Rape jokes - AIBU?

[dalecooper]

I feel a bit shaken and want to know if I have just made a massive deal out of nothing or if I was justified.
I was talking to a male friend who I have not seen for ages and who I used to go out with for a bit a long while ago. We get on really well and he is generally a really sound guy.
We were talking about men coming onto women and he made a joke about how women dress and I said that sounded predatory. He said that was the joke and he was being sarcastic but he got that I didn't want to hear it and he wouldn't say anything like that again but in the next breath made another flippant comment about rape. Not saying he agreed with it or anything, just a flippant comment which I didn't like.

I said no women find rape jokes funny and that men shouldn't either.
He backed off but then said actually some women DO find it funny and that I should not appoint myself spokeswoman for my gender.

This made me really angry. I thought about it for about an hour and then messaged him to say any man that makes rape jokes or is so casual about it has real issues and that NO women do find rape jokes funny and I was not trying to be any kind of spokeswoman.

I ended by saying to him "Don't contact me again". I have not heard from him since - but it has only been about 45 minutes...

DO any women really find rape jokes funny? I cannot honestly believe that any woman would. Would you have reacted in the same way? Was I being unreasonable?

Agree with @JudgeRudy

OP, you can't speak for every woman. It's fine to have your boundaries and assert them, but it's not your place to decree what anyone else finds funny and it does you a disservice to frame it that way.

There's a comedian, I forget which one exactly but maybe Ricky Gervais, said it's the context of a joke that matters. A rape joke at the expense of the victim isn't funny, at the expense of the rapist is fair game. And yes I've laughed my fair share of controversial comedy.

The main point here is that even after you said it upset you, he made a similar remark again. With that second remark, he was deliberately pushing your buttons and disrespecting your boundaries in relation to a topic that he knows full well is very sensitive for women.

That's not the action of a good friend or a man who respects women.

Untrue. I might

I don't like them. No.

And This bit you have said
He mentioned going out with a girl who was date raped and she could joke about rape.

As if. That just won't be true. If she laughed, she was likely uncomfortable.
Why is he telling rape jokes and especially to someone who has been raped?
You've told him you were uncomfortable and he says this?
That's awful.

Me too and some things are funny, and others are repugnant. My sil was raped and assaulted by her grandfather and she jokes about it but I think it's to prove it wasn't her fault

That's not how I'm reading him. In my opinion from what we've been told it sounds like he was joking (not deliberately telling a joke) in response to something she had said. He seemed offended that she would think he was predatory. He assured her he wasn't.Theres no indication that he is.

No decent woman finds them funny!

You called him out and he's turned it on you as not having a sense of humour because other women would laugh.

If they did then it would be to appease a wanker like him.

He sounds like an absolute dickhead. An immature, stupid dickhead. He can’t even accept that you as an individual might find his hilarious rape jokes anything other than funny. As for the woman he knows who was raped who finds rape jokes funny: either he’s a liar or he cannot read her discomfort and polite ‘haha’. It is not possible to conceive that a raped woman would find rape jokes funny. I mean, think about it. Wtaf.

I would be shocked if any of the men in my life made comments like your 'friend' made. They just don't say those sorts of things and are respectful towards women.

Maybe you were surprised that your friend said those things as maybe you didn't think he was 'like that'.

I'd be staying on my high horse with him. There's currently a growing tidal wave of abuse, misogyny and entitlement in men towards women. This is just one more man surfing that wave.

@JarByTheDoor "But that message carries a subtext: he is better than those men because he chooses not to rape and to make poor excuses for it. The joke is a subtle, probably unintentional reminder that the reason he has not raped you is that he has chosen not to, and he probably could if he wanted to (and that the most pathetic of excuses would protect him from consequences). I doubt he meant to send that message but it's kind of implicit in the fabric of the joke.".........but this is just you're interpretation not an accepted psychological analysis.
I seriously doubt that was going through his head at all. I imagine he was most likely thinking "What? You seriously think l could be predatory? Yeah that's right I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing and get my rape cloak on when I fancy sexual assaulting some poor woman (sarcastically)."

@Isheabastard

I love your phrase ... "We need more stroppy, opinionated women in this world, not less"!

You aren't being unreasonable.

Not all women are offended by rape jokes though. My sense of humour is quite warped. I've been raped more than once, if it's relevant.

People feeling the need to react strongly to any and every thing is part of the divisions we have as a country and which won't work out well for us.

Sazzling I have to say that your comment makes little sense. I am not responding strongly 'to any and every thing'. I did have a response to the way in which he flippantly bantered about rape.

I love dark humour. I love Ricky Gervais. I am not a sunny twee innocent type who can't see the humour in things. Quite the opposite actually.

I have been thinking about it a lot this evening and in his message back to me he was very patronising. As though I should chill out and not make such a big deal of it. Like I was the problem. He didn't actually apologise to me at all. I think that is terribly arrogant of him. He does not know what I have experienced in my life or what my friends and family have experienced. He is joking about something that could affect me and those closest to me.

You think reacting strongly to discussions or jokes about rape is weird?

A large percentage of women have been raped. It's not weird to then react strongly to it.

Some dark jokes are ok but not others?

You can't do that. It's also no fun living in some competitive woke world where people are trying to be offended. Just ask him not to tell jokes like that to you and move on.

He didn't assure her he wasn't.

He actually repeated the behaviour with another joke. That's boundary pushing, when the woman he is interacting with has made her feelings clear.

You know what else involves ignoring women's boundaries, right?

Rape isn’t a funny subject.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t have humour in unfunny subjects.

Have you never seen that scene in The Office (British version) where they are doing the customer service training and David Brent is so frustrating with the trainer he screams “I THINK THERES BEEN A RAPE UP THERE!!!!”

that scene is absolutely hilarious. It’s funny af.

rape is not funny though. It’s all in the context and delivery isn’t it. No one is laughing and pointing at victims of rape.

No one finds rape funny, but it can be the subject of a joke, in a way which is not derogatory or playing down its seriousness

Again, we see it differently. He did stop when he saw she was upset. She said he was offensive. He took note and stopped and listened as she explained (presumably because he cared). It should have ended there but she continued so she by virtually accusing him of being a sex pest. Now HEs offended but SHE continued, so hes sniped back with a sarcastic comment. Still she continued by cutting contact with him.

I think his only mistake was to presume she would know he was he was joking and had not intended to upset her. Arguably the joke was in poor taste but he did not continue to disregard her boundaries, he made a remark in response to her accusation. I'd be very passed off if someone as good as told me I was a sex pest. That's awful. Far far worse than the misplaced joke.

Let's agree to disagree on interpretations but agree they're perhaps not ideal friends.

Yep, thank goodness someone’s standing up for the rights of some women to enjoy rape jokes. And how dare you presume to speak for other women,op! When you think about it, maybe he’s the feminist here. All very reminiscent of those men who passionately speak up for women who love being prostitutes in the face of the threat from spoilsport fascist feminists. Some men seem to get very exercised when certain, very specific female ‘freedoms’ are questioned.

While I agree with pps saying that unfortunately getting bogged down in the do-or-don’t-ALL-women-hate-rape-jokes debate has allowed this tosser to dodge the real point, this particular (pedantic, sanctimonious) sentiment is actually as offensive as the original joke in its way.

Please stick to your guns and lose this guy from your life.

No - he made two separate rape jokes, and the second was made after she told him why she was uncomfortable with it.

This has got boundary pushing written all over it. The initial joke. Then pressing her to explain why it made her nervous, rather than simply accepting it. Then making the second joke.

.............
He said 'depends what she was wearing' and something about girls not meaning what they say and everyone knows that two no's and a maybe really mean yes. This was the initial joke and I then said 'that's what predators say'

He said yes that was the joke and then I said that that sort of joke made me nervous. He wanted to know why - was it because I thought he was predatory. I said it as because if men think like that I just don't particularly want to have anything to do with them and also that you can get a nasty surprise from the 'nicest' of guys.

That is when he made a further joke about having a rape-cloak.

Men who don't respect women's boundaries, or who expect women to explain and justify their boundaries, are not good men. Particularly when the boundary in question relates to the topic of rape.

We are both reading the same words. Putting it in bold doesn't make it different. We've both shared our interpretations with each each other and others and they're very different. I agree thatcsomeone who has no regard or someone else's boundaries isn't a nice person. I just don't believe that's what's happened here.
I'm not engaging further. Have the last post if you wish.

@MargaritMargo - that office joke is only tangentially about rape, though. The subject of the joke isn’t rape, it’s how David Brent’s mind instantly goes somewhere appalling and the yawning chasm between Brent and his employees who all grasp how unacceptable and weird what he’s just done is, and the humour comes from the abrupt shift in mood and his childish, petulant behaviour. I think it’s a very clever and very funny scene, but it’s not a rape joke.

Unfortunately, many men do find rape funny and I have heard jokes about it. They have a completely different effect on me.