Last week, I wrote about some disturbing Internet comments posted in the wake of the Richmond gang rape that blamed the victim for drinking alcohol. The post inspired some really positive responses . . . and more disturbing Internet comments.

Alex makes the case for victim-blaming—at least girls will now know “the possible consequences of decisions.” Decide to have a beer, maybe you’ll get gang-raped: A valuable lesson for young girls:

In all fairness, just pointing out that she did not act in the most intelligent manner is NOT the same as saying she deserved it. You’re right, no one deserves to get raped, however, there IS the lesson here which is to be aware of your surroundings and of the possible consequences of decisions you make. Why SHOULDN’T this be used as a lesson. If one less girl decides maybe she shouldn’t have another drink or walk home alone because of this story, then at least we have gotten something out of this awful situation.

Joe commends Alex for his bravery, and agrees that one high school gang-rape ought to inspire women everywhere to stop drinking and never walk alone:

Yeah, I agree with the one brave person who pointed out that there is a difference between excusing criminals and blaming victims, on the one hand, and pointing out how to be safe, on the other. And you are not required to view everyone who comments as either feminist enough for you, or a hateful victim-blaming rapist-defender. Where is real life in this? In real life, unfortunately, we can’t just rail against the bad things people do and hope they will stop, we also have to conform our conduct to our knowledge that people do those bad things and are probably not going to stop. It is not excusing muggers to suggest someone stay out of the alley at 3 a.m. It is not excusing abusive cops to suggest someone cooperate with the police even when they have done nothing wrong. And it is not excusing rapists to suggest someone behave according to their knowledge that there are rapists.

Watch as BakinCookies inserts enough qualifying phrases to attempt to slide his or her victim-blaming past the censors:

Men need to learn how to respect Women better and with that said, Women also need to learn how to have respect for themselves and their bodies! This applies to this article in so many ways, im doubting it was consensual because she was beaten and robbed Therefore men should respect women more! But she could have been Flirting a little and tempting the men to force themselves on her. Either way someone or all of them were lacking respect in some way which totally sucks for the girl. But we will never know the whole truth cause people fabricate stories to fit their needs. Im not makin excuses for the boys im just sayin, Ladies respect yourselves And maybe men will respect you too.
Either way rape is rape and its not right!!

Jane, for one, doesn’t see the difference between blaming the victim and blaming the perpetrators. Also, something about racism?

It’s funny how all the people who chide those who opportunistically use this terrible misfortune to lecture women on how to ‘behave’ themselves don’t hesitate to use this terrible misfortune to lecture others on how to raise boys, respect another gender, etc.

However, maybe this event had little to do with gender and respect for women. Maybe it had more to do with race. Maybe the attackers saw the victim mostly as a white person upon which to vent their hatred of whites. Likewise, maybe all of the people who walked by without care for the girl did so because they had no affinity with nor sympathy for a white person.

Maybe the lesson here isn’t how women should behave, or how boys should behave, but how minority groups (including whites among predominately black and latino persons) should be wary of those who aren’t their kind—because it’s all too for majority gangs to treat minorities as sub-humans unworthy of the most basic consideration and respect.

Of course, unlike the other moral instructions people are retrofitting to this event, one of race consciousness and caution isn’t a particularly trendy sermon to preach. So people instead will preach the sermons that will get them gold stars pasted on the foreheads by either their right-wing cohorts or their women’s studies professors.

Sarah suggests that rape can be solved with more rape:

I don’t know about anyone else, but at 15 I was drinking (mind you, at home, with my gal pals and my parents around). I don’t see anything wrong on her behalf. If these men (or were they her age?) get away with this, there is something seriously wrong with society and the judicial system. I hope (since I don’t pray) that she gets the best of mental health care to overcome this. And I hope those guys are anally raped by huge 12 inchers in prison thrice a day (:

B thinks the victim wanted it:

Rape is a crime, but girls are getting wild and boys will be boys no matter what. I know by fact that is part of the deal to be raped by all the gang member before you can get in!. Girls are playing strong games and now someone got hurt very bad and the news are not working with real facts. LETS GET THE FACTS FIRST! IS SHE CAPABLE TO SPEAK OUT AND FIND OUT MORE IF SHE WAS GOING TO BE PART OF THE GANG!! Our society is allowing to much violent shows on Television and part of that is the imitation of tv in real life.

And Johnny is sick of all of you people:

Why do you guys comment on this stuff? Why write long paragraphs about your supporting or differing opinions? It doesn’t do anything, it’s just a waste of time.

Photo via stevechasmar, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Don’t believe me when I say that people actually think drunk girls deserve to get raped? Let’s take the case of the 15-year-old California girl who was brutally gang-raped at her homecoming dance for hours in front of dozens of onlookers. Apparently, the victim had been drinking. For some people, that turns her horrific rape into a valuable morality tale that will put the fear into our nation’s drunk girls. Helpful Comments points us to some not-atypical online reactions to the story:

Good news, criminals: As long as everyone in your general vicinity is sippin’ on a beer, you may rape, murder, and pillage at your leisure!

Group drinking. That says it all. Booze will bring out the best in people. (yea go have another one) Perhaps the boys are not all to blame. The young lady had one too many.

Blame it on the alcohal:

I’m a 15 year old girl in New York, and I’m sorry to say this, but isn’t it possible that witnesses saw her get drunk with alcohal and belived she willingly participated as an effect? I’m sorry, but she shouldn’t have drunk alcohal to begin with. I’m not saying she deserved it, but she should’ve been much, much wiser. Getting a ride from dad was intelligent, but she should’ve kept to herself and concentrated on meeting her destination instead of hitting the beer at such a late hour, away from the gym. Agian, I’m this girl’s age, and I asure you that while I do sympathsize with the victim, she also has made very unwise mistakes on her part.

It’s official: “I’m not sayin’ it’s her fault . . . ” is the new “I’m not racist, but . . . “

wait wait wait…..she was drinking prior to this? hmmm. im not sayin its her fault or she deserved this or anything but shes 15 and drinking outside on a bench by herself in a dress….as much as people want this to be a perfect world, its not. what she was doin in the first place was asking for trouble. if your not gunna be smart about the choices you make, im not gunna feel bad for what happens. it sucks she was raped and she will never forget this and it will hurt her for the rest of her life, but come on lets be smarter than that.

One commenter took the presence of alcohol as an opportunity to float this theory: Even though the girl was gang-raped, beaten, robbed, and hospitalized, maybe it was SHE who raped THEM:

These poor misdirect young men will all be exonerated by the court when they get a good lawyer. Young men that are only guilty of allowing a girl that was drinking to take advantage of them. The reason no one went to call the police was that she was a willing participant. No more then that, she was the one who instigated the sexual activity. Why else would so many fine young men in that community be involved in such a heinous deed.

How about #7, NOBODY DESERVES TO GET RAPED YOU STUDPID IDIOT:

#1 Its Richmond High.#2 Its dark.#3 Your a 15 year old girl.#4 You accept the invite to go off in a dark area of campus and consume a larg amount of booze with a low life crowd.#5 Geeeeee, I got raped!#6 Duuhhhhh!These guys are low life scum bags, your 15 and you want to get drunk with them!YOU STUDPID IDIOT

Photo via Trendhunter

I’ve written a lot recently on who can successfully tell a rape joke and what targets are fair game for the butts of those jokes. One perennial source of rape humor, the Onion, gets the rape joke dynamic right a lot of the time. The format has a lot to do it: as America’s leading source of fake news, the Onion is always skewering the media along with its make-believe subjects, and media treatment of sexual violence is often ripe for satire. Sometimes, its best and worst shots, after the jump.

EVEN SARAH PALIN WOULDN’T BOYCOTT:

5. “Police Sketch Artist Likes How Portrait Of Serial Rapist Turned Out”

TARGET: Amateur artists.

MONEY QUOTE: “‘I like how she added a little white dot to the suspect’s pupils to make his eyes stand out,” Haines said. “It sent a little chill up my spine, I’ll admit. And the shading on the face is nice, too. She’s come a long way with skin tones. I remember how, when she first started working here, Lynn Marie would just rub the side of the pencil lead across the paper if she had to draw a black suspect.”

WHY IT WORKS: The amateur artist obsessed with her own “work” at the expense of all reality? Classic.

—

4. “Brutal Gang Rape Gives Screenplay More ‘Punch’”

TARGET: Douchebag screenwriters who think a rape is all it takes to make their product edgy.

MONEY QUOTE: “‘The studio asked for a little more oomph, a little more edge,’ Weichert said of the added scene, in which the sister of lead character Jack Fist is brutally raped in an alley by Fist arch-enemy Ivan Petra and a band of the Russian drug lord’s thugs. ‘So, to give Fist more motivation, I figured I’d put in a crime he’d definitely want revenge for. Only the sickest of freaks would fail to identify with the hero after seeing this rape scene.’ Weichert also noted that the scene calls for female nudity, which ‘has never hurt a film’s box-office receipts.’”

WHY IT WORKS: “Edge” is the eternal excuse for the sexualized spectacles that pass for rape on the big screen—often delightfully devoid of consequence or physical and emotional impact (sometimes, there are boobs!). This eerily prescient Onion item predicted Jody Hill’s much-maligned “edgy” date rape scene in Observe and Report by ten years.

—

3. “Candidate Turns to Focus Group for Position on Rape”

TARGET: Spineless politicians.

MONEY QUOTE: “Wanting to ‘feel out the popular attitude before committing to a position,’ Virginia House of Delegates candidate Mark Earley turned to focus-group analysis Monday to determine Virginians’ stance on the hot-button issue of rape.”

WHY IT WORKS: Focus groups always deserving of satire. Bonus points, because so many politicians have made unpopular comments about rape that the situation isn’t entirely inconceivable.

—

2. “Neighbors Believed Murderer Only Capable of Rape”

TARGET: Those who secretly think of rape as a more understandable offense than other violent crimes.

MONEY QUOTE: “I’ve known John Smith since grade school,” said Deborah Sykes, 38, Smith’s next-door neighbor. “I’d never have suspected for a second that he had it in him to murder two innocent girls. Rape them, sure. But murder? No way.”

WHY IT WORKS: This story recalls the recent murder trial of a Vancouver, Wash. man who would admit to killing a 13-year-old girl but not to raping her. He insisted instead that he “killed her after having sex with her.” The Onion joke, similarly, plays off the misconception that rape is a less-than-violent crime because it involves sex. And everyone likes sex—and can understand why a person would want it so bad they’d force it out of a victim.

—

1. “Raped Environment Led Polluters On, Defense Attorneys Argue”

TARGET: Anyone who has ever said, “she was asking for it.”

MONEY QUOTE: “While, obviously, it is extremely unfortunate that this forest was raped, it should have known better than to show off its lush greenery and tall, strong trees in the presence of my client if it didn’t want anything to happen,” said lead defense attorney Dennis Schickle, speaking before a courtroom packed with members of the media. “It’s only natural for any red-blooded American developer to get ideas in its head when it’s presented with that kind of untouched beauty.”

WHY IT WORKS: The Onion at its best: Revealing the absurdity of the most annoying character defamation defense by re-framing it in a different context.

—

MORE OFFENSIVE THAN AN A-ROD AND WILLOW QUICKIE IN THE 7TH:

5. “J.K. Rowling Hints At Harry Potter Date Rape”

J.K. Rowling Hints At Harry Potter Date Rape

TARGET: J.K. Rowling; Scholastic Books.

INSULT TO INJURY: From a fake Scholastic VP of PR: “[The date-rape] is a beautiful moment in the book, full of raw, raw honesty, and I think I would be doing you a disservice by not letting you discover the magic yourself.”

WHY IT FAILS: At first, I thought that this video targeted Rowling’s announcement that Albus Dumbledore was gay, and made jokes out of comparing homosexuality to rape. My bad: The video was released four months before Rowling announced that the functionally asexual wizard was gay. As commenter W Allison points out, the joke is, in fact, targeted at “how the whole time before the last books, Scholastic was teasing like all these terrible things were going to happen—death, ruin etc.” to the books’ beloved adolescent characters. So, it’s actually a lot funnier than I thought. Still, the Scholastic VP of PR character makes my skin crawl, and not in a ha-ha-makes-my-skin-crawl kind of way.

—
4.: “Missing Girl Probably Raped”

Missing Girl Probably Raped

TARGET: The media, which blows all missing white female disappearances out of proportion; but also, missing girls who were probably raped.

INSULT TO INJURY: “The worst case scenario remains that she is dead. Raped to death by her merciless assailant.”

WHY IT FAILS: Kinda funny, but relies completely on shock value. . . . which begins to fade after 2 minutes 33 seconds.

3. “Israeli President Accused of Rape”

TARGET: Jews; Palestinians; Jews

INSULT TO INJURY: “Well, at least he’ll have Palestinian support behind him for having raped a Jew.”

WHY IT FAILS: Subbing in Jewish jokes for rape jokes is kind of a rogue move, but this offensive bait-and-switch doesn’t produce the hilarious punchlines to overcome the overall queasiness.

—

2: “Report: Almost Nobody Raped During Duke’s First Lacrosse Match”

TARGET: The three Duke Lacrosse players accused of raping a woman in 2006 (the charges were dropped in 2007).

INSULT TO INJURY: “‘The Duke lacrosse program plans to uphold its proud tradition of winning and barely raping anyone,’ first-year coach John Danowski told assembled reporters and law-enforcement officials after the match. ‘And it was great to see the record number of 6,485 fans in attendance, all of whom really showed their support except the two female undergraduates seated in Section 8A and [Blue Devils cheerleader] Chrissy [Heinman], who were being sexually assaulted.’”

WHY IT FAILS: This item may be attempting to skewer the overblown media reports of the infamous Duke lacrosse scandal. Instead, it adds fuel to the fire by playing off the lacrosse players’ perceived insatiable rapiness—helping make this “she cried rape” case more high-profile than any case involving an actual rape.

—

1. “Fellow Cheerleaders Rally Cheer Of Support For Recently Raped Teammate”

TARGET: Those pesky high-school cheerleaders with so much school spirit; rape victims; rapists.

INSULT TO INJURY: “‘R-A… P-E-D, nothing’s gonna stop Su-zie. Yay, Suzie!’ the squad cheered before the 1,500 students who filled the gymnasium to celebrate the victim’s return to school. Rapist Fritz Hent, an East Hawks linebacker, will sit out the first game of the season as punishment.”

WHY IT FAILS: Not enough shock value to soothe the cringe on this one. Working in a rape reference to make fun of cheerleaders? Why?

—

Related Posts

Who Can Make a Rape Joke?

How Sarah Palin Confuses Liberals Into Arguing Against Feminism

—

CORRECTION: Originally, this post shamelessly accused the Onion of homophobia for playing off Rowling’s Dumbledore-is-gay announcement in its rape video. But as W Allison points out in the comments, the Harry Potter joke video was released on June 4, 2007, a full four months before Rowling revealed that Dumbledore was gay. It turns out the video only appears homophobic after the fact!