Tosh

I guess recently there is a huge uproar about comments that the host of Tosh.0 made towards a female in the audience when she challenged him on rape jokes he was making.  He responded by inviting people to rape her back.

My job exists, in part, because of people who are raped, who are sexually abused, who are victimized.  Survivors are some of the hardest cases for therapists to work with sometimes.  Yet, on a daily basis, I am left helping people pick up the pieces from a rape.  From being molested.  From maybe having had one too many drinks and being taken advantage of.

Very few of these people have had their perpetrators come to justice.  Very few reported it.  An astounding number still have to interact with the person who victimized them...sometimes daily.

Sexual assault is a boundary crossing to the max, amongst other things.  It is a symbol of the misogyny in our culture.  What man regularly has to "be aware" of being in a parking lot at night because someone might jump them?  What man has ever had to leave a room, cross a street, call a friend,  because a stranger was creeping them out?

Rape is not funny.  Extorting someone to commit this violent act is not funny.  Doing so to silence someone who dares to challenge you...isn't that part of what rape is?  Keeping people, mainly women, in their place?  Power and control?  Objectifying?

Pretending rape jokes are humor is no different than pretending that drinking a case of beer daily is normal consumption.  Both reek of denial.  Both take a huge cost...unseen at first, but eventually devastating in what havoc it wreaks.

I admit that I thought Tosh.0 was funny.  Not so much any more.  I can't support someone without basic decency.  I am sure the next outcry will be about how he really is a nice guy.  And so is that rapist sitting in the audience who is taking your jokes about it as normalizing rape.