Just like a case of herpes, the dickwolves are back again.
Penny-Arcade’s Mike Krahulik said something stupid again. And then he’s had to apologize. Frankly, I wish I could believe he was actually sorry.
I’ll be the first to admit: I have mixed feelings about Penny-Arcade. On the one had, they’ve done some amazing things for charity and gaming culture in general. They’ve had no problem in shooting back at various anti-gaming gadflies like Jack Thompson or bringing down suspect gaming marketers like Ocean Marketing
At the same time however: for people who claim to hate bullies with a passion, they sure as hell act like one whenever the mood strikes.
I’ll be honest: I tend to have a negative impression of the webcomic side of Penny-Arcade and not just because they’ve taken a shot or two at me personally.
The only thing worse than Doctor Nerdlove is the comments on Doctor Nerdlove. — TychoBrahe (@TychoBrahe) September 14, 2012
(“♬I bet you think this comic’s about you….♫”)
But it’s the Dickwolves controversy – and the way that Penny-Arcade has handled it… especially Mike’s contributions. And frankly, Penny-Arcade’s antics – especially Mike’s – are emblematic of an ongoing problem in geek and gamer culture.
The Call Of the Dickwolves
For those not familiar with this fiasco – and welcome to the Internet, I think you’ll enjoy it, by the way – in 2010, Penny-Arcade published a comic entitled “The Sixth Slave”, poking fun at the game mechanics in World of Warcraft and other MMOs where you are only supposed to collect six rat asses or rescue six captives or gather two dozen flowers because reasons. In this particular strip, a slave left behind after the player has recruited his quota begged to be taken along; “Every morning, we’re awoken with savage beatings,” he pleads. “Every night, we’re raped to sleep by the dickwolves.”
Many people – including survivors of sexual abuse and rape – found this strip to be offensive beyond PA’s usual “edginess”. Many even found it to be upsetting. Tycho and Gabe posted this in response:
To say that people were pissed off is something of an understatement. While Penny-Arcade is known for being willing to court controversy and poke at its critics, the level of willful antagonizing of the people who expressed grievances with The Sixth Slave and PA’s response seemed to take on a new level.
At the 2010 PAX, Mike – the artist half of Penny-Arcade’s Tycho and Gabriel – drew a dickwolf for the audience, while Jerry Holkins announced that Dickwolves t-shirts were for sale in the PA merch store.
And then the internet exploded.
As questionable as Mike and Jerry’s handling of the whole dickwolves controversy had been, it was the shirts that were the most pointed “go fuck yourself”. There’s really no question that this was a direct shot at their critics, with the added pissing-in-the-wound factor of monetizing the controversy.
Let’s allow that to sink in for a second. They decided that – in the light of the many, many people who were justifiably upset over the controversy – to monetize a rape joke as a way of striking back at their critics.
The dickwolves shirts were pulled from the store a month later after several speakers and gaming companies announced that they would be boycotting PAX East; many of Penny-Arcade’s fans bristled at PA’s apparent backing down in the face of “censorship”; Mike personally encouraged people to wear their shirts. Flash-mobs were planned. It seemed that Dickwolves were going to be defining PAX for quite some time – an awkward position for a convention that positions itself as being as woman and family-friendly as possible.
It certainly didn’t help that Mike kept returning to the topic.
While the whole furor died down – sort of – after PAX East, the controversy flared back up again last Monday during a Q&A session Mike told the audience that he felt that pulling the dickwolves shirts from the online store was a mistake. Robert Khoo, Penny-Arcade’s business manager agreed, saying that yanking the shirts was a form of engaging with their critics when they should have ignored them – as is now company policy.
The Internet, needless to say, was not silent on the matter.
The Apology Cometh
Yesterday (9/5/13) Mike posted a lengthy apology – not just for his comments about the dickwolf shirts but about the entire controversy. It’s a fairly lengthy and eloquent apology, expressing regret about the whole mess… and I really wish I could take it at face value.
I’ll be the first to tell you that I hate it when people let the perfect be the enemy of “the good”, but as I read this, I have a hard time believing that Mike actually gets the problem.
To start with: he begins the apology by defending the comic that started the whole mess in the first place. His regrets, it seems, come from his seeming need to keep poking the Internet bear. Nowhere does he acknowledge the problems with the original strip.
Now, do I think that it’s the most horrible thing ever? Well… not really, no. I think it’s in poor taste. I think parts of it are funny. Poking fun at the inadvertent world that WoW’s mechanics create? Funny. The idea of a wolf made out of dicks? Funny. Rape jokes? Well, that’s going to be a polarizing issue; some people hate them in general, some people believe there are no sacred cows when it comes to comedy. But the problem isn’t that Mike and Jerry made a rape joke: it’s that Mike still doesn’t get why people are upset. This whole thing could’ve been avoided with a simple “OK, I get why you’re upset. I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I apologize if I offended you.”
Instead we get the follow-up strip, which – again – Mike seems to not realize the problem. From his apology:
That was a mistake and I apologize to this day for that strip. It was a knee jerk reaction and rather than the precision strike back at our detractors that we intended, it was a massive AOE that hurt a lot of innocent people.
Emphasis mine. The mistake wasn’t that he made an overly broad attack, it was that he felt the need to “strike back” in the first place.
Here’s the thing about edgy comedy: it’s only edgy when you’re punching outside of your weight-class. When you’re punching down, you’re not being edgy; you’re being a bully. It’s a case of “pick on someone your own size” – and individuals criticizing a rape joke for its insensitivity are no where near their size. Considering that Penny-Arcade is the 2000 lb. gorilla of web comics and gaming culture, there’re damned few people who aren’t smaller than they are.
Then we get to another area where Mike seems to be missing the point:
We should have just stopped right then but we kept going and made the merchandise. Had we left it alone, the ongoing tension about the whole thing might have subsided but Robert made the call to pull the shirts. In hindsight all this did was open the wound back up and bring on a whole new wave of debate.
Um… no. Pulling the shirts – which, again, was Penny-Arcade monetizing an insult to rape survivors – didn’t “reopen” the wound, it was the right thing to do. When you’re pissing off a lot of people and alienating your fans and you want the problem to go away, making money off the very thing that’s pissing them off is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
Yanking the shirts wasn’t “engaging” the critics; they’d engaged the critics from the very beginning. That unfortunate “AOE attack” that “missed it’s target?” That’s the literal definition of engaging the critics.
It’s hard to tell if he’s being disingenuous or if he legitimately doesn’t realize the difference between “engaging” and “doing the right thing”.
Portrait of an Internet Bully
Part of the reason why I have a hard time taking this apology seriously is because it’s part of an ongoing pattern with Krahulik: say something insensitive or outright insulting, double down when called on it, lash out at the critics, pull back with a “sorry not sorry” apology. He’s mocked assault victims and trans people online, apologized…and then engaged in the exact same behavior all over again.
Occasionally, he’ll explain that he’s a hothead who was bullied as a kid and now he’s fighting against censorship and internet bullies.
Except… who, exactly, is bullying Krahulik? Who’s in a position to censor him? He’s a literal millionaire with financial and social resources that the rest of us can only dream of. Nobody’s preventing him from printing dickwolf shirts. Nobody’s abridging his right to act like a complete dick. Unless I’ve missed some act of Congress, there’s no law against bad taste.
Nobody who’s criticized Mike wields the power and influence that he does. He’s the biggest swinging dick(wolf) in the room. Slapping back at individuals who question him or criticize him is like swatting flies with a Buick. For somebody who hates being bullied, he certainly seems to have no problem being a bully himself.
Mike, it seems, is not able to separate criticism of his art from personal attacks. And his response, when told that the whole controversy is making people uncomfortable and contradicting PAX’s inclusive philosophy, is to double down on it and encourage others to join him in making those people uncomfortable
Moreover, he seems to be completely unaware of the power that he wields. Consider that the Penny-Arcade audience runs to the literal millions and that their fans will follow Mike and Jerry’s lead when it comes to these issues.
And to be sure: where Penny-Arcade goes, so go their fans. People who objected to the controversy – especially women who wrote about it – were deluged with angry comments from thousands of Penny-Arcade fans, including repeated rape and death threats.
Courtney Stanton – a rape survivor – has written repeatedly about just why the dickwolves controversy was offensive and potentially triggering for abuse survivors. In response, she was targeted by fans, including ones determined to “prove she was lying” about her rape.
Elizabeth Sampat also criticized Penny-Arcade‘s history of shitty behavior, only to receive thousands of rape threats directed not only at her but her kids.
They’re not the only ones. Many critics who wrote about the original strip and its follow-ups received similar threats and harassment from Penny-Arcade fans.
To be fair: Mike and Jerry didn’t decide to unleash the flying monkeys; they didn’t point to their critics and yell “Sic ‘em!”
This time.
But – to mix in a different geek reference – with great power comes great responsibility… and it’s hard to find people with more power than Mike and Jerry. They literally set the tone for the way their fans are likely to see things and the fans respond accordingly. It’s amusing to see it when the target is someone who “deserves” it – Jack Thompson comes to mind – but it’s absolutely terrifying when they turn on people in the name of – in the words of Twitter user @TeamRape1 – “showing those that want to crush free speech”.
Dickwolves and Privilege
The whole controversy about the Dickwolves is reflective of the issues that gaming culture – and geek culture as a whole – continues to face. Women are taking part in geek culture, from comics to science fiction to gaming, in greater numbers than ever before… and all too often, they’re being told over and over again that they’re not welcome there.
Women consistently have to justify their “nerd cred”, are told over and over again that they’re not good enough to be part of the club (or else are there under false pretenses), are harassed over and over again, and then have their very legitimate concerns minimized. They’re told repeatedly to not make waves, to sit down and shut up, to ignore the over-sexualized representation of women, to endure the harassment and not to try to change anything.
PAX is supposed to be the antithesis of all of this. It’s supposed to be the all-inclusive, family friendly alternative to the shitty side of gamer culture. Its stellar anti-harassment policy and attention to diversity in its panels and guests speaks highly to its goals…
… but it’s hard to keep those goals in mind when one half of the public face of PAX is mocking trigger warnings and rape victims and his followers are threatening to murder his critics.
And so here we are again. He’s shot his mouth off and now he’s apologizing. Again. I wish I could believe that Mike’s apology is sincere instead of an attempt at managing a public-relations fiasco that’s been dogging the Penny-Arcade brand for years now.
Maybe Mike means it this time. I honestly hope he does.
But – as many have pointed out when he was insulting trans people – an apology is just a start. It’s not enough to say you’re sorry, especially if you just turn right around and do it all over again.
If Mike wants to prove he’s actually changed this time, that he cares about how his words and actions taint PAX, then we’re going to need to see consistent and sustained change.
Not just another blog-post.
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craniest says
all through that post yesterday I kept hearing "here honey I brought you flowers because I'm sorry you made me hit you again"
@ChuckFunky says
What makes it even more unfortunate and disheartening is that there are a lot of really good ancillary projects that use PA as a platform (Extra Creditz being the biggest one that comes to mind) for talking about very progressive things in gamer/nerd culture. I wonder how long they can keep that up in good faith?
Heck, I wonder how long it will take for someone like Wil Wheaton to cut ties?
Kiersyn says
I, too, have been curious to see if Wil has any comments on this. I also find the fact that he didn’t attend PAX Prime this year to be an ironically amusing coincidence.
In a very similar vein, I did find this post by MC Frontalot to be interesting: https://plus.google.com/+MCFrontalot/posts/94KfgrA75JH.
Crow says
That MC Frontalot piece is rather well reasoned, and in
particular I think this whole mess has really shone a light on just
how insanely confrontational and zero-sum a lot of individuals have
become. I remember having a similar reaction to the original strip
as Front did, insomuch that I found it to be an immensely pointed
and absurdist take on lazy motivational design. In my many years of
playing MMOs, this is a trope (the only save 10 when there are 50
in the cave!) that comes up all the time. So then I ask what the
issue is. If the original strip passes the Lindy West test (which
it does) then how do we interpret the followup? Because it feels
like bait 'n switch. It's essentially: Call out
something non-problematic as problematic; wait for the human,
defensive response; jump on the defensiveness to
"prove" the existence of the original non-problem
problem. I dunno, but that makes me really nervous.
Jenna says
Wil Wheaton once said that he works hard to make art (a youtube channel on tabletop gaming is art?) and that the Kardashian family is worse than Hitler. He also tweeted this: https://twitter.com/wilw/status/22921833346 at the time of the controversy, so maybe the unfortunately praised Mr. Wheaton shouldn't be who you look to for guidance
Kiersyn says
Being curious as to what someone says does not equate to looking to them for guidance in the least.
Crow says
To be honest, it simply highlights the fact that we're all flawed human beings. You find me someone who has never done nor thought something "problematic" and I'll eat my hat. The further issue is that we, in an age of no-privacy, have ironically created more and more absolutist concepts of Social Justice which, frankly, create a standard that *no one* is able to live up to.
And that's the larger point: that our activity in these regards is just as nasty and awful as anyone else's behavior, yet because of the philosophical/theoretical loophole which justifies poor behavior *because it's for the "good"*.
And that's why Jerry and Mike were crucified for something that was never problematic. Because no matter the action, you can trip someone up eventually if you're waiting for them to say something bad. And the result is that we're going to go zero-sum and assume the absolute worst about them despite the fact that their fame and influence have led to a whole lot of positives. So, they made some ignorant and/or "problematic" comments concerning individuals who are trans. That's an issue, but I never saw anyone approach them on that topic with any compassion, only rage and hatred. While the stated goal is to foster inclusive communities, we're all mighty quick to pass some really heavy judgement without any nuance or complexity.
For everyone who made this a big deal you have to ask yourself: is it a big deal because they're out there actively hurting people, or is it a big deal because that was what you wanted all along? It just feels like a bait-and-switch, and it certainly doesn't end in a place where *anyone* looks like a good person.
Tristan Salazar says
The thing is, and I know this is a very minor point at this stage of this fracas, is that one of the things I liked about the original Dickwolves comic is that I thought it was also criticizing tape culture along with the main issue of casual horror wrought on MMO civilians. On my initial read, I thought PA were making a secondary point about rape being a drama cliché and gamers casual acceptance and disregard of rape in conversation and narrative.
Alas, everything that happened after showed how wrong I was in that interpretation.
Gentleman Horndog says
It's completely overshadowed by the idiocy of Gabe's response, but you could actually have a very interesting conversation about rape jokes centered on this comic.
The comic actually does the rape joke about as well as you can do a rape joke — the victim is not the butt of the joke, and the awfulness of rape actually highlights the callousness of the joke's real target. There is nothing in the joke to suggest rape is in any way acceptable or to be made fun of; the joke actually hinges in part on how UNacceptable it is. Does that make the joke okay? Or is the entire topic so sensitive and triggery that all such jokes should be avoided, even if they're done right? I can honestly see the validity of both sides of that argument, and neither has completely convinced me yet.
Alas. This comic is now largely useless for debating whether there's such a thing as an acceptable rape joke, because you can't bring it into that discussion without bringing dickwolf t-shirts with you.
Cait says
This is… kinda true. I don't like how rape is used as the defacto worst thing that can happen to you (why aren't there more off-the-cuff references to being forced to murder your own children? isn't that pretty dang bad?) But, he's pointing out that the system is set up to basically turn the player into someone complicit in the violence. It's not perfect (I think a "perfect" rape joke of the sort you're talking about focuses on the rapist) but I think it *could* have opened up discussion about what rape culture is and how bystanders perpetuate it and allow it to happen by doing nothing in the face of brosephs saying things that support it outright.
Akai says
"why aren't there more off-the-cuff references to being forced to murder your own children? isn't that pretty dang bad?"
Because that happens infrequently and rape happens a lot
Nichole says
I think it's more that the rape reference was just so unnecessary. The more I look at this comic strip, the more I realize that it actually would be brilliant without the middle panel. The true punchline is the last panel, when he says "I only needed to save five slaves, alright? Don't make this weird" THAT is really funny, that is the joke. He didn't even need to say anything about what the slaves go through because their SLAVES. Even if they were being treated relatively (emphasis on relatively) well, they are enslaved people, which is inherently atrocious. Some editing would've tightened up the joke and given it more of a punch without offending anyone.
I guess my point is what I tried to say in my other comment – rape on it's own isn't funny. It shouldn't be thrown around the way he did here. It can be discussed in a funny way, for sure but this wasn't it. And I do agree with a lot of other commentors here that if it had just been this strip on its own, I wouldn't be too terribly offended, but the actions taken afterwards were just appalling, particularly the second strip – that one made my stomach hurt.
Gentleman Horndog says
I dunno. IF it doesn't trigger you (as it does not for me), the phrase "raped to sleep by the dickwolves" has a kind of ghastly, visceral poetry to it that a simpler reference to enslavement would lack. You're right that structurally it's inessential, but it makes the punchline more brutally on-target.
Following that line of thinking, the question then becomes: could a different, less-loaded atrocity have been used to the same effect? And did Gabe have a responsibility to go looking for it? That's ground where I feel much less certain about the answers.
eris523 says
But "ground into sausage by demon barbers" would have worked, too, or "sliced into cold-cuts by shuriken-squid".
Lots of people have argued that this particular piece of the puzzle NEEDS to involve rape, that rape just naturally fits there and brings a certain something to the joke that nothing else could — but what?
If that's NOT true, then the use of rape is just lazy. "Hey, we need something really horrible to fit here. WHat's horrible?" "Well, rape is kinda the traditional horrible thing." "Okay, sure, let's go with rape. But it needs to have punch, to have verve. How can we make 'rape' sound more creative and outrageous?" — Rather than "Nah, dude, rape's way overdone and touchy enough not everyone will be able to find it funny. What's horrible that we can also make sound creative and outrageous?"
But if it IS true, if using rape, specifically, here brings something to the joke that nothing else would, what is that something? And what does rape and rape alone bringing that to the table tell us about cultural perceptions of rape and rape victims?
Beth says
From my perspective (and I also agree that the first comic wasn’t all that bad, except that the subsequent events made it so), the use of rape as “the ZOMG WORST THING EVER” isn’t “just” rape per se: it’s rape of (presumably straight) males by hideous, aggressively masculine monsters. From my perspective, it’s not only insensitive as a rape joke; it’s actively homophobic.
It brings back memories of being around Good Old Boys (in Utah, as it happened), who just *adored* jokes about how the worst thing that could ever happen to *anybody* would be homosexual rape. (All male-on-male sex, in this worldview, is rape, because the only beings that would actually want to have male-on-male sex are hideous, aggressively masculine rapist monsters.)
So I see an unecessarily tasteless, homophobic joke in the first comic, followed by gratuitous misogynistic immature posturing, full-blown enablement of rape culture and, yes, bullying.
I gave up on PA years ago — in spite of the good that’s done by at least part of the empire, I was already getting the impression that Krahulik at the very least was essentially a whiny brat with a very large stick and no concern for how much damage he did with it. Apparently he’s a brat with the ability to keep an internet conflagration still doing damage after THREE YEARS.
Gentleman Horndog says
I hadn't considered the homophobia angle; thanks for pointing that out. I think you're right and there is an element of that present.
eris523 says
I was triggered by the rape line in that comic, AND I thought the comic overall was hilarious, insightful, and dead-on about some fairly pervasive tropes in gaming. Which is to say, the popular rebuttal to critics notwithstanding, I did "get it" and still didn't think the use of rape as a throwaway humor-booster was warranted.
I just didn't initially assume it was a throwaway humor-booster. I thought maybe its positioning between slavery (something most white Americans tend to think of as a long-ago or far-away problem, not something that goes on covertly to this day) and "dickwolves" (an obviously imaginary chimera) was intended to highlight how "rape"-the-concept-in-narratives has been divorced from rape-the-daily-reality and converted through the use of tropes (see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sexual… if you have several hours) into something blurry, ill-defined, possibly fun for either party, usually portrayed as more relevant to the hero of a story than to the character actually raped when those aren't identical, and so on. I really REALLY wanted to get over the flash of pain that middle panel caused me, and I was ready to forgive Mike and Jerry the instant they made reference to any nuanced cultural criticism intended by the inclusion of rape, specifically, in that joke. The joke in general was sophisticated enough that I was eager to believe the middle panel wasn't just a big lazy pile of last night's dinner someone was too lazy to walk to the bathroom with instead of leaving it on the comic front-and-center.
Even if they had just said, "Yes, there's a reason we chose rape for that panel; see if you can guess what it was," that would have sparked a multitude of conversations — probably each with its own spin on things, and many of them telling us more about the people who spun them than the people who drew the comic. I notice around me a LOT of overused rape tropes, and some men I'm friends with think rape isn't something that happens to real women they know, but something that happens when a comic-book villain attacks a superhero's girlfriend to give him a reason to fight, or something that happens when a real woman isn't "careful" enough (the way weather is always present, but only affects you when you forget your umbrella or leave your window down). What I see in the comic is an interesting positioning of rape between something we think of as historical because we aren't personally affected by it once we finish taking history courses and something we know is absolutely imaginary because the author invented it on the spot, a kind of commentary on mythical rape vs daily reality. What you, Beth, see is more specifically the use of male-on-male rape, and the homophobia behind that particular form being the worst thing imaginable in some people's minds; while that doesn't actually tell me anything else about you, it makes you interesting to me and makes me want to have a conversation with you about it.
Instead we got (para) "We used rape because we can, and anybody who tells us not to is a bad person. Also, your hurt feelings are a threat to us, so we're going to make fun of them and profit off that if we can. Also also, PAX is an inclusive space where everyone is safe except people who speak up when they are hurt or don't feel safe, so as long as you don't mind 'Team Rape' and the Dickwolves flashmobs or are willing to fear them in silence, you are totally welcome here. We are so epically committed to inclusivity we even welcome people who think making rape victims feel threatened is fun! Just leave your fear and hurt feelings at home or don't come, and you're welcome here, too." At that point, I could not only no longer get over my discomfort about the casual use of rape, I couldn't get over the offhand mythologizing of slavery or even take the main point — that it's a little ethically off to only help people who are being hurt when it's personally rewarding instead of inconvenient — seriously in the context of the authors' behavior.
I wish I had stuck to getting out of it what I put into it, instead of finding out what the authors intended. I still get excited when somebody comes up with an interesting and insightful interpretation — critical or supportive, though it's mainly the critics who offer anything thought-provoking — because I feel like those conversations are pretty much the only good that will ever come out of it thanks to the whole vicious parade of intentional cruelty that followed.
Jet says
I don't know, I think that in general society sees male rape as amusing when compared to female rape, for example 'don't drop the soap' is basically a one liner. It's not so much a direct attack on gay culture as it is just a way of challenging a straight man's masculinity. Look up Dave Chappelle's stand up on man rape for a good example (it's actually a good critique on society)
Jet says
basically I think PA thought male rape was more acceptable as being funny, so they used it thinking nobody would get pissed because at least it's not a woman getting raped.
enail says
I'm with you that it's part of a larger societal problem of rape not being taken seriously/being treated as a joke when a man is the victim. But I don't think that can be separated from homophobia: Why is a man being raped treated as challenging his masculinity?
It's not a direct attack on gay culture, no, but it's homophobia, the idea that a man having sex with another man (even rape!!!) is less of a heterosexual man, and thus less masculine. I think this is one of the reasons that homophobia really hurts straight men too.
Cait says
Also you throw in the fact that man-on-man rape is associated with prison (though it doesn't occur exclusively, there was a boy in… colorado I think who was bullied by having things shoved up his rectum by other boys). Not only is there a serious problem of ignoring all crimes that occur in the prison population in American society, it allows for psychological safety for men: all you have to do to avoid getting raped if you're a guy is not go to prison. Easy.
J.A. says
I wonder how much of it is really homophobia, since at least in my mind female-on-male rape is no less terrifying a prospect. It seems to me like an unnecessary piling-on to the amount of blame Krahulik must bear—aren't his stated motivations bad enough? Do we really have too few excuses to be Offended in "Gabe"'s general direction?
Because it's just as likely that the penis-in-a-man choice was a coincidence, or that the victim was chosen as male (because it might possibly be more acceptable to some feminists than a female) and the rapists were "dickwolves" because it was the first thing the PA guys thought of that happened to roll off the tongue.
I mean, what if it was instead a kraken made entirely of female sex organs—a Vaginautilus, if you would. Solves the homophobia problem, but does it really make the joke any more or less acceptable? Someone would be pointing out how gynophobic this is, and someone else would be citing a deliberately-slanted "study" to claim that women raping men is a myth and never happens, or happens a "lot" less than women getting raped. Hermaphrodullahans? Well, now we're oppressing an even more marginalized class of people than homosexuals.
Hey, what if they were raped by eunuchs? Ho ho, wouldn't that be funny. Everyone knows eunuchs don't rape because rape is sexual in nature and is *never* about control or dominance or anything like that. Right? So it's funny, right? …..Nope. And someone, somewhere, would want to pile-on by complaining that the comic was mean to asexuals.
But I don't think anyone here even needs to go through the thought-experiments to know automatically that putting a female slave in that context would have made things somehow "worse", no matter what other permutations we might introduce to the "formula".
Look, I think we're in agreement that the inclusion of rape in the first place didn't have the best degree of foresight behind it, and that the way they handled—continue to handle—the aftermath has been…poor. But (—and I shall eagerly read your response, should you write one) do we really need to add *this* to Krahulik's steadily-growing list of things to atone for?
eselle28 says
I actually think it's one of the less effective lines that could have been used. Yes, "raped to sleep by dickwolves" has a ring to it, but the line is actually quite weird when used in the context of World of Warcraft, since the game tilts toward the family friendly end of the gaming spectrum. Rape is enough beyond the boundaries set by the game's designers that I actually think it distracts from the actual joke.
Beyond that, I agree with eris that it's annoying primarily because it's lazy. It's not the worst rape joke I've ever encountered, but I wouldn't mark it as okay either. The dickwolves shirts are far worse, since they're encouraging people to identify with both the dickwolves (which, you know, are apparently animal rape machines) and with people who are harassing and making rape and death threats against the comic's critics.
Paul Rivers says
"I think it's more that the rape reference was just so unnecessary….But 'ground into sausage by demon barbers' would have worked, too, or "sliced into cold-cuts by shuriken-squid".
But if it IS true, if using rape, specifically, here brings something to the joke that nothing else would, what is that something? And what does rape and rape alone bringing that to the table tell us about cultural perceptions of rape and rape victims?"
Well…you bring up the topic, so I'll respond. Actually, neither of your examples would have worked for a "horrific things happens on a daily basis" theme. Both of those would be a one-time thing, the panel in the comic seems to be looking for "something horrific that happens on a daily basis".
eselle28 says
"Forced to run dailies until our fingers ache and our minds scream with boredom" might do the trick, though perhaps that would be too many jokes in one strip. If they wanted to play it a bit straighter, any sort of exaggerated beating or deprivation would fill in just as easily.
hobbesiean says
I would have included a joke about being forced to farm gold to sell to the playerbase… then you get a double whammy of attacking the screwed up casual atrocities that exist in Azeroth.. and also a poignant stab at the real life consequences the game can have…
Cait says
I don't think I'm the only one who found the second strip even worse than the first, right? I mean, it's one thing to toss in a rape joke that wasn't even the point of the strip and have people get offended. He wasn't really *trying* to make a rape joke, right? It was ancillary. People get upset, you apologize and say you weren't trying to poke old wounds, you move on.
But.
But but but. He then made fun of people for being upset! He basically belittled people for having pain. You don't tell someone who has a broken leg "No, actually you can walk on it, you're just making this up" nor do you, I don't know, kick them in that leg. He basically said "Oh silly people with your silly problms that don't seem like problems at all to me. I will make sure it never happens again"
OH and he kicked the concept of rape culture in the stomach. That last line "If you're raping someone right now…" WAY WAY WAY over the line. Holy hell.
Gentleman Horndog says
You're definitely not the only one. That's the gist of the controversy, really. The first comic? Legit debatable. Gabe's response to criticisms of that comic, starting with the second strip? Waaaaaaay over the line.
Nichole says
I totally agree with you, the first strip just made me suck in my breath a little and say "eesh" – the second one made me feel sick.
Chucky Lopez says
The shirts thing might have been taking things a bit too far, but I don't see much of an issue with that line. Call me crazy, but as far as I can see, they're highlighting the ridiculousness of the idea that show casing rape in their comic somehow implies that they're for rape. And it is a ridiculous idea.
Rja says
But no one was ever arguing that the team at PA was for rape. No one is for rape (except rapists which make up an alarming proportion of our population and believe everyone else is a rapist too due to media like the dickwolves). Some people, including the people at PA, are just so immersed in their privilege that they casually support rape culture. When someone first does that, it is usually out of ignorance. Rape culture is really hard to see when it doesn't effect you.
However, when hundreds of people explain to you what rape culture is and the real social ramifications it has, the appropriate response is to apologize immediately. It is not to write a dismissive comic jokingly telling rapists not to rape (which undermines actual campaigns that tell rapists not to rape that are very effective). It is not to make merchandise. The head honchos at PA decided to profit off of rape culture. They did so consciously. They knew what it was. Hundreds of people had e-mailed them and written blog posts and comments about it.
So yeah, no one at PA is for rape (except maybe the statistically probable rapist that is somewhere on their staff) but do they give a single shit about protecting people? Nope and that's plenty of reason to demonize the hell out of them. There is no reason to assume good will anymore.
Chucky Lopez says
I don't think rape culture is a thing, or it isn't as over reaching as feminists think it is.
I'm aware that alot of rapists don't think what they do is rape, but that doesn't imply telling rapists not to rape will stop them from raping people. That's ridiculous. It's like saying telling criminals not to commit crimes will stop them from committing crimes. You need to start living in reality here and sip alittle less of the koolaid.
They did not profit off of rape culture, they wanted to slap their criticizers in the face, that's what it was.
Rja says
The "Don't Be That Guy" campaign which has been used in a number of Canadian cities has seen drops in sexual assaults of 10% in places like Vancouver. There is no implication about that idea. There are repeated results.
Talbiz says
if you aren't aware what you're doing is a crime (let's say date rape, which some people think isn't) and your attention gets called to the fact that it is, you're probably more likely to stop doing it than if you remain unaware, right?
also, rape culture isn't a thing??? you can admit that rape is bad in the first place, right? so let's look at some of the PA fans (and fans of other things in different situations) that DNL talks about that when a woman says something they don't like threaten to rape her, and think that's okay, and that's just completely overt rape culture, we can go into subtle rape culture if you want.
Chucky Lopez says
Telling real criminals not to commit crimes will result in them continuing crimes, except next time they'll spit on you. Saying the 'Don't be that guy' campaign has a margin of success implies telling rapists not to rape is bringing down the number of rapes and therefore implying simply telling rapists not to rape will do the job is facetious at best.
Rape is absolutely bad, it is a horrible horrible crime. Rape apologetics is also a horrible horrible thing for anyone to do. HOWEVER, when people say rape culture, as far as I understand it, they mean that generally society has an unspoken undertone of apologizing rape as a knee jerk reaction to accusations of the event happening. I call bullshit on that. PA fans threatening a complaining women with rape is just them being assholes, that's not a culture of rape apologetics.
Rja says
India's current campaigns to reduce domestic violence are showing margins of success, though I would say it is too early to say exactly what the full results will be. India's domestic violence problem is also huge, so it may not be the best example to apply elsewhere. However, there are plenty of other examples of anti-crime campaigns that show margins of success: anti-jaywalking mimes in Bogota; Singapore's "Don't Drive to Drink" plus a number of anti-drunk driving campaigns in the States; etc. Some anti-crime campaigns are horribly designed and highly ineffective for their size (like stop-and-frisk), but for the most, perpetrator-focused campaigns are shown to be effective. You are going to need to give me concrete reasons why you believe you can't discourage criminals or I'm calling bullshit on you here and now.
I also need you to show me places where the knee-jerk reaction to rape isn't to cover it up and accuse the victims of lying. It happened with Steubenville (currently Ohio is teaching young men not to document any sexual assaults they commit to get away with it; no, seriously, that is the strategy they are supporting). It has happened at PAX itself; there are several incidences of sexual assault being covered up there despite its supposed women-friendly environment. It has happened at numerous colleges across the US. It has happened at Disneyland. It has happened in Singapore and Latvia and India and Brazil and El Salvador. Please enlighten me to situations where the victim has been treated better or even equal to the perpetrator.
SpiltCoffee5 says
As someone else commenting on this article put it, rape culture is about society blaming the victim for the rape occurring rather than the perpetrator.
Akai says
Saying "this thing obviously didn't work" is not a reasonable response to being presented with information that it did.
Talbiz says
if you only believe rape is that stranger dressed all in black with a knife jumping out of the bushes to force himself on someone walking by, you're right when you say that signs telling people it's illegal won't stop it, considering they likely already know. That's not all rape, that's not even most rape.
Rape culture is "are you sure you're just not regretting it now?" "you shouldn't have led him on" "you shouldn't have worn that short skirt" "you shouldn't have been drinking" "you shouldn't have left your drink alone" etc. I don't expect for you to understand, but when my friend told her boyfriend stop, and he didn't, she had a breakdown and then she became the villain, and that's not even slightly okay, and it's not even close to the only story like this, it's not even close to the only person I know that has a story like this.
Cait says
When my mother, a sexual assault survivor herself, tells me that the thing that bothers her the most about date rape is that she's worried a vindictive girl will accuse my brother of rape, that's rape culture.
@kleenestar says
When a guy I know harasses and threatens a girl until she says the word "yes," so that it won't "count" as rape, that's rape culture.
Nichole says
I just wish the world would realize rape, in and of itself, is never funny. The act of raping someone is not a punchline.
I also have huge issue with the fact that people like this don't reign their fans in when they go rabid. It may feel nice to have a bunch of people backing you up, but when you get to a level where your fans have handles like @teamrape1 and are threatening to rape people's kids, you absolutely have a moral responsibility to stand up and tell them that it is not ok and that you officially do not approve. You should even, at that point, reach out to the victims and show them your support.
When your fans are the type of people to use rape as a tool to keep any constructive criticism at bay, I think it's time to evaluate what you are putting out into the universe.
Cait says
What are a public figure's responsibilities vis-a-vis his/her fans' behavior? I'd hate to hold musicians responsible for fights that happen at their concerts, for example. But I think in this case, where there is some riling up going on (and no way PA can deny that they were riling people up- making t-shirts? come. on.), there's an affirmative duty to step in and put the breaks on the crazy train.
Nichole says
I wouldn't say they should be held accountable for their fans' actions (I totally agree with your example of fights at concerts). I'm just saying as a human being, I think you'd have a moral obligation to step in and say, "Hey! The rape threats are NOT cool and I do not appreciate or accept support that comes in the form of threatening women and their children."
And yeah, the t-shirts? Really?!
LeeEsq says
Lots of things aren't funny in themselves or even at all but still end up the subject of comedy. Rape, war, murder, racism, etc. Comedy is a transgressive art. It seeks to ridicule everything by taking nothing seriously or by pointing out the hypocrisy or ridiculousness of the subject matter. Comedy really doesn't care if what its mocking is considered good and holy by the majority of people in the world, that just makes for a juicier target.
Nearly everybody as experience a time when a comedy or comedian makes fun of something that they take very seriously and wants to yell out loud "not funny." Most of the times, they are probably right. The joke wasn't very funny. The dickwolves joke certainly isn't humorous because its taking something that is serious, rape, in order to point out the ridiulousness of something that ultimately isn't, the ethics in video game universes. However, there are going to be times when something we find funny is going to be deeply offensives to somebody else. Unless we get rid of comedy or create some sort of law and enforcement structure, we are going to have this problem again and again.
eselle28 says
So, we are going to keep having this problem again and again. I don't see anything wrong with that. Humans have been debating about what's moral, or ethical, or polite, or funny, or beautiful, or entertaining since we became sentient.
Sometimes most of us agree that blackface isn't funny, and people stop making that joke. Sometimes it just means that I turn the channel every time Daniel Tosh's stupid smug face shows up on my TV screen. I like the first result more, but even the second seems like a better choice to me than shrugging and saying, "Well, it's comedy, so I suppose I'll just keep watching or reading even if I dislike these jokes and they offend me."
Rja says
But as the Doctor mentioned, comedy is about punching up. There really isn't anything transgressive about using rape as a punchline. Rape survivors are barely gaining a foothold in the world right now. They are desperately trying to set up boundaries to keep people from shoving them back into the dark where they've been for centuries and they are barely succeeding. We keep having the same conversation over and over again about whether rape jokes are acceptable or not. Until almost everyone says they aren't, there isn't anything comedic about making them.
Social boundaries are created by the big dogs, so if you want to be transgressive, you need to go after the big dogs, the people who live on the easiest setting of life. It is hard. They can punch you (metaphorically mostly, though possibly literally) where it hurts. When you have a genuine fear of losing all of your livelihood or being murdered in a back alley somewhere by a mob of angry straight white men who will get off with probation, congratulations, you have reached transgressive. Transgressive is making out with girls and boys. Transgressive is misandry jokes. Transgressive is not making fun of the underdog because they underdog is not society; the underdog is who is hated by society.
(tl;dr: I don't think that word means what you think it means. If you want to argue that rape jokes are totes okay because comedy, you may want to change your definition of comedy.)
Marty Farley says
The oppressed turning into the oppressors…. why IS this such a common theme with nerds/humans (but in this context nerds)?
Every time I've wandered into an Internet conversation about fake geek girls, at least 20% of the comments make some argument that girls aren't real nerds because girls were not bullied or punished for their nerdiness in the same way male nerds were all through school (and oh man, if you believe that, I have this beautiful collection of bridges that need a good home.) The assumption seems to be that pain, humiliation and enduring bullying is somehow as much a marker of "true nerd" as passion about a particular media form…. and that having endured that, then the True Nerds have the right to inflict pain, humiliation and bullying on whom they choose.
It's similar to the frat house hazing mentality. I've said for years that nerd culture is not dissimilar from frat culture, but what's fascinating about it is the psychological layer of *believing* nerd culture is different. A lot of nerds absolutely believe themselves to be superior to frat guys; more intelligent, less shallow, more compassionate. And yet, come down to brass tacks (the hazing mentality, the misogyny, the brutalization of The Other), nerd culture is kind of just frat culture with different dressing and a different angle of entitlement.
Do you guys ever think a big part of the nerd culture problem IS that sense of superiority? That corrupted idea that bullying early in life has entitled us to revenge and a vigilante moral code?
Cait says
Short answer: Yes. There's a lot of revenge fantasy explicit in nerd culture (coughcomicbookscough).
But I also think there's a deeper problem. The media has this idea that all nerds are basement-dwelling man children and portrays us accordingly. While this isn't true for the whole, there is a subsection who are actually emotionally invested in remaining the victims of bullies (bullied by society, by women, by alpha males) because it's easier than facing facts (aka every ounce of truth DNL preaches, for starters). Why? I haven't the foggiest. I imagine it varies" fear of failure, feelings of inadequacy, complacency, rage….
The rest of us woke up one day and realized that the real world happens and it's time to join it. I'm saying that as a person who still takes several nights a week to continue a long-standing, text-based RPG with a friend online set in the marvel universe. I also pay bills and cook dinner and have a relationship. A lot of nerds realized you can be a member of society AND dungeonmaster on the weekends, but not every one.
LeeEsq says
A lot of nerds do want to remain in perpetual victim status. I think that a lot of nerds have internalized a message where they need to be victims in order to be nerds.
There was actually a movie about this, Zero Charisma.
Cait says
I have heard good things about Zero Charisma, but haven't been able to get a hold of it.
LeeEsq says
Me neither but the idea of using nerd culture to explore the idea of suffering for your art is an intriguing one.
*For those that want to know, the basic plot of Zero Charisma is that a D&D group needs a new player because one of their regular had to quit the group. The new player is basically a hipster and the DM gets angry at him because the new player never had to suffer for his nerdy hobbies.
hobbesiean says
yeah i want to see this.. it's yet another cautionary tale along with 'The dungeon masters', 'Monster camp', 'Darkon'.. etc..
Nichole says
You make an amazing point here, Marty. I never thought to link the two but you are absolutely right, nerds and frat boys are two sides of the same damn coin.
I totally think the sense of superiority and the entitled rage is the whole problem. I've met nerds who are sweet, maybe shy, and they usually end up doing pretty well in life after they leave the stifling clickiness of high school. They find their own way in college and develop into interesting, more confident people (I speak for myself here as well). The entitled, angry ones? They never change. Actually, they usually get worse. They stay isolated and angry and think the world owes them something. They turn on other people and want the world to burn for what they suffered. They lack any sense of empathy because their whole identity is built around having the MOST UNFAIR LIFE EVER! A lack of empathy is a scary thing.
Cait says
There's gotta be some aspect to the echo chamber that is the internet to this as well. Though admittedly I wasn't a nerd before the internet because I'm only 25, but there's nothing better to increase your angry entitlement than a lot of other people who are also angry and entitled telling you it's everyone else's fault.
Paul Rivers says
I've tried so hard not to comment, because this theme –
"I totally think the sense of superiority and the entitled rage is the whole problem. I've met nerds who are sweet, maybe shy, and they usually end up doing pretty well in life after they leave the stifling clickiness of high school. They find their own way in college and develop into interesting, more confident people (I speak for myself here as well). The entitled, angry ones? They never change. Actually, they usually get worse. They stay isolated and angry and think the world owes them something. They turn on other people and want the world to burn for what they suffered. They lack any sense of empathy because their whole identity is built around having the MOST UNFAIR LIFE EVER! A lack of empathy is a scary thing."
And something that I think it would be important for people to realize.
But does this pattern remind you of something else?
1. An inherent sense of superiority.
2. Despite this, a constant insistence that they're actually worse off than everyone else and always being victimized.
3. A consistent theme that it doesn't matter if they're now doing the same thing to others that they hate being done to them, because they've (supposedly) been victimized *so* much.
4. A lack of empathy – in fact an insistence that even discussing what the other group goes through is somehow offensive to them, after all, they are the victims so any even mention of the other side shouldn't even be allowed?
…
Nichole says
I'm not sure what you are getting at here Paul – care to elaborate?
Paul Rivers says
It's the pattern as the theory of "The Patriarchy" –
http://londonfeministnetwork.org.uk/home/patriarc…
"Patriarchy is the term used to describe the society in which we live today, characterised by current and historic unequal power relations between women and men whereby women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed. This takes place across almost every sphere of life but is particularly noticeable in women’s under-representation in key state institutions, in decision-making positions and in employment and industry. Male violence against women is also a key feature of patriarchy. Women in minority groups face multiple oppressions in this society, as race, class and sexuality intersect with sexism for example."
Another definition – http://feminismandreligion.com/2013/02/18/patriar…
"Patriarchy is a system of male dominance, rooted in the ethos of war which legitimates violence, sanctified by religious symbols, in which men dominate women through the control of female sexuality, with the intent of passing property to male heirs, and in which men who are heroes of war are told to kill men, and are permitted to rape women, to seize land and treasures, to exploit resources, and to own or otherwise dominate conquered people."
It's the same theme – "their whole identity is built around having the MOST UNFAIR LIFE EVER!".
Rja says
Hey now, only the radfems think their life is the most unfair life ever. The cool feminist kids believe in intersectionality. To get to the most unfair life ever, you need to be a poor, disabled, queer woman of color (or non-binary individual of color). Playing the most unfair life ever game is pretty challenging. My life rates pretty high on the scale, but even I am unable to attain the level of most unfair life ever.
Half jokes aside, belief in the patriarchy isn't about a victim complex. It is about acknowledging the fact that straight, able-bodied, white men had near limitless power over everyone else for much of Western recorded history. It is about acknowledging how that fact still has real ramifications on the modern world (just like how the rampant imperialism of the past is a major player in current events unfolding right now). Feminists don't build their identities around being victims. We build our identities around being angry about real, tangible slights. Our identities are built around the fact white women are paid less than white men and women of color are paid even less than white women. Our identities are built around how the richest woman in the world makes a pittance compared to the richest man. Our identities are built around every silenced rape survivor, every transwoman jailed for defending herself against skinheads, and every person who loses their voice and their future because they can't access the reproductive health care they need. Sometimes our identity is sadly built around failings like ignoring women of color and women with disabilities, but our identity isn't about being a victim.
You want to discredit feminists, sunshine, you're going to need to try a whole lot harder. Bringing up accepted sociological and anthropological concepts like the patriarchy isn't the way to go.
Paul Rivers says
Your whole post says it "isn't about a victim complex" – then goes on to describe multiple examples of how it's a victim complex. The whole thing is "We build our identities around *victimthing*".
"The Patriarchy" is particularly pointed in creating a false view of victimhood. If you read through the philosophy, it highlights negative things that happened to women while pointedly and deliberately pretending that equivalent things didn't happen to men. It's in no way "accepted" sociologically – it's a carefully constructed piece of propaganda.
It's centered around a complete and total lack of empathy for what men were actually doing. It likes to talk about how men earn more money, but ignores that men are expected to take more risks and have less of a safety net than women – men are also by *far* more likely to be homeless, develop emotional pschyological problems, be arrested and sent to prison, and receive longer sentences for the same crimes in prison. It's "unequal" – but not unfair. Men are by far more likely to be murdered by other men than women are.
But in a victim complex where one tells themselves that they are constantly a victim, to the point where they believe they don't need to have any empathy for others, this is unimportant to them.
It is unimportant to them that "men" were taking an arrow to the head to defend their country/village/etc, so they can talk about the horrors of rape and stealing. A fair philosphy depicts *both* as horriffic. A victim complex requires emphasizing only the horrors your group faced while pointedly ignoring or even mocking the horrors the other side endured.
When I grew up in the 80's, Feminism at least *tried* to be fair. Philosophies like "The Patriarchy" don't even care about trying any more. It's all about the victim complex –
1. Assume a position of superiority
2. Insist you've been victimized
3. Insist that because of your victimhood, there's no need to have any consideration for the other group
4. You become the oppressor
A feminist philosophy describes war, looting, rape, unchecked power as something that "men" do. A humanist philosophy describes that as something that evil people do, and – unlike the feminist rhetoric – also emphasizes that men were in the army try to kill the invading army, that your average man also got screwed over by the powerful, etc etc.
eselle28 says
Well, it certainly reminds me how the feminist community tends to treat women of color, lesbian and bisexual women, and trans women.
But somehow I don't think that's what you were getting at, and that this is another cry against the bullying of pick up artists by women who don't want to date them.
MordsithJ says
Um….atheists? (I AM AN ATHEIST SO I'M TOTALLY ALLOWED TO SAY THAT YOU GUYS.)
FormerlyShyGuy says
An Christians? (I AM AN CHRISTIAN SO I'M TOTALLY ALLOWED TO SAY THAT YOU GUYS.)
There are so many groups or subsections of groups that can be seen with those listed points.
eris523 says
White people. It reminds me of white people. How did we get that far off topic?
StarlightArcher says
Recently my sister rebranded football fans as "Wargame LARPers" whose particular brand of nerd-devotion was deemed acceptable by the cult of society.
The same kind of cattiness/backstabbing/toxic behavior found between Sorority Sisters can just as easily be located between cosplayers on a con floor. Because nerd or muggle, we're human beings (neither more evolved than the other) and we have incredible capacity for cruelty.
eselle28 says
Heh. I play fantasy football with my video gaming guild, and I remember the reaction last year when I mentioned that to a bunch of fairly anti-sports geeks who I know in real life. I found it a little hilarious, because using your computer to play a game that relies heavily on your understanding of large amounts of statistical data is one of the geekiest pursuits possible.
Max says
I think that nerd culture was so used to be the underdogs for so long, that many nerds aren't used to having the things they like be culturally accepted and popular. They still see any criticism as the bully picking on them for having a Dungeons and Dragons lunchbox, and they lash out innapropriately.
eris523 says
Many of nerd culture's favorite genres rely in one way or another on narratives BUILT around the challenge of adapting to new and/or unfamiliar situations; those who adapt win the day, and those who cling to the way things have always been are generally portrayed as weak or frightened at best and actively villainous at worst.
Time to emulate the heroes instead of the villains.
Steve says
I think there's a lot of truth to that. I think male nerds can get so psychologically used to acting from a place of relative powerlessness (i.e. during adolescence) that it becomes subconsciously woven into their identity, and it can be very slow, difficult going to make someone realize that the external circumstances of their life have changed enough that they need to adjust their self-concept (which humans are often very resistant to doing).
Steve says
(this is a reply to Max's comment above)
eselle28 says
Another vote for yes. It's not just the way that the geek community interacts with women. It's how certain elements of it interact with anything and anyone who doesn't fit within a fairly narrow set of boundaries. At some point, I think certain geeks decide to buy into the narrative that they're the only smart ones in the room, the only ones with decent taste, the only ones brave enough to be different or to love something unpopular, the only ones who have ever suffered any kind of injustice. It's useful armor to get you through harassment and bullying, but it does end up blinding you to all those situations where it just might be possible that you're the one being the bully. Even in its milder forms, I think it ends up encouraging people to be closed off to anyone and anything outside their particular subculture, which means they rarely get an opportunity to interact with people outside it and often end up viewing them as stock characters.
Aegyuptus says
I almost disagree with the whole NEED for a big controversy over this.
Sure, it was a rape joke– sorta… does this even count?–but it wasn't advocating rape. My understanding that the point of the comic wasn't even about rape, but about the "what if?" we experience in video games where we do the minimum amount necessary to complete any given quest. I just… I don't even see a problem with the comic. We make jokes about murder without advocating murder; why can't we make jokes that only just mention rape without getting fussed up about it?
I agree that the way PA handled its criticism was bad, but I feel like the amount of criticism they received for that one comic was disproportionate to what it deserved. PA is a kind of crude-humor comic, so it's going to appeal to people who like games and can handle the humor. The ability to handle the mention of certain topics is the entire reason a lot of people write webcomics: freedom of expression without a family-friendly syndicate breathing down their neck.
Look– if they had been ADVOCATING rape, if the wolf character in that comic had even just told the slave "You deserve it", I'd agree with the negative response its received. But as it is, I just think this was blown out of proportion by political correctness and oversensitivity.
Now, the fans who were making rape and death threats and even trying to "disprove" someone else's rape experience? That is out of line, that is completely unacceptable, and that is a reason I hate the internet hate machine. It's fine if people were offended by the comic, but I see two problems: 1. the massive and disproportionate backlash to the comic and 2. peoples' rage reactions to having their favorite comic criticized. There's just a whole lot of problems here, and it's not as clear-cut as you made it out to be.
Cait says
See my comment above- it's not the first comic but the second. Some people said they were offended. PA responds with that second comic. That's what pissed me off and still does. The rest of the shitstorm too.
Aegyuptus says
Now the second comic, I agree, that was an asshole response. And that's why I don't hold them blameless for the shitstorm– they had a small kitchen fire and wondered, "Hey, I wonder what would happen if I threw a sack of flour onto it… yeah, that would be cool!"
Marty Farley says
The thing about murder that makes murder jokes not as weird (and really-do we joke as much about murder? Really?) is that murder doesn't usually have the same cultural implications around it, and the feelings of the victim don't have to be taken into account as much because, well, they aren't usually around as much.
When I say "cultural implications," what I mean is that very rarely is a murdered person blamed for their own murder. Even in the rare cases where the defense tries to argue in a court of law that the victim had it coming, people just don't buy a victim's behavior as a legitimate reason for committing such a heinous crime against them. And yet, with rape, it's an incredibly common experience, in which the victim has to defend herself and her own actions just to escape the stigma that she somehow deserved it.
That isn't relevant to the comic, but it is relevant to people's reactions to the comic…. Rape is a very sensitive subject, not only because it's a heinous crime that leaves behind a living, hurting victim, but because of all the sh*t the victims have to deal with after the crime. Again, maybe there's no sacred cow in comedy, but if there IS one, then rape is it. Even normally-laid-back people who enjoy lots of offensive humor will still potentially draw a line in the sand. If you are going to make a rape joke, you should be self-aware and mature enough to realize you are going to be crossing that final line in the sand, and be prepared for it (and prepared is NOT "You guys are too sensitive.")
And again, the backlash wasn't just about the comic, but about the fact that the authors walked into with their rape joke without considering the implications and being aware of how it was going to come across. And when the inevitable backlash happened, instead of gracefully taking the criticism, they doubled down. It's similar to a friend making an offensive joke….. maybe they didn't *mean* to be offensive, but the absolute worst thing that friend can do when confronted is say "Deal with it, pansy." Previously, the offense might have been unintentional or we-know-this-is-going-to-happen-and-we'll-take-the-consequences-criticizing the offended people just makes the offense explicit while simultaneously refusing to take responsibility for it.
isdzan says
These are great points. I wonder if we would be having the same debate if the joke was about getting sent to the ovens, being lynched, etc. and the response was to make shirts with a noose or oven door on them? Or do you think the authors would have said "Oops!" and apologized right off the bat without the second comic or shirts happening?
Paul Rivers says
I think most reasonable people agree that making shirts and such was offensive, but as for the actual original comic people *do* actually makes jokes about nazi's, etc. So much so that "godwin's law" came out because it was so prevelant to compare everything to nazi's. People got tired of it, yes, but people didn't really say "you can't make comparisons to the Nazi's because Nazi's are a sensitive topic".
Jokes about nazi's, deathcamps, witchhunts, etc aren't uncommon – and usually are not considered offensive as long as it's meaning is "something horrible". Which is the same meaning the original comic had.
Aegyuptus says
"and the feelings of the victim don't have to be taken into account as much because, well, they aren't usually around as much."
For the sake of my argument, I'd like to point out that victims often leave behind families and loved ones who are shocked, hurt, and forever scarred by the loss ("How did this happen? Why did this happen? Why me? Why my son/daughter/spouse/friend/parent? Am I next? How can I ever trust the world again, knowing that this can and has happened?"). So why wouldn't we give them the same consideration we give rape victims, simply because the mental trauma (apart from physical violation) is somewhat similar?
I wholeheartedly agree on this point, though– murder is taken far more seriously than rape. The victims or their families are rarely told the victim deserved or was asking for it. They get sympathy, and don't have to worry about backlash from the community (such as "why did you have to ruin this guy's life over that?") So yes, the attitudes are different, and I can understand that this vastly changes the dynamics between how rape and murder are joked about (and their acceptability.)
I agree that PA walked into this without fully considering the ramifications. I also agree that they didn't exactly respond to the criticism gracefully. But I just have this nagging feeling, when I look at the comic, that some of the responses (especially the more violent ones– my understanding is that Gabe received threats for his comic? Correct me if wrong) just seems disproportionate. I'm not saying that I think people are wrong to feel how they feel about certain topics, and they should be free to express their disagreement or discomfort with the comic. It's just that the fact that this eventually DID blow up into a messy internet hatemachine ragefest over a comic that wasn't even advocating or supporting rape makes me facepalm.
eris523 says
Rape victims have families and friends who hurt on their behalf, too. Sometimes they even feel like they've lost the person their sister, husband, or friend was before the trauma.
You probably didn't mean to imply that a murder victim leaves behind dozens or hundreds of hurting people while rape only hurts the rape victim, but it should probably be made explicit that you didn't mean that and were only arguing for compassion for the loved ones of murder victims, not arguing for greater consideration for them than for those of rape victims. Since I don't want to put words in your mouth, though, please acknowledge.
Aegyuptus says
No, I didn't mean that. I only meant to point out that murder also leaves behind victims who suffer from the loss. While rape leaves the victim alive, and murder doesn't, I just meant that given how heinous a crime it is, that I was initially confused as to why one is more touchy than the other. Now it hit me– because of the backlash rape victims receive and the aftermath.
eris523 says
Yep. And everything from the second comic onward is a great example of that, like one of those sidewalk-chalk illusions; it's writ very large and photorealistic to the last detail if you're just standing in the spot that makes the perspective fall into place.
You might see the family of a murder victim being dismissed out of hand for objecting to a comic that casually mentioned murder in order to enhance the comedic value of a joke that was actually about something else entirely.
What you wouldn't see is a pair of public figures who are avowedly committed to humanitarian deeds like charity work, running a welcoming and inclusive convention, and fighting against bullying deliberately making fun of a murder victim's family for being so sad and angry that their loved one was murdered that they don't like to be reminded of it. You wouldn't see those public figures making money (and being proud to make money) off "Murder is fun(ny)!" t-shirts created specifically in response to their pained protests, because that would just be shitty and mean. Even if only because every reasonably ethical person would see that and say, "Wow, that's just shitty and mean," you simply wouldn't do that if your brand wasn't actually built around being outright, deliberately shitty and mean.
But rape is different. With rape, our culture blames the victim, and it's not just assholes who do it. We /comfort ourselves/ by blaming the victim, and that impulse gets ingrained in nearly everyone somehow. (Even feminists. Even rape counselors, who train to stop doing it. Even me.) Even from family and loved ones from whom they should be able to expect unqualified compassion and support, rape survivors get a barrage of questions designed to make everyone else feel better by satisfying our internalized need to verify that rape only happens to people who at best slip up and don't protect themselves and at worst deserve it.
Not that victim-blaming doesn't happen with murder; you might hear someone say, "He got shot in WHAT neighborhood? Well, what was he doing there in the first place?" That does happen, and it's just as hurtful. But if "he" had a perfectly good reason for being there, our curiosity is satisfied and we stop. That question wouldn't be followed up by six more in the same vein: Was he wearing expensive clothes, or a nice watch? Had he been flashing money around? Had he been drinking? Did he start a fight? Had he been hanging with a bad crowd lately, displaying bad taste in friends? Ultimately, we're willing to accept that a murderer is a criminal, that the criminal committed the crime, and the victim may easily have done absolutely nothing to deserve or provoke it. If a 14-year-old is shot and killed, we tend to look for ways the criminal was psychologically, morally, or spiritually defective, because calling murderers of children less-than-human aberrations is how we comfort ourselves after that news. If a 14-year-old is raped, /the judge hearing the rapist's trial/ will sometimes explain in his verdict how she brought it on herself, even as he sentences the rapist found guilty, because calling rape victims culpable is our culture's comfort of choice in response to rape, even the rape of children. With murder, we want to distance and distinguish ourselves from the perpetrator. With rape, we want to distance and distinguish ourselves from the victim. The latter is not an impulse to indulge or be proud of.
The thing is, the way this plays out is that we /respect/ murder. We mourn its victims unless we think they, personally, were such horrible people the world is better off without them (and some people mourn them even then, because human is human, life is life). We respect the suffering it leaves in its wake, and we comfort those affected and try to treat them gently. .
If we had that same respect for rape victims, we might not be seeing so many young women — some legally still children — surviving rape only to kill themselves because they couldn't face the multiple-points-of-origin blame-and-shame that followed.
I'm gonna have a beer now. This is not a fun topic to examine — or come to new understandings on, so have one yourself (or a fantastic tea or whatever you enjoy), because your last sentence was so awesome to see that if I were there I'd be buying.
Kaz says
Even in the rare cases where the defense tries to argue in a court of law that the victim had it coming, people just don't buy a victim's behavior as a legitimate reason for committing such a heinous crime against them.
There are exceptions to this, sadly… but then again this underlines your point, because where I wouldn't mind a joke about murder I would be up in arms about a joke e.g. about the murder of a trans woman or about a parent killing their disabled child (both of which happen with depressing frequency and which are often excused to a truly disgusting extent). Murder of certain people is taken seriously in a way rape… isn't.
I should also note that I don't actually think it's about the subject being taboo so much as… like DNL said, humour should punch up, and way too many jokes about rape punch down. Most of them basically have the rape victim as the butt of the joke, or trivialise rape, or feed into victim blaming or the like. But there's stuff like #SafetyTipsForLadies, which are jokes about rape where /victim blamers/ are the butt of the joke, and that was actually started by feminists and rape survivors. I'm pretty sure not everyone will care for those, but it's still not nearly as offensive.
Jet says
"Even in the rare cases where the defense tries to argue in a court of law that the victim had it coming, people just don't buy a victim's behavior as a legitimate reason for committing such a heinous crime against them."
*cough* Trayvon! *cough*. but I actually agree with most of what you said.
Mel_ says
I dunno. I wasn't following this blow-up from the start, but I really cannot imagine any circumstances in which making merchandise that openly mocks the idea of people being bothered by talk of rape, and encouraging fans to buy and wear it, is a remotely reasonable response to people saying they're bothered by how you handled talk of rape in your comic. That's where it becomes a completely clear-cut case of "these people screwed up" to me.
Aegyuptus says
No, I didn't consider that a reasonable response. I'm not in any way justifying or condoning PA's *response* to the criticism. I'm just saying that I feel like the original comic that started it all wasn't worth getting into this much of a shitstorm snit over, collectively (as in– the enormous backlash to the original comic followed by death/rape threats to those who disagreed with the comic.)
Gentleman Horndog says
"I feel like the amount of criticism they received for that one comic was disproportionate to what it deserved."
For the sake of argument, let's assume you're right. (Though it has to be noted: how much of that "massive and disproportionate backlash" involved threats to rape Gabe's family?) Did any of those critics — hell, did all of those critics COMBINED — have anything resembling the kind of power and influence Gabe has?
Nope. Thus: Why does Gabe need to respond? At all? Let alone with the over-the-top bullying bullshit he brought to the table?
Again: The original comic isn't the problem. Gabe's response to criticisms of that comic is a HUGE problem, even if we allow some of those criticisms may have been disproportionate.
Dr_NerdLove says
At least one person made a joke about murdering Gabe's wife and kids. He was rightfully called out on it by both sides. The Debacle tumblr has links.
Gentleman Horndog says
Was not aware of that. Thank you.
etherealclarity says
From what I've gathered about the controversy, there wasn't a huge amount of response to the original comic. There were a few articles… that's about it.
The controversy has grown BECAUSE of PA's handling of it, full stop. There would barely have been any controversy had they responded to the critics respectfully, or not at all. But because they chose to escalate, and escalate, and escalate again, showing how little they understood how their actions were affecting others, showing how little they seemed to care about the people hurt in the first place – THAT is why there is a controversy here.
Akai says
See: elevatorgate. The reports of our response magnitude have been greatly exaggerated.
Rja says
As I mentioned in another comment, no one said that PA was ADVOCATING rape. A whole bunch of people just said that they were contributing to rape culture, not to mentioning being hellishly triggering, and that's shitty as fuck.
You know what rapists think when they see other people making jokes or laughing about rape, even tangentially (and this wasn't tangentially)? All those other people are rapists too, so what I'm doing is okay. Me having non-consensual sex is normal. Me having sex with very drunk people isn't even bad at all because, look, real rape is fucking hilarious.
The first reason rape jokes are awful is because they hurt and trigger survivors. The second reason rape jokes are awful is being they are extremely dangerous. They promote a deeply unhealthy culture. Acting like they don't is deeply naive and shows a total lack of knowledge about the subject.
John Doe says
"You know what rapists think when they see other people making jokes or laughing about rape, even tangentially (and this wasn't tangentially)? All those other people are rapists too, so what I'm doing is okay. Me having non-consensual sex is normal. Me having sex with very drunk people isn't even bad at all because, look, real rape is fucking hilarious. "
Do you have any kind of reference to back this statement up, that isn't shakesville or similar online stream of consciousness. Any peer-reviewed psyciatric journal will do.
@kleenestar says
Scully & Marolla looked at 114 convicted rapists – which, admittedly, is a methodological problem when only 3% to 6% of rapists serve time – and found two categories: rape admitters and rape deniers. The rape deniers argued, in various forms, that anyone would have done the same as them, so what they did wasn't "really" rape. What really blew my mind is that the rapist-murderers in the group were perfectly willing to admit to the murder, but insisted that the rape was normal and okay. The data's on the old side, but Milner has some more recent work on rapists' cognitive schemas, and Hudson has some excellent research on how rapists perform "identity management" so that they don't have to see themselves as deviating from acceptable socio-sexual norms. Again, obviously, these studies are limited to convicted rapists, who are a very small percentage of the total.
LeeEsq says
The Penny Arcade controversy relates to the very old debate about whether somethings are so sacred that comedy shouldn't approach them. One function of comedy is to use humor as a way of challenging established notions or institutions by ridiculing them or by pointing out the innanity of it all. Irreverance is an important aspect of comedy. I'm sure that most of us on this site could get all supportive of Geroge Carlin's attacks on censorship in television. The thing is that comedies need to be irreverant also means that more often than not its going to treat something deadly serious like rape or racism in away thats insulting to the victims of race or racism. The thing is that I can't see a way to square the circle. If we want comedy to be used as tool against the powerful than we are simply going to have to accept it as a weapon against the weak.
Mel_ says
If we want comedy to be used as tool against the powerful than we are simply going to have to accept it as a weapon against the weak.
Er, no. That's like saying "If we want guns to be used as a tool against criminals, we are simply going to have to accept them as a weapon against innocents." Just because people accept any given thing in one form doesn't mean they have to accept it in all forms or consider all forms good or fair uses of that thing. The whole point of free speech is to give people the ability to speak up in favor or against when they feel something's crossed a line.
Now, no comedian/comic artist/etc. has to listen to the criticism given and change according to it. That's his/her freedom. But then, most of the talk I've seen hasn't been saying PA should have pulled or edited the original comic strip, only that the way they responded to the criticism afterward was intentionally hurtful and provoking, which was the real problem.
eselle28 says
You should know better than anyone that there's a world of difference between government regulation of content and individuals stating that they don't like particular types of content.
I don't really understand this line of thinking. Sure, it's easy for comedy to use its irreverence in ways that are hurtful to the less powerful. It's also easy for dramas to be maudlin and preachy, period pieces to glamorize injustice and suffering, and entertainment of all sorts to be lazy and cliched. Should we suspend all criticism and give up our attempts to sort out who's using a genres tools in an innovative or enlightening way and who's doing shoddy work?
Niteynite says
George Carlin actually talked about rape, abortion, religion, and death in his routines. Hell, he even did a 10 minute bit on suicide once. While the audience gave a nervous laughter at first, they were soon laughing their heads off. Because George Carlin talked about suicide, and it was funny.
NicoH says
Being an Always Sunny in Philadelphia fan, I can't say I have not laughed at rape joke. I think with jokes people sometimes need to push boundaries in order to see whats funny even though sometimes it can completely backfire and blow up in their face. Always Sunny has this joke (look up "always sunny the implication" on youtube) that was done quite well despite being dark and controversial. I think when you come up with jokes you always are taking a chance that you may offend people.
But I also think it gets kind of ridiculous that people have to apologize all the time after anything they say that can be deemed offensive. Anything people say these days is just reinterpreted and thrown back at them even if it wash't their intention to offend anyone. In fact I don't know why any celebrity (or anybody) would use twitter. They type one thing without thinking, it offends people and then next thing you know, all I hear on the news is some celebrity making a apology on national television and all I can think about is why is this news?
But I must say, if you are going to go through the effort to apologize, then freaking do it right and don't go back on it like the penny arcade guys. That shows less character than if they straight up just did not apologize.
Finally, does anybody even find penny arcade funny? I personally don't find it funny and when I say that I don't find them funny, people always tell me that I just don't get it or that I have no sense of humor for not liking it and that they are great people for donating to charity and I should not be jealous.
Sorry if this post jumps around a lot in terms of thought process. I'm not the strongest writer and these are just some thoughts in my head I've had for awhile now.
Cait says
Ah, the implication joke. It's actually a decent example of a rape joke that almost kinda works. When you're dealing with a controversial topic, some people are going to be offended no matter what. but in the implication joke, the butt of the joke is the guy speaking. The other character (I don't watch ASP, so…) is suitably horrified. The joke is that this guy is explaining the thought process behind date rape and it sounds horrid. Rape victim isn't the brunt.
It's still a dangerous dangerous and very thin line and you're still gonna hurt people, but at least in this situation, the joke is pointing out the vile thinking that goes into rape.
Wondering says
Yes, Jezebel has an article on rape jokes that work. It specifically points out four, I think. The standard that is met for all of them is that it's the rapists who are the brunt of the jokes, not the victims.
And that's the same with the ASP joke. It's the potential rapist who's being mocked there.
That doesn't mean that those jokes can't also be triggering for actual rape victims, of course. But mocking rapists? Okay. Mocking victims? Not okay.
Paul Rivers says
No, no, no – I quickly looked up that article – http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-jok…
And that article **exactly** describes why the first Penny Arcade strip should be fine, by the rules of that article. Go read it if you want.
The first one they mention is –
Borat:
"In Kazakhstan the favorite hobbies are disco dancing, archery, rape, and table tennis."
"Okay. Why is that funny? Who is the butt of the joke? Rape victims? Nah, I'd say that the butt of that joke is Kazakhstan, or, at least, the caricature of Kazakhstan that Sasha Baron Cohen has constructed—a borderline-medieval old world racist mud-hole. He's satirizing the casual misogyny of a certain set of crusty old anti-Semitic post-Soviet eastern European men in stinky suits. And I have no problem with that. Though I could be wrong! Again: no such thing as joke police! Culture evolves! Hooray! (This joke is almost certainly offensive to Kazakhs, but someone else can be in charge of the anti-Kazakh-joke manifesto.)
[Update: As several smart people have pointed out, I missed something obvious in my reading here. The point of Borat is that he gives people the opportunity to expose their own prejudices—the fact that anyone is willing to take this character seriously is extremely telling. Duh.]"
In fact, Penny Arcades version seems actually far better than Lewis C.K. –
"I'm not condoning rape, obviously—you should never rape anyone. Unless you have a reason, like if you want to fuck somebody and they won't let you."
Here's why this joke doesn't make me feel like shit: Louis CK has spent 20 years making it very publicly clear that he is on the side of making things better. The oppressors never win at the end of his jokes. That's why it's easy to give him the benefit of the doubt that this joke is making fun of rapists—specifically the absurd and horrific sense of entitlement that accompanies taking over someone else's body like you're hungry and it's a delicious hoagie. The point is, only a fucking psychopath would think like that, and the simplicity of the joke lays that bare. That said, Louis CK is possibly the greatest comic in the world, but that does not mean that he is always right. I think even Louis CK would tell you that. And I guarantee you he puts himself and his audience through at least this level of scrutiny on every joke. That's why the jokes are good.
eselle28 says
How is the Penny Arcade strip satirizing rape culture? How is it making fun of rapists? What evidence do we have that Penny Arcade is active in combating these negative elements in our culture and is likely to be doing either of these things rather than reaching for an easy example of a negative experience?
fakely_mctest says
If anything, their increasingly horrifyingly tone-deaf responses add a boatload of data points to the "these guys just think rape is totally okay to toss out as a throwaway joke." That's what puzzles me most about some peoples' very detailed analyses of how the original strip was totally subversively mocking rape culture. If that's what it was then they would have said something to that effect instead of acting like gross, entitled, douchecanoes.
guest113 says
Rape victims feeling offended about the comic I get, I don't think the joke is about rape as much as the ridiculousness of the MMO quest functionality, but not being a rape victim I obviously have no vision into that side of this controversy.
The one thing I've never gotten though, women gamers in general being made felt not welcome because of the comic? How is that? The slave is man. The dickwolves are at a minimum raping men, maybe women, we don't know. This has nothing to do with women in gaming.
Cait says
Again, it's the second comic, not the first. The second comic is openly mocking rape victims and opening mocking the idea that non-rapists nevertheless can contribute to a culture that allows actual rapists to thrive. That's what makes women feel uncomfortable. Nothing like being told "Hey, you know this awful thing that could happen to you, thanks to your body parts? Yeah, we who have the same body parts as those who are likely to do it to you are laughing at you about that and we won't believe you if you say you get upset. In fact, if you DO get upset, we'll mock the shit out of you and make money off it."
Very. Welcoming.
Chucky Lopez says
I think a load of mental gymnastics are being used to imply that the second comic is being used to mock rape victims in general, maybe mocking the schrodingers' rapist touting kind of internet feminist you see alot on DNL and other places. You know that kind who says if you're not a feminist than a rape apologist woman hater or some such nonsense Plus I would think alot of criticism about the first comic would be pretty ridiculous as well. No one really has the right to not be offended, John Stewart has made holocaust jokes, on his show, and I don't recall any controversies or boycotts ensuing.
'Hey, you know this awful thing that could happen to you, thanks to your body parts? Yeah, we who have the same body parts as those who are likely to do it to you are laughing at you about that and we won't believe you if you say you get upset. In fact, if you DO get upset, we'll mock the shit out of you and make money off it."'
I think this is the kind of paranoia and the people who encourage this paranoia is one of the issues here, it comes of as assholish, not that real rape apology isn't assholish but still.
There are alot of woman hating trolls on the internet, the best thing to do would be to ignore them. I could see why people would want to avoid a place where potentially alot of them could gather, but I think some people need to see jokes for what they are and not try to read into them so much.
eris523 says
"John Stewart has made holocaust jokes, on his show, and I don't recall any controversies or boycotts ensuing."
Possibly because Jon Stewart is Jewish?
Generally speaking, if you're a member of the group victimized by an atrocity or harmed by a tragedy, and you want to make jokes about it, you can get away with that. I could argue that in part it's because you're not as likely to make jokes that HURT other members of that group, but putting too much emphasis on that kind of makes it sound like "members of that group" will all have the same reactions and thoughts and feelings, which isn't true and so the validity of that point can only carry as far as the real commonalities of experience do. But there is likelier to be a generosity of assumption about your intentions in making the joke, your willingness to be sensitive to other members of the group who feel hurt or angered because of the joke, and so on. You're already a part of the issue, not an outsider stepping in to get a quick ego boost out of turning the issue into a laugh.
isdzan says
Possibly it is because you are also the butt of the joke if you are part of the group? I make a lot of tasteless Apache and Native jokes, but I am Apache, so I am included in the target. I also think if you are part of the group the tone of your delivery is different than an outsider. Maybe, "Damn our people are crazy!" rather than, "Damn you people are crazy!"?
Paul Rivers says
Yeah, the first comic is a bit like saying that "Law and Order: SVU" promotes "rape culture" because it depicts rape. Then their second comic is saying "Obviously rape is bad, but we think the idea that you think it's promoting it as a good thing is rediculous."
I don't see that as "openly mocking rape victims" either. As you mention, people make holocaust jokes, murder jokes, serial killer jokes, etc, and as long as they're in the style of "an analogy to something bad happening" nobody seems to get offended at that style of joke either. I hardly think the victims of those situations are *less* traumatized.
Paul Rivers says
Making t-shirts goes way to far, though. Would anyone make "team holocaust" tshirts? "team Ted Bundy" tshirts? Etc…
eselle28 says
Frankly, I would say that Law and Order: SVU kind of does promote rape culture because it regularly presents it in a titillating, sensationalized, sexualized way. Granted, I think the show tries to balance that sensationalism with attempts to spread more accurate information about rape and Angie Harmon in particular has advocated on behalf of rape victims, but it's not like the show is perfect when it comes to handling the subject.
Holocaust jokes can easily go wrong, and there's room for murder jokes and serial killer jokes to as well. I don't think anyone here is saying no rape joke can ever work, only that this one did not work.
Chucky Lopez says
' I would say that Law and Order: SVU kind of does promote rape culture because it regularly presents it in a titillating, sensationalized, sexualized way'
The idea that rape cases on SVU promote rape apologetics (real thing) and rape (not a real thing) is absurd.
Paul Rivers says
I don't know, I know where what eselle is saying is coming from. In the mid 70's and early 80's, a lot of times movies would communicate "sex is to be feared" with what became a cliche scenario – people having sex were usually depicted as almost immediately having something bad happen to them (killed by the shark/serial killer/evil supernatural being with a chainsaw).
It was kind of like "it's only ok to show sex as long as they die afterwards".
In Law and Order, and the late 90's and mid 2000's in general, it was pretty similar. Every episode, someone has sex, but they're always some sort of horrible sexual predator. Normal people just…never had good sex (as depicted on tv).
It was kind of like "it's only ok to show sex as long as it's a crime and the woman didn't want to be involved in it".
I remember thinking about how annoying it was at the time. It wasn't until around when The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half men came out that you started seeing almost any non-assault depictions of sex on tv.
Robjection says
I must be horribly misinterpreting your comment Chucky, because it sounds like you're saying rape is not a real thing.
Chucky Lopez says
I'm saying a generalized cultural undertone of rape apologetics isn't real, or at least I haven't seen evidence of it. I've seen plenty of evidence for rape apologetics, I've met people who made excuses for rape in real life unfortunately, but I don't this is the cultural standard.
Robjection says
OK, so I had misinterpreted your original comment somewhat. Thanks for clarifying that. Would you be able to clarify something else as well?
What is it about rape apologetics and rape excusing at the moment that makes you believe that it is not the cultural standard? What makes it fall short of being considered a cultural standard?
OtherRoooToo says
I don't think it's at all accidental that he has yet to respond to your question.
Cait says
Thank you, Chucky, for responding to my bat signal.
So, I've been down a real epistemological rabbit hole with this one. This is what I've come up with:
Chucky Lopez is the only person who has valid experiences and feelings and opinions. If your experiences and your feelings and your reactions don't line up with his, not only do they not matter, they don't exist. They're not legitimate in any way shape or form, and are just paranoia, because the only way to see the world is the way that Chucky Lopez sees the world.
Here's where my rabbit hole took me: the rest of us don't exist. We are fake people. Every single one of us. Chucky is the only real human because he is the only one who knows what experiences are. If no one else has experiences, then no one else exists.
We might be in the matrix. HOLY SHIT GUYS WE'RE IN THE MATRIX.
Chucky Lopez says
You know you could change every instance of my name, put in yours, and the same thing could be implied, right?
Cait says
No, I acknowledge that your feelings are your own and are legitimate. I'm asking you to recognize that there are others.
You on the other hand are describing people as paranoid because…?
guest113 says
So you don't think men can be raped by women?
I'll admit the 2nd comic does nothing but escalate the situation, but it had already been escalated by both sides by that point. But again I'm asking why this is a gender discussion and not a discussion about rape.
Guest says
Women don't commit crimes, you didn't get the memo bro.
isdzan says
The comic was actually male-male rape, but I get your point. Men can and are raped by women or otherwise coerced or shamed into sex. And the 2nd comic and shirts mocked their experience as much as women who are raped. I think women are just more likely to speak up against it. Men who have been raped are sadly still silenced by our society, especially if it was female-male rape, which pisses me off. They are the butt of so many awful jokes and people completely dismiss their experiences. And both genders do this, sadly
MordsithJ says
It is a gender discussion because women are much, much more likely to receive death and rape threats as a result of speaking out against rape jokes.
Cait says
No, but from what I've seen here, women are a hell of a lot more likely to identify with rape victims rather than perpetrators and minimizers. If you thought you were also a potential rape victim, you might be upset as well, or at the very least, you might be able to understand how actual rape victims feel.
What we have here is a failure to empathize.
Bex says
It's not just because of the comic. The comic was just another drop in the bucket of a much larger problem. And the comic's controversy turned into a huge illustration of exactly what that larger problem is.
Aurora says
I am really tired of people A) picking on Mike just because he makes mistakes, and B) conflating Penny Arcade and their fans.
I doubt PA is going to start going "sic 'em, guys" to their fans and pointing them at critics. They've had ten thousand chances to do this. They have not done it. Also, they are not their fans; fans are a Special Breed of people (albeit very common), and they will go to the ends of the earth to defend people who never asked to be defended. Consider them a separate crowd.
People who have lots of influence are expected to be perfect. Being defensive is a flaw that people have. Being hotheaded is a flaw that people have. If you expect everyone in the limelight to be specimens of perfect Zen and calm, stop holding your breath; it won't happen.
I still like Mike, even if he's a hothead who can't quite admit he's wrong. There are many, many, *many* worse flaws than that.
Marty Farley says
Except as Dr. NL pointed out, Penny Arcade by reacting this way is fostering an environment that at the very least breeds rabid gross fans that go attack any of their critics.
There's a legal precedent that if you create an environment that encourages a certain mindset (violence, let's say) and then incite your followers, even if you don't directly say "Sic em!", you can still be held legally responsible if those followers go out and commit specific crimes. The legal system recognizes that leadership and environment can contribute to a mindset; if your leaders and your environment use a "no holds barred" attack strategy against their critics in which rape is minimized and even used as a joke, is it really a surprise if people steeped in that environment then parrot those beliefs, albeit at a greater extreme?
Kiersyn says
While I will agree that the guys at Penny Arcade may not have explicitly said, “sic’ em” to their fans, I do think that even making the Team Dickwolves merchandise definitely counts as enabling asshats, if not outright encouraging them.
I’m really conflicted about this latest episode in this stupid little saga. It bothers me greatly that almost every article or blog post that I’ve read browbeating Mike presents the comment utterly without meaningful context. However, I don’t dispute that that he, Jerry, and Robert have either committed or condoned some seriously crappy actions. I think the original comic had a good premise that was perhaps not well-executed, but it’s their subsequent reactions that I really don’t understand. Why they couldn’t or wouldn’t understand how the careless rape comment hurt and offended people is baffling.
The ensuing debacle was not without fault on *both* sides, however. And I can’t help but feel that the piling on occurring now isn’t solely because Mike commented on the issue again, but is instead retribution for the entire dickwolves fiasco in addition to his similarly clueless and/or insensitive remarks on transgendered people as well anything else he’s done to anger people. His repeatedly poor behavior is a fair issue and understandably so, but I am still uneasy with the current righteous mob outrage because it somehow feels disingenuous.
I also don’t appreciate the strident articles that are essentially telling me that I am a bad person and a traitor to my gender if I go to PAX ever again. I don’t appreciate being told if I want to go to a con, I need to pick something woman-run or at least “socially acceptable” despite being a smaller con that is less interesting, not focused on gaming, and not as geographically accessible. Not only do I not need male geeks telling me that I am also not
a true geek because of gender, I don’t need the more militant female geeks and their supporters establishing criteria that they think I have to meet. I’m not playing either game.
I went to my first PAX in Boston last year and loved it. I’m a geek, nerd, and gamer and as such, the “welcome home” theme was so very true and it felt amazing. I had some great conversations with total strangers. Helping out with the Cookie Brigade to raise money for Child’s Play was more of a bonus than I expected. The enforcers were amazingly friendly and helpful. All of this happened because there were a bunch of amazing people there. Not everyone was present was awesome, granted, but they were not the majority. For me, PAX has far outgrown being just a con sponsored by Penny Arcade.
There are still a lot of changes that I hope to see in the gaming and geek world. But I’m not going to disassociate myself from things that I love and enjoy in order to make a point because that’s too much like cutting off my nose to spite my face. I’ll be going to Boston in April, though I am giving some serious thought to making a t-shirt using the statistic that one in six women have been sexually assaulted in order to make my own point.
kfizz says
Its different then that he is knowingly not caring and saying sorry after the fact. They don't understand the reason why they should not make the jokes. Because its more of a think saying it does not make people become a rapist. When in fact its just making light of the situation. When its more of a horrible thing they are doing.
Talbiz says
there are many worse things than someone throwing up on me, I'd still prefer that someone not do it. Just because there are worse things doesn't mean that what is happening should be ignored.
Chris Jaramillo says
Yesterday, on a post on Joystiq.com, I applauded Dennaton Games for wanting to change a scene in their upcoming game, Hotline Miami 2. The scene in question involved a scene where the player (YOU) at the end of the level prepares to rape a barely dressed woman. Suffice it to say, many critics like Cara Ellison and Susan Ardent were NOT FUCKING COOL with this scene and spoke out about it and why it made them so uncomfortable. And of course the flying monkeys leaped from their cages and criticized them for "censorship" and of course threatening them with rape.
Now, the makers of the game saw the response and said, "yeah, we screwed up". So now they've resolved to change the scene, now seeing it that it didn't fit with their intent for the game. I gave the studio kudos, but of course jackasses like the Dickwolves fans lashed out and said "you're in support for pussifying our games, aren't you" or "ask your girlfriend where your balls are." Classy, I know. It's this sort of shit that really makes me hate gaming.
T-Rav says
It seems Dennaton is taking a better approach to criticism than some, but… why in the world is a rape (or attempted rape) scene in a video game in the first place?
Aurora says
An addendum to above: no one ever changed their mind by getting dogpiled on the Internet. That just encourages people to back into a corner and say "piss off, you guys have no hold over me, I will do what I want." Just about anyone turns into a little kid when everyone else is waving sticks at them to skewer them.
Our society, and especially the Internet, has no idea how to deal with defensive people. Poking an angry dog with a stick doesn't win you its submission; it gets you bitten. So if you really want Mike to change, at all, damning him all over the Internet is just going to make him mad. It's like once people enter the Internet, they lose all sense of people skills and start riding the waves of overly righteous rage.
Don't do behaviors that piss people off and expect whoever it is to be an Enlightened Person who will somehow avoid the natural human reaction to bludgeon whoever pissed you off in return. Most people are not capable of this. Even if you think you are.
Cait says
…actually this is exactly how you deal with a problem like this.
You know why? Because Mike isn't just a private actor. Mike is PA and PAX and all those companies that go to his shows and all those journalists who cover them and he wields a lot of power. And that power is money. And right now, other companies with money to spend are looking around and wondering if they want to be associated with the shitstorm. And THAT hurts where it counts.
If he were a private person without any money to be lost or gained by this, then you'd be right.
Gentleman Horndog says
Like the Doc said, with great power comes great responsibility.
But in this case, it apparently also comes with a horde of poo-flinging howler monkeys ready to bury anybody who would dare hurt your fee-fees by criticizing your work.
Cait says
Uncle Ben must have died before he could pass on that bit of wisdom.
Chucky Lopez says
'But in this case, it apparently also comes with a horde of poo-flinging howler monkeys ready to bury anybody who would dare hurt your fee-fees'
It goes both ways, you wanna remove Game of Thrones because it has rape in it?
Gentleman Horndog says
If I were trying to argue that depicting rape in any context is unacceptable, your response would be relevant. I'm not, and your response isn't.
Chucky Lopez says
Both sides got their fee fees hurt, no one has the right not to get their fee fees hurt. Savy?
Mel_ says
You seem to be having trouble comprehending that this isn't about feelings getting hurt, or even about talking about feelings getting hurt, it's about the much more extreme actions that were almost entirely taken by one side and not the other.
Chucky Lopez says
You remember the scene in Jurassic Park where Nedry and Dobson were meeting in the tropical café?
Nedry: Dobson! Dobson! Over here!
Dobson: I told you not to use my name.
Nedry: Dobson! Dobson! We've got Dobson here!
That's what this was.
The shirts I can see being a slap in the face, but the idea that thinking that the criticism about the comic was ridiculous is warranted.
Mel_ says
Well, the shirts are a pretty big part of the issue.
Seriously, if it was just a matter of some people saying, "this joke is offensive", and other people saying, "there's nothing wrong with it!" and the creators falling in with the latter, I might disagree with the exact approach they used (i.e., not only saying they felt the joke was fine, but making light of the idea that anyone could possibly have a problem with it), but it would have died down and people wouldn't still be talking about it. It's precisely because the creators kept escalating their response to the point of what even you admit was a slap in the face that people are so upset. You can't just separate out a huge factor in the conflict and decide the other side is just as bad without considering it, when that factor was, like, at least half of the overall problem. Unless you think ignoring facts is a useful way of analyzing a situation. 😛
Chucky Lopez says
You recall the scene in Jurassic Park where Nedry and Dobson are the café?
Nedry: Dobson! Dobson! Over here!
Dobson: I told you not to use my name.
Nedry: Dobson! Dobson! We've got Dobson here!
That's what this was.
The shirts were a bit of a slap in the face.
Highlighting that overly PC people were misinterpreting their comic wasn't.
Chucky Lopez says
Who is or who isn't in power is irrelevant.
Mel_ says
Funnily enough, you just saying that doesn't make it true.
And I'd be really curious to know if you honestly don't feel some caution and suspicion when a stranger who's larger and stronger than you approaches you and you're not yet sure of their intentions. It seems to me that's a pretty natural response in general; I'm not sure why you find it so offensive when the situation involves a woman and a man.
Chucky Lopez says
'Funnily enough, you just saying that doesn't make it true. '
Right back at you 🙂
Mel_ says
And yet… I didn't just say it, I provided a concrete example of how it applies. Which you totally ignored.
Thank you for reminding me why there's no point in trying to engage in a discussion with you. 🙂
Chucky Lopez says
Er… Mel, if we don't agree with the feminists, we are not wrong by default.
You gave no such concrete example, citing power differences is a lazy defense of the schrodinger's rapists concept.
But because actual thought on the matter doesn't jive with your pre-conceived notions you'll ignore that fact.
Thank you for reminding me why there's no point in trying to engage in a discussion with you. 🙂
Gentleman Horndog says
"Thank you for reminding me why there's no point in trying to engage in a discussion with you."
I know. Mel brings such a huge variety of articulate and well-considered points to the discussion. She's very hard to dismiss without sounding like a complete tool. It's way safer to get in the mud with somebody who thinks "Nyh-uh! That's what YOU are!!!" is a devastating counter-argument.
Mel_ says
My concrete example was the one above about how I suspect you (and certainly many/most guys) would also be on guard if approached by a stranger who is bigger and stronger than you. And it's the fact that you ignored that, even though it was the majority of my comment and gave a very basic example of how power differentials affect everyone's interactions with other people, which prompted me to feel it wasn't worth continuing–not the fact that you disagree with feminists. There are lots of other people I talk to here whose opinions I don't agree with, but who at least bother to pay attention and respond to what I've said. And not, y'know, outright deny I've said things when I can point to those things just a few comments up in the thread. 😛
But I recognize that you're so convinced that everything I say is "feminist feminist feminist" that you're probably not going to actually read and absorb the above either, so whatever. I will just find it amusing that you're accusing other people of being blinded by their own preconceived notions, and leave this here.
MordsithJ says
Go out and kick a cop in the nuts, then report back on how positions of power don't matter.
Chucky Lopez says
Positions of power don't matter to the ridiculousness that is the Schrodinger's Rapist concept.
enail says
Okay, he's said it three times, that summons Beetlejuice, right?
enail says
Or Todd Akin.
SpiltCoffee5 says
Why is it?
Marty Farley says
The best way to engage in a serious, relational discussion is of course to use the word "fee fees." That isn't condescending and hostile at all.
Gentleman Horndog says
Erm. I fired that shot first, Marty. I was more in snark mode than serious discussion mode.
Chucky Lopez says
Woops! Sorry for the double posting!
Akai says
"And right now, other companies with money to spend are looking around and wondering if they want to be associated with the shitstorm. And THAT hurts where it counts. "
This. It doesn't really matter if this shitstorm teaches Mike anything; realizing that alienating huge swaths of the population means they stop giving you their money will.
Marty Farley says
So we should just polite keep our mouths shut?
Part of being a mature adult in learning how to take criticism gracefully, even if there is a dog-pile. He put himself in that corner. To claim that it's "human" to react defensively when there are consequences to your own behavior is to excuse any kind of responsibility on his part.
It's on HIM to learn to be self-aware enough to know when he's inviting a shit-storm. It's on HIM to learn how to hang his head a little and admit he was in the wrong from the get-go; if he had admitted from the first some culpability, then the dog-pile could have been avoided. And lastly, it's on him to realize he needs to change. Other people shouldn't have to whisper-foot around with their opinions, when they are the offended ones, because he is too immature to control himself.
Chucky Lopez says
My reaction is just a reaction to your action!
That isn't very convincing.
Akai says
I can't even tell what this post is trying to say.
Tea Fish says
I'm all for education and explaining shit to people, but it's not on people on the internet to make Mike change. Not a damn thing we do, from angry stick-poking to gentle hand holding and shoooshpapping his butt, will make him change. He's responsible for that, only him and nobody else.
Sounds like last section of your post is extremely relevant to what Mike did, except worse because the people he pissed off (victims of sexual assault, people who oppose sexual assault) have pretty legitimate reasons to be pissed off and yelling at him.
eselle28 says
Sometimes it's not about changing someone's mind. Sometimes it's more important to inform others of what happened, or to try to direct resources away from someone who's both been offensive and is being defensive about it.
I don't really care if Mike changes. That's up to him, and I don't really get the feeling he wants to. I'd rather the environment in which Mike creates his art and others consume it change.
Wondering says
I simply cannot stand people who yell "censorship" because other people are expressing *their* free speech rights by criticizing you. Criticism is not censorship. It is exactly what free speech is about.
justinleon says
I never found PA to be funny at all, even before all of these controversies that I'm hearing about for the first time. I really hope that the gaming industry starts to realize what they've done and back away from them.
Its absolutely hypocritical to bash rape survivors and transgender people one moment and then act all progressive with PAX/Child's Play.
KJD says
Didn't the Penny Arcade guys only apologize and/or speak out against the rape and death threats directed at their critics AFTER their own families started receiving rape and death threats themselves? Getting a taste of their own medicine sure doesn't taste good, does it? Guess they forgot the taste though…
Tea Fish says
Maybe that's the case and maybe that isn't, but I can't say that rape/death threats to someone's family should ever be considered an acceptable or positive motivator for change, even as "a taste of their own medicine."
Tea Fish says
For a very long time I enjoyed PA's comics. I thought they were fun (I was definitely the target audience there), and you know what, I even think the dickwolves comic is pretty funny. Personally, I don't have any problems with it, but I can see why people do. I DO have a problem with every single aspect of how they handled this debacle. Crying about free speech and censorship? Stupid and ignorant. That second comic? What the actual fuck. T-shirts? Are you kidding me?
Saying, "Sorry, I am an an asshole with a temper and that's why I did this crappy thing," doesn't absolve you of shit. It's the very very BEGINNING of recognizing that there's a problem and taking steps to fix it, but this is what, our third time doing the same damn dance of ending with "Wow, that was stupid of me and I'm an asshole. Sure am sorry."
And the other thing that just really gets my goat– Being actually sorry about anything means taking steps to not repeat the same behavior. Being actually sorry means not pointing at yourself and saying, "Well, I always said I was an asshole," as if that should mean a damn thing. Yes, you're an asshole. I 100% believe you. That doesn't make you not responsible for the assholishness of your own actions.
Amber says
I think its telling that at the beginning of an article about why rape jokes are unacceptable, he starts off with and STI joke. The stigma around STIs is harmful and betrays a sex negative attitude. Its considered acceptable to make fun of STIs because only slutty sluts get them, when in reality diseases happen to everyone, and anyone who is sexually active is at risk. ESSPECIALLY since STIs can be a consequence of rape or sexual coercion that the victim has to deal with in addition to what they've gone through, I think it is entirely inappropriate to joke about.
enail says
I thought it was more like a joke about a common experience, like bad bosses or rude drivers, since herpes is known to be extremely common, and some strains aren't only sexually transmitted.
Gentleman Horndog says
That, and the joke casts all of us, the readers, as the "slutty sluts" in question, as we're now dealing with a fresh outbreak of painful and unpleasant dickwolf sores. Dammit, isn't Valtrex supposed to suppress this shit?
Kylroy says
Regarding the joke in the original comic, just want to point out that PvP made essentially the same joke five years previous, and somehow managed to avoid mentioning rape.
http://pvponline.com/comic/2004/06/13/june-13-200…
Chris Jaramillo says
Simple,funny, effective, and to the point
Justin says
This is a pretty common thing even in your own back yard of dating advice, Doc. Take a look at Mark Manson, someone who at first glance may seem to be making the same arguments you are. He consistently denies the existence of rape culture, at this point purposefully misidentifying it as "A culture that promotes rape" rather than "a culture that goes out of its way to apologize for rapists and shift blame to the victims." Also ignoring historical context when discussing the patriarchy, his main argument being along the lines of "Well men aren't doing as well in school as women anymore so the patriarchy is obviously dead and its legacy has been apparently completely erased."
I'm definitely over-simplifying his position, but only because it's a silly position in my opinion and no matter how much he tries to dodge important criticisms it's a pretty indefensible plank.
I bring this up, though, because I think it's very necessary to combat these attitudes on both sides of your content (the nerd and the love). I also don't know if you've mentioned him specifically before or some of the people like him. But it's worth considering mostly because I think he offers an ideology similar to what you do, but it's lined with some really toxic things as well.
Meyer N Gaines says
The idea of "rape culture" frustrates me because it implicitly assumes all men are contributing to horrible attitudes about rape, which isn't really true. There are some people in power, the media, the church, politicians, conservatives, douchebags, whatever, that contribute to "rape culture." But the vast majority of men have nothing to do with it. And I really resent the idea that just because I'm a man, I am automatically victimizing women.
eselle28 says
Not just men. Women contribute to rape culture as well. Most people do, unless they're really actively trying to work against it.
People who vote for those politicians or donate to those church leaders or buy those magazines contribute to it. So do people who tell rape jokes, or respond to stories about date rape by telling women not to drink so much, or who making knowing comments about what will happen to child molesters in prison, or who tell other gamers that they're going to get raped. It's not some horrible, unique sin. It's a bunch of minor misteps made by people who would absolutely tell you that they're against rape if they were asked.
Meyer N Gaines says
I agree with all of that except for the part about the gamers. As we all know, in gaming, "to rape" means "to decisively defeat." Rape as a word has meant several different things over the millenia: in fact, the original meaning of the Latin verb "rapere" had no sexual meaning. The meanings of words change over time, and it's one of my pet peeves that people try to insist that some meanings of words automatically take precedence over others. Why can't rape refer to "forcible intercourse" in some contexts, "complete destruction" in others (such as the "Rape of Nanking"), and "decisive victory" in others?
eselle28 says
Well, it might be in part because people who have been raped aren't very keen on that use of it. Or that female players are particularly targeted for use of the term. And, let's be completely honest here, it's not just used to mean decisive victory in gaming. It's being used to convey that someone has humiliated and degraded and opponent an exercised absolute power over them. People didn't just reach for the word "rape" as a coincidence.
If the word itself isn't really that important, why not pick something else for gaming contexts?
Meyer N Gaines says
Well, I don't like to use the word myself. Instead, I usually tell people I'm going to "ravage your rectum."
Maybe it's the same thing.
eselle28 says
That's the same thing, Meyer.
Meyer N Gaines says
True, but it makes people giggle when I say it, and it's more original than "I'll rape ur mum."
eselle28 says
Well, that makes you a slightly more creative supporter of rape culture, but it's still your own personal contribution.
And, no, I'm not perfect either. I've made more than my fair share of gross jokes when playing. But I can recognize the behavior isn't contributing to a good environment for any of us and try to change it.
Wondering says
You realize you've defeated your own point here, right? If you want to say "rape" in gaming only means "to decisively defeat" or "complete destruction," you can't then use the sexually explicit and violent "ravage your rectum." Ravaging someone's rectum is "forcible intercourse." It's not a non-sexual "complete destruction" divorced from sexual assault.
eris623 says
*all the applause*
Robjection says
Why not go with something with no sexual connotations whatsoever like "kick their butt"?
EDIT: Or what SpiltCoffee said in response to your own comment thread.
Flying Fox says
We call it the Rape of Nanking because it was an incident of mass rape.
Meyer N Gaines says
Eh, I saw the whole "dickwolves" thing as a satire on MMO Quests and (secondarily) on the admittedly excessive use of the word "rape" in gaming culture.
Honestly, I don't see any problem with the comic strip itself, or with the whole "dickwolves" thing. The use of the word "rape" is an important part of gaming culture, and always will be.
The problem was Mike and Jerry's "u mad bro" attitude about the whole affair, which I found to be incredibly offensive.
eselle28 says
It always will be? Why? It hasn't always been an important part of it, and gaming culture has dropped other practices and ways of phrasing things in the past.
I think there's some room to parody the use of the phrase, but from the "u mad bro" reaction and their many comments on the matter, I haven't gotten the feeling that was their actual intent. If it was, the execution was off.
Max says
"The use of the word "rape" is an important part of gaming culture, and always will be."
And gamers wonder why their hobby is looked down upon as immature and childish…
The Simple Man says
Pretty much this comment. As a gamer I just whince at this stuff. IT IS ONLY A PART OF OUR CULTURE BECAUSE WE LET IT!!! AND IT SHOULDN'T BE!
(On a quick note, Capslock is surprisingly satisifying to use!)
SpiltCoffee5 says
"The use of the word "rape" is an important part of gaming culture, and always will be."
No. Just no.
The use of the word "rape" in gaming culture, I think we can all agree, is quite commonly used in a way that can easily be replaced with the word "own" (as in, "You got owned" instead of "You got raped").
If that kind of usage of the word "rape" was suddenly removed from the vocabulary of everyone involved in the gaming culture, I fail to see how anything of importance would be lost from gaming culture.
Paul Rivers says
Yeah, there's no "rich history" of using that word in gaming culture. I never heard that word used in the 80's or 90's in gaming culture. It's not like it's the kind of word where it used to have one meaning that it got redefined, and now there's some sort of historical thing with it.
I don't see the need for it in any way either.
Jenn says
At this point I wish they would just let it die. Stop resurrecting and rehashing it. This whole thing could've blown over if Mike hadn't made it the hill he wants to die on for reasons beyond me.
Mad_ says
Mike or Gabe or whoever is married, right?
Jenn says
They're both married and they each have two kids.
Mad_ says
So dating-wise it worked out for him even though dickwolves
The Simple Man says
They were married quite a while ago… Dickwolves is much more recent by comparison to their marriages.
So no connection to their dating life or the release of dickwolves.
Mad_ says
If there's anyone who could've talked him down from it, you'd imagine it'd be her.
eris523 says
Controlling or modifying his behavior is not her job, nor is it realistic to assume she's the best-suited for it. I've known plenty of couples who value each other's criticisms of their own behavior pretty much last out of the entire world including hypothetical gorillas trained to scold them in sign language.
enail says
Also, people generally marry people with at least somewhat similar perspectives on gender issues. And while women and men typically do have different perspectives on things like rape and women as a group are generally considerably more concerned about rape culture and making light of rape, individual women do still have a range of different opinions on this subject, just like men do.
Even many women who feel strongly about the Penny Arcade controversy weren't themselves bothered by the initial joke – they were only bothered by the way PA responded to people who were hurt or troubled by it. I'm sure there are women who weren't even bothered by that. I'm sure there are women who continue to support their response, women who find the whole thing hilarious, etc. It's just a smaller number.
eselle28 says
Women can support rape culture too.
Akai says
Christ, I want that on a billboard. It seems so hard to get people to see it.
Mad_ says
Ding Ding Ding
Paul Rivers says
Or maybe it's because as a women, she was neither offended, nor did she feel that it promoted rape or "rape culture" in any way. One of the biggest tactics used in propaganda is to convince everyone that because you are a member of GroupA, and you have strong feelings on TopicA, that everyone in GroupA feels the same way you do.
"Women can support rape culture to" is often a shaming tactic, saying "either you wholeheartedly agree with me, or you're some sort of jerk".
BrandonCimino says
I cannot accept criticism against the initial comic. The second one, and continuing on, yeah that sucks. The first one, however, "The Sixth Slave," I think is a fantastic comic, and more importantly, I don't think it's an air-quotes "rape joke."
I will agree that jokes making light of rape aren't OK. I will agree that jokes where rape victims are the butt of the joke aren't OK. I will agree that victim blaming, supporting the patriarchy, and all of those other feminist buzz word aren't OK. What I will not agree with is that this is a situation to apply any of those things.
Think of the movie "Life is Beautiful." It's a drama-comedy about the Holocaust, where the main character uses comedy, often involving racism and the Holocaust itself, to forward his punchlines. However, nobody would say that those jokes support the Holocaust or Nazism. Context matters.
To look at any joke that involves the word or concept of rape is a "rape joke" is silly. I believe (though it's difficult to pinpoint) that a "rape joke" is one that makes light of rape the act, it's victims, it's perpetrators, or it's culture. The initial comic does none of this.
While I agree with the majority of the nerd-feminist movements beliefs, I rarely find it's efforts placed in the right direction, in a situation where I can say "yes, I get behind that wholeheartedly." A comic like this – the original comic, mind you, the rest was not OK – is NOT who feminists need to be targeting. I'm reminded of a (somewhat insensitive) local radio show, talking about a local white man who had been arrested for having a prop of a "lynched slave" hanging from the tree outside of his house during Halloween. The NAACP were all up in arms, the police went to his house and told him to take it down. The prop, officially designated "hanged man" on the product's container, had gray skin. The radio show host said, "If this is what the NAACP is spending it's time on, maybe racism isn't as big a deal as they think?"
I don't think that's the case with feminism obviously, but if people keep attacking things like this blindly, it's going to look like that, and that will ultimately hurt the cause.
What really makes me sick is the cyberbully mentality of a lot of the attacks on PA. The "let's fling our poop at the new thing that journalists are pissed about! Yeah!" looks awfully similar to controversies like SimCity's launch or the Mass Effect 3 ending. Waving a politically correct flag and using proper grammar doesn't mean people aren't being jerks. You can be a righteous douchebag.
eris523 says
"While I agree with the majority of the nerd-feminist movements beliefs, I rarely find it's efforts placed in the right direction…"
Well, Brandon, does that mean you're willing to contribute your corrections to feminist activism and tell women what they OUGHT to be working toward to improve their lives? Because acknowledging that women, on an individual basis, are capable of determining what they want and what directions they want to aim their efforts in is a fairly fundamental part of being a feminist ally. If you're not interested in being a feminist ally, why on earth would feminists take your advice on how to do feminism properly, especially when that's clearly in conflict with their own judgement, since acknowledging that women, on an individual basis, are capable of determining what they want and what directions they want to aim their efforts in is also a fairly fundamental part of treating them like adult human beings? If, however, you ARE interested in being a feminist ally, then telling women they're doing feminism wrong and your better perspective could better inform their efforts to improve their own lives… that's a habit you'll want to break really really soon, because you're not my ally if you won't even let me make my own decisions and I can get VERY emphatic in telling you so.
Note that this applies whether you're male or not, but offering advice like that under a typically-male name, you're likely to get some educationally specific responses.
My reply to everything below that quote is well-covered by http://www.derailingfordummies.com/derail-using-a… under "You Are Damaging Your Cause By Being Angry".
BrandonCimino says
This is the kind of ranting, omg-you-are-so-dumb style of "debate" that I'm talking about. I'm not sure where you came upon the idea that what you quoted translates to "I don't think women are capable of determining what they want," or even when "feminists" began equating to "women."
The idea that a person, any person, (edit: or group, movement, etc) in any situation, should be the sole determiner of what is best for them is kind of silly, and I hope that's not what you're claiming I should do. To say, "I don't agree with taking X action" seems like a legitimate criticism to make. For example, I can agree with many of Obama's stated goals for the country's economy while simultaneously criticizing some of the actions he's taking to forward those goals. I see no reason why criticizing the actions of a person, political entity, etc. should exclude you from supporting their goals, or vice-versa; the two should be mutually exclusive. I can also support EA's contributions to the Humble Origin Bundle while criticizing their marketing philosophies.
If what you mean to say is that I cannot be a feminist-ally if I disagree with the movement's actions, that is unfortunate, but I will accept that (it's kind of what I was getting at, in a way). I'd like to think that a movement like feminism needs to be open in order to function properly, but maybe that's not the case, and a stricter set of requirements to be considered a "feminist" or "feminist-ally" would be appropriate, in the ways that there are relatively strict rules to be considered a "Liberal" or a "Republican" or "Christian." A strong analogy might be that I feel like a believer in a religion who disagrees with the actions of their church, and if that church has decided that being a part of it must be a binary station, then I will have to choose to leave, but I don't think feminism is binary.
EDIT:
This post, by Ashly Burch, explains what I meant in my original post in a much more eloquent long-form manner. http://safepointblog.tumblr.com/post/60389280818/…
Rja says
And my bingo card has been filled. I have officially completed a blackout. "Man Says Combating Rape Culture is Waste of Feminist Energy" was the last space I needed. I expect a prize.
BrandonCimino says
Never once did I say that combating rape culture is bad. I said that this isn't a productive way to do it.
SpiltCoffee5 says
Rja didn't say that you said that combating rape culture is bad. Rja said that you, a man, said that this isn't a productive thing to do.
BrandonCimino says
If being a man disqualifies my opinion, doesn't that support the kind of double-standard feminism is intended to remove?
Akai says
A message is qualitatively different when it's coming from a place of privilege. Though I agree that it's not optimal to have "feminist" be an exclusively female term, the experiences of male and female feminists are never going to be the same.
Cait says
Particularly when that privileged message is essentially "Person who doesn't have privilege: your experiences don't line up with mine and therefore I dismiss them."
Different populations experience the world in different ways and have different viewpoints on what happens in the world. When people use the word "privilege" they really mean "The People Whose Views Are The Dominant Narrative"- aka the Default People. White, Male, Hetero, Cis-gendered, Abled- that is "Default Person." Everywhere you look, you hear their stories. Other people, who are actually the majority of humans, btws, don't get their stories told as much. It's easy therefore to forget that these stories exist at all. So they have to yell it out. (Note: privilege is a bit like concentric circles: you be Default Person in every category but one, you still have privilege)
What's not cool is for Default People to try to explain the stories of non-Default People or, even worse, to dismiss their stories because they don't look like a Default Story.
Basically, Brandon, your opinion is okay- your attempt to dismiss what non-privileged people are saying is their non-privileged experience and argue it away is Standard Issue Derailing and Not. Welcome.
BrandonCimino says
If I sounded dismissive, it was unintentional. I mean to criticize, not dismiss, and thank you for criticizing me and not dismissing me (like so many others have).
I don't think that what I posted particularly requires a female point of view, but as I don't have one, I can't truly see the difference it would make. However, regardless of gender, no point is any less valid, it's just different. I wouldn't dismiss a white person's opinion on slavery, nor a German's on the holocaust or a an athiest's on Catholicism. Being on the outside and looking gives a different perspective.
Although I personally, as a student of writing, take issue with Capitalized Fallacies Mean I'm Right. Reliance on buzz-words and stock arguments, such as fallacies, but also such as pointing out fallacies, lends itself to static thinking. That isn't directed at you in particular, Cait, it's just a trend (not feminism-specific either though I notice it often in feminist discussions) and I find it frustrating. If I'm not mistaken, targeting someone's fallacy as the basis for why the argument surrounding it is false is creating a Straw Man.
However, at this point I have come to the realization that this is not a forum for debate and I shouldn't be treating it as one. I would never walk into a horror movie and criticize the genre to it's fans or go onto the forums for World of Warcraft and criticize MMOs; and neither would I go to an area dominated by a political group and try to start a fight there. I had put my faith in the Nerdlove site as a place where debate might happen, but apparently I was mistaken; and an unpopular opinion will not be even read comprehensively (as I can see by the "Combating Rape Cultire Is…" which I did not say; equating a man criticizing feminists to a man criticizing women as a whole, etc). Thank you, Cait, for taking the time to provide a counter-point instead of the cyberbully "look at how dumb this sexist man is" like Rja did. However, I will refrain from posting here again, as I appear to be unwelcome.
Cait says
You're absolutely right and absolutely wrong. This is a place where debate does happen. Unfortunately for you, what you are trying to debate is actually no longer up for debate. The geocentric view of the solar system doesn't get much traction in the world of astrophysics.
For those of you who will come out of the wood-work and fuss that yes in fact things that Brandon said have been things up for debate, I direct your attention again to my post directly above. When women say "This is how it is to be a woman" or "this is what women are trying to accomplish in life" (right now for me, it's some tacos), you believe them on this site.
Annnnd for those of you who are thinking "What the hell does all this have to do with dating any way and why is this going on here?" For one thing, any site geared toward men that has this many women in its active posting roster is doing something right. After all, we're the target audience of your target audience. DNL can only do so much before the whole gender thing lets him down. Second, and most important, the women in your lives, the women you want to be in your lives, are feminists. A lot of them won't accept that term and that's alright because it comes with some baggage. But, this base-line stuff that gets touched on here, it applies to them. It really truly does. It is the background radiation of their lives. And if you want to be a good partner, FWB, FB, or just human being to the other half of the population, it'll do you some good to step outside your world and try to see things from their perspective. This ain't about white-knighting or becoming a "feminist" just so you can get laid, this is about trying to understand how another person, in whom you have a vested interest, sees and interprets the world. If you don't see the value in learning THAT, then you need to go get your head on straight and come back later.
So, if right now your instinct is to argue and prove me I'm wrong or misunderstanding or anything else, I really want you to take a moment and breathe. This isn't about right or wrong. This is about empathy. I'm sitting here telling you a few things about what it's like to be me, things that are tied to my gender. The other women here are doing the same thing. You'll see some trends. Those trends, those trends are important because you can extrapolate from them and figure that other women see things the same way.
Now, once you've proven that you can accept at face value whatever a woman says is her experience, we can start talking about how to fix things. That part of the debate NEEDS men because it's gotta be a society-wide effort. But we can't debate whether or not focusing on rape is the best use of our time as long as some people are dismissing the very idea that rape is an issue that matters to women on a personal and daily level.
Robjection says
"For those of you who will come out of the wood-work and fuss that yes in fact things that Brandon said have been things up for debate, I direct your attention again to my post directly above. When women say "This is how it is to be a woman" or "this is what women are trying to accomplish in life" (right now for me, it's some tacos), you believe them on this site."
I think this is a specific application of a general guideline: when you're (relatively) uneducated on something, it's a safe bet to defer to the experts until you become sufficiently educated. There will be times when the experts either agree on something incorrect or reach a major disagreement, but until you've learned enough to know exactly why it is incorrect or who in the disagreement is right (if any of them are), the odds of you going right where they went wrong are rather slim. Without sufficient knowledge, you also run a larger risk of thinking you've gone right where they've gone wrong when it's actually the other way around.
When it comes to women's experiences, I figure that the experts will be those who actually have those experiences.
Chucky Lopez says
Equating believing in women's rights with feminism is incorrect. They are NOT one in the same, so to imply every woman is a feminist by default is incorrect, and shows how you have a biased view that isn't open to actual discussion. It's like me saying all babies are atheists but that's just a lazy way of me trying to make my cause bigger than it really is.
Women here don't represent all women, most women IRL are not as sensitive or defensive or anti-social as many of the women on DNL. Saying you have the monopoly on rights and that's that and any type of discussion is just a lack of empathy on your part is just an intellectually lazy way to discuss anything. Another intellectually lazy thing you're doing is suggesting that anyone who disagrees with you is by default some how for rape or refuses to see that rape is a matter that is important to everyone (not just women) is just a scare tactic and a way of quilting people into agreeing with you. Maybe you'd be shown more respect if you didn't use such sleezy tactics.
Paul Rivers says
"Second, and most important, the women in your lives, the women you want to be in your lives, are feminists. A lot of them won't accept that term and that's alright because it comes with some baggage."
Lol, yeah. They're feminists – even though they don't think they are, and would disagree with anyone calling them that. Riiiight.
anonymous says
I'd think most women want to be treated as equal to men. Which is what feminism is about.
Chucky Lopez says
The label carries baggage, you have to believe in women's rights to be a feminist but you do NOT have to be a feminist to believe in women's rights.
nonA says
“Particularly when that privileged message is essentially “Person who doesn’t have privilege: your experiences don’t line up with mine and therefore I dismiss them.”:
See, I’d totally believe this if it matched my experiences. Ever.
A feminist says to a man “you have all these privileges you’re not aware of”. The man is supposed to accept this as a perfectly rational, perfectly objective statement, even if it doesn’t mesh with his experiences.
A man starts telling women “you have all these privileges you’re not aware of”. Google the words “female privilege”, or use them in any feminist blog to see what the reaction winds up being.
(And to pre-empt the counter; if you’re going to say that the difference is that the man is the one with privilege,, I’m going to want a little more evidence than people supporting that claim while ignoring/ridiculing the opposite.)
Rja says
Nah, man, the difference is that male privilege is an accepted academic theory while female privilege has no real backing. If I search "male privilege in academia", Google will provide me with a set of citable papers on the topic. If I dig more, I can find more. If I search "female privilege in academia" (which doesn't even autocomplete like "male privilege in academia"), I get a mix of academic women talking about why female privilege is bullshit, some criticisms of modern feminism by academics on the grounds of it being exclusionary to women of color and trans* women (which is very valid but doesn't really support the idea of female privilege), and some articles about how to compete as a woman in the academic world (how to dress when you'll constantly be judged, how to deal with sexist colleagues, etc.) There's nothing there.
Of course, I'm the first to admit the academic world is fallible. After all, the vast majority of tenured positions are controlled by older white males; the academic world still has a very limited scope. However, I think it is a solid bet that the binary gender that got to control the world for hundreds of years probably still has some lingering privileges that might affect their worldview a smidgen. I advise putting your money there.
Chucky Lopez says
Sorry to burst the your bubble while you were drinking your koolaid, but female privilege is a thing:
http://www.wihe.com/printBlog.jsp?id=400
That's the first link that popped up in my browser after google finished the word female privilege for me…
@kleenestar says
… you do recognize that list is tongue-in-cheek, right?
Jet Spygul says
Reading Is Fundamental
Paul Rivers says
"Nah, man, the difference is that male privilege is an accepted academic theory while female privilege has no real backing."
The ideas that black people where gentically stupider and incapable of being as smart as white people, and that homosexuality was a pschyological disorder, were also accepted academic theories with little or no counterpoints in acadamia as well in the not-so-distant past. That's about the same level of authority I think these academic papers have.
anonymous says
That's right! Those theories were used to justify the dehumanization and oppression of those groups.
And just like black people and homosexuals, men have a long and violent history of being…OH WAIT
Mel_ says
Your comparing men having to… what? Be asked not to talk in ways that normalize or downplay the effects of rape? to the dehumanization and oppression of blacks and homosexuals is incredibly insulting to blacks and homosexuals.
There is a long and violent history of white people dehumanizing and oppressing black people, as you've just pointed out. Does that mean that white people are being dehumanized and oppressed when black people point that out and ask for fair treatment? Because that's the logical extension of your argument about gender relations.
Gentleman Horndog says
Erm. Is this response in the right place, Mel? Because as-is, it reads as though you're misinterpreting (what I'm reading as) anonymous's sarcasm.
Mel_ says
Ack, okay, I misread. I thought the "long and violent history of being… OH WAIT" was referring the supposed way feminists talk about men having this long history of being violent etc. as a parallel to how people have made similar claims about blacks and homosexuals being inherently deviant, and trying to point out how the former is equally wrong. But I realize considering it again that it actually makes even more sense to take it as referring to the "long and violent history" of being dehumanized and oppressed, which oh wait, men don't actually share.
Sorry anon. 🙁 Sarcasm doesn't always translate easily in text. (Also, I recommend anyone posting anonymously just pick a name to use other than anon, to differentiate yourself. My interpretation was partly based on the fact that there was a–presumably different–anon posting here as "anonymous" in the last week who was decidedly on the "men are oppressed" side.)
It's that anon says
Oh wow, I'll be more careful with internet sarcasm from now on. That's not what I was trying to say at all. At all. Sorry about that. I was pretty pissed when I was responding to that guy.
Mel_ says
No worries! See above–I apologize for not reading carefully enough. I can understand you being pissed. 🙂
Chucky Lopez says
What no black person or homosexual was ever a man now?
Cait says
Besides the fact that male privilege is academically accepted the female privilege is the domain of MRAs, the feelings of being slighted that you're talking about: those are gender norms enforced via the patriarchy- aka the sort of thing that feminists are trying to combat.
The idea that men should pay for dates, always; the idea that men do the asking for dates; the fact that divorced fathers get shitty custody arrangements; men feeling judged for not having the right muscle mass or athleticism. These are all examples of the patriarchy biting the hand that feeds it, so to speak.
A. Honest feminists want to fight that too. The general trend I've seen is that people think whoever does the asking should pay for the date, as the host and the chooser of the location. Now why fewer women do the asking, well that's discussed at length in other places on this blog, but there is some serious social backlash against women who do the asking. Lots of men seem to react poorly (patriarchy strikes again). B. Being told that your job in society is to mother your children or that you need to find a man with the financial wherewithal to support you isn't necessarily a "privilege." C. Women can have privilege too, based on things other than gender. See, e.g.: Solidarity is for White Women.
nonA says
Cait: I really don’t care about the dating stuff. It’s well below things like “women in certain fields struggle to be taken seriously” on the list of what needs to be fixed.
What I do have a problem with is the implicit – and sometimes explicit – message that my experiences are only valid if they support a preexisting worldview. And more importantly, that people with some real measure of power in society are openly saying that ideology trumps evidence. It scares me with the intelligent design movement, it scares me with abstinence education, and it scares me with the argument that men are sitting on inexhaustible stores of this poorly defined “privilege”.
Cait says
Male privilege, again, is an accepted academic theory.
I'd like to know what experiences you're feeling are getting marginalized, because it's important to address actual experiences of actual humans.
If, and I'm not saying you are, if you are interpreting "privilege" to mean that all of your life is smooth sailing, then I direct your attention to John Scalzi. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-wh…
@kleenestar says
I really hate the phrase "male privilege," but unlike abstinence education and intelligent design, it's a testable theory. For example, there's an entire body of psychology research that just tests the effects of having a male versus female name on a resume / job application / short story submission / etc. (Hint: it's not good to have a female name.) There are studies showing that in a group of 50% men and 50% women, if women talk half as much as men then both men and women think they're dominating the conversation. While no individual study can test the entirety of the concept of "male privilege" (did I mention I hate that phrase?), the better analogy is that male privilege is like evolutionary theory. It explains a whole lot of disparate results – a structural and conceptual framework that does a very good job of explaining the evidence at hand. That doesn't mean it's perfect, but any alternative explanation has to do better than "male privilege" (ugh) at explaining the facts we have.
hobbesiean says
" For example, there's an entire body of psychology research that just tests the effects of having a male versus female name on a resume / job application / short story submission / etc. (Hint: it's not good to have a female name.)"
i wonder if this is the reason why I have so many problems applying for jobs.. I need to test this and see if including my full middle name, which is unmistakably a guys name, makes any difference..
Swinton says
Google the guy who went from getting no interviews to getting plenty when he changed his resume from Kim Lastname to Mr Kim Lastname. You will definitely find adding male identifiers helps.
nonA says
Academic theory advanced by the same people who insisted that homosexuality was a choice, and that transgirls were really just men looking for the last frontiers in which to impose their privilege. I’m going to take them as seriously as I do a man who advances the same ideas.
The link you gave reminds me beautifully whose viewpoints are getting marginalized. Discussions of “male privilege” overwhelmingly focus only on those who have the societally sanctioned label of “men”. Gay men, colored men, disabled men, homeless men, trans men, and anyone else who hasn’t clawed their way to the top gets ignored.
When they throw in the list of adjectives to focus on straight, white, affluent, able, cissexual men, I can’t help but notice that the people talking are also overwhelmingly straight, white, affluent, able, and cissexual. It’s all the adjectives doing the heavy lifting, and yet we’re supposed to think it’s all on the “man” part.
@kleenestar says
I recommend you check out Joan Williams' work on "lens theory," which is a pretty good way of separating out the impacts of class, race, gender, etc. without paying a visit to the Oppression Olympics on the way.
Mel_ says
You are aware that people also talk about straight privilege, white privilege, able-bodied privilege, etc. too, right? It's not as if anyone's suggesting that gender is the only or even the most important defining factor of one's position in life. Male privilege simply means that all other things being equal, men will have more advantages than women. A straight, white, affluent, able, cissexual man is generally going to have an easier time than a straight, white, affluent, able, cissexual woman, and a gay, POC, poor, disabled, trans man is generally going to have an easier time than a gay, POC, poor, disabled, trans woman.
You seem to be suggesting that all those other factors matter far more than gender ("doing the heavy lifting"). Can you not accept that maybe gender matters just as much? Studies that control for those other factors seem to suggest so. And as I said, I don't think people–definitely not people here–generally think that privilege is "all on" gender. Only that it is one of many significant factors.
Rja says
Yes, there are some truly awful people involved in research or legal advancement of gender and sex discrimination. Some of those people are on our Supreme Court. I would really like them to die and go away if possible so I never have to hear their awful, unnuanced opinions ever again. However, there are some truly awful people involved in a lot of things. I love me a good discussion about the awfulness of people responsible for important theories, but when push comes to shove, the good concepts stick. This one sticks for trans* women who find their social expectations totally altered by a change in gender presentation. It sticks for the queer girls who get assaulted (which will, sadly, be the majority). It sticks for all the disabled women who struggle to get doctors to diagnose them properly.
It is not your job to police the feminist movement and stand up for all the minorities like a controlling asshat. I will happily burn the TERF radfems with the MRAs, but I will not toss aside important theories just because you find them inconvenient and prefer to ignore the substantial amount of controlled research done to support them.
Rja says
Please enlighten me as to how taking PA to task isn't productive. If you can post an explanation that any three other long-time female NL commentators agree with, I will bow to your view. If you can't, I want my prize.
PA is a huge force in the geek community. They help set standards of behavior for their audience and the community in general. PAX likes to pride itself on having the best security when it comes to discouraging sexual assaults and harassment. If PA continues making money off rape culture and transmisogyny, the geek community will never be a safe for women. The nerd-feminist community has ever reason to go for the jugular here.
nonA says
One reason? I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason Mike dug in his heels on this issue was because people threatened his family over it.
Right now, what you have happening is two sides refusing to back down because they’re afraid it would cause loss of face. And while it would be best if he were the one to be the bigger man, how often is the person called on to be the bigger man the one who’s actually a man?
Cait says
Your criticism would be valid if it weren't for the fact that what typically happens on the internet is that the one who isn't a man gets called slag ho and shouted down with threats of violence by those who are.
Are you doing this? No. Of course not. But it happens on the reg, and like it or not, it colors the tone that discussions take. Women think long and hard before going public qua women. That fact alone makes the debate inequal.
Chucky Lopez says
Threats of violence by trolls on the internet do not actual threats make.
Do not come back with the empathy quilt trip bs, I would urge you to look for the female host of the Young Turks to see a woman who is 'harrassed' daily by trolls and not a single fuck was given by her that day, she still composes herself with decorum and doesn't present herself with a victim mentality.
Rja says
According to law in most places, yes, threats made on the internet are real threats. They're extremely hard to prosecute because they are generally anonymous, but in the majority of areas, you will face legal consequences that vary depending on your country and state (though jail time and heavy fines are common) if any threats are traced back to you.
In fact, threats on the internet more often fit legal definitions than ones voiced out in the real world because internet threats tend to be more specific and graphic in their descriptions of gross bodily harm. You can get in serious trouble for that shit.
Chucky Lopez says
They are not real threats, because something is a law doesn't make it not ridiculous, trolls of the 4chan and reddit variety do not real threats make. To even insinuate that they are betrays your paranoia.
@kleenestar says
So … you'd be fine with, say, white supremacists sending violent threats to your Facebook account? To your personal email? What about getting written threats at your internship or your dojo? What if the harassment started spreading to your friends and family? Would that bother you?
Chucky Lopez says
Threats to a persons personal email are very different from threats on the internet by through 4chan and reddit and other forums.
@kleenestar says
I'm glad we agree that threats to a person's email are serious. So what makes you think women aren't receiving threats to their personal email? I can vouch that this has happened to many women I know who dared to speak up about PAX online.
Jet says
That was a terrible comparison. Just because the NAACP did something dumb (and they don't speak for all black people) doesn't suddenly mean racism isn't a problem. If anything, your example emphasizes the need for anti-racism and feminism. If the patriarchy or white people keep calling out the oppressed groups for overreacting, that actually CONFIRMS people's sexist or racist beliefs, making them think that the oppressed don't have a right to be mad over something. And that is a highly poisonous attitude.
Chucky Lopez says
That depends on what people are defining as oppression. Christians think they're being oppressed by they are far from it. Rape jokes like the ones in the original comic aren't forms of oppression, and to call it so cheapens the word.
Jet Spygul says
I never said anything about Christians. By default, the dominant group/group in power (White, Male, Christian) can never be oppressed by anyone for being what they are.
Jet Spygul says
I also never said rape jokes were necessarily a form of oppression. Instead I was talking about *oppressed people* that have to deal with bullshit every day. Sure, hanging a man on a tree can be a harmless Halloween decoration, but people might not see it that way, especially considering the history of this country. Getting raped by dickwolves could be a harmless joke, but other people might not see it that way. The point is that you don't get to choose the way that other people perceive your "harmless" actions, nor should you attack them for it.
Chucky Lopez says
The 'other people' are free to not read the comic, this isn't a physical monument in a public place, this is the internet, no ones is forcing 'other people' to read said comic.
Jet Spygul says
……
Of course they are free to not read it AFTER they already read it the first time! Do you expect people to be psychic? "Oh man, I'm getting psychic energy waves telling me that this comic is going to offend me before I even look at it, better choose another website, because if I don't I will have a bunch of people telling me how I should feel!" Nobody said anything about forcing people to read the comic, I was talking about people claiming "you should feel this about this, because I said so."
Chucky Lopez says
You get to chose what you are offended by, btw the entire article was basically, this is this terrible terrible thing done by this person, you should be offended by him or else you're not a decent human being and you're perpetrating RAPE CULTURE AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD! Spare me.
hobbesiean says
I used to ready PA.. I actually found that first comic to be very good at illustrating something I have long dealt with in terms of MMO's.. I HATE leaving the other slaves.. or the dead bodies unburnt/burried etc.. I always looked at it that.. if my character is supposed to be a Hero, he/she would do these things.. would not leave a single slave in the hands of the demonic legion or whatever.. be they orc, troll,human, whatever.. they wouldn't leave a whole cave full of hoblings to come and attack the village again next week.. This always created a moral problem for me and I felt that comic really did a good job of explaining something I had trouble explaining to my mmo friends.. I also look at it as a historical fact that Slaves were raped and mistreated by their owners.. and that's how I took that.. it was simply fact that the slaves were being mistreated.. it could have been dealt with similarly by saying beaten or what have you.. but beaten lacks the emotional gut punch that forcible intercourse has. It illustrates just what exactly being a slave entails.. no rights.. no say.. no consent.. no recourse.. It's always bothered me say in.. Black Temple.. and Kharazan when there are whole harems full of slave girls who attack you and who then you have to kill..it's part of what lead me to stop playing WOW..
Rape is such a loaded word.. it's got so many connotations and sometimes it is the only word that really can be used in some situations.. there was a documentary I saw called "The rape of europa" which was about the Nazi's stealing the artworks from all over europe.. I dunno honestly if I feel that is a good use of the word.. it was horrible.. but it was just art.. it wasn't people. The rape of Nanking was mass rape and murder on a HUGE scale.. and that's really the only thing that can be used to adequatly describe it.. you just can't get the same umph out of 'The late unpleasantness in Nanking"
That being said.. their response to the problem was completely childish.. instead of explaining it in the way that I just did.. and then saying well.. we should have used beaten or whatever.. won't do it again.. and moved on.. they put on their troll faces and doubled down for a serious u mad bro type thing.. and still seem to be doing that.. all the while laughing their way to the bank because Harris is, even if not directly linking to their site, indirectly encouraging people to look the strips up which gives mike and jerry page hits which makes them money.. and to be honest with you their reply to the comic made me quit reading PA entirely.. I'd already had some issues with them but this sort of tipped it..
Wondering says
Just as a side note, the title "The Rape of Europa" for the book, and subsequent documentary, regarding the Nazi plunder of Europe's art is taken from Greek mythology. It alludes to Zeus abducting a young woman named Europa (after whom Europe is named) and later having sex with her. Whether that sex was consensual is not specified, so that's up to interpretation. That mythological event was called the Rape of Europa, so even trying to divorce the book title from the idea of sexual assault is a bit problematic. Its roots involve abduction and sex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_%28mythology%…
And, see, "plunder" is a perfectly good word to use to use for what the Nazis did if you're not trying to make a deliberate mythological allusion.
hobbesiean says
I was aware of the reference.. I just wasn't sure it fit particularly well.. To me it comes across as more than a trifle melodramatic when compared to the similarly titled 'Rape of Nanking'…
I think it is somewhat interesting that the word 'Rapine' basically means looting and plunder but the word 'Rape' is sexual assault. so the more accurate term would have then been "Rapine of Europa" but that doesn't have the same oomph and viscerality to it..
Camille says
Interesting legal fact: it's always considered rape if a kidnapper is having sex with a kidnap victim.
hobbesiean says
well i make no bones about that.. the story with zeus et al clearly has the right name.. it was merely the documentary I wasn't sure about..
Jimmy Carr says
I think the word rape sounds quite harsh. I prefer to call it a 'struggle snuggle'.
Robjection says
Well, rape is a harsh thing, so …
fakely_mctest says
Wow.
That's 100% revolting. Congratulations.
enail says
I took this as satirizing people who constantly complain about tone in discussions about serious subjects like rape, not a genuine suggestion.
@HamiltonKitty says
The dickwolves controversy was an interesting one. I personally found the comic hilarious, I admit. I felt that the exaggeration was so extreme that it separated it from any real life rape. There are always going to be some disagreements when it comes to whether a piece of art is crossing a line or not.
Buuuut even if they were going to stand by their dickwolves comic, they totally did it in the wrong way. Belittling and mocking rape is a serious issues, and if rape survivors are being triggered then you need to treat the subject with the gravity it deserves. That is NOT the time to get defensive and self-righteous and, in short, be an ass.
TheTrans says
Hmm, Rape is a horrible thing and anyone that commits it really needs to be given some form of ruthless punishment followed by some form of slow death.
At the same time, the strip wasn't pointed at any particular real persons tragic story. I think the internet and the first world in general need to get over how offended we as a group get at stuff.
If someone made a comic saying Caucasian Australians are all convicts, thiefs, murderers, rapists and that's why we're down here, I wouldn't bat an eye-lid, but I'm sure some people would happily get offended on my behalf for me…
@kleenestar says
I think if more rapists were, you know, actually convicted and punished, a lot of people would be less bothered by jokes about rape. As it is, I think a lot of people experience those jokes as adding insult to injury. "Ha, ha, no one takes rape seriously enough to see rapists go to jail, let me remind you of that fact right now by showing you how not-seriously I take it, too."
(Though I have to say: I personally thought the original comic was totally fine. It was the nasty defensiveness that came afterwards that really upset me.)
@Herostratus356 says
At least people can stop claiming that feminists are apathetic towards the rape of males, right?
Chazz says
Some thoughts:
1) 'It’s amusing to see it when the target is someone who “deserves” it – Jack Thompson comes to mind – but it’s absolutely terrifying when they turn on people in the name of' – Who determines who "deserves" PA's criticism.
2) 'Considering that Penny-Arcade is the 2000 lb. gorilla of web comics and gaming culture, there’re damned few people who aren’t smaller than they are.' Not sure if that is true. This is the first I'm ever hearing of PA and I've been a game for nigh on 25 years now.