Rape Jokes, Dark Humor, and the Sexual Double Standard

A little over a week ago, comedian Daniel Tosh caused quite a stir because of a distasteful rape joke directed at a female audience member. According to the woman's personal account, as a segue into the next part of his act, Tosh made a generalized statement about rape jokes always being funny. The woman in the audience retorted, "Actually, rape jokes are never funny!" Tosh paused and responded to her "heckling" by saying, "Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her..." The woman was so appalled and humiliated that she left the club immediately. (You can read her entire account here.) Jamie Masada, the owner of the club (The Laugh Factory in LA), had a slightly different account and has released a statement saying that, though he "couldn't really hear properly," Tosh asked the audience what they wanted to talk about, and someone said "rape." A woman in the audience said "No, rape is painful, don't talk about it." According to Masada, "Daniel came in, and he said, 'Well it sounds like she's been raped by five guys'- something like that."
My question is: does it matter? In either case, Tosh was making fun of a hypothetical gang rape, and at a single audience member's expense. And though the backlash regarding the joke has sparked outrage in other comedians, ("It was a joke! She was a heckler! He's a comedian! How dare anyone try to tell him how to be funny!") I personally believe that there is very good reason for eyebrows to be raised, and for this woman to be angry. Yes, comedy should be able to talk about terrible situations, but Tosh's attempt to do so was poorly executed, tasteless, and hurtful. What makes dark comedy (specifically rape jokes) successful is the ability to criticize the act itself, not the person victimized by it. In her article, "Anatomy of a Successful Rape Joke," Jessica Valenti speaks eloquently about how rape jokes can "subvert rather than terrify," and that they can work if they highlight the absurdity of the rationale behind rape. (Read the article here.)

The jokes that Valenti referenced as successful were only so because they were presented as blatant hyperbole. Tosh’s statements weren’t remotely funny because women deal with sexual harassment and assault every day. It’s a very real and prevalent problem, and blame is still all too often misassigned. Tosh wasn’t doing his part as a comedian to use laughter as a way to deal with or transcend a horrible issue; he was being a bully to an audience member for embarrassing him.

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about this situation is the response that it has garnered from Tosh-defenders. Some people (other comedians!) have been pitching a fit about free speech, saying that nothing should be off-limits for comedy, arguing that anyone who goes to a Daniel Tosh show should expect his brand of humor, and criticizing the woman for complaining about his response to her heckling. I think it’s important to note that many of these responses come from men. I’m certainly NOT of the school of thought that all males are misogynist pigs, but it makes me wonder about our culture’s tendency to be flippant about rape, vastly underestimate the statistics (1 in 4 women, guys!), and hold females responsible for a horrible and traumatizing crime committed against them. I think a lot of it goes back to the media’s portrayal of sex and sexual roles, especially evidenced through Kim et al.’s sexual double standards and Ward’s (1995) discussion of sexual roles. Men are expected to be sexually aggressive, and are often reduced to the sex that they have as the defining factor for their manliness. Women are expected to be alluring but passive and set limits. Meanwhile they’re judged for their sexual experience, while male sexual experience is lauded and seen as powerful. It may seem a bit of a stretch to connect these portrayals of men and women on television and movies to the current state of rape culture, but how often do we see examples of a woman being called a slut because of the way she dresses or her sexual past? How often do we see examples of a man’s decisions being driven by their penis? How often do we see one or both genders ridiculed by their peers for not being sexually assertive enough? It’s a terrible and misguided double standard that keeps making women the butt of the joke, and comments like Daniel Tosh’s are doing nothing to dissuade it.