the article is rather haphazardly written, but from what I gathered there was no rape joke. Rather, the statement was, quoting the author's context: One of the presentations after lunch is by a GNU hacker. He starts his talk by stating his hope that he won't be seen as "offensive or part of rape culture or something". Which he deemed to be a trivialization of rape culture, but it was certainly not a "rape joke" by any conventional means.

zorpner 12y ago
Of course it's a rape joke (and even if it weren't, it wouldn't matter, because it's so obviously what the author intended to mean by "rape joke"). The intended humor is derived from the speaker trivializing the concern by implying that it's not valid (for example, if I had prefaced this post with "not to suppress free speech or anything, but..."). It's fairly obvious that the author of this post and the aforementioned tweet is not objecting to the tiny percentage of rape jokes implemented by talented comedians as a means of social commentary. He's referring to the vast majority of rape jokes and comments that diminish or trivialize the act and derive humor from the idea of rape as punishment (jailhouse rape, et cetera).
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  The joke is not a rape joke, because rape or rape culture is not the forefront of it. Rather, it's used as a background term, since it's well known and relevant to the main point. No, the keyword here is "offensive". The humor derives from the fact that the speaker is expressing concern that their words might be misconstrued to bear sinister connotations, when in fact they meant none. In that context, "rape culture" might be just about any negative social trend.
  - zorpner 12y ago
    Geez man, the casual/background use of "rape" is almost the definition of rape culture. The use of rape rather than the use of a different negative social trend is the problem. I wish I understood your perspective on this a little better -- reading through your comment history, you obviously have a pretty nuanced view on a lot of things, but from my standpoint you frequently conflate the right to free speech with a right to consequence-free speech (note that even in the tweet you posted, where the author hyperbolically claims to want to "stifle free speech", he includes the caveat that he doesn't want people to be "comfortable" joking about rape. I think that's an entirely reasonable sentiment).
    - marcus_holmes 12y ago
      This. Free speech is fine, as long as you're prepared to accept the consequences. Behave like a jerk and be judged as a jerk.
    - serf 12y ago
      > Geez man, the casual/background use of "rape" is almost the definition of rape culture. The use of rape rather than the use of a different negative social trend is the problem. Well, how come there is no murder-culture? (answer at the bottom of the post) We (in the US) casualize murder through television. We glorify serial-murderers, which often have rock-star style attention, groupies, and fame. Kids often joke about killing one another. Kids are happy to tell you when "they killed the bad guy". "Killing it" is a positive phrase of accomplishment. Paintball is a somewhat popular sport, which is nothing but people acting as if they were on-duty soldiers ready for killing, we kill animals for sport, and we give medals to soldiers who have killed 'the best'. There is definitely a huge problem with murder here.. Why there is no murder-culture: What rape-culture really is is the problem that we as a society have with placing the blame of a rape on the rape victim and not the perpetrator. Rape-culture is when a victim is criticized for their location and clothing; common due to the misconceptions behind how a rape occurs, and because of the tendency people have to be unable to place blame on an unknown quantity. A terrible tragedy that occurs too often. This, of course, cannot occur with a murder; both due to the social stigma of criticizing the dead, and simply for the fact that there isn't any longer a person to blame other than the perpetrator. It has nothing to do with the background use or casualization of a phrase, and that's the (wrong) kind of thinking that actually will hinder free speech.
      - dogecoinbase 12y ago
        This, of course, cannot occur with a murder... You, uh, might want to look at what's happening in Ferguson, MO right now.
        dmkolobov 12y ago
        Or just about any time cops gun down an unarmed person of color.
  - dmkolobov 12y ago
    The joke seems like a response to the efforts to implement the anti-harassment policy in question. In that context, this joke is, as others have stated, about trivializing concerns with rape culture in tech( valid concerns IMO ) . That sucks, even when you ignore the question of whether this is a real rape joke or not.
  - comex 12y ago
    Coming from the perspective (for better or worse) of someone with some exposure to feminism but not to the point of hearing the term "rape culture" frequently or anything like that – I can't agree with this. I basically agree with the grandparent. A joke that an innocuous presentation might be considered "offensive or part of rape culture or something" seems to me to derive its humor from a stereotype of people taking offense at things too easily and throwing around the term in question. If he were to speculate about, say, whether the presentation might be taken as encouraging gun violence, the joke would be nonsensical, because there would just be no reason to think it would. (In that case, an analogous situation would be if the presentation were about guns in video games, where he'd be having fun at the expense of an old tired trope.) To be fair, no matter what you think about feminist issues, it's simply factual that they're a hotbed of emotions, that many people will get worked up about them very very easily, as had been recently demonstrated in the mailing list thread. There's no shortage of similar pure tech issues - things like systemd vs. Upstart or BSD vs. Linux. In those cases, just about anyone would admit that the relevant flame wars tend to derail discussion and give off more heat than light, and similar jokes might be made causing little offense. But with the issues at hand, to which perceived trivialization in culture itself makes up a large part of the problem, there's a fine line between reacting to this phenomenon and making oneself an example. And as long as a joke can be reasonably interpreted as the latter, I think it would be far better to avoid it.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
4bpp 12y ago
He deemed it a trivialisation of rape culture and a "misogynist action". I find it worrying how nonchalantly the range of what is considered a transgression is being expanded in feminist circles from fairly universally agreed upon beginnings (rape) to ever higher meta-levels. First, jokes about rape and presumably any discussion that suggests nuances within the range of what has come to be included under the umbrella of "rape", both of which are at least a significant component of what they refer to as "rape culture", were included in it - and now, apparently, so have been jokes about this concept of "rape culture" and presumably any discussion that would involve statements to the effect of "A is a not particularly serious instance of rape culture in comparison to B" . It doesn't take many steps of this sort of generalisation to arrive at a closure of the form "you must not question X, and you must not question the prohibition of questioning X, etc.", which basically amounts to the punchline of those "the worst thing about censorship is [CENSORED]" bumper stickers. One of the reasons the fairly commonplace legal prohibitions against hate speech are not perceived as censorship is that it is perfectly legal to discuss those prohibitions in most countries that have them. This arrangement has been very serviceable as a compromise so far; I can't help but be very unsettled if large traditionally liberal segments of society are cannibalised by a prohibitory movement that deems it insufficient.
- dmkolobov 12y ago
  The authors opinion about the misogyny of the speaker's trivialization does not carry nearly the amount of weight as legal prohibitions on hate speech. I do not think it's valid to dismiss a community's right to enforce a code of conduct to protect its members within its bounds. Maybe it's my own opinions, but ideally that is how positive social change is implemented. I do not think trivialization of concerns about hate speech would fly in most liberally minded circles either. If you are defending nuanced discussion about the value of rape culture, then I think there are better examples of nuance than this joke. I think a lot of good would come if we stopped using the word "censorship", and just responded to what people actually had concerns with. Censorship is distinct from a dude stating his opinions, and encouraging others to agree with him. (Edit): * defending nuanced discussion about the value of rape culture as a concept
  - 12y ago

zorpner 12y ago

Of course it's a rape joke (and even if it weren't, it wouldn't matter, because it's so obviously what the author intended to mean by "rape joke"). The intended humor is derived from the speaker trivializing the concern by implying that it's not valid (for example, if I had prefaced this post with "not to suppress free speech or anything, but..."). It's fairly obvious that the author of this post and the aforementioned tweet is not objecting to the tiny percentage of rape jokes implemented by talented comedians as a means of social commentary. He's referring to the vast majority of rape jokes and comments that diminish or trivialize the act and derive humor from the idea of rape as punishment (jailhouse rape, et cetera).

vezzy-fnord 12y ago
The joke is not a rape joke, because rape or rape culture is not the forefront of it. Rather, it's used as a background term, since it's well known and relevant to the main point. No, the keyword here is "offensive". The humor derives from the fact that the speaker is expressing concern that their words might be misconstrued to bear sinister connotations, when in fact they meant none. In that context, "rape culture" might be just about any negative social trend.
- zorpner 12y ago
  Geez man, the casual/background use of "rape" is almost the definition of rape culture. The use of rape rather than the use of a different negative social trend is the problem. I wish I understood your perspective on this a little better -- reading through your comment history, you obviously have a pretty nuanced view on a lot of things, but from my standpoint you frequently conflate the right to free speech with a right to consequence-free speech (note that even in the tweet you posted, where the author hyperbolically claims to want to "stifle free speech", he includes the caveat that he doesn't want people to be "comfortable" joking about rape. I think that's an entirely reasonable sentiment).
  - marcus_holmes 12y ago
    This. Free speech is fine, as long as you're prepared to accept the consequences. Behave like a jerk and be judged as a jerk.
  - serf 12y ago
    > Geez man, the casual/background use of "rape" is almost the definition of rape culture. The use of rape rather than the use of a different negative social trend is the problem. Well, how come there is no murder-culture? (answer at the bottom of the post) We (in the US) casualize murder through television. We glorify serial-murderers, which often have rock-star style attention, groupies, and fame. Kids often joke about killing one another. Kids are happy to tell you when "they killed the bad guy". "Killing it" is a positive phrase of accomplishment. Paintball is a somewhat popular sport, which is nothing but people acting as if they were on-duty soldiers ready for killing, we kill animals for sport, and we give medals to soldiers who have killed 'the best'. There is definitely a huge problem with murder here.. Why there is no murder-culture: What rape-culture really is is the problem that we as a society have with placing the blame of a rape on the rape victim and not the perpetrator. Rape-culture is when a victim is criticized for their location and clothing; common due to the misconceptions behind how a rape occurs, and because of the tendency people have to be unable to place blame on an unknown quantity. A terrible tragedy that occurs too often. This, of course, cannot occur with a murder; both due to the social stigma of criticizing the dead, and simply for the fact that there isn't any longer a person to blame other than the perpetrator. It has nothing to do with the background use or casualization of a phrase, and that's the (wrong) kind of thinking that actually will hinder free speech.
    - dogecoinbase 12y ago
      This, of course, cannot occur with a murder... You, uh, might want to look at what's happening in Ferguson, MO right now.
      - dmkolobov 12y ago
        Or just about any time cops gun down an unarmed person of color.
- dmkolobov 12y ago
  The joke seems like a response to the efforts to implement the anti-harassment policy in question. In that context, this joke is, as others have stated, about trivializing concerns with rape culture in tech( valid concerns IMO ) . That sucks, even when you ignore the question of whether this is a real rape joke or not.
- comex 12y ago
  Coming from the perspective (for better or worse) of someone with some exposure to feminism but not to the point of hearing the term "rape culture" frequently or anything like that – I can't agree with this. I basically agree with the grandparent. A joke that an innocuous presentation might be considered "offensive or part of rape culture or something" seems to me to derive its humor from a stereotype of people taking offense at things too easily and throwing around the term in question. If he were to speculate about, say, whether the presentation might be taken as encouraging gun violence, the joke would be nonsensical, because there would just be no reason to think it would. (In that case, an analogous situation would be if the presentation were about guns in video games, where he'd be having fun at the expense of an old tired trope.) To be fair, no matter what you think about feminist issues, it's simply factual that they're a hotbed of emotions, that many people will get worked up about them very very easily, as had been recently demonstrated in the mailing list thread. There's no shortage of similar pure tech issues - things like systemd vs. Upstart or BSD vs. Linux. In those cases, just about anyone would admit that the relevant flame wars tend to derail discussion and give off more heat than light, and similar jokes might be made causing little offense. But with the issues at hand, to which perceived trivialization in culture itself makes up a large part of the problem, there's a fine line between reacting to this phenomenon and making oneself an example. And as long as a joke can be reasonably interpreted as the latter, I think it would be far better to avoid it.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

4bpp 12y ago

He deemed it a trivialisation of rape culture and a "misogynist action". I find it worrying how nonchalantly the range of what is considered a transgression is being expanded in feminist circles from fairly universally agreed upon beginnings (rape) to ever higher meta-levels. First, jokes about rape and presumably any discussion that suggests nuances within the range of what has come to be included under the umbrella of "rape", both of which are at least a significant component of what they refer to as "rape culture", were included in it - and now, apparently, so have been jokes about this concept of "rape culture" and presumably any discussion that would involve statements to the effect of "A is a not particularly serious instance of rape culture in comparison to B" . It doesn't take many steps of this sort of generalisation to arrive at a closure of the form "you must not question X, and you must not question the prohibition of questioning X, etc.", which basically amounts to the punchline of those "the worst thing about censorship is [CENSORED]" bumper stickers. One of the reasons the fairly commonplace legal prohibitions against hate speech are not perceived as censorship is that it is perfectly legal to discuss those prohibitions in most countries that have them. This arrangement has been very serviceable as a compromise so far; I can't help but be very unsettled if large traditionally liberal segments of society are cannibalised by a prohibitory movement that deems it insufficient.

dmkolobov 12y ago
The authors opinion about the misogyny of the speaker's trivialization does not carry nearly the amount of weight as legal prohibitions on hate speech. I do not think it's valid to dismiss a community's right to enforce a code of conduct to protect its members within its bounds. Maybe it's my own opinions, but ideally that is how positive social change is implemented. I do not think trivialization of concerns about hate speech would fly in most liberally minded circles either. If you are defending nuanced discussion about the value of rape culture, then I think there are better examples of nuance than this joke. I think a lot of good would come if we stopped using the word "censorship", and just responded to what people actually had concerns with. Censorship is distinct from a dude stating his opinions, and encouraging others to agree with him. (Edit): * defending nuanced discussion about the value of rape culture as a concept
- 12y ago