the more things stay the same, the more i want them to change

Is it Rape Culture or Satire?

Dude: Date me or get raped.

Internet: What. The. Fuck. PIG.

Dude: Bitch, I didn't actually rape you! Look at what this guy said about how rape isn't bad! I just think rape is funny, he thinks rape is ok.

The Internet: RAGE.


When I was a preteen, I moved from Hawaii to Washington. When writing back home to my friends, I liked to add a p.s. that went something like this, "Write Back Soon - or I'm sending the Beastie Boys to Rape You!" I thought the Beastie Boys were ugly. I thought rape was something... unreal. Nobody actually does anything like that, right? So sending ugly dudes to commit a mythical sin upon the bodies of your best friends was sooo damned funny to me.

I recalled this only recently and I'm horrified at my past-self. Today, I'm wondering about this kid at the exact same high school I attended (was I still writing shit like this when I was in high school? I can't remember.) - how horrified is he going to be in 20 years? I wrote a p.s. in a letter to some friends. He used Twitter and has thousands of followers.

from scootius.tumblr.com: facebooksexism-thisiseverydayracism

I wanted the rest of the story. He posted the infamous Prom Rape Joke in April. The guy tweets so much, it took me over 10 minutes to get down to the May tweets about his suspension. About another 5 minutes to find his pseudo-response to the whole thing:

Please read this if you think I'm a rapist
the-problem-with-slacktivism-rape-jokes-are-not-okay-and-neither-are-death-threats-nsfw … You're uneducated for believing everything you see on the internet.

It is an interesting read. A very calm, level-headed, look-at-all-sides-of-the-situation type post. The kind of thing I strive for in my own commentaries, with varying success. It misses the mark though. But I didn't even need to say that. "Anonymous" did it for me in the comments (intelligent comment discussions on a blog post?! holy shit!). I swear, I was asking myself if I had written this and blanked it out, it just sounds so much like what I would say. And it's 11 paragraphs long! But I swear I didn't write it!

[if the link doesn't properly send you to the comment, scroll down to 18 May, 2014 @ 7:00pm]

I've written about rape culture before. And one of my biggest pet peeves is a guy who responds to criticism by pointing out someone else's (my) bad behavior to take the heat off (not naming names, as that would get me divorced). But I don't know whether to rage or cry or just shake my head. I don't understand how someone so entrenched in social media (he tweets so much that I had to scroll 17 times to read just one day's worth of tweets) can be so fundamentally clueless about (a) the repercussions of tweeting anything controversial, (b) the ridiculous amount of rape threats being made by trolls across the internet on a regular basis, (c) the concept of "trigger" words or phrases that cause rape and other PTSD victims to relive their trauma every time it's even mentioned, and (d) pointing people to a blog written by someone else asking for mercy is not an explanation of your actions or a retraction or an apology. There are some great satirists out there. It's a human tradition. Posting a picture of an offensive joke, not explaining yourself, then vilifying/name calling/ignoring/redirecting those calling you out is NOT great satire. It's just a joke by a kid proving how totally and completely clueless he is about what real life as an adult is all about.

He (vaguely) claims the satire is to point out rape culture. If that was his intent, he should have known why rape culture is so harmful. He should have known what it actually is. He should have known that he would offend people. He should have accepted graciously the comments (no, not the death threats) by people pointing out that he was actually contributing to the culture he was allegedly trying to point out. He should have been willing to engage in conversation. He should have learned something. I don't see any of these points as true, so I have to doubt the veracity of his claims. Calling a joke satire after the fact does not make it satire.

Finally, one of the more frustrating things about this is the Lady Texan blogger's attempt to shame the people who called this kid's school.

Um, no.

Is he a kid? Sure. Can kids commit acts that need to be reported to the proper authorities? You bet. Is it up to those authorities to decide what to do with the information? True.

Once again, the moral of the story that everyone is missing more and more lately: it is not anti-acceptance to point out and refuse to accept improper behavior. It is completely reasonable to demand every one of us be human to each other and to face the consequences when we ourselves slip up. The United States is not an anarchy. We can accept a lot, but we will not/should not accept harmful behavior. Harm can only be defined by the victim, not the attacker. We have given authorities the right to judge whether harm has been committed. So we take our case to them. If it's dismissed, that's another matter. But you don't silence victims, regardless of how anyone else views the allegations they make. If they say there is harm, they have been harmed enough to say it. Whether or not that is enough to have real consequences is not up to bystanders to decide. So can everyone please stop shouting down the whistle-blowers?

ps: calling someone out is not "slacktivism"
pps: cyber-stalking is bad
ppps: death threats are bad
pppps: the kid has mentioned suicidal thoughts, so back the fuck off. No, we don't know if he meant it. Doesn't matter.

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Reader beware, I make no apologies for speaking the truth, no matter how shocking. So here's a list of taboo you might see here: sexuality, bisexuality, lesbianism, atheism, ex-Catholic ranting, stories of childhood abuse, wacked-out left-wing theories and philosophies, and feminist thought. And I like the words "cunt" and "fuck" a lot.