I don't give a fuck if Daniel Tosh or Louis CK thinks I lack a sense of humor.
I don't give a fuck if fans of Daniel Tosh or Louis CK think I lack a sense of humor.
I don't give a fuck if any teller and/or defender of rape jokes that uphold the rape culture, or any other kind of comedy that makes fun of survivors of any trauma, vulnerable people, marginalized people, powerless people, thinks I lack of sense of humor.
I can spend all day not scanning my comedy credentials.
Everyone who's anyone already knows I'm the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington, anyway.
Showing posts with label Toshgate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toshgate. Show all posts
For the Record
An Observation
[Content Note: Sexual violence.]
I really love, ahem, how Daniel Tosh inciting rape against an audience member has turned into a referendum on whether feminists have a sense of humor.
Considering the Rape Culture
[Content Note: Rape culture; rape apologia.]
All day yesterday, I saw responses to Louis CK's appearance on The Daily Show, some of those responses in direct tweets and emails to me, that are some variation of: Men so rarely consider rape culture at all that what Louis CK did was remarkable.
A lot of them stated plainly: Men never think about the rape culture.
Implicit in those responses is the idea that Louis CK was not feigning awareness in a contrived bit of ass-covering because he doesn't want to be known as a rape apologist, but instead genuinely had some sort of epiphany leading to a heightened sensitivity to rape culture, which I do not believe. (Frank Lee has some thoughts about what authentic reflection might have looked like.) But I'm going to set that aside for now in order to address the notion that men rarely or never consider rape culture.
Because I am calling bullshit so hard on that conventional wisdom.
I previously noted that the broad use of "men" in this convention excludes a lot of men who have had, by necessity or choice, occasion to consider rape culture. "Men," as it is being used when men are said not to consider rape culture, generally means privileged straight cis men who have never been victimized by sexual violence. Already, this notion stands on wobbly legs.
But let us consider, then, the alleged failure to consider rape culture of those privileged straight cis men who have never been victimized by sexual violence.
If those men never consider the rape culture, then how is it that virtually all of them know its tropes and narratives? How is it that virtually every male person is, by the time he hits puberty, capable of sophisticated victim-blaming, armed with a full arsenal of rape culture memes and stereotypes? How are they all so perfectly versed in the language of rape culture that tasks women with "crying" rape and "claiming" to have been raped, rather than reporting it? How is it that I have heard male children talking about how women lie about rape? And why it is that so many privileged straight cis men complain about being "profiled" or "made to feel like rapists" by women doing the quickening step in front of them, or giving them an anxious side-eye in an otherwise abandoned space?
For people who never consider the rape culture, they sure have an amazing working knowledge of it.
And what of the 4% of men who are serial rapists? Do the one out of every twenty-five men who have raped multiple people never consider rape culture, do you suppose?
Those legs are a-wobbling, they are.
Iain has noted before that no cis straight man is really as disconnected from rape culture as so many of them assert themselves to be, that most men have experienced a lone woman quickening her pace on a sidewalk ahead. Some men use that as an opportunity to empathize with the woman. And some of them use that as an opportunity to get angry with her for "treating me like a rapist."
All of us live in the rape culture. All of us are presented with opportunities to consider it.
That we are exhorted to identify with its various purveyors of contempt for consent, rather than with its primary targets and survivors, is another self-perpetuating trick of the rape culture. But a failure of empathy is not a failure of consideration.
It's not that privileged straight cis men who have never been victimized by sexual violence don't "think about" rape culture. It's that they don't think about it from the perspective of a potential victim.
And I'm really goddamn tired of being obliged to pretend that's the same thing.
There Are More Things I Have to Say
Ugh. So many shitty responses to the Louis CK thing. I am working on a follow-up. I will post it tomorrow morning.
I have spent what feels like half the day sitting here just staring at my computer screen, trying to figure out how to write something through a sausage casing of contempt.
Nope
[Content Note: Rape culture; rape jokes; misogyny. If you watch the segment, there are also anti-Semitic "jokes," which I have not included here.]
So, Louis CK was on The Daily Show last night, and he talked about Toshgate, and his "misunderstood" tweet, which he says was a totally unrelated tweet he sent just about how he enjoys Tosh's show while watching it on vacation, not even knowing what was going on. So, to be clear: He was ONLY sending rape enforcer Daniel Tosh who features actual acts of sexual violence on his show as comedy a tweet about how great his show is, he was not defending Daniel Tosh's rape jokes and rape incitement.
Anyway.
There's a lot of buzz this morning about how Louis CK said on The Daily Show that he's not going to tell rape jokes anymore, sort of a second act to his promise not to use gay slurs anymore. Except: He never said that.
I watched the segment this morning, and what I heard was:
* Louis CK calling feminists humorless.
* Louis CK saying that feminists and comedians are "natural enemies," thus disappearing all feminist comedians.
* Louis CK calling bloggers and comedians "uneducated" fonts of "hyperbole and garbage."
* Louis CK saying that comedians can't take criticism, which makes them "big pussies."
* Louis CK saying: "For me, any joke about anything bad is great. That's how I feel. Any joke about rape, the Holocaust, the Mets ahhhhhh! whatever. Any joke about something bad is a positive thing."
* Jon Stewart and Louis CK eating cookies about how Louis CK has "evolved" and grown "as an individual."
* Louis CK say some gender essentialist reductive shit about men and women, which included telling women to shut the fuck up: "The women are saying, 'That's how I FEEL about this,' but they're also saying, 'My feelings should be everyone's primary concern.' The men are making this mistake: The men are saying, 'You're feelings don't matter; your feelings are wrong and your feelings are stupid,' and if you've ever lived with a woman, you can't step in shit worse than that, than to tell a woman that her feelings don't matter. So, to the men I say: Listen, listen to what the women are saying about this. To the women I say: Now that we've heard you, you know, shut the fuck up for a minute."
* Jon Stewart joke about how Louis CK would have to get airlifted outta there, because feminists are so scary and violent, of course.
I also heard, which seems to be the piece that is getting construed as a promise to not tell rape jokes anymore:
I've read some blogs during this whole thing that have enlightened me to things I didn't know. This woman said how rape is something that polices women's lives—that they have a narrow corridor. They can't go out late, they can't go to certain neighborhoods, they can't dress a certain way, because they might get— Now that's part of me that wasn't there before, and I can still enjoy a good rape joke.I did not hear any promise to not tell rape jokes. I did, however, hear a promise to keep finding them funny.
Because, shit, nothing could be worse than being humorless about rape jokes.
Ahem.
It appears to me that Louis CK is being given credit for something he didn't actually say, at the expense of ignoring what he did say, which is a heaping fuckload of misogyny punctuated by his continued fondness for rape jokes.
UPDATE: I also want to quickly address the argument I'm seeing a lot that Louis CK should be given "credit," or some variation thereof, for either "evolving" on rape culture and/or speaking about rape culture on a national platform, despite the rest of his objectionable shtick.
First of all, contemplating rape culture for the first time as a 44-year-old man with two daughters, and patting oneself on the back for it instead of framing it as the profoundly regrettable evidence of privilege that is is, isn't something that ought to be praised—and praising it breathes life into the terrible idea that rape culture is difficult for "men" to understand. That is not accurate. It's not difficult for lots of male survivors; it's not difficult for lots of trans* men; it's not difficult for lots of gay men; it's not difficult for lots of men who have been incarcerated; it's not difficult for lots of men who are vulnerable by virtue of physical disability; it's not difficult for lots of highly privileged men who simply have the willingness to listen to women.
Let us not confuse "difficult to understand" for "easy to ignore by virtue of privilege."
Secondly, it is problematic, to put it politely, that the person being given the national platform to talk about rape culture is a guy who's had his first thoughts about it within the last week, after a career of telling and defending rape jokes. And, let's be honest, the platform was mostly offered so he could defend himself. I don't see his using that platform as some great piece of progress; I see his being given that platform as just another example of how the people who are most knowledgeable and sensitive about the gravity of sexual violence are the ones least likely to be given the opportunity to speak about it.
Finally, compartmentalizing Louis CK's "evolution" and misogynist jokes into two separate pieces, in order to praise the former, elides the fact that misogyny underwrites rape culture. He didn't say that he realizes rape culture exists in a void; he said it in a segment in which he used a classic feminist silencing trope, a misogynist slur, gender essentialist humor, and told women to "shut the fuck up for a minute." Extricating his "evolution" from that context is to fail to acknowledge that treating women as less than is a key feature of rape culture.
What he did isn't progress. It's ass-covering.
This Week, Summarized
Countless people defending Daniel Tosh and the Penn State football lords, while simultaneously denying the existence of rape culture, without a trace of irony.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Rape culture; threats.]
"I need you to bear witness to this. Please do not ignore that this happens in my life, in the lives of thousands of women every day. The threat of rape is real when we live in a rape culture."—Cristy Cardinal, also known here as Shaker masculine_lady, in a great piece about the fallout she received after writing about Daniel Tosh.
Toshgate: Further Context
[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual violence.]
Two things arrived in my inbox this morning giving yet more context to Daniel Tosh's fondness for rape humor:
1. Liberate Zealot forwarded this description of a video that aired in June of last year on Tosh.0, which depicted a penetrative rape. Please note the description describes the sexual assault. Liberate Zealot has a screen capture of the show on which it aired, showing Tosh grinning while watching the video of the assault, here.
2. Shaker QLH forwarded this piece of news about the pilot episode of Daniel Tosh's new animated series:
RumorFix has learned exclusively that producers and editors are scrambling to take out any reference to rape in the pilot episode of Daniel Tosh's new animated series, Brickleberry.Emphasis mine.
Production sources tell RumorFix that Tosh has given them just over 24 hours to make the changes — because the series is scheduled to be shown at Comic-Con in San Diego Friday night.
"Everyone is freaking out, because most of the pilot is about rape," our source says.
I will say again: Daniel Tosh is not merely a comic who asserts his right to tell rape jokes; he is an enforcer of the rape culture.
UPDATE: Rachel S tweeted me another segment that aired on Tosh.0 in which Daniel Tosh exhorted men to touch women without their consent. The video is here, which I have transcribed in its entirety:
Before we go, I'm excited to introduce to you a new segment called "Lightly Touching Women's Stomachs While They're Sitting Down." [laughter] Okay, it's not what you think—this is where you sneak up behind women who are sitting down and lightly put your hand on their stomach. [laughter] Make sure she's aware that you are in fact feeling a roll. [cut to video clip montage of Daniel Tosh sneaking up on three young, conventionally attractive women and feeling their stomachs before walking away, grinning; the first woman looks super uncomfortable; the second woman laughs uncomfortably; the third woman covers her belly and asks plaintively: "Why are you touching my tummy? Don't ever touch my tummy!"] Okay, guys—during our break, I need you to film yourself lighting touching women's stomachs while they're sitting down. But be careful! Because they like to pretend like they don't love it!Rape culture is not just actual acts of sexual violence. It is a spectrum of hostility to consent, and it is a collection of narratives that normalize and encourage hostility to consent, like woman really mean yes even when they're saying no.
On "Getting Over It"
[Content Note: Rape culture; bullying.]
Get over it.
That's what survivors who object to rape jokes are routinely told. Over the past few days, I have been told to get over it, and I have seen other women who identify as survivors told to get over it.
Ostensibly, we are being told to get over the rape joke, but because the implication is always, irrespective of its accuracy, that our objections are inextricably linked to having been raped ourselves, we are ultimately being told to get over being raped.
I don't think anyone ever "gets over" being raped. The best we humans do with any traumatic event is find a way to process our feelings about it, and integrate into our lives moving forward whatever changes with which trauma leaves us.
Getting over it, in the way it is used by rape joke defenders, rape apologists, and silencing bullies of various stripes, is really an exhortation to pretend it never happened. To stop having and expressing feelings about rape. Which is about other people's comfort, not about a survivor's needs.
Although I am rarely, if ever, triggered by rape jokes anymore, I am, by their definition, not "over it," because I continue to talk about surviving rape and contribute what very little I can to dismantling the rape culture. To "get over it" means to shut the fuck up already.
But supposing, for a moment, that such a thing as "getting over it" exists, that returning to a pre-rape state of blissful nonconcern about rape culture (which presupposes no one cares about rape culture unless and until they are raped—another fallacy) were possible, I'd like to quickly note a few things that might serve as impediments on such a journey.
1. A lack of justice. Most people who are sexually assaulted never see their attackers charged, no less convicted. Reporting rates are low, and convictions even lower. It is hard to "get over it" when you have no closure, when the person who raped you is still free. Bumping into your rapist at the grocery store, or being obliged to work beside hir, or seeing hir at a family reunion, or hearing zie's raped again, maybe even someone you know—these are things that might make "getting over it" difficult.
2. Being disbelieved. Cops, social workers, family members, friends, colleagues may or may not believe a survivor. Some might fail to do their jobs; some might be indifferent and merely fail to be supportive; some may be actively hostile. Because most survivors are raped by people they know, reporting rapes to intimates can force people to choose sides. Having your kin, social, and/or professional networks meaningfully altered by your sexual assault can make "getting over it" difficult.
3. Secondary trauma. Being silenced and dissuaded from talking about your rape, or being obliged to pretend like nothing happened, can create a secondary trauma—a wound that won't close because it cannot heal. Being surrounded by people who actively discourage healthy processing can make "getting over it" literally impossible.
4. Anxiety disorders. Many survivors of sexual violence are left with anxiety disorders, on a spectrum from low-level anxiety in certain situations to full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder. Being physically triggered as a result of a psychological disability left as the shittiest gift ever by a fucking rapist can make "getting over it" difficult.
5. Disrespect of boundaries. Of those survivors who are left with serious anxiety disorders, many of us must hold firm boundaries around consent and emotional honesty in order to feel safe. Those of us with the sorts of families who fail to support us in the wake of an assault are exponentially more likely to also have boundary-breaching issues with our families. Constantly battling to hold firm boundaries can make "getting over it" difficult.
6. Rape threats. That rape threats, or rape wishes ("I hope you get raped"), are the go-to response in reaction to criticism of rape culture, constantly piquing thoughts of having been raped and/or fears of getting raped again, can make "getting over it" difficult.
7. Rape jokes. Rape jokes that diminish and normalize rape, that trigger survivors and empower rapists, are both ubiquitous and the least likely of any rape-related content to carry a warning or context that heralds its arrival. To be regularly caught off guard by humorous quips that evoke a personal trauma can make "getting over it" difficult.
8. Rape culture. All the jokes, the narratives, the imagery, the idioms, the hostility to consent, the denial of justice, and every other piece of detritus that facilitates the rape culture are unavoidable. It's easy to say "stay out of comedy clubs" or "don't read blog comments" or whatever (as if it is incumbent upon survivors to isolate, rather than for the world to be more accommodating of decency), but moving through the world without encountering some aspect of the rape culture is truly impossible. That reality can make "getting over it" difficult.
9. Rapists. We know the statistics. We know that rapists do not announce themselves. We know that the only way to avoid being raped is to never be in the presence of a rapist, which is something virtually impossible to control at all times. That lack of control can make "getting over it" difficult.
10. Rape. Many of us have been victimized by sexual violence more than once. Repeated assaults can make "getting over it" difficult. As one might imagine.
That is not a comprehensive list.
It's not like I was raped, and it was an isolated event with a neat ending, and that was that. I was stalked. My best friend was attacked. I was left with scars and with PTSD. The enforced denial in my family resulted in profound fractures.
My experience is not terribly unique. Rape reverberates.
"Get over it" elides a reality that sexual violence is usually not a contained incident, but a starting point on a divergent path along which lie pebbles, stones, emotional landmines that one otherwise might not have encountered.
Rape did not turn me into a survivor's advocate; I was a survivor long before I was an advocate. But even if it had, I don't know why on earth I would want to "get over" that. I am not keen to abandon my position that rape is vile, nor silence my voice from speaking that truth.
Some Further Observations
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
So, last night, I was basically a Twitter monster all evening, writing about rape culture and various narratives that were being invoked in association with the Daniel Tosh stuff and rape jokes generally. I've had a couple of requests now to synthesize my tweets into a single post, so here they are, as posted (aside from fixed typos). I've not included my direct responses to rape apologists or those wishing I would get raped.
* * *
Personally, I'm no longer triggered by rape jokes. And I'm not "offended" by them; I'm contemptuous of them. B/c they are fucking gross.
And by fucking gross, I mean they diminish and normalize rape, uphold the rape culture, and empower rapists.
Rape apologists deliberately misconstrue "empower rapists" as "cause ppl to rape." But rape culture is a continuum of hostility to consent.
A rape joke isn't released into a void. It's released into a culture in which 1 in 6 women and 1 in 10 men are raped.
One can't argue "MY rape jokes don't facilitates rape" any more than a single raindrop in an ocean could claim never to have drowned anyone.
Each one contributes to a culture of hostility to consent that tacitly condones rape and silences its survivors.
Congratulations, people who defend rape jokes and argue they're "harmless." You are the climate change deniers of social justice.
Be prepared for contempt if you ask me to play abstract thought experiments about rape. I am a survivor. That shit ain't abstract to me.
If rape jokes are so insignificant, then why are so many people so intent on defending them? #thatsrhetorical
"Safe space" & "space w/o rape incitement" aren't the same thing. Latter is a reasonable expectation of any space.
Re: the argument ppl shouldn't react to rape jokes @ comedy clubs: Lots of survivors have PTSD. *Whether* to react is not always an option.
That was not the case re: Tosh, but the argument that people should choose not to react to triggering material misunderstands triggers.
Being triggered isn't getting your fee-fees hurt. It is a physical reaction that is outwith one's control.
An argument that no one, ever, should react out loud to unexpected rape content elides that many survivors react in ways they can't control.
And if comics are unhappy that someone might get triggered by a rape set, they can take that up with rapists, not survivors.
No, I am not advocating censorship. I'm advocating people giving the bare minimum fuck about other human beings. Christ.
I mean, if telling rape jokes is more important to you than not triggering survivors of rape, you're really just kind of a dirtbag. Shrug.
Free speech. Censorship. Art. Whatever. It's bullshit. Telling rape jokes is a choice that deprioritizes survivors & their safety.
If you don't care about survivors, fine. But be honest about it. Don't make bullshit arguments about artistic freedom.
I write tens of thousands of words every week, and I'm not compromising anything by not making rape jokes. It's a choice.
[Rape jokes] physically hurt people, and they communicate tacit approval to rapists. They are not neutral humor.
If you don't care about survivors, fine. But be honest about it. Don't make bullshit arguments about artistic freedom.
If you argue not telling rape jokes compromises your artistic integrity, I have news for you: You don't have any integrity. Artistic or otherwise.
Exhibit A of Rape Culture: Female critics of Tosh are getting "hope you get raped" responses. Male critics, not so much.
And guess what, knuckleheads? I've already been raped. AND I'M STILL FUCKING HERE. So your rape wishes are as pointless as they are cruel.
[Not all rape jokes are equal.] I love Wanda Sykes' "Detachable Vagina" and Tig Notaro's "No Moleste."
Also: Dave Chapelle's bit about how Pepe LePew is a rapist. I find that brilliant.
I think of aforementioned Sykes, Notaro, & Chappelle jokes as rape culture jokes, rather than rape jokes.
Rape jokes uphold rape culture, while rape culture jokes seek to examine, challenge, dismantle it.
And even still, I understand and respect that some survivors do not and cannot find any rape-related humor funny.
I don't think that makes them "oversensitive." I think that means they've got a different sensitivity than I do.
You know, not for nothing, but I didn't think rape jokes were particularly funny before I was raped, either.
I have been the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington for fully 200 years.
Fin.
Some Observations
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
From Twitter:
Monica @shutupmonica: When you say "it would be funny if this woman was raped" you mean "it would be funny if someone DECIDED to rape her."
Monica @shutupmonica: Statistically, someone in that room is likely to be a rapist. Statistically, you just gave a rapist your blessing.
Brian @red3blog: When comics tell rape jokes, some are laughing cuz they actually do think its funny to rape someone. Where are the comics upset abt that?
Brian @red3blog: Comics have all this outrage over ppl who don't get that their rape jokes are just jokes, EXCEPT for the actual rapists laughing along.
Me @shakestweetz: @red3blog Who are easy to not think about because of rape culture narratives about how rare rape is and how rapists are identifiably creepy.
Me @shakestweetz: Dude who raped me (& other women) has been to comedy shows. He looks just like everyone else in the audience. And he laughs @ rape jokes.
Me @shakestweetz: In fact, he loves them! Dude who raped me cannot get enough rape jokes! HE THINKS THEY ARE SO GREAT!
Tweet of the Day
[Content Note: Rape culture; defense of rape jokes.]
Comic Louis C.K. tweeted the following in defense of Daniel Tosh, after he incited rape against an audience member:
@danieltosh your show makes me laugh every time I watch it.And you have pretty eyes.
— Louis C.K. (@louisck) July 11, 2012
Louis C.K. is a teller and defender of rape jokes. He is also, however, a favorite of lots of progressives, because he says genuinely smart things about race and sexuality. Thus is he rarely held to account for engaging in and supporting humor that minimizes and normalizes sexual violence.
The thing is, Louis C.K. is smart enough to understand that rape jokes empower rapists and perpetuate the rape culture. Why he insists on willfully refusing to give up jokes about rape, despite the demonstrable causation between empowering rapists and the real potential to trigger survivors, I do not understand.
I deeply wish he would reconsider.
[Via Vanessa.]
Daniel Tosh Is a Rape Culture Enforcer
[Content Note: Incitement of sexual violence; rape jokes.]
I've gotten a bunch of emails and tweets about the report that comedian and garbage TV show host Daniel Tosh told and defended rape jokes during a stand-up set, then incited rape against a female audience member who challenged him:
So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don't know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON'T find them funny and never have. So I didn't appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, "Actually, rape jokes are never funny!"There isn't much I can say about this, at least nothing I haven't already said literally hundreds of times before in every conceivable way I can imagine: Rape jokes are not funny. They potentially trigger survivors, and they uphold the rape culture. They tacitly convey approval of rape to rapists, who do not appreciate "rape irony." There is no neutral in rape culture, and jokes that diminish or normalize rape empower rapists. Rape jokes are pro-rape.
I did it because, even though being "disruptive" is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.
After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, "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…" and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing I needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn't hear the rest of what he said about me.
...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, claustrophobic 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.
There are legions of rape apologists who desperately want to turn that assertion into a debatable point, so it is no surprise, though no less revolting, that the same lack of integrity and decency is now underwriting arguments that even an explicit incitement to rape a woman who objects to rape jokes is not harmful, and further that it is justified on the basis she was "heckling."
Daniel Tosh's defenders are not clueless and do not need me to educate them. I refuse to credit as ignorance what is an entrained, practiced, deliberate enforcement of the rape culture. If you incite rape, you are an enforcer of rape culture. If you argue that inciting rape is harmless, you are an enforcer of rape culture. I'm not going to pretend there's any debate about that.
Tosh.0 airs on Comedy Central, which is part of the Viacom Entertainment Group. Contact Viacom here, and ask them if they feel a show hosted by an unapologetic enforcer of the rape culture jibes with their objectives for corporate responsibility, since sexual violence is manifestly incompatible with both "citizenship" and "health and wellness."
