A REAL LETTER FROM A REAL ASSHOLE

Dear Debrajean: Do you know that proclaiming that rape jokes are funny to a board full of thinking, feeling, caring humans is annoying, tasteless, and hurtful--
coincidentally it's un-PC, but that's really not the big issue. The issue is basic human kindness and compassion. Rape isn't funny. It's not funny when animals are raped, and it's not funny when humans are raped. While it seems very "on the cutting edge of things around here" to disregard the feelings and thoughts of people around you, I find it just incredibly mean-spirited and I don't think anyone would get offended at something that wasn't, in fact, extremely offensive. I am all for sick jokes, I tell them all the time. I'm all for consensual BDSM, I do that all the time also. But RAPE IS NOT FUNNY. EVER. I'm sorry, you can think it's funny all you want, but tell a rape joke around me, and I will tear you to pieces. I've had enough friends who have been through this that I can never ever find it funny, and I don't think it's somehow "brave" and "challenging norms" and "stuff like that" to offend people. If making a joke about it is one's way of dealing with it, one can do that as much as one wants. Just not in the presence of others. How do you know someone here is not being raped right now and is having a hard time dealing with it? Those kinds of jokes can be triggering for a great many people to commit even more heinous crimes. Joking about something like rape sends a message that rape is socially acceptable and even laughable. Cynicism is no excuse for cruelty.

--Reed Smell

Dear Reed: You certainly have a lot to say. Did you see that we have a slot open for a new female columnist in between the photos of empowered women? Why not try for that instead of writing me your self-important, poo-poo-stinking prose?

But I am a fair person, so I pondered your ideas as I walked down rainy streets in nothing more then a thin, piss-yellow sweater, pink-patterned circle skirt and a baby doll T-shirt that proclaimed I was a "tease." As it clung damply to my arms and breasts, I noticed a thick sound coming from an alleyway to my left. Peering around the corner I watched three men, jolly green giants painted pure shit-black, overpowering a eighty-year-old-looking woman. I opened a "Big Cherry Candy Bar" and settled down to watch the show. After they shoved their spit-lubed fucksticks in her baby cave in hard repetition, I noticed something that turned my belly to ice.

She was not laughing.

Could this mean that you were right, that rape was not funny? I had to know for sure.

I waited until the men were done and then approached the trembling
figure, stooping to the ground to get a better view. Tears were running clean rivers in a dirty face. One eye seemed to have exploded from the inside. Leaning until my nose was almost touching hers, I whispered softly so as
not to startle her, "Was that funny?"

"Help me"--her voice was gravel in a blender set on low--"I've been assaulted."

"I know." I wondered if she could smell the mid-morning snack I had just taken on my breath and decided not to worry about it, "but was it funny, being raped in the gutter like that?"

She looked at me with horror. "Everyone knows that rape is funny--very, very funny!"

Well, that settles it. Rape isn't just funny--it's very, very funny. Jokes such as:

Q. What did Tori Amos do for her rapist? A. Send him royalties!

and

Q. What did the victim say to her rapist? A. Does this mean we're going steady?

are the height of humor...and if you doubt that for a minute, remember:
If an eighty-year-old-woman who's just been raped by three men can find humor in it, so can you!