Man, I’ve seen people use the word “rape” a lot lately. Perhaps as a denizen of the internet you have become acquainted with the webcomic Penny Arcade; if you have not, and you enjoy acerbic, sometimes crude, often video-game related humor, you should. If you are acquainted with this webcomic, you may also know about the rather ridiculous firestorm surrounding the creators’ decision to remove their “Dickwolves” t-shirt from vendors at their upcoming Penny Arcade Expo. This stems from a series of complaints that the joke in this comic promotes/condones rape or “rape culture.” I’m not going to get into that debate right now – although I generally agree with Gabe’s “if you don’t like it, then don’t read it” policy – but I do want to talk a little about this idea of “rape culture.” I confess I hadn’t heard much about this before tonight, not being one who frequents leftist/feminist blogs, where the term seems to find its stronghold. According to Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville, Penny Arcade’s antagonist in this debacle:
The rape culture is a collection of narratives and beliefs that service the existence of endemic sexual violence in myriad ways, from overt exhortations to commit sexual violence to subtle discouragements against prosecution and conviction for crimes of sexual violence. The rape joke, by virtue of its ubiquity, prominently serves as a tool of normalization and diminishment.
Let’s break this down a bit. As defined my Ms. McEwan, the rape culture is “a collection of narratives and beliefs” – in other words, this is not a “culture” as the word is normally used, but rather a belief system, or if that is even too strong a term, a bias or set of biases. This means that the rape culture is not something that is necessarily universal in its definition or prevalence among a given group of people, but is rather an unconscious (or semi-conscious?) acceptance of the narratives that the rape culture categorizes. In this way is is analogous to more common concepts such as racism or sexism; that is, an idea of a skewed view on normal existence that may or may not be intentional, that causes you to make certain assumptions and accept certain situations as correct/natural that you shouldn’t.
This set of beliefs and narratives encourages “endemic sexual violence in myriad ways.” There are examples given of overt exhortations to commit sexual violence, and discouragements against prosecution and conviction for crimes of sexual violence. In other words, at this point, it seems like this “rape culture” would be limited to beliefs or narratives that lead the person to rape, or endorse/defend rape. I would like to think that most civilized people would agree that rape, and sexual violence in general, is morally wrong, so this seems like a group of people entirely falling into an extremist camp, one rarely seen in the real world outside of the rapists themselves.
Contextually, I believe that the author would include in the category the “she deserved it” crowd – those who say a woman somehow becomes more deserving of sexual violence when, say, walking alone down a dark alley in a short skirt. This is a ridiculous concept; the woman may indeed be more likely to become a victim, given a set of circumstances such as those, but certainly is not more deserving of becoming one. That is, the morality of the act the rapist commits in the dark alley is unchanged by these facts. He remains exactly as guilty as a man who rapes a nun in Times Square at noon. The idea that “she deserved it” is perhaps, then, a result of the narratives of this “rape culture.”
So let’s now look at the comic that is promoting rape culture. If you’re not a gamer, the setup for the comic is an obvious jab at MMORPG quest systems – the primary target of the comic being the suspension of disbelief required to make such a quest system make any sense whatsoever. The use of “raping dickwolves” is a hyperbole, riffing on a scenario common in such games, where you must save five slaves from the dark and soul-stealing saronite mines, but then arrive at the scene of the quest location and see dozens of these slaves, because there are thousands of other players who must also complete this quest. Were you a real hero in this scenario, would you save only five slaves? What about the rest? Before we proceed, a disclaimer: I thought this comic was hilarious.
So how could a joke that isn’t even really about rape, but just mentions it, contribute to rape culture? It’s not clear from the comic that the authors think that rape should be condoned or treated lightly. The slave is obviously terrorized by the trauma, and the reader is assumed to think that the natural action of the hero would be to rescue the sixth slave, and the absurdity of his reaction to the slave’s plea is what makes the shock humor. But because rape is part of the joke, it then becomes a “rape joke,” according to Ms. McEwan. Why is it not a slavery joke? Or a gaming joke? Or, as it was intended, an MMO joke? I would submit that in order to categorize this comic primarily as a rape joke, you would have to be looking for it to be one. But we’ll get into that later. Regardless of this, let’s assume that this is a rape joke and was intended to be one. How does this sort of humor contribute to the rape culture? Again, to quote Ms. McEwan (excerpting the bits about her second point):
No, one rape joke does not “cause” someone to go out and commit a rape. But a single rape joke does not exist in a void. It exists in a culture rife with jokes that treat as a punchline a heinous, terrifying crime that leaves most of its survivors forever changed in some material way. […] one cannot argue “it isn’t my rape joke that facilitates rape” any more than a single raindrop in an ocean could claim never to have drowned anyone. […] I’m bothered by the fact that the jokes normalize and effectively minimize the severity of rape and thus perpetuate the rape culture…
So, she suggests, it’s not a single rape joke that facilitates rape, but the fact that there are a lot of them, and that the frequency of these jokes normalizes and minimizes the severity of rape. Now in order to normalize or facilitate rape, the main brunt of the joke should provide sympathy for or cause the audience of the joke to identify with the rapist. Let us examine, as a parallel, racism in humor. Would you say that this stand up bit normalizes or facilitates racism? [Language warning: Chris Rock]
This video actually has the comic scream “I hate niggers!” – but, listening to the whole clip, does the routine promote racism? No. Racism is the launching point for the joke, which is mocking a subset of people that he implies contribute to the real problem of racism. The fact that it mentions racism, and even contains statements that would be considered racist out of context, does not make it a joke that normalizes or encourages racism. The point of the joke is, if anything, anti-racist.
So again, let’s go back to the Penny Arcade comic. Does that comic promote rape? Of course not. Rape is a side point to intensify the point of the main joke. Penny Arcade has stated directly: “we hate rapers, and all the rapes they do” after getting a complaint. To categorize the joke as a rape joke is to say that any joke containing mention of rape encourages and/or normalizes it. If that’s the case, then any joke mentioning black people must be racist. Any joke in which there is violence, murder, or theft must condone those behaviors. Any joke about a drunk encourages alcoholism, and any blonde joke denigrates Swedes. Of course this absurd, but if it were true, it would make this statement from the same blog very disturbing:
When I have a sense of humor, it is a little offbeat. I have liked, for example, Penny Arcade’s comics about the numerous times they’ve killed each other. I have a dark sense of humor, and I’ll admit it. But unlike Gabe killing Tycho so he doesn’t have to share a video game, a slave being raped is a real thing that happens in the world every day. I don’t find this “joke” funny…
Murder is also something that occurs every day, and I daresay is a more heinous crime even than rape. Either you should accept that both can be humorous when used as part of a joke, or be held accountable for a double standard. In the meantime, crying that every mention of rape, in any context, somehow encourages rape is irresponsible, foolish, and severely impedes the legitimate concerns of those trying to defend and respect the victims of sexual violence. Please, just stop.
Note: I should also add that Ms. McEwan also cites the fact that rape victims could find mentions of rape to be a “trigger” for some rape victims – that is, would evoke a strong negative emotional or physical response. This is certainly a valid concern, but one that I would address by replying, “What are people who know they are susceptible to such triggers doing reading a webcomic known for using rape, murder, bestiality, etc for comic effect?” This goes into some of the more political concerns related to libertarianism but I will not address those here.