Censorship, rape culture and free-speech

[Autumnlicious]

I have a few webcomics I occasionally visit out of respect of my earlier interests. One such is Penny Arcade, a comic that makes fun of every thing.

They've had comics making fun of pedophiles, DRM, bestiality, etc,. Pretty much everything.

But god save you if you dare make fun of rape.

What are your thoughts on this?

---

The offender (mirrored):

REF: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/8/11/

A timeline detailing the factions:
REF: http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/304194086...a-timeline

And, of course, the "final point" from the offended side:
REF: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2...it-is.html

A choice section that ticked me off, as the author seems to view their "space" (which is, in reality, owned by a company, with all the rights and privileges pertaining to; hence that author does not own it, merely the content added by said author):

When I ask a person not to engage in rape apologia in this space, because it is my space and I have not only not consented to host rape apologia here, but have also explicitly and repeatedly deemed it off-limits, and that person continues to engage in rape apologia nonetheless, without regard for my boundaries or personal autonomy, that's not exactly someone who's demonstrating a commitment to the notions of consent, autonomy, and respect.

That's someone who's leveraging the values of a rape culture to violate my boundaries.

That's someone who's acting like a fucking rapist.


/...snip -- stuff removed -- ref contains full body .../

It's not good enough to say, "Lots of people can laugh at that without hurting anybody," not when laughing along conveys approval of the rape culture, whose vales are embraced by the people who do hurt other people. They aren't formed and they don't exist in a void—and the only responsible position, if you're not inclined to be their ally, is to have a zero tolerance policy on rape as entertainment.

Otherwise, you're just creating opportunities for Bad Guys to have their fucked-up values reaffirmed and for Nice Guys to communicate silent approval.

There is no neutral in the rape culture.

[Jaysyn]

Talk about missing the point. The idea was no matter how bad the victims are being mistreated, the *game* won't let you rescue more than five of them. The actual comic was just a situation setting that up & showing the absurdity of it.

BTW, last time I looked, there were no such thing as dickwolves. I hope her thoughtcrime accusations get her little blog a lot of pageviews.

[Skipper]

Read through the time time line of this incident because I had no idea any of it was happening and its really amazing how much of a shit storm a cartoon is causing. A cartoon that, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty tame and CLEARLY isn't laughing at rape.

No topic should be out of bounds for comedy. It's simple. Once you start saying you can't laugh at things, THAT'S when other things become offensive. Obviously, using rape (or murder or suicide or whatever) in comedy is one thing, but when you start using individual situations or victims as a source for the laughs with no other intent than to cause suffering or further pain then that's when things get a bit more complex and a bit of common sense should be used. But for the most part anything should be admissible with comedy. If you don't like what you hear, don't listen to that comedian or show or whatever it is. It really is that simple, life's to short to spend your time being offended by what others find funny when it really is causing no real harm. Nobody has the right to not be offended.

[Rhizomorph13]

Lol @dickwolves! When I played WOW I found it funny that my hero was only allowed to rescue the set amount of trapped slaves. It is required for game mechanics but makes the joke funny. So obviously NOT laughing at rape, but using it to describe unbelievably horrible treatment of the slaves.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Yeah. This seems to be another example of people overreacting to something fairly tame. I see this all the time in the disciplinary actions of schools who punish students for wearing "offensive" clothing.
Oh, you know, whatever.

[HeyItsZeus]

If something offends you then you don't understand anything about how the world works...

[Autumnlicious]

I often wondered where, in my daily life, left-wing authoritarians disappeared too. I can see right wing authoritarianism in Wisconsin, anything to do with the Koch brothers, the motion in the House to strip PBS of all it's funding (provoked by PBS's coverage of Wisconsin, when the rest of the media focuses scant attention and devotes time to Egypt), etc,.

I found the left wing authoritarians, in the form of the rape-culture proponents and self-described opponents.

If you don't have an enemy, invent one it seems.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

I don't know. I would tend to think that left-wing authoritarians would be communists. As such, I think it's because the right-wing authoritarians aren't seen as such, even despite their obviously extreme views.

Which I suppose goes to show that the right wing media has demonized the left wing portion of the ideaology so much that the extreme left wing can't even get on the air like assholes like Rush Limbaugh can.

[Autumnlicious]

Wow - did we just get a consensus? The hell?

That's the last time I be edgy...

Not.

[Dotard]

Another man hating Eilo.

...encourages Penny Arcade readers to stalk and rape me

Really Lady, do you own a mirror? If so look in it. I don't think you have to worry about that.