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.

chilled

With respect, I think I'd see it the other way round - if someone was personally civil to people of different races, but also told racist jokes, I would see that as evidence of racist attitudes.

Hey Lumpy, that might be what you think but I disagree. In my view, you're only a racist if you hold genuine racist beliefs. If you make a joke, privately, to people where you know they won't take offense or be upset at what you've said, and you treat people of different races with respect like you treat everyone else when you actually encounter them, then to me that's not a racist. But each to their own, maybe you think that's what racism is.

I can't stand people who get hung up on political correctness. Always wonder why they think they have the right to dictate what is and isn't "acceptable" words or phrases to use.

But feminist reclaimed rape jokes aside, no i don't think making misogynist or racist jokes in private is fine because "you don't mean it". If you think it's funny then that attitude is there in you.

As a very naive student I once heard a racist joke. I was arse-achingly left wing, PC and radical, and I repeated the joke to friends in a kind of "OMG how racist is this joke!?" kind of way. I now cringe to think I did that because even though I didn't think I was being racist, it could have been taken that way, if overheard for example. I'd never do that now, it is just not OK for any reason.

The just joking racist is often the worst racist, the not ignorant racist, the one who'd never say it to their face but would have a private monologue of bile on the back burner. Ignorant racism though vulgar is at least honest. Covert racism is insidious.

Racist jokes are racist, whether they are private or out there. Same as in the op, if you do not mean it, do not bloody say them, you are an adult with free will.

Hi Natasha, the same way that if I joke about killing someone for posting an embarrassing photograph of me on facebook, I'm not actually threatening to kill them even though I literally said I'd kill them. I believe that you need to consider the context. Did someone just say something as a joke, with no genuine belief in what they said, or do they actually mean it.

Aero, that too me feels a bit too restrictive. If you're saying that people can't say stuff unless they mean it then that's the entire field of comedy entertainment dead overnight. Sometimes people need to stop taking offense at stuff that clearly isn't intended in an offensive way. Of course if it still bothers people, they don't need to keep listening to it. But to tell others what to do, isn't fair.

What I like about the Tommy Sheridan line I posted upthread is that it fulfills what I consider an essential humour requirement of 'punching up' - ie it's a joke at the expense the powerful and influential.

One of the problems with racist and misogynist jokes is that they almost invariably 'punch down' - they are made by those in a position of power and agency at the expense of those with less.

I don't think it's PC to suggest that we don't tell racist and misogynist jokes for more reasons than 'someone might hear and be upset'. They contribute to a culture in which the people mocked and derided by those jokes are considered less than human. To take an extreme example, apartheid wasn't only wrong because it hurt black people's feelings, and it didn't happen because a lot of people spontaneously decided to treat black people as inferior. It required an entire set of social and cultural attitudes which normalised the idea that they were less worthwhile than white people - attitudes maintained and propagated by millions of casual conversations, jokes, remarks, nicknames etc etc, as well as official laws.

It seems extraordinary to look at the appalling evidence of rape and sexual assault, and the conviction rates for these crimes, and believe that there is no connection with a culture in which men's laddish bonding rituals involve discussing gang raping a woman. That woman wasn't assaulted, no other woman was assaulted after that conversation, but it's pretty clear to me that if men didn't egg each other on to talk about rape (not rape as an abstract concept in this case, but imagining themselves raping a named woman together) then it would diminish a culture in which sexual assault is so rife and so normalised.

By normalised I don't mean to imply that every man who hears a rape joke and laughs thinks rape is OK, but there's a continuum between that, joking about 'drunk slags' in a club, discussing sex as a something men have to 'get from' women, joking about tricking women into sex or exploiting the inexperience of young women, and men coercing women into sex they don't want. We don't need a legal standard of proof that this conversation caused a sexual assault to be very aware that it is part of a culture which normalised male violence towards women.

It is still something that would not bode well with me, and a man that laughs and jokes about rape, gang rape is not for me. There are some things you do not joke about. To be funny comedy does not have to put down another human being for laughs, that is not funny to me. Yes in private you can say what the hell you like, but unfortunately op saw the conversation that occured and was shocked by it, it did not match her ideals of what she wanted in a partner, and that is her right.

That's probably where we disagree NuckyT. For me, offensive comedy cant have anything that's off limits. How is it fair to the powerful and influential for people to make offensive jokes about them if they can't make offensive jokes about others? Either everything is off limits or nothing is, at least that's how I feel.

He may well seem to be wonderful to the community and good to you but your revolted by the idea he could think /treat a woman this way he and his mates clearly have what's called rape culture they believe it's ok the think feel behave in this way we women are human beings and should be treated as such and in all honestly my rapist was a a male friend ( who seemed to be good ) be a wear it's usually the man you know not the creepy man in the street

Putting down a group of people for laughs is not funny at all. Shows lack of imagination tbh.

That you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get laughs.

Not sure if this is really relevant to the topic but I find the boyfriend a bit pathetic for crying and saying he didn't know why he said it. It seems a bit wussy really. You do know why you said it, you found it funny to be joking about, you don't need to hide it or say oh I don't know why we said it.

IMO, it's hardly the same. Saying you'd kill someone over a slight is a hyperbolic figure of speech. You can argue over whether you think it's appropriate thing to say - I don't actually - but it's quite commonly taken as an exaggerated statement of anger.

Telling a joke which denigrates someone because of their race is a choice. It shows intent. And as EverySongbird says it shows a more deliberate racism. It's saying: I know this is not acceptable but I'm going to do it anyway

I'm very glad I don't live in a social sphere where making "jokes" about raping people is OK and anyone who doesn't agree just needs to stop taking offense.

I was raped by my drunk boyfriend when I was 17. There is nothing, nothing at all, funny about that. Or should I just have lightened up and seen the humour in his shit faced dead weight pinning me down while I cried? I'm all for humour but some things are just not funny.

flowerpower, in the OP's own words her boyfriend does treat her well, like a human being, and not as an object.

I agree with that chilled, he seemed very weak and pathetic, he got caught out, and instead of admitting it and yes he did like those kind of jokes, he burst into tears like a child, scolded by mummy.

chilled

I agree nothing should be off limits, and I totally disagree with the poster above who said that there are some things you can't joke about, but humour is simply funnier when it is directed 'up' the way. A merchant banker making fun of chavs may be objectively funny, but still seems like bullying.

Natasha no one gets to declare what is universally acceptable or not, that's the thing I hate about the PC crowd the most. It's like they've chosen a list of things they think are ok, and have decided that this is what the rest of society will have to adapt to and comply with. When people invariably don't or tell them to take a hike, the abuse, and accusations of racist/homophobe begin. The ones preaching the loudest about tolerance suddenly become quite intolerant.

People who make racist jokes aren't literally saying it's ok to be racist. They are saying that joking about it is, actually being racist isn't. And while you and others might be of the opinion that making jokes about racism is the same as racism, others may disagree and hold different opinions to your own.

FlyingElbows, what makes you think anyone is telling you you should have "seen the funny side" of being rape? That is not what the OP's boyfriend and his friends were saying. They were making jokes, e.g making everything up, totally fictional. They weren't laughing at real rape cases, such as yours, or suggesting real victims of rape should see a "funny" side of their ordeal.

I see quite a few threads here where a guy is confronted and then says he doesn't know why he said something/did something and it irritates me, because it's sound like they are trying to say what they want you to hear rather than what is actually the case. A man should be up front and honest, in a relationship you're going to have things where your girlfriend doesn't like something about you or something you've said or done, you shouldn't be a pussy about it, you should just say yes this is what I did, I think it's acceptable, if you don't then lets talk about it and see if we can resolve it. But I'm old fashioned that way lol.

If that's the case NuckyT than where do you draw the line, making fun of sick children with Cancer? making fun of grieving parents? Making fun of rape. Yes we live in a democratic world where we do have the freedom, but does not make it right. For the inviduals on the receiving end, like Flying and Flowers, its anything but funny. If you have to scrape the bottom of the gutter to get a rise, your not that funny.

Yes one has the freedom to make these kind of jokes, but if I heard a man making them, it would put me right off.

Flying wasn't on the receiving end of a joke about rape though, she was on the receiving end of actual rape. And there's been nothing to suggest that the OP's boyfriend and his friends believe that actual rape is ok. Indeed the OP herself says he's caring and he hasn't done anything like that in all the time they've been together.