god help you if you are a phoenix and you dare to rise up from the ash

*Trigger warning for sexual violence*

(Previous posts relating to Rob Thomas and his rape jokes)


See, now this is becoming weird... weird in the sense that I hate to be that person, you know, that person who gets offended about everything and tells people about it. "Rape jokes are not funny", and then people would turn their heads and yawn. As you can see, Rob Thomas (Matchbox Stupid) has made yet another raped joke... this time about bears raping children? That one is weird, even for me.
Now this whole episode reminded me of an old post by the great feminist writer Sady Doyle from Tiger Beatdown. It is a post that took me forever to find (why doesn't she has a search button?) and it is a post that has stayed with me since I first read it back in June 11, 2009. The title of the post is: M@ Did Not Rape You. He Just Drew a Diagram About It!
The post is about M@ from the blog Why I Hate D.C. when he once went out for a jog, and saw a pretty lady... and wanted to rape her and then kill her... but WAIT: it was a joke you guys. Don't get all offended, it was just in his imagination. So then, Ms. Doyle proceeded to give him the tiger beatdown of his life... the part of her comment that has stayed with me, and the reason why I detests rape jokes, and the word 'rape' to be use so causality is this:

As I skim my blog reader, noting and enjoying blogs by many intelligent and funny feminists, I come across Amanda Hess’s article about, and interview with, M@. He’s just my type: an entitled, self-absorbed, narcissistic dickweed with no self-awareness, who will continue defending himself, no matter how wrong he is. A hitherto well-known desire overcomes me: I want to take him to a rape crisis center. I also want to take him to a women’s shelter. The women will come forth to tell him their stories, one by one, speaking softly and simply: about the attacks, about their injuries, about what went through their minds, what their attackers said, how hard they have to work each day not to be overcome by the shame and guilt and terror this world seems happy to thrust upon them. They will speak of the failures of the criminal justice system to prosecute and convict their attackers, the failure of communities and families and friends to support them or to understand that they did not “bring this upon themselves” somehow, the failure of us all, as citizens, to notice and care about and refuse to trivialize the huge numbers of women who are made subject to violence, this violence, this intimate violence, this betrayal which befalls our gender so disproportionately. As they speak, M@ will slowly, but surely, come to know what many of us know already: that there is much suffering in this world, that his concerns and troubles are petty and insignificant compared to theirs, and that his tiny, trivial, privileged existence is not the most important one on the planet. He will not be able to handle this, as it invalidates his entire worldview, so his head will explode. Whoops.