Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
if we're talking about trivialisation of things like rape being the reason for an increase in rape jokes, then i gotta say i think it's actually the complete opposite. rape isn't being trivialised, it's vilified now more than it ever has been in history. to take a different slant on frogwoman's thesis (i.e. 'that there are times where because something is so unimaginable the only way to imagine it is through jokes') i think that the appeal of rape jokes does come partly through a morbid fascination with the taboo, but the taboo itself isn't created because people can't emotionally 'take' the subject matter. it's because now more than ever, in most modern Western societies, people are aware of how inappropriate and base such behaviours are. i don't have statistics to hand on this (and i think that all statistics on the issue are probably misleading) but tbh i wouldn't be surprised if rates of actual sexual assaults had been pretty steadily on the decrease since post-war. certainly the issue is no longer 'swept under the carpet' in the public debate anymore, nor is it shielded from view by communal and family hierarchies and structures in the same way.
so yeah i think that especially with some of the more detailed and vulgar of these jokes it's about breaching the rules of an indisputably 'serious' topic, on which sobriety is the socially expected norm. it's the natural reaction of 'youngsters' who, as some have noted, usually haven't known of such serious events in their own lives to want to break the rule. it's like the laughter-trap in the two minutes' silence.
it's more distasteful with the lot in question here mainly because they're at an age by which most people have actually had some life experience to tell them that some topics are no-go areas - FOR GOOD REASON... but there is a segment of cossetted middle-England suburbian type kids who never drank or had a girlfriend before university whose closest experience to anything 'dangerous' or 'real' in life is grotesque violence in gangland thriller films.
but that said i also think that there's a culture of indulgent frankness amongst would-be moral crusaders which is also to blame. people have already noted some of urban's ultra-violent diatribes and i think they're often a good representation of the morally righteous pyscho-sexual revenge fantasies which essentially 'up the ante'. to be frank, in some ways it has been the left which has encouraged a more gritty, detailed, brutal and honest account of sexual violence in public discourse - with good reason (thinking about social realist films from the 70s, feminist campaigns against being 'ashamed', etc). however, one of the side-effects of such traumatic personal experiences openly entering the mainstream discourse is that they have taken on a moralistic and pious tone. that's to say, it's Ok to account rape or general sexual violence as vividly and as sickeningly as you like, so long as you're condemning it, and you make a repeated and constant point about condemning it. obviously this attitude emerged to discourage exactly the kind of profusion of 'jokes' which we see today, but the whole process let the genie out of the bottle. once images and descriptions are out there they're in the public imagination - but then there's also the added factor that people are expected not to even think about them unless it's in a kosher political context - but the cultural images themselves are still everywhere, sometimes impossible to miss. when that's backed up by the likes of some posters on here, aggressively indulging themselves in violent fantasies about what they'd do to transgressors of these rules 'if only they were within arms reach' explains in part, i think, the contempt of the likes of those facebook defenders of 'Unilad' towards 'censorship'. tbh i can think of one poster one here whose recent obsession with violent castration of transgressors and pretty much everyone he violently disagrees with concerns me more in terms of underlying sexual aggression than unilad stuff. not that i'm actually concerned or anything, i'm not a fucking sissy or anything.
personally, as a 'youth' or whatever, i don't think a single one of the people on that board actually think that rape is Ok, and without getting into too much simplistic pyscho-babble analysis i do think that in the context of such 'banter' actually the really risky sorts are more likely, in most circumstances, to opt for exaggerated offence around the issue. that's not to say that there isn't a complete absence of personal responsibility present amongst that crowd which could lead towards serious sexual assault, because there is and freshers weeks across the country and every year are choc-a-bloc with stories about dubious and questionable encounters. but often those involved probably wouldn't consider what they'd done to be 'rape', as they understand in linear terms that rape is 'bad' - which is why i think the 'don't be that guy' campaign is probably a good idea.
i also think that from what i know of the 1970s, in real terms there is no way in hell that things aren't better for women in pretty much every way now in attitudes towards pretty much everything (domestic violence, sexual violence, etc). i also think that the kids are, in their own way far more aware of the fact that such things are bad, even if they lack the emotional experience for them to want to avoid the topic in the realms of 'jokes'.
my two cents anyway
so yeah i think that especially with some of the more detailed and vulgar of these jokes it's about breaching the rules of an indisputably 'serious' topic, on which sobriety is the socially expected norm. it's the natural reaction of 'youngsters' who, as some have noted, usually haven't known of such serious events in their own lives to want to break the rule. it's like the laughter-trap in the two minutes' silence.
it's more distasteful with the lot in question here mainly because they're at an age by which most people have actually had some life experience to tell them that some topics are no-go areas - FOR GOOD REASON... but there is a segment of cossetted middle-England suburbian type kids who never drank or had a girlfriend before university whose closest experience to anything 'dangerous' or 'real' in life is grotesque violence in gangland thriller films.
but that said i also think that there's a culture of indulgent frankness amongst would-be moral crusaders which is also to blame. people have already noted some of urban's ultra-violent diatribes and i think they're often a good representation of the morally righteous pyscho-sexual revenge fantasies which essentially 'up the ante'. to be frank, in some ways it has been the left which has encouraged a more gritty, detailed, brutal and honest account of sexual violence in public discourse - with good reason (thinking about social realist films from the 70s, feminist campaigns against being 'ashamed', etc). however, one of the side-effects of such traumatic personal experiences openly entering the mainstream discourse is that they have taken on a moralistic and pious tone. that's to say, it's Ok to account rape or general sexual violence as vividly and as sickeningly as you like, so long as you're condemning it, and you make a repeated and constant point about condemning it. obviously this attitude emerged to discourage exactly the kind of profusion of 'jokes' which we see today, but the whole process let the genie out of the bottle. once images and descriptions are out there they're in the public imagination - but then there's also the added factor that people are expected not to even think about them unless it's in a kosher political context - but the cultural images themselves are still everywhere, sometimes impossible to miss. when that's backed up by the likes of some posters on here, aggressively indulging themselves in violent fantasies about what they'd do to transgressors of these rules 'if only they were within arms reach' explains in part, i think, the contempt of the likes of those facebook defenders of 'Unilad' towards 'censorship'. tbh i can think of one poster one here whose recent obsession with violent castration of transgressors and pretty much everyone he violently disagrees with concerns me more in terms of underlying sexual aggression than unilad stuff. not that i'm actually concerned or anything, i'm not a fucking sissy or anything.
personally, as a 'youth' or whatever, i don't think a single one of the people on that board actually think that rape is Ok, and without getting into too much simplistic pyscho-babble analysis i do think that in the context of such 'banter' actually the really risky sorts are more likely, in most circumstances, to opt for exaggerated offence around the issue. that's not to say that there isn't a complete absence of personal responsibility present amongst that crowd which could lead towards serious sexual assault, because there is and freshers weeks across the country and every year are choc-a-bloc with stories about dubious and questionable encounters. but often those involved probably wouldn't consider what they'd done to be 'rape', as they understand in linear terms that rape is 'bad' - which is why i think the 'don't be that guy' campaign is probably a good idea.
i also think that from what i know of the 1970s, in real terms there is no way in hell that things aren't better for women in pretty much every way now in attitudes towards pretty much everything (domestic violence, sexual violence, etc). i also think that the kids are, in their own way far more aware of the fact that such things are bad, even if they lack the emotional experience for them to want to avoid the topic in the realms of 'jokes'.
my two cents anyway
