Fun fact for you, today: when you type the letters r-a-p-e into the Google search bar, the first auto fill result is rape sloth.
Don’t know what the “rape sloth” is? Well, according to knowyourmeme.com, the rape sloth is an “advice animal .. featuring a photograph of a sloth that appears to be whispering in a woman’s ear.” Side note, the model is nude. Not only is that extremely creepy on so many levels, but the rape sloth is whispering sexual innuendos about rape – hence the name rape sloth.
Why did I just tell you about a sloth that whispers jokes about rape into a nude model’s ear? Since its creation in March of 2012, rape sloth has had hundreds of memes created, but has more than 7,300 Twitter followers, and even more tags on Tumblr.
The rape sloth is just one example of how rape jokes are perpetrating our culture and dehumanizing rape victims.
Rape jokes don’t just stop with one meme, but are everywhere. On July 6, 2012, Tosh.O’s Daniel Tosh was performing a stand-up comedy routine at The Laugh Factory when he told a joke about rape. A woman in the audience stood up and said “rape jokes are never funny,” to which Tosh responded with another joke: “wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, ten guys right now?”
As the crowd hooted and hollered, Daniel Tosh basked in the support of the audience, while the event received national response. Comedians like Dane Cook and Jim Norton rushed to Twitter to post their support for Daniel Tosh and his rape comedy.
But in an interview with Fox News on July 11, 2012,
Katherine Hull, a spokesperson for the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network spoke out saying “When will this ‘funny man’ realize that rape jokes aren’t funny? By suggesting that an audience member deserved to be gang raped, Tosh took his schtick to a new low.”
These rape jokes are straight up normalizing the actions of rape. You may ask me, though, “what does it matter if I laughed at a joke? I didn’t go and rape someone!”
When we laugh at rape jokes, we are not being critical media consumers.
‘Jack, it’s not like rape happens that often.’ Wrong, again, reader. According to a National Center for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 5 women, and 1 in 17 men will be raped in their lifetime. That’s about 25 girls and 7 guys in your grade alone.
So what are you supposed to do? I know that no one wants to be the joke police, but sometimes we have to in order to protect those around us. By eliminating rape jokes from your day-to-day comedy routine, you are doing the first thing to help. Second, normalizing the term rape and using it in inappropriate ways (such as “I just got raped by that math test”) you are helping to bring the issue of rape to the table as a serious issue. Lastly, when people tell rape jokes or make light of a rape, tell them to stop and the reasons behind why it needs to be stopped.
I could go on about rape jokes and rape culture for hours, but the thing that I really want to drive home is the fact that rape is an issue, and rape jokes are a big factor into this.
Rape jokes hurt our society, our friends, our sisters, brothers, moms, dads, friends, teachers, and more. By not telling rape jokes, we are deciding to end the social stigmas that go along with rape. And that, dear reader, is one amazing thing.