Daniel Tosh's rape joke

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Lady in the crowd.  1) Rape jokes aren't funny.  2) Tosh isn't funny.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I can get (though I don't agree with) Tosh not being funny.  But why do we hate rape jokes?  Do we hate all "off color" jokes?  Or is rape special?

The latter.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I can get (though I don't agree with) Tosh not being funny.  But why do we hate rape jokes?  Do we hate all "off color" jokes?  Or is rape special?

The latter.

Ok.  So are all rape jokes unfunny?  What if it's a bad person that is being joked about being raped?  What if it's so over the top it can't possibly be true, like the aristocrats joke?

Jokes like the aristocrats are categorically distinct, since it's not the material being discussed that's supposed to be funny, it's the sheer degree of impropriety (a degree that it's hard to hit correctly). Jokes in which rape qua rape is a figure of fun are unfunny and inappropriate regardless of who the purported victim is.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I should clarify that I certainly think it's possible for a good joke to involve rape in some way or another, but not to be about rape in this sense. Wanda Sykes's 'detachable pussy' joke was understandably controversial but it was more about the culture surrounding sexuality being ridiculous than about the idea that rape is somehow funny.

In that sense I agree with Hagrid and Beet, although I probably have a much narrower mental category of good or acceptable jokes involving rape than they do.