To consider ending my relationship over rape jokes?

[Genie0709]

Really sorry if this is a bit of an essay but I would appreciate any opinions/advice.

For background, my partner and I are 27 and have been together for 2.5 years. We have known each other since we were about 16. He has been the most loving, supportive, faithful person since we got together. It is a wonderful relationship and we bring out the best in each other. Currently we don't live together but we have recently started looking to buy our first house.

Last night, I was watching a programme on our Ipad which is linked to his phone. At the time, he was on the train home from work. He and his friends were having a group conversation over imessage and every incoming message popped up at the top of the Ipad as I was watching iplayer. One text appeared referring to a girl as "the one that got away, hey MrGenie" and I couldn't help myself - I opened the group chat to see who they were talking about (please no lectures, I already feel terrible and have never felt a need to snoop before). I soon realised that my partner had sent to his friends an instagram picture of a girl in a dress with her chest out. My partner had commented that he didn't know what he would do if he saw her like that. Cue the most disgusting discussion between these men joking that she was asking to be raped wearing that, even a judge would agree, etc. Gang rape was also joked about. My partner was actively participating in this chat, talking about a time when he went home with this girl after a night out and had "finished" in the taxi before they even got home because she was so hot. They didn't end up sleeping together, which he said he was "still gutted about".

Needless to say I am devastated. Reading that conversation was like reading the messages of a stranger. I have never seen this vile side of him and I feel like I don't know him at all. To me, it is so out of character but maybe he is just an absolute arsehole when I am not around. I am disgusted by the things he said and disgusted by his friends. I feel disrespected, humiliated, terrified that I do not know my own boyfriend.

I have been at work today so have avoided seeing him, but we have an appointment with a mortgage adviser tonight so I am supposed to pick him up from work in an hour. Currently, I can't even bare the thought of looking at him.

Am I overreacting - is this something you could get over? I know that these texts were sick jokes but even joking about it crosses a line in my opinion. I am distraught at the thought of ending this relationship but he obviously has this revolting immature side of him that only comes out when he's with his laddy mates. I'm not sure how I would trust him when he goes out with these friends in the future, or how I would ever look his friends in the eye again.

How? How can you make rape jokes without the intent of putting a woman in her place, without reducing a woman to being nothing more than an object to be used, without blaming a woman for bringing it on herself.

Do you know the one about the man who tries to rape a nun by pretending that he's Jesus, and the nun persuades him to make it anal sex ... and then it turns out the nun is a disguised man who engineered the whole situation after he noticed that the first man lusted after the nun? (The actual nun got home unharmed)

I doubt that this joke was meant to be about rape, it was likely more about the shock of "accidental" homosexual sex, but it still fits your criteria.

However, this is not what we are discussing in this thread, is it? What this thread is about is men talking about how they would like to rape a woman and us perceiving this as joke because we hope they aren't serious.

Why the urge to defend rape jokes as not misogynistic?

Er, what urge? A poster said that all rape jokes were misogynistic. I said I had heard one that was not. The poster then specifically requested to I post it, so I obliged.

I didn't invent the joke. Nor do I usually go around telling it. Nor have I said all rape jokes are not misogynistic.

Maybe you should direct your ire at the poster on the thread who is specifically asking others to post rape jokes?

Maybe you should direct your ire at the poster on the thread who is specifically asking others to post rape jokes?

Yes, clearly I must be getting off on it or something.

I asked you- Grease- you, to post your little joke- Im hardly going around collecting them.

Just as an aside, the person I asked to tell me their joke was ChilledWarmth. Not You. I wasnt speaking to you at all- certainly not requesting material for my Chuppy Brown portfolio of rape jokes.

It was you who said that you knew a rape joke that was not offensive to women- stunned as I was by this knowledge that not only would there be such a joke, but that someone would have no issues in relaying it, that I asked you light heartedy for the joke. You provided me with your witty banter. Cheers for that.

Vestal- Ive never heard that before, no.

tell me their joke

tell me their joke originally I meant to say.

Vestal that 'joke' isn't about rape though is it? Unless you are penetrating someone's mouth, vagina or anus with a penis then you are not raping them. Therefore the 'Jesus' in the joke wasn't raped.

Um ... okay, technically not, but the would-be-rapist didn't consent to penetrating a man with his penis.

It is a very complicated situation, and it gives me a headache to figure out if the man who disguised himself as nun is to blame for anything like sexual assault ... but it is at the very least a joke about attempted rape.

There is a difference between talking about women or men you find attractive/lust over and making jokes about raping them!!!

That was to greenshadow

He acted like a dick, but if we all ended relationships over one instance of dickish behaviour then we'd all be single.

It depends what you mean by dickish – there's being a bit of an idiot in various ways that can be got past, and there's partaking in misogynist rape banter which IMO cannot be got past.

Anyway, being single is far from the worst thing that can happen. Please don't present being single as the worst of all possible states.

This.

Yes, perhaps most of us would be single if we refused to be in relationships with assholes who think expressing their desire to rape a woman is funny.

And this would be a good thing!

I'd rather be alone than in a relationship with someone who doesn't respect me.

But surely one man penetrating another's anus is rape?

If no consent was given.

Excuse me. Could you make a separate thread on rape jokes for this fascinating topic? There were no rape jokes in the OP, and I can't see how the thread starter benefits from this derailment.

Chilled warmth, would you have the same attitude about a man who made racist violent jokes in private but was all smiles on the outside?

The "joke" given is not funny, lacking in misogyny or otherwise.

Like PP I did not come to this thread to be subjected to demonstrations of rape "jokes" - please desist and take them elsewhere

You can make rape jokes without being misogynistic because you aren't really condoning what you say, you're only saying it for comedic effect. It's like if I said I'd kill someone for posting an embarassing photo of me on facebook, am I making a threat to kill them? No, I'm saying it purely for the humour and comedy.

Hey stealth, yes I judge people on how they actually treat others people, not some stupid jokes they may make. If a man privately made a racist joke, but I later saw him being perfectly respectful to a member of the race he had joked about, I wouldn't consider him racist, because it would be clear to me he was only joking, and didn't hold genuine racist beliefs.

If you don't want to be subjected to rape jokes, maybe stop reading the thread at the point where someone starts to give an example of rape jokes?

If you make racist jokes, you're a racist.

If you make rape jokes, you're a misogynist.

FWIW I've never met anyone who likes to make rape jokes, but not about women.

Actually I do think rape jokes are a main topic of the thread, and as long as no one posts actual misogynistic rape jokes it is in interesting discussion.

I was going to mention Sarah Silverman's feminist "bittersweet" rape joke, I won't now but you can look it up.

But then SS suffers from being so subtle and dark she is frequently misunderstood and hounded for being non-PC...

This thread was not set up as:

AIBU to ask you all to post your rape jokes here please?

Had it been I imagine, hypothetically, in that scenario, the resounding response would've been fuck off and die.

If a man privately made a racist joke, but I later saw him being perfectly respectful to a member of the race he had joked about, I wouldn't consider him racist, because it would be clear to me he was only joking, and didn't hold genuine racist beliefs.

That statement is astounding. On what planet is making racist jokes not a manifestation of racism?