“I need more rape jokes,” [Silverman] shouted nasally before letting her fans in on what she called a comedy secret, that such jokes are actually not so “edgy” after all. “Who’s going to complain about rape jokes? Rape victims?” she asked. “They barely even report rape.”I actually found that one pretty good. Because it's true: rape jokes aren't edgy. They're often quite lazy--being offensive rather than being clever. And as a survivor who didn't report her own rape, and who has spent a lot of time crying over the whole women-not-reporting-rape thing, it felt good to chuckle at that for a second instead. And yet I felt conflicted by my laughter. Where is the line between totally fucking necessary gallows humor, and belittling a very serious problem?
I don't know where the line is. Like Eve Ensler, I am furious about rape, and quite easily enraged when other people joke about it. But I also know that sometimes I really, really, really need to laugh about rape, just as I need to laugh about death and heartbreak.
Flashback: May 27, 2011. The NYPD rapist douchefucks have just been acquitted, and I am pissed. I drag my then-boyfriend to a protest. We participate in the angry chants: "NYPD, shame on you!" But after a time, our voices get sore and the anger gets exhausting, so we start jokingly creating ironic chants for each other: "We would greatly appreciate it/ If you would stop raping us!"
Flashback: December 2008, about a month after being date raped by a skeezy guy we'll call "Duke" with dreadlocks and a septum piercing. My friend Amanda makes and gives me a t-shirt. It says "NOT RAPE > RAPE." I wear it as pajamas.
Flashback: February 2007. I am creating the very first incarnation of The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret as my senior project at Skidmore College. There's a written component to my auditions, and one girl writes about being sexually assaulted in high school. I ask her if I can meet with her, as I plan to address date rape/sexual assault in the show. I want to honor the experiences of those who've gone through it, being too in denial at this point to acknowledge that I already have experience with the matter. I am clearly nervous as I interview her and she tells me not to worry. I ask her what she'd say to the guy if she could talk to him now and she responds very casually, "I'd probably just run away. I mean, with our track record?" We both laugh.
Flashback: November 23, 2011, three years and eight days after the Duke incident. I don't normally keep track of the anniversary (Google Calendar ensures that I can always find these things out when I want to), and in fact am not thinking of it on this night, but I've just finished a 20-minute play entitled "Lysistrata Rape Play." The premise: women pledge to stop having sex with men until rape is eradicated. It disturbs me more than anything I've ever written--and cracks me up more, too. I post on twitter and facebook: "Just finished writing maybe the most disturbing thing I've ever written. I am upset and elated." Support and "hell yeah"s flow in from all corners of the internet.
"Lysistrata Rape Play" probably owes a lot to Sheila Callaghan's That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play and Josh Conkel's The Sluts of Sutton Drive. In Sluts, one character says to another (I paraphrase): "Do you know what you call a guy who's maybe a rapist? A mapist!" I laughed at "mapist." A lot.
In That Pretty Pretty, in the film-within-the-play created by the thinks-he's-sensitive straight white dude (whose penis has previously been compared to a cashew), the soldier tells his female POW, "I'm going to rape you now. With my long, hard penis. My penis that bears no resemblance to a salted nut at all." (Again, I paraphrase.) And again, I laughed.
In "Lysistrata Rape Play," I write the following sequence of events:
Samantha is fake-raping a pillow. Emily is cheering her on. They both fake manly voices.
SAMANTHA
Yeah! Yeah, take it, you little bitch! Fuckin’ take it!
EMILY
Whoo! Rape that stupid bitch!
SAMANTHA
Oh, what’s that?! Was that a “no”?! Sorry, I didn’t hear that! This is a rape, bitch!
EMILY
Rape! Rape! Rape! Rape! Rape!
SAMANTHA
Yeah Ima rape you so hard bitch! Wooooooooooo! (Stopping abruptly) I’m not really enjoying this.I also write the sentence "Rapers gonna rape," which makes me laugh for a good five minutes when I write it. When I bring the play into my playwriting class, people giggle at my use of the phrase "kinda rapey," as well as "an unwanted dick in your vag." I giggle too.
Flashback: April 2009, five months after the Duke incident. I have started therapy and decided to return to the Genderf*ck script, in large part because letting the pain from the incident just sit inside me is not really doing it for me and I need to put it somewhere and Genderf*ck seems a good place to put it. I rewrite the script front to back, taking great care to write with an open mind and compassion, to push the grayness in the date rape subplot, to pay attention to the guy's confusion and lack of malice. It's not funny, but it's cathartic and honest.
Flashback: April 2010 and April 2011. New York productions of Genderf*ck. The date rape subplot is by far the most-talked about aspect of the show. By my calculations, I got about 800 people to think about consent. Not fucking bad.
Flashback: November 20, 2011, when I begin "Lysistrata Rape Play." I am fed the fuck up with gray areas and trying to see things from the other perspective. I'm angry. I'm angry that men aren't as angry about rape as I am. I need to write a play about how angry I am, and I do. It's not kind, but it's cathartic and honest.
Flashback: November 15, 2008. I'll spare you the upsetting part of this story and just tell you the funny parts, because if you leave out the ending it's got some pretty funny moments, to me at least. I'm at a friend's birthday party, and his downstairs neighbor Duke is putting the moves on me, and I'm going with it because the guy I really want isn't putting out and isn't here, so fuck it! A group of us order fried chicken and Duke thinks he's being sexy and seductive by feeding me fried chicken with his fingers, but it's actually kind of gross.
Then he starts in with the deep psychological questions. "So, Mariah, if you could be any of the following, which would you be: werewolf, vampire, or zombie?"
This isn't my first time at the rodeo. I know how this question works: the obvious response, which is "vampire" (seriously, who the fuck wants to be a zombie?) will lead to a discussion of vampires, which will lead to a discussion of sex, because duh. So I say, "Vampire."
"I so agree!" he responds super-enthusiastically, as though we're kindred spirits because we'd both rather be hot and undead than hairy or brain-consuming. "There's just something so sexual about the act of taking someone's blood, you know?"
This maybe should be a warning sign, but I just smile and nod while mentally rolling my eyes. Eventually we start making out, which inspires him to go brush his teeth. When he returns, I ask how he's doing. "I just brushed my teeth and I feel fucking FANTASTIC," he replies, totally earnestly.
"I wish I felt that way every time I brushed my teeth," I respond.
The rest of the story isn't so amusing, so I'll end it there. The point is, I've told those parts of the story on their own, without context. I've forced those parts to be just another funny story for me, to take power away from what came after.
In other words, I need to use humor to cut the balls off rape sometimes.
However...what is the difference between black humor that is healing and empowering, and jokes about rape that are unacceptable? Do I only get to make jokes about rape because I've been raped? I can't possibly know the survivor status of every person who jokes about rape, but I am absolutely less forgiving of rape jokes that come from straight men as opposed to women and queer people. I don't even necessarily feel bad about that. I figure, when we (women and queer people) are the ones astronomically more likely to have it happen to us, the least straight dudes can do is watch their fucking mouths on the subject.
But if I hadn't told you I was a survivor, would you have been offended by my amusement at "rapers gonna rape"? Are you still offended? Would I be offended in the reverse position? I don't know any of these answers, but one thing is for sure: I need, need, need my black humor. That is a fact. That is unchangeable.
Weirdly, after throwing out all these questions, I've disabled comments, because the last thing I need is some anonymous internet douchefuck finding this and trying to play Devil's Advocate and getting disrespectful after I've basically opened a vein on my blog. I do want to continue a respectful conversation about all this, though. So if you want, find me on facebook or twitter, and let's talk about it there.
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