Rape is never funny.

Never. No excuses.

I guess I'm a little behind in the news...I don't watch cable, and I don't pay much attention to celebrity gossip.

Tonight I learned from a Facebook friend that comedian Daniel Tosh commented that "rape is always funny," and when challenged on that by a female audience member, made a rape joke about her: 
"Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her..."
She blogged about this incident, and suddenly comedians are coming out of the woodwork to defend Tosh. Even Whoopi Goldberg, Sherri Shepherd, and Joy Behar admitted that "if it works, it's okay."
Recently I've unsubscribed from two Facebook groups that posted misogynistic jokes--"Mommy Has a Potty Mouth" and "100,000,000 Strong to Help Improve Tea Party's Grammar." When someone challenged these jokes, they were literally attacked with the accusation that anyone who doesn't find such jokes funny does not have a sense of humor." I decided to "unlike" those groups, because I don't need that kind of vitriol on my Facebook wall. And I wouldn't associate with such people in person, so why should I online?

That's exactly what comedians are saying about anyone who says rape jokes are not funny. We don't have a sense of humor. My guess is that they have (1) never been raped or nearly raped or known anyone who was raped, (2) they have never felt sexually or violently threatened, and (3) they really do not care how people feel about such things and they are just trying to be outrageous.

This is how the woman felt when Tosh made a rape joke about her:
"I should probably add that having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophic room was pretty viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same, even if the actual scenario was unlikely to take place. The suggestion of it is violent enough and was meant to put me in my place.”

And no, it's not funny when a female makes a rape joke either, such as the Sarah Silverman joke Joy Behar read on "The View": “I was raped by a doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl."

Never funny. No excuses.

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