Day: July 11, 2012

Take it from Snee: Lightning Round of Rape Jokes

Daniel Tosh recently issued an apology for what someone quoting somebody else on Tumblr described as comedy word rape. It was probably the best way for Tosh to handle the situation given that nobody wants to even remotely look like they’re defending rape. And if things went down they way the anonymous friend-of-a-friend says, then yeah, apology (his) and scorn (hers) deserved.

However, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that it’s never acceptable to joke about rape. (The last time I was told this was by a drunk pseudo-lesbian trying to axe kick my head, so you can see how well I learned.) It’s also not the first time I’ve heard that it’s wrong to joke about cancer, AIDS, 9/11, abortion, poverty, drugs, war, spiders or death.

I’ve heard the explanation: it’s wrong to trivialize things that people find morally repugnant. Or, really: it’s wrong to make people laugh about things they find morally repugnant because making them laugh involuntarily is rape. It’s never, of course: people shouldn’t laugh at jokes about morally repugnant things.

Although I think the principal is as admirable as it is misguided, I agree in one regard: I wish painful, terrible topics weren’t fodder for comedy, because that would mean they aren’t problems any more. After all, do you think your average 23rd Century Federation citizen would get jokes about poverty or gender and racial inequality? Not unless they’ve been hanging around Ferengi gree worm farmers. (Yeah, I said it.)

But, here: I’ll let you be the judge. How morally wrong is it to tell these jokes? Continue reading Take it from Snee: Lightning Round of Rape Jokes

It was in their name the whole time

As any medical drama will resort to when the ratings get low, the scariest murderers are doctors because, as protectors of human life, they know every off-switch (like our susceptibility to grillbrush bristles). Or how, according to police dramas in a similar pickle, cops make the best criminals.

Well, it was only a matter of time before firemen — or firepeople, as they’re called nowadays — lived up to the ironic double-meaning of their name. It turned out they were both flammable and inflammable this whole time.

… What? Those words mean the same thing? Then what do you call things that can’t be set on fire? Forget it. This is just a rehash of our old argument that somehow “pervy” isn’t the opposite of “impervious.”

Everyone knows spiders hate fire

Of all pests that make their way into the home, spiders have to be one of the worst. We eat a few of them while sleeping every year, and threaten tall people with the chance of walking through one of their webs at any time. It’s horrible.

But they’re taking on a new tactic, and the only good news is that it only works on a niche group: men with blowtorches lying around. A man in Chico, California had had it with the spiders in his house. We imagine they were quite formidable, because a mere tissue wasn’t enough. Instead, the man was lured by the spiders to use a blowtorch, falling into the spider’s trap when he sprayed some dead plants and they ignited.

The house didn’t burn down, thanks to firefighters, but it did have significant damage. The good news is that the little bastards were fried.