Rethinking Sexual Humor
why is it okay
to joke about sexual violence how has it
become normalized and
how does this apply to me well i can’t
tell you the whole story
i can’t tell you this a few years ago my
family and i were vacationing in vietnam
we spent a few days in ho chi minh
before we traveled to a beach called the
nang just off the historical town of
hoyon
the beach had beautiful blue waters with
the sun glistening off the top of the
waves and little boats in the distance
one day my mom my sister and i were
walking down a sandy soy
shopping for groceries with shacks on
either side we turn into one somewhat
similar to an american mom-and-pop shop
there are two cashiers waiting who both
immediately stand the first
walks up to my mom and starts bargaining
the second walks up to me i take a few
steps back
the stranger turns their head to look at
my mom who’s turned her head to look at
some produce
before turning back to me and then as
the former president of the united
states
so eloquently puts it this stranger
grabbed me by the [ __ ]
i back up some more round a shelf and
we’re out the door within seconds
hi i’m kate i was sexually assaulted
when i was 10 years old
i was one of four hundred and thirty
three thousand six hundred and fifty
that year
and i have to be honest i don’t find it
funny
when people joke about it now i just
briefly referenced the
we’ll say unique donald trump footage of
him saying those comments as well as
some other very misogynistic ones
was released during his 2016
presidential campaign and discussed in
the following debate that took place
october 9th
and these tweets were tweeted in
response to that debate by a woman named
laura ingram
laura ingram has been an employee of fox
news since 2008
the news channel that my deaf
grandfather blasts
at max volume regardless of who’s
visiting
so this means that my 14 year old sister
my cousins who are 13 and 8
have been subconsciously learning that
this language is acceptable that they
can use it and they won’t be held
accountable
zero ramifications they might even be
praised
trump ultimately faced no repercussions
and the fact that he as a sitting
president was forgiven
amplified the idea that this kind of
language is excusable and ultimately
normalized sexual assault
and he wasn’t the only president
according to cnn president rodrigo
duterte of the philippines has made
comments
such as shoot them in the vagina and to
paraphrase the new york times
british politician raheem kassam told a
female colleague to tape her mouth and
her legs in response to a campaign
announcement
according to global news this past
international women’s day march 8th
lieutenant colonel taylor of the
canadian military resigned in response
to sexual assault
but not just the fact it was happening
it was the way it was being dealt with
brushed aside blown off taken as a joke
and that’s what happens when you joke
about assault you brush off the severity
of its actions
and while these examples don’t contain
sexual humor
when you continually watch or see
something that promotes
sexual assault the next step is to make
an insensitive joke
it’s a very dangerous game to play
has anyone here seen the breakfast club
basically what happens
is five kids get put in detention and
over the course of the day they become
friends
and two of these kids are bender and
claire and you can tell the whole time
there’s a little
something going on between the two of
them well in one of the scenes bender
comes into the library where the other
kids are
but he’s not supposed to be there and
then the teacher watching them
comes into the room as well so bender
hides under claire’s desk
but claire is wearing a skirt that day
so bender decides to pull a dick move
and he sticks his head in her skirt
between her legs and the rest of the
kids they laugh
they cover for bender and then they go
to the back of the room to smoke weed
and at the end of the movie bender and
claire are in the parking lot and she
gives him her earring and he puts it in
his ear
and he walks through the field and he
does the fist and the music plays and
it’s this totally iconic moment
that completely distracts you from the
fact that this film
romanticized assault it took me 60
seconds
to explain this scene and there’s a
chance that some of us didn’t realize
it portrayed laughter at claire’s
expense didn’t realize that bender was
laughing at his own joke
assaulting someone didn’t realize that i
made a satirical joke
and according to the rape abuse and
incest national network of the united
states within the now 73 seconds it’s
taken for me to explain this film
another victim has been assaulted
let’s take that in for a second
but it’s not it’s decades after the
breakfast club there are still tv shows
and characters such as how i met your
mothers barney stinson and michael scott
from the office who are just as
insensitive
throughout the course of their tv shows
both characters film naked women without
their consent that is literally assault
and it’s cueing a laugh track and it’s
what’s causing students
in isb hallways to say you don’t have my
consent
in improper incorrect and insulting
contexts
but it’s not just the entertainment that
hollywood creates it’s
also the people it employs harvey
weinstein is one of the most infamous
sexual predators in hollywood having
hurt nearly 100 victims
and facing 23 years in prison this man
is currently sitting in a jail cell
with an estimated net worth of 25
million
us dollars and yet british comedian
james corden had the audacity to say
for the women who watched harvey
weinstein bathe it must be weird seeing
them in hot water
aside from that this is an industry that
employed possibly hundreds of
accomplices
who stayed complicit about assault for
years
it’s an industry that honestly should
not be leading by example
now let’s be mindful it’s incredibly
beneficial to normalize the discussions
surrounding sexual assault just not the
actions
because that normalization leads to
insensitive jokes
because we joke about what we know what
we’re familiar or comfortable with
and whether you watch fox news once a
week or a hollywood movie twice a week
or the office every single day
you are familiarizing yourself with
sexual assault and you are subject to a
casual nature of sexual humor
so you make a joke and yes humor can be
a great tool can help people overcome
terrible trauma tina fey
amy poehler liza donnelly they all do a
great job of this
my english class spent i don’t know how
many weeks
learning about voltaire and candide and
satire and criticism
and blah blah blah but not every 16 year
old kid
can use satire in a mature fashion
because satire criticism
is not the humor we see out in those
halls i’ve seen boys and girls alike
calling each other pedophiles
for fun ostracizing any kind of physical
contact to the point of calling it rape
that’s not
criticizing our society you can be funny
without being offensive and if you can’t
make a joke
without making it at my expense you’re
just not funny
and the sad truth is there are so many
people out there with stories so much
worse than mine
it’s reported by the national sexual
violence resource center that 1 in 10
children are sexually abused before age
18 and that 50
percent of global sexual assaults happen
to girls ages 16
and below that’s my age now
it’s much more common than one may think
but you never know who that person is
that person could be your friend lupita
nyong’o your teacher
gwyneth paltrow or terry crews your
sister
and you just have no idea for years
nobody knew nobody thought that person
was me
thank you