Your Rape Jokes Aren’t Funny: Offensive Humor Comes from a Place of Ignorance
CONTENT WARNINGS: mentions of sexual assault
The humor Generation Z is weird. We laugh at cryptic images that are overly saturated and have fisheye lenses. Simple typos are hilarious. Strings of words that make no sense make us roll on the floor. On the other side of the spectrum, there is a darker layer of comedy that includes jokes about rape, pedophilia, and the Holocaust. While numerous studies have shown that we use humor to cope with tragedies, there has been an increase in offensive jokes that are made simply for their shock factor. Instigators make memes about sensitive subjects like molestation and incest simply to push people’s buttons. Then they turn on them with the mocking phrase: “Are you triggered?”
Yes, I’m upset. Yes, I’m offended. There are so many other non-offensive topics to joke about, and it’s simply distasteful and insensitive to victims and potential victims to make light of tragedies.
Take sexual assault, for example. I’ve heard tons of people joke to their friends to “stop raping them” if they get too close or touchy. It may seem like a harmless phrase, but it actually invalidates and makes fun of actual sexual assault victims. By trivializing this so-called “rape,” they don’t take actual assault seriously. Sexual assault is physically and emotionally traumatic and has long-lasting effects on one’s psyche. Those that make light of it often underestimate its detrimental effects. When rape is made light-hearted like this, people are prone to brush aside actual incidents and fall back to phrases such as “boys will be boys” (this isn’t to say that men are the only perpetrators of sexual assault, I’m using this phrase because it’s common). Victims’ experiences are invalidated and they become less likely to seek help.
Again, numerous studies have shown that humor is a natural way of dealing with difficult situations, but people who make these kinds of jokes are almost never directly affected by the tragedies they joke about. In fact, they are often the ones who don’t care about the actual issues.
Their desensitization is the result of ignorance. Lack of knowledge on a topic makes it seem unserious and distant, which also makes it easier to joke about. Once they are desensitized to one issue, all problems seem worthy to be trivialized. And once they are trivialized, people stop caring about the actual problem because it’s been reduced to a joke. Tragedies become normal and some even manage to convince themselves that it’s funny. Problematic incidents are brushed aside because they’re seen as typical, and instead of trying to instigate change and justice, people continue to joke about it.
The world isn’t all peachy, but we have to do what we can do to make it better for everyone. And that starts with acknowledging the weight of real-world issues.
by HANNAH OH