Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape.
I’m no longer selling the Dickwolves Survivors Guild t-shirts. A couple of other people who identify as rape survivors have asked me in the comments of that post to take it down, and I’m listening to them. Back in October, 2010, when I put these up for sale, I heard indirectly that someone I knew didn’t like the shirts because they found them triggering for the same reasons as the Penny Arcade Dickwolves merchandise. I told myself that I was protesting something and that negotiating the line of “allowable” rape survivor self-expression wasn’t something I was interested in being policed about. That felt like enough reason to keep the shirts up while feeling really conflicted about the whole thing.
Now that Penny Arcade is no longer selling Dickwolves merchandise, that logic doesn’t hold up enough for me. My point with the shirts was to try and say, “if you’re going to sell triggering merchandise, for fuck’s sake could you at least not advertise rapists?” Now that Penny Arcade isn’t selling that particular triggering merchandise anymore, it feels unnecessary to me to continue having my response t-shirts up. If you were planning to buy a shirt, please consider donating to the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center or another survivor charity.
Also, it’s shitty to have rape survivors yell at you. Not in a, “shut up, bitches,” way, but in a more general physical feeling of nausea at the idea of having triggered other survivors. I’ve been triggered recently (today, actually) and for me anyway, it really isn’t something that gets easier to cope with, whether it’s been years or hours since the last time it happened. I don’t want that for anyone, and I’m sorry I caused it.
Given that the dickwolves shirt and the Dickwolves Survivor’s guild shirt may both be triggering for victims no matter what the intention of the wearer, I got to wondering what wearing a Watchmen shirt button, or having any sort of Watchmen merchandise would mean, particularly the ones with this smiley face symbol: http://betacache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2008/07/medium_watchmen.jpg
@kirbybits My apologies. With my “are you a man” comment I only meant to demonstrate that many people feel more comfortable talking over women feminists rather than listen to them bc of socially enforced power structures. These are issues that affect us all, you are absolutely correct.
This & the Assange comment are my own opinions & I am clearly very passionate about the issue. Feel free to delete them if you feel they detract from your own message.
Once again, sorry for bringing my sh*t to your blog. This is your space not mine, and commentors can find me in my own venue if they wish.
I’m not about to wade into a specific discussion of the dickwolves comic, nor PA’s admittedly combative response to critique.
What I can say is: perspective, people. Christ on a cross please maintain some perspective here.
While this whole flame-war has taken course, the United States Congress is *literally* in the process of legally redefining rape, so as to drastically limit federal funding for the medical care of victims.
Whatever you believe about PA: that their actions reflect a legitimation of sexual violence, or just plain old insensitivity – it is in the end a cultural product.
We think of rape culture as a “social system”, but for the purposes of this discussion let’s call it a machine, whose function is to reinforce sexual violence. The output of this machine is a culture which marginalizes the victims of rape and excuses its perpetrators. This culture then acts as a sort of feed-back loop, legitimizing the machine by treating its function as self-evident: an inherent, natural part of social order.
But these are just cultural assumptions. The machine itself needs actual institutions to translate “rape culture” into the physical reality of sexual violence. This means police who refuse to investigate date rape, because the victim “should have known better than to go to a frat party dressed like that”; schools that fail to educate children on consent or encourage victim reporting; and legal system which would deny women the right to medical aid.
But if you believe that you are somehow “doing your part” to end sexual violence by railing online against this or that example of rape culture, you’ve not only failed – you’ve failed to be a feminist. Institutional change requires translating your beliefs into political action.
And no, this isn’t coming from a woman or a victim. But it’s coming from a member of the Washington State ACLU, and a volunteer at Planned Parenthood.
‘Institutional change requires translating your beliefs into political action.’
And internet blogging is a form of media, and the media is how we spread our messages about our politics to people who otherwise would not hear it, which brings more people to our side.
Internet blogging may be a form of media, but it has almost nothing to do institutional media. How many lawmakers read your blog? How often are you invited to speak with Glenn Beck?
If you really want to win the hearts and minds of the America – “bring more people to our side” – start by helping escort women from Planned Parent parking lots, on through a bus-load of church-goers screaming that both you are she are going to burn in hell for all eternity. I can guarantee you’ll have made a greater impact than any number of blogs you could read or write today.
If you aren’t into such direct confrontation – write a letter or phone your member of congress, asking them to explain their position on any number of issues pertinent to women’s rights.
Kirby WAS invited to speak at PAX, which is what all this is about, and has been a target of various pro-dickwolf assholes as well as a call being made by Gabe and Tycho themselves not to attack her.
It is very presumptuous that you assume people do not also do these things here. Sure, time spent making a blog post could also be spent writing to congress. But then again so could commenting on said blog post.
I wasn’t trying imply that no one else here volunteers their time – and I am well aware of Kirby’s activism in this regard. Similarly, I’m not making any excuses for a horde of depraved 4chan assholes.
My issue is with the flame war. This whole controversy: all of the emotion and attention it fostered loses sight of the forest for all the trees. There are infinitely bigger issues at stake at this very moment.
Thank you for what you are doing. And for removing that shirt when asked. As for people who are doubting the validity of rape culture, you don’t have to look farther than the comments right here. And no, Jimbo, I am not going to shut up and go away. Also, I don’t care what your male friend has to say about feminism.
Just a quick point about the ‘male friend’ talking about feminism: “not only did she think”. So, while it was indirect, that was a female opinion.
Yes, it is amazing how many times men will go “BUT MY FEMALE FRIEND SAID IT’S OKAY.” It’s just like “my black friend said” in discussions about race. Or “my gay friend said” in discussions about sexuality.
Feminism is not a monolith. We will disagree on a lot of things. Apparently, respecting other people’s opinion is too difficult for some people.
You’re free to call me out on anything I did say… but I will NOT allow you to make claims of something that never happened: I never told you to shut up.
And that, right there, is just one example of how you, bloodparade, are inflaming the situation… You’ve stated your support for the FNPA Tumblr page rather than speaking out against those levying death threats. Would it be fair for me to say that you’re condoning death and violence culture?
It isn’t about any actual moral crusade anymore, it’s about having a desire to punish and inflect retribution for percieved wrongs.
If I still maintained that attitude this long after what happened to me, then I would still be responding like a victim rather than someone who has become stronger as a result.
Hate, anger disguised behind a mask or under the guise of doing the right thing is still hate and anger.
Speaking out against those who you say perpetuate “rape culture” but openly admitting that you support a protest site where people encourage “death and violence culture” is blatant hypocrisy.
This is ultimately the reason why I have no desire to let people put themselves in a position where they would be advocating for people who have been in my situation. When they do, it basically boils down to getting involved for the sake of getting involved. In doing so, you marginalize us as much as the guys at PA have.
The people who created FNPA have not threatened death or violence. I find it funny that you are so quick to seperate yourself from the people who have been threatening rape/violence to anyone who denounces PA, but suddenly when the creators recieve a death threat, we are all guilty for the actions of one sick individual.
I still do not care what you and your friend, who are men, have to say about what I, a woman, am doing wrong with regards to feminism. As for your friend’s wife, let me guess. She is white, straight, cis-gendered, and reasonably well off. Of course, she is going to denounce “this brand” of feminism. She is privileged and doesn’t have to worry about the amount of discrimination that others face.
Making more prejudiced assumptions as expected, bloodparade. You really don’t disguise that you’re a one-note drama queen disguised as an “internet feminist.”
I denouce and abhor violence in ALL OF ITS FORMS. This seems to be something you cannot grasp… “but, but, but I’m a woman!” is not an argument.
Should I tell everyone how I’m gay if it’s going to earn me sympathy points and boost my argument? (There was a reason I didn’t mention it until now.)
I can’t marry the one I love nor can I take in the benefits of our partnership on a legal foundation. (Cue the “But… but.. but… you’re a MAN! My life has been harder just because!” response.) Oh, and I live in a red state, too.
Oh, and yes, [sarcasm] I break down and cry rivers of tears[/sarcasm] because I’m called a faggot and that I should get AIDS and die nearly every time I join a public match video game online.
I could let all of these things consume me or I can simply acknolwedge that a large portion of the population, men and women alike, are shitheads and not let it get to me.
But you’re not a shithead. No, something about your involvement here goes beyond that. (Again… It should be pointed out that you supported the FNPA site well after the content of it became overwhelmed with “death and violence culture” threats. Why do you condone death and violence culture?)
Assuming that everyone is white and priviledged right off the bat, btw, is such an incredibly prejudiced and fucking racist thing to say.
My friend’s wife… is half mexcan and half native indian but was not born in America. She left home when she was 16 and worked illegal jobs to pay her own way through school and worked to earn her citizenship. Because of the nature of her background and her job, and especially because of where she lives (Arizona), she gets shit on in more ways in one week than you’ll probably ever see in your cushy, pampered life.
Feel free to ignore any points rasied in his response if it’s convienent for you, bloodparade. You’ll only respond with misdirections, deflections and false assumptions anyway. You have no credibility.
Just quickly: you made the same error you accused bloodparade of.
“she gets shit on in more ways in one week than you’ll probably ever see in your cushy, pampered life.”
“Assuming that everyone is white and priviledged right off the bat, btw, is such an incredibly prejudiced and fucking racist thing to say”
Ill-advised to take a hypocritical line of attack within the same post. Just a heads up
I applaud you for recognizing my use of the same logical fallacy that bloodparade has been using all over this comments thread. (Sincere, not sarcastic or otherwise.)
My doing that was intentional.
Sometimes the only way one can get a point across to someone who won’t listen is to use their own tactics against them. It serves to further drive home the point of how hypocritical bloodparade has been with a lot of things: Stating that by not condemning Penny Arcade’s lack of an appropriate apology (by their definition) we are condoning “rape culture.” It’s the same response when I had been pointing out that by stating that one supports the FNPA site and its creators… but the creators making ZERO EFFORT to delete inappropriate posts calling for violence and making threats… Bloodparade’s logic would dictate that it’s fair for us to accuse her or condoning those actions as well.
The entire foundation of her ethos, argument and justification for the things she says and does… is built upon hypocrisy and double standards.
As gay folks say, it’s not about special rights. It’s about EQUAL rights. Equality is a concept lost on her, as she says mysandry is a not a real or valid concept.
Her sword cuts both ways and she’s impaled herself on it several times. That’s all I aimed to demonstrate.
A true feminist wouldn’t ask for more than what the while christian male gets. Otherwise… the feminist IS the white christian male, getting more than others they deem below them.
Once again, you assume that I give a shit what men have to say about feminism and what you think we are doing wrong, or what a true feminist is. I am doing just fine, thanks. You are a privileged male, even if you are gay.
I am sorry for the assumptions about your friend’s wife. But I do not care what she thinks I am doing wrong either. We are not a monolith. You have made so many incorrect assumptions about me in the effort to hold onto your pathetic rape jokes. In doing so, you have demonstrated your privilege. I don’t want to bring our my hardships to win an internet debate. I will just have them thrown back in my face by people like you.
And yes, misandry is not an issue. So, if you are going to cry about it and try to make it more important, then I will continue to laugh at you. My reasons for “hating” men (more like being suspicious) are perfectly valid. You don’t even have to look farther than your comments right here to see why.
Bloodparade… oh, dear. For someone who really doesn’t give a shit what any man has to say about feminism… You sound EXACTLY like the privledged white male that you condemn.
Your words: “Once again, you assume that I give a shit what men have to say about feminism…”
Versus: “Once again, you assume that I give a shit what women have to say about inequality…”
Your words: “I don’t want to bring our my hardships to win an internet debate. I will just have them thrown back in my face by people like you.”
Wow. Wait. I don’t even need to alter that line because that’s exactly what you did to me, just because I’m male.
Your words: “And yes, misandry is not an issue. So, if you are going to cry about it and try to make it more important, then I will continue to laugh at you.”
Versus: “And yes, mysogyny is not an issue. So, if you are going to cry about it and try to make it more important, then I will continue to laugh at you.”
Your words: “My reasons for “hating” men (more like being suspicious) are perfectly valid.”
Versus: “My reasons for “imposing upon” women (more like being religious) are perfectly valid.”
Meanwhile, religious women are still voting against my rights… preventing me from being able to be a next of kin or being married to the man I love. Should I condemn you for what they’re doing? FUCK NO.
Point blank, bloodparade…
You are a hypocrite.
You use the exact same rationale that the “privledged male” uses to condemn them.
You think you are above any man who has *anything* to say to you…
And the reasoning behind that is because you think all men think they are above you and that you belong back in the kitchen.
Including the ones who actually would stand by your side and support you in all feminist endeavours…
IF only you weren’t behaving like the very thing you despise.
You may not have twig and berries between your legs and you haven’t indicated if you’re white or not… but when it comes to the actions of them, the evil white male… your actions are just as ugly as theirs.
I abhor violence in all of its forms, whether it comes from men or women like yourself who behave just like them.
I hereby condemn Penny Arcade for such a thoughtless response to what started off as a tasteless joke and not doing more to speak out against the insensitivity surrounding the issue.
You, however, Bloodparade, I condemn you for being an unrepentant hypocrite… someone who is willing to cast off and dismiss people on account of gender, regardless of what they have to say and where they stand… When the typical white male response to feminism would be to do exactly that: Dismiss women on account of their gender.
I would like to push back a bit on the notion that in order to identify as a feminist, one must be a woman. My partner is a cis-gender man, and he’s a feminist. I have many feminist friends of different genders. I’m also really not interested in playing the, “who’s got more privilege, straight women or gay men,” game. One of the reasons I have “talking about the kyriarchy” listed in my About as an interest is because, uh, I really like that framework for discussing issues like this. One can be experience oppression in certain ways and still carry privilege in others.
Wow, what a great feminist ally you are. I can’t imagine the movement being without your amazing insight.
Sarcasm aside, I do not need the support of men. You are such a great supporter of feminism, until that woman DARES to disagree with you. Do you should down at them too?
Honestly, I do not need or require the support of men. If you think that your voice is what matters here, then I do not want you on my side. Men are supposed to be supporters of feminism, not the leaders. Forgive me for not caring about what you have to say. Please, continue to tell me, a rape survivor, that I should just move on and “get over it.”
And kirbybits, I fully agree with the notion that people can have privilege in some regards and oppression in others. I have white privileged, for example, but I am oppressed because I am a queer woman. I have to deal with the double sword of sexism and homophobia. Intersectionaily causes a lot of confusion. But in a discussion about sexism, I believe men shouldn’t come to the table complaining about one or two instances of “misandry” when misogyny is still the biggest issue. Just like white people should not come complaining about “reverse-racism” in discussions about race.
“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I’ve already demonstrated my point numerous times. You have destroyed any worth to your words by your own actions, Bloodparade, because you are so willing to behave exactly like those you condemn.
Another shocker for you: PS, I’m not white. I’m gay. I’m a rape survivor… and women do not hold a monopoly on suffering.
But, as you’ve said before, you’ll dismiss every word I say, regardless of what I say, just because I happen to have a penis.
I guess violence and rhetoric is all fine when it’s not coming from men.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleybaccam/how-to-define-rape-on-the-daily-show
Now on to protesting Kristen Schaal for making light of rape and triggering victims, right?
The implicit statement behind all of this has been “I love Penny Arcade! – EXCEPT that they decided to say something totally tasteless that is offensive to rape victims, and then had a calloused attitude towards those who were offended and refused to apologize for causing said offense.”
This would normally be a reasonable position… except that offensiveness is built into Penny Arcade’s DNA. They never said that they were trying to make content in good taste, nor did they ever say that they weren’t trying to offend. They made it clear since day one that they were doing the opposite.
So look at it from this perspective. PA has run comics with extremely explicit violence – these could be triggers for war veterans or other victims or witnesses of physical violence. PA made a comic depicting a suicide – this could be a trigger for someone who witnessed a suicide. PA made a comic about bullying – this could be a trigger for someone who had been badly traumatized or beaten by bullies. PA has made multiple comics about drug culture – these might be triggers to people who lost loved ones due to overdosing (such as Mike Krahulik). PA has made comics which lambast religion – this might be highly offensive to religious people (such as Mike Krahulik).
So first of all, do you see now how hypocritical you’re being? You’re saying “I loved PA until they offended me”… but that entire time you loved them, they were offending other people; in fact it’s probable that that’s WHY you loved them. Now suddenly they’ve crossed a line and it’s not okay to be tasteless and offensive on this one issue? Do you understand why Mike quoted Mel Brooks now? It was all funny when they were treating everyone ELSE’s sacred thing as not-sacred, but it stopped being funny as soon as they got to the thing that YOU consider sacred.
How Mike comes out of this looking like the asshole baffles me. He’s willing to joke about anything, even things that (it turns out) are highly painful to him. You guys think he’s hilarious until he jokes about the thing that’s highly painful to you. And he’s the asshole?
If you consider something sacred, or you have post-traumatic stress disorder, then you should not read sites like Penny Arcade. Expecting trigger warnings on such a site is ludicrously redundant to anyone who knows what kind of site it is.
How can you laugh at any PA comic without wondering whether you’re a hypocrite, laughing at something that’s triggering someone else right at that moment? Of course you can respond that any piece of media could be triggering anything in anyone at any moment – which is my entire point. Creators are left with no choice but to shrug and go on doing what they do, or stop. The PA guys have, correctly, chosen the former.
Have you actually paid attention to this at all, or just thought everyone has been shitting bricks this entire time over a comic strip?
Just wondering, I’d like some clarification before I scale how much of a tool you really are.
“The implicit statement behind all of this has been ‘I love Penny Arcade! – EXCEPT that they decided to say something totally tasteless that is offensive to rape victims, and then had a calloused attitude towards those who were offended and refused to apologize for causing said offense.’”
“Callous” is when you see someone in pain and ignore it. “Asshole” is when you see someone in pain and decide it would be lulzworthy to exacerbate it.
“This would normally be a reasonable position… except that offensiveness is built into Penny Arcade’s DNA. They never said that they were trying to make content in good taste, nor did they ever say that they weren’t trying to offend. They made it clear since day one that they were doing the opposite.”
Yes, we get it, they’re very fucking edgy. Unfortunately some of us are not so enthralled by their edginess that we’re not going to speak a word of criticism about them.
“Now suddenly they’ve crossed a line and it’s not okay to be tasteless and offensive on this one issue? Do you understand why Mike quoted Mel Brooks now? It was all funny when they were treating everyone ELSE’s sacred thing as not-sacred, but it stopped being funny as soon as they got to the thing that YOU consider sacred.”
Wrong. They were tasteless and offensive about this issue, people tried to talk to them, PA turned the stupid up to 11 with the t-shirts and then sat back while people hurled rape and death threats at all their critics. That’s about when it stopped being funny.
“How Mike comes out of this looking like the asshole baffles me. He’s willing to joke about anything, even things that (it turns out) are highly painful to him. You guys think he’s hilarious until he jokes about the thing that’s highly painful to you. And he’s the asshole?”
The big problem was the followup, not the “joke”. Nobody forced either of them to make the shirts. They did it as a big “fuck you” to their critics, not caring that they’d essentially have a bunch of people walking around wearing “Team Rapist” gear. So yes, that would make them both assholes, thanks for asking.
“If you consider something sacred, or you have post-traumatic stress disorder, then you should not read sites like Penny Arcade. Expecting trigger warnings on such a site is ludicrously redundant to anyone who knows what kind of site it is.”
If you consider edgy comedy sacred, then you shouldn’t read criticism of it.
It’s sad really. People who put their ass on the line for free speech and pushing the envelope of behavior used to be made of sterner stuff than these internet whiners. You dance on the edge, sometimes you get cut. People who paved the way for these pampered children understood that. But you guys want all the glory of riding that edge with none of the consequences, none of the risk and when it comes home to you, you’re worse than any of the people you’re slagging on here.
So the people over at fucknopennayarcade has admitted that they have no interest in reasonable discourse or getting past this and just want to continue to ridicule…well, basically all nerds (oh wait, sorry, “neckbeards.” We’re all neckbeards apparently. Every one of us).
I can’t tell which makes me more sick to my stomach: how long it took Mike and Jerry to admit they were wrong (and how insufficient their apology was), or how disgusting the bloodlust of the people still continuing this fucking argument is.
If that is what you got from the tumblr account…you really do not get it. Read the damn links.
Being angry at PA does not mean out for blood. You do not get it at all and that makes me sad.
I’ve read everything on that website. I’ve read all their posts, all their links, everything they put up on it. Most of my free time the past few days has gone into blogs like this one, and fucknoPA, and Shakesville, trying to learn more about the discussion. I have spent hours trying to understand it.
From that tumblr:
“All I want to do is laugh at you. If you think that’s mean, reactionary, and reductive, you can feel free to fuck off.”
The only point of that website is to criticize a huge amount of people, most of whom aren’t even involved with the goddamn discussion surrounding PA and their reaction in the first place. It’s not okay, any more than the PA fan blogs talking shit are okay (those are actually way less okay because they’re telling people to rape feminist bloggers).
Maybe out for blood is a bad way of phrasing it, but there’s no constructive point to that website other than to laugh at people who didn’t do anything. You want to criticize the PA guys and their handling of the situation, fine, they fucked up. You want to criticize rape culture and prevailing attitudes, fine, it’s mega fucked up. You want to criticize the PA fans who acted like shitheads, go for it, they’re not worth dirt.
But leave the people who weren’t involved the hell alone. They didn’t involve themselves, they don’t deserve to be involved.
I know the people who created that blog. I like them very much because sometimes they say the things I want to say. I have been fucked over my entire life by people like PA fans. I’ve been generalized and stereotyped so many times before. This is the daily life for women.
And you want to complain that a few of us got fed up with this shit and are striking back? Forgive me for not shedding a few tears. You’re not like those other fans? Prove it. Until then, I will lump you in with people just like them.
You know why? Because I get things like this: http://oi53.tinypic.com/s25zrq.jpg on my twitter. Yeah, I am “a whiny rape victim.” God forbid people should fight back without your express approval. God forbid, I should not be a “nice lady” and act calm when it comes to rape.
I don’t think you read what I said fully. I don’t give a shit at people criticizing the assholes you have been antagonizing you. Track them down and break their legs for all I care.
I don’t give a shit at Penny Arcade being criticized. Call them anything you damn well please.
I really could not care less about people fighting back and criticizing the assholes who were assholes. Rage and spit fire and kill people all day, I don’t care! Fight back with as much violence as they directed at you!
But leave the majority of nerds, the people who WERE NOT INVOLVED
But leave the majority of nerds, the people who WERE NOT INVOLVED
When it comes to rape culture, we are all involved. And by “we”, I don’t just mean nerds. I mean everyone. This is everyone’s problem, and we are all part of it.
As a quick question, slightly off-topic: do you believe it’s possibly to alter culture so that rape will never occur again? I’m curious as to whether you actually think that.
Butting in to answer.
Will there be a culture where rape will never occur? Probably not.
But will there be a culture where rape is not considered normal or something the victim does to deserve it and therefore no longer under-reported? We can try.
You do know that the majority of the population doesn’t believe victims deserve it now, right? It’s not considered normal even, just something that is a despicable reality. I’ll admit men are the usual source of the “she had it coming” viewpoint, but that doesn’t mean every man who isn’t worried about taboo humour has that view too.
Are you serious? Every time someone comes out with accusations of rape, the overwhelming majority of people will ask/think “but what did she do?”
If you don’t see that, you are either very naive or very lucky.
Yes, I’m quite serious (and apologies, site won’t let me reply to your comment). Maybe it’s an Australian thing; I don’t know anyone who has that mental response, or any media outlet. I know we get the same problem of rape being underreported, but I can safely say I’ve never seen or heard someone here express the “she deserved it” line of thinking. Not doubting it exists around, but it seems scarce.
I don’t have time to make a fully though-out post, but I wanted to chime in here: I don’t think the overwhelming mentality is “what did she do to deserve it?” so much as “why did she let it happen,” or “why didn’t she see it coming.” funny, because you don’t say that to someone who just had their car broken into.
http://crowlie.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/rape-culture-alive-and-well-in-australia/
http://web.overland.org.au/2010/09/28/rape-culture/
http://hoydenabouttown.com/20091109.6944/university-colleges-nurturing-a-rape-culture/
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/05/today-in-rape-culture.html
Just saying. One cursory Google search
Well, I’ll consider myself lucky that my Australian university seems quite placid and open in comparison. And I thank you for your examples. I recall the skinny jeans one; that was just stupid. A few of the other examples were pretty irrelevant as anecdotal evidence, but thanks anyway
I don’t think you read what I said fully. I don’t give a shit at people criticizing the assholes you have been antagonizing you. Track them down and break their legs for all I care.
I don’t give a shit at Penny Arcade being criticized. Call them anything you damn well please.
I really could not care less about people fighting back and criticizing the assholes who were assholes. Rage and spit fire and kill people all day, I don’t care! Fight back with as much violence as they directed at you!
But leave the majority of nerds, the people who WERE NOT INVOLVED and DID NOT COMMENT and HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS AT ALL the fuck out of it. That’s my issue with the website. I don’t care about their tone, I don’t care about their message, I don’t care how mean/ranty/whatever word you want to use they are. I care that they’re targeting people who never got involved.
Hell, some of the “neckbeards” they’re raging about, who never got involved, might be rape victims who never spoke up! Or feminists who never spoke up! Or anything else! My issue is that they’re targeting a huge number of people who weren’t involved and they have no idea who they’re actually criticizing.
I really could not care less how much you antagonize douchebags. In fact, I encourage it! It’s the only language douchebags understand! They don’t understand reasonable conversation! But leave the bystanders out of it, because for all you know they’re just like you and have just chosen not to speak, and because of that choice they’re now being hit with this shit.
That’s my issue with the site. Is that more clear? I am sorry if it sounded like I actually had an issue with the site itself.
Why on God’s green earth did that post a partial snippet before the actual post o_O stupid hotel internet.
I think sites that exist for people to vent their frustration are good. I think criticizing Penny Arcade and the assholes who were mean to rape victims is an excellent thing. Getting rage out by not actually injuring people is a very healthy thing.
That site makes me angry because they’re criticizing “neckbeards,” and by neckbeards the author means “every Penny Arcade fan ever,” and most of them were silent and not involved, and a few of them were probably fighting for the same cause.
Also, “by people like PA fans.” With 4 million readers there’s a crap ton of different demographics in there. It’s not all idiots who think rape is a joke and don’t understand rape culture.
Something else I want to say (I am loquacious I apologize):
I thought her rebuttals were actually an interesting read. I think her rebuttal to Jerry was a bit hypocritical at times, but an interesting read.
I loved her rebuttal to Mike. I thought it was a really good post.
So please don’t think that I just blindly dislike people speaking out. I think yelling and screaming is exactly what people need right now. But I also think that assuming that every Penny Arcade fan who didn’t immediately jump into the “fuck PA” camp is a neckbeard rape apologist is messed up.
Like I said: If you are not like those “other assholes” then PROVE IT.
I do not want to be antagonistic but I am curious as to how you would like proof for this.
Denounce the comic. Denounce the @teamrape dude on twitter. Actually listen to what women have to say on the subject. Stop complaining about how unfair the term neckbeard is. Stop complaining about how “mean” we are being. Stop complaining about he is completely innocent in all of this.
Do I need to go on?
If you are against rape and rape culture, why are you working so hard to align yourself with the people perpetuating these things?
Why did you side with the PA guys rather than the people who asked them to stop?
Why is the vitriol and violent language/actions (why yes, wearing a TEAM RAPIST shirt to a con is a violent action) of the PA “side” A OK but could the rest of us please remember to respond politely?
Why do you object so much to the term “neckbeard” as an unfair generalization, yet we are out of line objecting to the use of the term “rape” as a punchline?
Referring to “bloodlust” or being “out for blood” regarding a protest Tumblr is in poor taste considering the actual threats of murder and rape that bloggers who criticized PA have been receiving since August.
I have not supported PA; I have, in fact, condemned them. I have condemned their supporters. I have said they are assholes. All I am objecting to is the people who are caught in the crossfire of the argument, because they did not involve themselves and thus should not be involved.
What do you want from me? I don’t have a blog, I don’t have any internet presence, I’m pretty sure calling people who supported them “deplorable” should be a good denunciation of the @teamrape twitter and other similar people.
Their handling of the whole situation was dickheaded. I have said this several times. I’m not sure why people think I’m defending them?
I look at FNPA as a site where people are allowed to be critical of Penny Arcade for its flaws. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and I don’t consider critical mocking to be “bloodlust”.
I can’t speak on the “neckbeard” thing — I’ve been trying to figure out wtf that term means all week and I can’t pin it down to any one meaning. From the content I’ve seen, the tumblr is making fun of PA and a certain kind of PA fan/nerd. If you fall into that category, I can see how it’d be hurtful, but I don’t see it as an “attack all nerds” type of thing.
Hi, I found your blog through the Broken Toys blog.
First, let me say that I find your decision to pull out of PAX quite admirable, and I can’t imagine how some people would bear such a grudge as to make threats against you for doing so.
Nonetheless, I have one question for you: What is your opinion of the Shakesville treatment of the issue? They were, after all, the first to raise it, with the debacle that followed.
However, I will state this for the record: I saw nothing wrong with the initial Penny Arcade comic strip that started it all, for reasons which I posted on Shakesville earlier today:
(Below is my entire post; I neither added nor retracted anything to it.)
“Very well. Inasmuch as other posters before me have considered this thread a continuation of the Penny Arcade debate, the very least I could do is contribute my own take on the matter.
“I know I am placing myself in a precarious situation, because the last thing I want to do is to come to the defense of the PA creators: they are insensitive idiots who definitely cater to their gamer audience, a milieu rife with prejudice. This being said, I do believe that the accusation of rape apologia, or of perpetuating “rape culture”, that you leveled against them is unwarranted.
“The vast majority of your definition of “rape culture” involves a male oppressor and a female victim, but the victim in PA’s strip “The Sixth Slave”, that started the controversy, is male. I can also point out that the strip also involves two further evil acts besides rape: slavery and physical violence. Yet you chose to overlook these; why?
“I also want to point out that you missed the point of that strip. Missed the point, because “The Sixth Slave” is more easily construed as an exposé of rape culture — even with a male victim — than as its latest perpetration. In this particular case, as with the chimpanzee typing one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the PA guys got it right: their strip exposed the queasy moral ambiguity sometimes found in video game quests, quests that a player is never asked to reflect upon from a moral or ethical perspective. They actually asked their readers to ponder their in-game actions beyond the goal that the game’s developers set for them. If you need a real-life example, I can cite a quest in World of Warcraft, called “The Art of Persuasion”, that asks the player to torture a prisoner to obtain information, without which information the player cannot proceed further.
“”The Sixth Slave”, seen in this light, does not take rape lightly; rather, it exposes how desensitized we may have become to such issues. But perhaps this controversy was all too predictable, with, on one side, a duo of overgrown teenagers with a popular webcomic and a noted penchant for anything-is-fair-game nihilism, and on the other, a very vocal minority, wielding their victimhood of a gruesome crime as a bludgeon, bullying opponents with a simple message: “acknowledge the rape culture, lest you perpetuate it” — which, once you do, means there is nothing more to discuss, as if you never wanted a discussion in the first place.
“However, if you cite “rape culture” in this case and fail to acknowledge, along with slavery and physical violence, that the victim in the webcomic was male, contrary to the main tenet of “rape culture”, another word comes to mind: misandry.
“But I suspect that none of this is likely to matter, as my post is probably doomed to some Orwellian ether for failing to fall into line. No need to escort me to the door; I know where it is.”
As you can see, I was uneasy about coming to Penny Arcade’s defense, because they don’t deserve it. Yet my comment was unceremoniously deleted from Shakesville, earning me a ban from that site in the process (not that it matters, as I was not planning to read it regularly).
My opinion of Shakesville is now that that site is noxious, petty, vindictive, eager to create a controversy for the sake of creating a controversy, dishonest to its readers in its attempt to offer only one side of the picture through mass deletions and heavy editing of comments, hypocritical in the application of its own convoluted and intentionally vague guidelines, and more interested in cajoling the sensitivities of a webmistress with a chip on her shoulder than to advance any sort of intelligent discussion. But it shrieks on.
Regular life on the internet, you’d say, and in normal circumstances, I’d agree, except that the issue at stake is far too important and serious to afford to be hijacked for essentially partisan purposes. It will only succeed in polarizing debate on the issue, and to be honest, while I agree with your position (*after that first PA strip*), I’m almost finding myself at the point where I’m thinking — easy in retrospect, I know — that if I had been Penny Arcade, I’d have had my lawyers dispatched to Shakesville back in August. “Rape apologists, eh? Prove it in court.”
My question to you, hence: Do you condone this sort of rampaging crusade as is currently going on at Shakesville? And if you do, why? They might be on your side, but they’re not helping your cause — not at all.
My take on Shakesville is that it’s a private group blog with a pretty strict (but clearly advertised) comment policy. Feminists aren’t all, like, secretly communicating with each other and setting policy. Posters on Shakesville are allowed to post what they want, from the point of view they want. I don’t think someone expressing a different angle or opinion from me damages my opinion in any meaningful way.
Also, Shakesville was the first blog to publicly post about the issue, but they weren’t the only ones to raise it – Mike and Jerry mention in the news post that went with the response comic that they’d received multiple emails from long-time fans who had problems with The Sixth Slave. Mike and Jerry weren’t just reacting to Shakesville, they were reacting to their own fans speaking out.
I meant to post this in the more current thread, my bad.
Satire does not normalize behavior; it identifies the behavior as wrong. “A Modest Proposal” didn’t normalize cannibalism. Did it offend and upset victims of cannibalism (not j/k here…)? Maybe it did, but the greater good is served by freedom of speech, and the work of the artist.
Let me provide an example using race: If a comic said “A bomb went off in Kandahar today, killing two British servicemen, three UN relief workers and a whole bunch of Pakis.” that would be just plain offensive and racist, and would normalize the use of the racial slur, contributing to the devaluing of Pakistanis.
In the same way, if PA had a comic that just showed a man being raped by dickwolves, with the title “raped to sleep by dickwolves.”, then that would just be offensive humor.
IN CONTEXT, the ‘Paki’ quote is actually satire, and CONDEMNS the use of the racial slur:
During the programme, and referring to the war in Afghanistan, Boyle said: “Basically, we are murdering a load of shepherds. What gets me is our callousness as a society when we read out our dead on the news first, because our lives are more important. Other people’s aren’t worth as much.”
He then adopted a newsreader’s tone, saying: “A bomb went off in Kandahar today, killing two British servicemen, three UN relief workers and a whole bunch of Pakis.”
The “The Sixth Slave” comic is a clear example of satire, and does not contribute to the normalization of either the rape, or the indifference of the ‘hero’.
The ‘normalization’ of bad behavior is, well, bad. No argument there, and there are LOTS of bad behaviors that are normalized in our society, not just sexism and rape. The common pitfall in fighting them, though, is in taking aim at people who aren’t your enemies. Their reputations suffer, and you don’t actually improve your cause.
Remember that guy who got fired for using the word ‘niggardly’?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm
He got his job back, eventually. PA made mistakes, but they weren’t wrong to make that comic; they’re satirists, it’s what they do, and it’s beautiful. Please work with them to restore their reputation. They’re not entirely at fault for what they’ve lost.
I’m sure I’m too far down on the comment thread for anyone to actually read this, but I wanted to chime in with a little more measured, though-out defense of Mike and Jerry, both for the strip AND the decision to pull merch. Looking at the timeline, I definitely think they could have handled the reactions and responses better. This is more along the lines of what they COULD have said, and maybe it wouldn’t have gotten as bad as it is now:
I remember listening to an interview with Trey Parker and Mat Stone (of South Park), and they were asked if anything was off-limits. I couldn’t find a transcript online, so I’m going from a years-old memory, but the basic idea of their response was that when you’re out as far as they (and PA) are, constantly pushing the limits of what’s okay and what isn’t, you *can’t* draw a line, *nothing* can be off limits. Because the moment you say, “this terrible, horrifying thing is okay to joke about, but this other terrible, horrifying thing isn’t,” you *become* racist, fascist, bigoted, anti-semitic, everything people call you. To bring that home, yes, the strip’s off-hand comment about being raped is offensive and hurtful to rape victims. But they’ve also drawn comics about torture and violence, and those topics are equally traumatizing to their victims. To avoid the topic of rape because of its effect on rape victims would trivialize the effect their comics have had on victims of torture, war, and racism, beastiality, and Spider-Man.
That said, the decision to pull the merchandise is not about offending someone, but about making people actually feel unsafe. PAX has been described to me as extremely classy for a gaming convention, one of the best and most family-friendly of them. Especially given the backlash detractors have already seen, there are enough PA fans who will buy and wear the shirt for the sole purpose of triggering an attending rape victim, that the shirts and pendants have ceased to be just merchandise, and have become tools to be used to hurt people. They have become weapons, and should be actively discouraged.
Read it
Completely in agreement.
Read it, and I applaud your sentiments. Another example also of a pop culture creation (South Park) that deserves this ire far more than PA.
Is this shit for real? You’d have to be pretty thin-skinned to get so butthurt over some comic. It was pretty funny too. I’m guessing this is what Americans call political correctness?
Not helping, bugger off.
After reading through a string of the posts about this whole shitstorm, I just couldn’t move past the need to comment.
Penny Arcade is a gaming webcomic. If you’ve ever, and I mean EVER, participated in online gaming (Facebook doesn’t count), you’ve heard the term ‘rape/raped/raping’ applied to performance in that game. Good Christ, the touchiness of the response to that particular comic just blows my mind. A previous strip had Fruit Fucker violating a woman’s ear, and she discusses trying desperately to cleanse it while clearly upset. And THIS is what you take issue with!
I’ll make my viewpoint clear: I’m a woman, one who’s never been sexually violated, but who has some major issues regarding sex. Rape is utterly evil in my eyes, make no mistake. But I also know the difference between crude humour and rape normalisation.
I have to also point out, your point is quite amusing.
“Back in October, 2010 … I heard indirectly that someone I knew didn’t like the shirts because they found them triggering for the same reasons as the Penny Arcade Dickwolves merchandise. I told myself that I was protesting something and that negotiating the line of “allowable” rape survivor self-expression wasn’t something I was interested in being policed about. That felt like enough reason to keep the shirts up while feeling really conflicted about the whole thing.”
So you’ve heard you’re causing the trigger reaction, and still selling them, because they express you? I feel like I’ve heard that logic before …
Another thing – kids at PAX? Again, it’s fucking online gaming people. It’s a cesspool of verbal assault, offensive language, and vile threats. I’ve done it for years, but I also have a thick skin and just don’t give a hoot. If these kids are gamers enough to want to go to a convention, they’re used to offensive content. If not, then just don’t take them.
I do think previous commenter Ken Thomas had a point about being defined as a victim. If the sheer mention of the concept of rape triggers you, you should really seek therapy. I’m not saying that in a mean-spirited way, but in a concerned one.
Thank you! I’m glad someone has the nerve to say what I’ve wanted to say but didn’t know how to articulate. I’m more of an observer though, can’t really relate to most of these people.
Are you a man?
Feel free to have the nerve not to say anything at all, and listen to women (who are disproportionately affected by this issue) for a change.
I have read quite a few posts and comments from these “disproportionately affected” women over the past few days. And while quite a lot of them have been having discussions based on reason and understanding (which I like reading, hence why I’m here), there are some that don’t understand where this all originated from and what we’re talking about. Some people tend to make this discussion about their personal experiences, and how everyone keeps undermining the personal significance it had on them.
I don’t want to these kinds of discussions to turn into hate threads where people lose sight of common curtsey and reason, where everyone feels attacked by everyone else.
That’s just not healthy. Oh and I’d rather keep you girls here talking to me instead of having you all focus your anger on the PA guys… they seem pretty shaken by this experience.
Thanks for your dismissive reply! Without your contribution us “girls” might not have grasped what reason and courtesy are! Thanks for your manly guidance, sir.
I have replied with reason and courtesy and I have been talked over again and again by men like yourself who just dont see the big deal.
I’d like to politely ask you to Knock it the hell off with the tone argument, and once again shut up and listen. to. women.
We are women. Not girls.
Just listen to women for once in your life. The PA guys are big boys. They made the joke. They made the decision to dismiss rape survivors (because that it what we are, not victims). I do not have to be nice to anyone who dismisses my legitimate concerns with the normalization of rape. If they are shaken by this, they need to grow up and handle it like adults instead of crying like children and throwing out fake apologies.
But of course, you don’t care about rape survivors. You have proven that time and time again in this thread. So please, listen to what women have to say instead of jizzing all over anyone who voices a concern.
It’s interesting to me that you go out of your way to tell me that you are women, not girls, when in my comment I specifically use the word ‘women’. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the tone and content of your comments require to a certain extent, a good degree of maturity and experience.
I’m not telling any of you to be ‘nice’ to the PA guys, because honestly, they messed up pretty badly. But I am asking some degree of perspective here. There have been verbal abuse and violent threats to both sides of the argument, and that’s just not cool. And the PA guys really don’t need to be publicly humiliated for making a mistake that upsets people.
Also, as far as I know, I haven’t jizzed all over anyone. And from what I read so far, I’m not alone in my sentiment that most people have been overreacting to this debacle. Even some rape -survivors- agree with me (safy, Jimbo). Also read what “MertvayaRuka” said, he/she explains exactly what I mean.
Said in the first 2 comments of this post that I didn’t want to undermine anyone’s feelings or opinions regarding the issue. I’m not asking you to not be upset, and I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life. I’m just saying, like others have, that it’s best to move on and not fight to be understood by people that could NEVER, EVER understand what it feels like to be raped.
I referred to you as women at the top, and girls at the bottom. A bit of a contradiction, I apologize for that.
They deserve to be publicly humiliated for normalizing rape and perpetuating rape culture. If you think their feelings is what we should be focusing on, then that is sad.
I don’t agree with you. And this kind of hatred towards them will only fuel more conflict. This is not an emotional observation, it’s one based on reason and compassion. And if you say I’m biased and not compassionate towards you and others like you, you are most mistaken. I was pretty pissed off at how the guys at PA were acting towards you, and how they were handling the situation completely wrong (read first comment).
Part of the reason they stopped was because of pressure by the gaming community that refused to attend PAX, all of them, and myself, just wanted them to admit they were sorry and to stop making fun of the legitimate cries of people like you. But this has escalated to threats of violence and just dumb shit, see this site:
http://fucknopennyarcade.tumblr.com/
This is from both sides of the argument, and I just say that’s enough.
I know the people who created fucknopennyarcade. I support them.
How is expressing my anger being mean and hateful? I am honestly asking here. No snark.
The creators of fcpa have not threatened violence. They have expressed the concerns and frustrations of people just like me. Those comics are submissions of other people. Are people not allowed to express their anger unless they do so politely? That is the example of a tone argument.
Excuse me *FNPA not FCPA
As a woman, I get annoyed at women like you. The assumption that SB is some kind of closet misogynist who never gives credence to what women say … where are you getting this from? You’re leaping to assumptions just as much as anyone else here.
I’ve read the stupid FNPA page, and their comic is ludicrous. Anyone who knows webcomics will mock it, because it doesn’t understand the subject matter it’s dealing with.
You want to know a webcomic that was offensive? Morning Glory Comics. How that one missed the trigger rader, who knows! This is nothing in grand scheme of the internet, and I think everyone here knows that.
“As a woman, I get annoyed at women like you” – quote of the day
I 3> you Artemisian, a voice of reason in all this madness.
Bloodparade…
You are clearly with the type that is on the other side of the line that divides “feminists” from “drama queens.”
Please. Go away. You’re making people in our situation embarassed to have you advocating for us. Making mountains out of molehills here is as much of an ordeal as reliving memories too close to the situation that I personally went through.
I showed this comments thread to a friend of mine who is married to a wonderful woman who works as an advocate. Here’s what he had to say:
“My wife’s a feminist and attends feminist conventions where her feminist friends actually run the convention, and not only did she think the comic that started all this was really funny, she’s annoyed by people like this Internet Feminist(tm) who have nothing else to care about so they have to drum up faux outrage against anything they can.”
Behaving the way some have chosen to behave in response to all of this (specifically, the ones who are clearly out for blood rather than communication and understanding) makes them just as bad as the perpetrators themselves.
By ‘this experience’ you mean the chickens coming home to roost? Finally realizing the face of the people who are on your side in this?
Not. Cool.
Not cool AT ALL.
As I said in my post about why I wasn’t speaking at PAX, rape and sexual assault are not “womens” issues. Are women more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted? Yes. Does that mean that it doesn’t happen to other genders? No. People are allowed to express ideas about rape and sexual assault regardless of their gender. People who *have not been raped* are allowed to express ideas and opinions about those topics, as well – I appreciate allies and I appreciate constructive criticism and I appreciate questions asking for clarification about my beliefs and ideas.
My blog is not going to play host to the myth that rape and sexual assault only happen to women — that kind of shit actually perpetuates rape culture, and I’m not interested in debating it, discussing it, or allowing it.
But I also know the difference between crude humour and rape normalisation
Clearly you do not.
Just because some people, survivors and non, were not personally hurt by this does not mean it is not a hugely offensive aspect of rape culture. Why do you prefer to participate in that than learn why others were hurt?
No actually, I really do. And before you tell me I should read through of this websites and those associated with it, I have, thanks for asking.
Again I come down to the lack of perspective involved in this entire reaction. Yes, being a rape survivor would be an incredibly difficult thing to deal with day by day. But to get to the point where any mention of rape without it being prefaced by “trigger following” or in the most sombre of tones just seems like overkill.
Literally every other sexually violent act has become used in humour (go picket Pedobear, for one), rape just isn’t an exception.
The point is, it’s not something personal that I AS A SURVIVOR have to deal with it’s something that WE AS A SOCIETY THAT SHOULD NOT CONDONE RAPE have to deal with.
I’m not getting this worked up because they failed to include a trigger warning, I’m angry because they made a rape joke, refused to back down despite survivors and allies asking and explaining why it was hurtful, the aftershock of which created a team of people dedicated to trolling rape survivors with threats and yet people are STILL defending them!
If you are against rape and rape culture, why are you working so hard to align yourself with the people making these jokes and threats?
First thing first, since we’re discussing online etiquette. STOP PUTTING PARTICULAR THINGS LIKE THIS. Please.
People who think jokes that have the word “rape” in it being funny and people who troll rape survivors are not the same group. Just as some rape survivors have commented here saying “yep, I thought Dickwolves was funny”. I am aligning myself with those who support humour being able to dive into taboos without vilification. Obviously that wouldn’t include actual support for rape; that’s not what PA did.
One last basic point of logic: rape is a criminal act that receives increasing attention. ‘Unita caro’ is outlawed; we as a race have come a long way in the vilification of rape. If society as a whole entity condoned rape, then they would actually, you know, condone rape.
Are you kidding me? Look at H.R.3. and its supporters, Republican and Democrats. Look at the long, long list of people who signed a petition supporting Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped a THIRTEEN YEAR OLD. Look at Ben Roethlisberger. Look at the small town cheerleader punished for refusing to cheer for her rapist. The list goes on.
Again, the joke itself? Tastless and rude, but not particularly traumatizing on its own. The way they responded where they antagonized and threatened survivors? THIS IS WHAT WE’RE MAD ABOUT.
ALSO BY THE WAY I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR BS ETIQUETTE. THIS CEASED BEING A POLITE CONVERSATION WHEN YOU (ALL) DECIDED YOU’D RATHER KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON WITH RAPE CULTURE.
GENERALISATIONS DON’T WIN AN ARGUMENT. NO ONE HERE WANTS RAPE CULTURE.
And realistically, people were offended by the original joke. Otherwise they wouldn’t have needed to make any kind of response, there would have been nothing to respond to.
These are not generalizations. These are specific, concrete, documented examples of “the majority” of people accepting, normalizing, and perpetuating rape culture.
And there are many, many, many more of them.
There are many many examples of wrongs being committed by powerful people in many many ways.
The problem is, you are providing absolutely zero evidence that this is affected in any way whatsoever, by a comic strip featuring a slave complaining about being raped.
you are then taking this connection that you have not substantiated, claiming it as fact LOUDLY USING BIG LETTERS and then attempting to make the argument that because your flimsy concept is clearly correct, your other accusations that utilize said flawed concept are easily proven.
So, you get to argue
If rape jokes mean condoning rape, and you support rape jokes, then you condone rape.
Which seems perfectly air tight, untill you notice that the first assumption is invalid.
Uh, yeah. I have been getting comments on my twitter that show contempt for speaking out about this. How much do you want to bet that they don’t give a shit if a woman is raped? Because it’s funny! Being victimized is hilarious and you are just being oversensitive.
And since you need “concrete evidence,” have some screen caps.
And these are just the tip of the iceberg.
http://oi53.tinypic.com/s25zrq.jpg
http://oi52.tinypic.com/ehk8x1.jpg
http://oi52.tinypic.com/nnut5s.jpg
http://oi56.tinypic.com/i2u904.jpg
http://oi51.tinypic.com/2u451ll.jpg
“So, you get to argue
If rape jokes mean condoning rape, and you support rape jokes, then you condone rape.
Which seems perfectly air tight, untill you notice that the first assumption is invalid.”
And who argued this, exactly?
Or are you shooting off invalid assumptions of your own?
Im afraid i dont seem to be able to reply to you, but to answer your question: createamonster did. Multiple times, but here’s one for instance:
“ask yourself why you going out of your way to side with the people MAKING THOSE JOKES AND NORMALIZING RAPE.”
This is an argument that dictates that you must assume that rape jokes normalize rape, and normalization is synonymous with condoning.
Just a tip: the contempt wouldn’t be helped that you speak out in a very over-the-top manner. You make extreme statements and sweeping generalisations.
And if that concrete evidence quote-that’s-not-a-quote thing was about me, it was referring to the majority of people accepting. Not three people abusing you on Twitter, one of whom then retracted his statement as being childish, and the other who was told to shut up by PA.
I actually haven’t seen a single “specific, concrete, documented” example from you in this discourse. You referred to Polanski – while it’s true many celebrities spoke out to support him, many also didn’t. I personally know every average person (ie. obviously not a celebrity) thought it completely disgusting, and that’s men and women.
May I recommend to you a comic series called Y. I think you’d find it elucidating.
It was more than just Whoopi Goldberg saying what Polanski did wasn’t “rape-rape,” it was an actual petition that hundreds of actors and directors signed publicly in support of Polanski, who you will notice was found guilty of drugging and raping a child and is STILL not in jail.
You’ve completely ignored the other concrete, documented examples I included and I even forgot to mention Julian Assange.
This is not anecdata. This is our culture deciding that Rosemary’s Baby (hello rape scene!) or the Superbowl is more important to them than taking rape seriously. And before you answer that I’m only talking about celebrities, think about where “normalization” comes from.
@createamonster: Please don’t bring Julian Assange into this discussion. This blog post is ginormous as it is…
Agreed, that’s a whole other kettle we don’t want opened.
And yes, you’ll note I said “many celebrities”. That would indicate more than Whoopi Goldberg. I did actually follow the case pretty closely. You’ll also note Polanski escaped his charges, not that they just patted his hand and let him walk out. True that America dropped the ball when he was re-caught though.
I can’t reply to your “don’t bring up Julian Assange” comment, but that is what I am doing here.
Assange is the PERFECT example here. Whether you agree or disagree with what he’s doing politically, the fact remains that he RAPED two women and that is across-the-board-wrong, and yet society is hesitant to openly condemn him because he is doing things that a lot of people consider GOOD or at least necessary, because society does not prioritize prosecuting rape.
Likewise, the PA guys do a lot of things that are GOOD (Child’s Play etc) which is EVEN MORE REASON for them to be called out when they do something shitty.
For those of you still refusing to get it, what they did was bigger than “make a rape joke,” it was “make a rape joke, antagonize survivors, continue to make rape jokes, encourage threats and rape apologism against many different women most of whom are survivors, then issue a non-apology and pretend they had nothing to do with it all.”
” Whether you agree or disagree with what he’s doing politically, the fact remains that he RAPED two women and that is across-the-board-wrong, and yet society is hesitant to openly condemn him because he is doing things that a lot of people consider GOOD or at least necessary, because society does not prioritize prosecuting rape.”
This statement is incorrect. Julien Assange is under investigation related to multiple rape accusations. He has not been charged with anything related to the accusations as of yet – he’s under house arrest in England right now, and his extradition hearing starts tomorrow, 2/7. Just as I would not be cool with someone trying to use my blog to dismiss the accusers as liars in the court of public opinion, I’m not cool with my blog being used to put forth the idea that Assange is guilty before any sort of trial.
God dammit, I’m outta here. Have fun parading your “anti-rape culture” rights and getting all upset over mistakes that public figures make.
I really have nothing else to say, there’s lots of reasonable people here trying to lend a voice of understanding and stop this kind of “injustice” or “undermining” feelings that you seem to want to perpetuate.
But I’ve wasted enough time on this issue already.
Props to you ‘Artemisian’ and many others that share my concerns. I hope you have more patience than me.
You know what, I’m with Samuel on this. The Assange is 1) a complete shitfight that isn’t even rape 2) utterly irrelevant to what we’re talking about.
No one here will ever budge from their tightly-clasped rigid feminism. So thanks for a nice distraction, I’m back to having a balanced life surrounded by loving males and females.
Male rape survivor here.
Everything I’ve read here makes me want to roll my eyes and tell people to get the fuck over it.
PTSD is an expected consequence of having something horrible happen to you. That’s where, if you’re able to, you ask for help in dealing with it.
Some people, however, prefer to leave those shackles and chains locked on when they are given the key.
That’s how all of this comes across to me. Unlock your shackles and put it behind you already.
Assholes will be assholes. Making every asshole who makes a rape joke pay unholy retribution for taking it a little bit too far each time there’s a response isn’t going to change what happened to you, or myself or anyone else who you think might feel especially sensitive to the matter at hand.
I, however, have no interest in remaining involved once my bit has been said… for I choose to unlock myself from the chains and shackles that is the burden of fear, worry, intimidation and humiliation that is having been raped. If I won’t allow it to rule my life, I sure as hell won’t allow it to ‘get me down’ because of some idiots who draw a webcomic and other idiots who are determined to keep whipping this so-called controversey up as much as it can be.
Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want people like you advocating for me and being a constant reminder of what happened to myself. When anyone like those two guys at PA make a remark that resembles, it’s forgotten the next moment when I find a different link to read at Reddit or some other site.
But when you guys insist on keeping the topic going long after its expiration date… It’s like you WANT people to relive being raped. Constantly.
LET. IT. GO.
I’ve been raped. Three times. I’ve also been sexually assaulted, and I was sexually abused as a child. Yes, it was horrible, and yes, it’s had some long-lasting effects.
I’m sure this wasn’t Kirby et al’s intention, but the take home message I’m getting from this whole debacle is that rape survivors like myself are bad people for getting on with our lives, for not letting every little thing trigger us.
I found the original comic funny. And I thought the “dickwolves survivor’s guild” shirt was extremely distasteful. I don’t disagree that Mike and Jerry could have handled things better, but I haven’t found any of it offensive. Whereas I’m very upset with the reaction I’ve seen on the part of people like Kirby.
I don’t think that it was anyone’s intent to discredit the experience of any survivor.
There is no right way to recover from an assault and everyone heals in their own time.
Well, it kind of works that way. ‘saffy’ has said she’s a rape survivor who liked the comic. So according to the logic put forward by half the posters on there, that means she either condones rape or supports its normalisation. Do you see how that just doesn’t work out? Blanket judgements rarely do.
I want to sincerely thank you for listening to survivors and removing the shirt when asked.
You’re doing a good thing here and the level of “not-getting-it” displayed in these comments, the responses of Mike and Jerry, and the responses of their supporters are disheartening, to say the least.
Anyone looking for a concrete example of how rape culture permeates daily life need look no further than some of the comments here about how the term is used casually in gaming, or how the commenter does not know a single person who has been raped (hint: he actually does).
Thank you for no longer selling the shirts. As a rape survivor, I found your shirts significantly more offensive and upsetting than the original dickwolves shirt.
Try Chickenry on livejournal. She’s the one who goes after Penny Arcade a with great joy in the sfd_anon com and anywhere else she can flap her beak.
She has no intention of stopping because she’s got several hundred morons egging her on to continue beating a dead horse. Good luck!
I admire your poise throughout all of this, I know I would not have been so strong.
I also have to wonder that while the initial issue of most was with the merchandise spawned from the comic, the issue I (and most) have now is with the reactions from Penny Arcade. I wish that their supporters would stop minimizing the criticisms by reducing them to “it’s just a comic.”
Yes, it started out as just a comic, but the issue was compounded by the response of the guys from Penny Arcade. In their most recent response, in their blog, it is just another slap in the face. As a rape survivor, I do not appreciate being told that ‘rape culture’ is essentially a conspiracy that does not exist.
I’m glad you’re supporting BARCC with this – after I was assaulted, they were wonderful and helped me in so many ways.
I have a question, (and I don’t mean to call you out, or target you specifically here, it is a broader subject)
How do you deal with the fact that, as a victim of two sexual assualts, I do not appreciate the implication that what i see as an utterly harmless comic perpetuates in any way a “rape culture” ?
A lot of people seem to be seeing this as a binary system, those who understand the concept of “rape culture” and those that do not. But this line of thinking discounts the fact that one can understand the “rape culture” theory, and still disagree with it. Or, at the very least, that such a viewpoint is easily ignored because the person holding it obviously just doesnt understand what it is like.
But I can state with certainty that this is not the case on my own behalf. Quite the opposite in fact, i find the term “rape culture” to be both offensive, and damaging (short version: I believe it creates an hierarchy of victims, and i disagree with that concept at its core.)
This has very strongly been potrayed as “the penny arcade guys don’t care about the victims”, but, an no offense is intended here, this victim does not stand with you. In fact, I’m rather disapointed that they took the Dickwolves shirts down. I’ve had some bad experiences in the past, but I still found the concept of dickwolves to be funny. Like some others it seems, I was more offended by the reactions of those that were offended, and the implication that they spoke for me.
short version: I believe it creates an hierarchy of victims, and i disagree with that concept at its core.
OK, it sounds like you really don’t understand the concept of “rape culture”.
It may indeed sound that way. I can assure you that is not the case.
To clarify, Im not saying the term, nor the definition of said term encourages an hierachy.
Im saying its usage does. I don’t entirely expect you to agree with me of course, but I find it hard to conceive that this fact can have entirely escaped your attention.
This started with a comic, and immediately spearheaded into a discussion on Rape, and rape sensitivity. Rape Triggers. Rape survivors. Rape culture. The very first response that I know of was entitled “Rape is Hilarious, Part 53 in an Ongoing Series”
The comic, of course, included more than just raping dickwolves. In fact, the very line before that one was this:
“Every morning, we are roused by savage blows”
and not a fucking peep from anyone. I have not personally suffered that particular type of “domestic violence”.
However, if we examine the criteria:
1. Is a real thing (check)
2. Happens to real people [in first world countries.](check)
3. Social stigma discourages victims from reporting/acting on their own behalf, encourages them to simply accept that “it happens” (check)
4. Is incredibly psychologically damaging. Victims have a high likleyhood of lasting emotional/psychological damage, suffering post traumatic stress disorder, including flashbacks/episodes that can be “triggered” in a multitude of ways (check)
5. Victim is highly likely to blame themselves (check).
The only criteria it does not trip, is the following: “is rape”
The character literally states that they wake up every morning to savage beatings, and nothing is said about sensitivity, about triggers, about being offenseive, about the real people dealing with a real situation, nothing.
With this in mind, do you believe the dialogue created an inviting space for victims of domestic (non-sexual) violence to enter the discussion?
How about the comments beginning with “if you havent been raped…” ?
Or, in this very comments section: “Are you a man?
Feel free to have the nerve not to say anything at all”
And, if you DON’T agree that it creates an uncomfortable or uninviting environment for victims of “lesser” trauma (clarification: Emphasis mine, Emphasis sarcastic, Not claiming that anyone in particular has deliberately stated this, Am claiming that the general discussion creates that stigma natively)
Why then would you say it has not come up as a focus?
There are two ways that Oppression Olympics comes up. In one use, it can be “I am paying attention to this, and not that, because to me this is more important.” In the other it is “you should pay attention to this and not that” or “how dare you pay attention to this when you aren’t paying sufficient attention to this other thing!” The last two are forms of derailing, while the first is a defense against that same form of derailment.
We don’t have infinite energy, particularly for activism. Speaking out on one place doesn’t mean we condone all others, especially when, as here, the issue is so much more than the original comic. What that doesn’t excuse is the case where someone is spending energy supporting oppression or alienating someone else. Talking about rape culture doesn’t mean we ignore the other ways culture condones violence against other people (racism, homophobia, misogyny, transphobia and more), it means we speak out about the way those things intersect with the social approval of bodies as valid targets for violent responses to masculine fear of powerlessness.
It is possible for assertions of “rape culture” to be used to protest against support for other victims of violence, but it isn’t necessarily doing so. Especially when it’s not like PA made money by a t-shirt about how awesome domestic abuse is.
As for this particular case, there have been critiques and protests of PA in the past, but PA had never engaged with them before. The reason this one became a Big Thing and the prior protests against misogyny or racism didn’t was entirely because they went out of their way to troll people who cared about this issue, becoming an active part of the culture policing people who dare to talk about rape.
Talking about rape culture doesn’t mean we ignore the other ways culture condones violence against other people
Again, your intent is almost certainly not that, I agree.
However, the RESULT quite often is.
Im using my real name here, (which is a disadvatage to me right out of the gate) so I’m using only my own experiences, as anything I say along the lines of “someone I know” is quite easily traceable to that someone. I can only promise you that whilst my particular views are mine alone, the sentiment is shared by others.
I used to prefer the Term “culture of violence” to culture of rape, because i thought it more inclusive. This opinion was changed to “culture of dominance” when it was pointed out to me that “culture of violence” was a loaded term that could lead people who have been emotionally abused but not physically abused to feel that their own trauma had less validity. (“at least i wasn’t beaten”)
A bit of background: In the last ten years, in addition to being sexually assaulted twice, I have also been robbed at gunpoint whilst working at a gas station, and beaten quite savagely with metal poles by two teens who took the five dollars i had on me.
These are the events Id classify as lastingly traumatic, im not including general harrasment (that is, the kind you can sort of look down, speed up your walk a bit and hope to avoid escalation), that would be a far longer list.
I am of course, a white male. (techincally an overweight white male bisexual who has lived his entire life in the lowest available economic bracket, so you can try and figure out where that places me on the privilage scale if you wish.)
Supposedly this makes me privilaged, which means there are many things i don’t have to worry about.
My experiences lead me to think differently. For instance, I know that there are six categories of bruising, and that anything higher than a category three can be life threatening. Unfortunately, im not sure how to tell if a bruise is category 3 or higher, which leads me to point out that I also know what it is like to feel the need to try and hide said bruising from loved ones, because you blame yourself for them, despite it not being your fault. I know what it feels like to LIE about where they came from (fell off the steps) when they notice, because you dont want them to worry, or feel less of you. I also know that when bruises get bad enough, the center of them becomes a deathly white, surrounded by a dark dark purple, spotted with red dots where the blood vessels have died.
I know what it is like to be afraid to leave the house after dark.
The hold up created an interesting issue because my triggers consisted of: Hooded jackets, and Gas Stations. As a thought experiment, see how many days you can go without encountering one of those two things, and still live your life normally. I know about triggers. I know what it’s like to know you probably will not make it through the day and not be reminded of something youd rather forget, unless you stay in the house all day.
And, of course, Two sexual assaults. I don’t use the word rape because i have too often seen it pulled into a discussion of semantics and sick one-up-manship. I’m only including things that resulted in penetration, or injury. Your mileage may vary as to wether thats “rapey” enough to count.
Suffice to say that I know what it is like to worry that every single person in the room could be a danger to me.
And yet, 100% of the time, in a discussion such as this, I will be told I do not, and can not understand because as a
(white)male, I inherrently fall on a lower level of victimhood, and suffer a lesser form of trauma.
To that I say: turns out my white penis is not a good shield against an iron bar. I can say this from experience.
This IS the environment that is created for me. You are free to make up your own opinions as to the legitimacy of what I say.
And, I feel that Rape jokes had as little to do with what I experienced and felt during and after sexual assaults as Grand Theft Auto had to do with what I experienced and felt during and after an armed hold up. Precisely nothing. I find the implication that something as meaningless as computer games or jokes are even part of the same game, let alone the ballpark, to be quite offensive.
Again, your mileage may vary. But you may want to consider that someone disagreeing with your viewpoint does not neccesarily correlate in someone “just not getting it”.
incidentally, there is literally no difference between saying
“I am paying attention to this, and not that, because to me this is more important.”
and saying “I am paying attention to this, and not that, because to me, that is LESS important”
This is the hierarchy of victims. I’m willing to bet that given the option between using either of those two identical statements, you will always chose the former.
Im also willing to bet that you would not be A-Ok with someone stating the following:
“I am focussing my attention on victims who were emotionally abused by thier parents rather than rape, because to me, rape is less important”.
you cannot claim you are focussing on the more important part of an overall problem without diminishing the other aspects.
Well said. I think there is some legitimacy in the theory of “rape culture” but American feminists treat it like it’s gospel, anyone sceptical have simply not understood it. Of course a lot of people do not, but it’s not an attitude that is very permissive of intelligent discourse and understanding, it’s simply browbeating your opponents.
So because we’re focusing on just one issue that disproportionately affects women (which, by the way, is the reason I suggested maybe we could all make this ABOUT LISTENING TO WOMEN for once)…you’d rather we just ignore everything?
If you are against rape and rape jokes (as I assume you are) ask yourself why you going out of your way to side with the people MAKING THOSE JOKES AND NORMALIZING RAPE.
Actually Im against rape, but not against rape jokes.
In the same way that i do not think that say, violence in video games normalizes violence, i don’t think that joking about rape normalizes rape. Putting it in capital letters doesn’t actually make it a fact.
I specifically said in my comment that the comic itself is not the real problem.
I also don’t think you really understand what rape culture is – and I think it is likely due to a fundamental difference – you are a man (presumably and my apologies if I am misgendering you).
Read up on Schrodinger’s Rapist – that is what it is like for a woman living in a rape culture. You are a man and have a privilege that we will never have.
I also truly do not know what you mean by ‘hierarchy of victims’, as I do not see how that applies in any way to accepting that rape culture exists.
“You are a man and have a privilege that we will never have. ”
Yes, I’ve heard.
I’ve also heard that privilege can be defined as the things you dont even realise you don’t have to worry about.
You tell me to read up on the concept of Schrodinger’s rapist, so that i can try to understand what it must be like having to worry that any given person you meet may potentially be a rapist?
I have been sexually assaulted twice. Do you actually believe that my penis somehow prevents me from doing exactly that to every single person I meet, male OR female?
Can you please rephrase this, because it doesn’t make shit sense.
Try this:
where do you get off thinking its ok to suggest to a victim of sexual assault that they maybe read up on what its like when people REALLY have to worry about sexual assaults.
Have you read the responses from the Penny Arcade guys regarding all of this comotion? If not please do so now:
1. http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg24c0QTAQ1qfjiio.png
2. http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/2/2/okay-s-enough/
3. http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/2/2/matter-dickwolves/
While they’re not making a big public advertizement that they’re sorry about what they said, it’s clear that they regret the way they handled the situation and they’ve clearly learned their lesson.
Let’s not continue to harass these guys please.
I was involved in a pretty nasty kayaking accident. Face meets rock, rock wins. That was 20+ years ago, and parts of my skull still aren’t where they’re supposed to be. I think about that injury every morning when I put in my false teeth.
Last summer I saw a commercial on TV that portrayed a guy getting hurt while kayaking as a humorous event. It made me pretty uncomfortable when I saw it, I’ll admit. I squirmed a little bit, got a little sick to my stomach, could feel a cold sweat coming on.
You know what I didn’t do? I didn’t write outraged posts blasting the commercial. I didn’t stage a protest at the corporate HQ of the product portrayed in the commercial. I didn’t set off on a months-long crusade against that commercial or that company.
You know what I did? I chuckled about it, and went back to watching my TV show. I accepted the fact that altough the joke made me uncomfortable, my discomfort was my issue, and not something I needed to force on everyone else. To 99.9% of the people on the planet, the commercial was probably pretty amusing.
But then again, I don’t have my entire personal identity wrapped up in being a victim.
Your mileage may vary.
Thats great.
Do you get blamed for your accident? Did you lead that rock on? Were you encouraged not to go to the hospital or not to report your accident? Did people think you just made it up so you could get attention?
While it’s nice that you are able to chuckle over seeing something that makes you uncomfortable because “you don’t have your entire personal identity wrapped up in being a victim” it’s not always as easy for someone else.
Joking about rape is upsetting because rape is already disregarded enough as it is. Making jokes and setting the tone that this is okay is NOT okay.
Comparing an the experience of an accident with the act of experiencing someone willfully violating you sexually is ridiculous and downright offensive.
Here’s the thing, Mr. Thomas…
You do not get to speak for victims of traumatic events. Great, you were able to move on. You do not get to tell others to do the same.
I was raped. It effects me daily. The way the creators of Penny Arcade handled this was basically a big “FUCK YOU” directly to my face. Just because a few misogynistic jerks find a rape joke funny does not mean I will let it go.
I don’t believe you were in a kayaking accident. Where’s the police report?
You weren’t victimized, Ken, you were in an accident. That is nothing like being raped, and the fact that you felt it was appropriate to make that comparison speaks volumes about who you are as a person and just how high over your head this discussion has flown.
Comparing a kayak accident, which involves a person and an inanimate object without intent, to rape, which involves two people and intent, is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have seen on the Internet in my lifetime.
I don’t know whether to continue to insult you or nominate you for an award.
Thanks for continuing to prove that men DO NOT GET IT and ARE NOT WORTH MY TIME.
Please don’t make the assumption that all men are the same. I would think a man that could relate to your experience would feel very much the same as you and most others here.
These are exactly the reasons why I paint men with the same brush. You find rape funny. And you want to complain about generalizations? Yeah, no.
No I would say you generalize men because you’re a misandrist, just like how anyone who generalizes women is a misogynist.
Try again. Misandry is not a real or valid concept. Women cannot disriminate against men because they have all the power.
And really, even if misandry was a real concept, I would not mind being called one. Because being suspicious of men apparently makes me hateful.
And just like that I’m done with you.
“Women cannot disriminate against men because they have all the power.”
Utter fucking stupidity. Enjoy your sheer ignorance.
That women can *discriminate* against men is true, that was a bad choice of words.
But that discrimination actually making any sort of difference to the male gender as a whole, rather than to an individual, is not true. Ergo, MISANDRY IS A NON-ISSUE.
This whole stupid fucking issue stems from ENFORCING sexism and misogyny that already exists and surrounds us entirely. And this came from two men who liked to think of themselves as better than that.
This is what I meant to say. It is not an issue at all. I am not going to go off on a woman if she says she hates men. I do not blame her at all.
Really though, I had someone say I discriminated men because I do not fuck them. So, sometimes discrimination is not even the word men are looking for.
People have actually said that? Jesus christ. Let me guess; they were hetero and said that with a straight face. (pun unintentional)
I’d agree that misandry is a non-issue on a larger scale, but on a person-to-person scale, it’s still quite an issue.
While I’ve never been assaulted, I have been absolutely trampled verbally and emotionally by men. I’ve got a wide feminist streak, not helped by extensive studies on the stuff at university. So I understandably came close to writing the whole gender off. Luckily, I met some better men who helped assure me not every man is a dickwad.
tl;dr – misandry is just as unrealistic as misogyny. Neither gender is better or intrinsically superior. Yes men come from a position of more power customarily, but that doesn’t give license to think they’re all assholes and rape-supporters.
Cry us a fucking river, asshole.
The day men are systematically dominated through violence, rape, devaluation and et cetera by women you can bitch about misandry all you fucking want. Which won’t happen, because men have always had and STILL have power over women that they won’t be relenquishing any time soon. or at all.
Until then, SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT YOUR IMAGINARY MISANDRY. ONE OR MANY INTERNET WOMEN HATING YOU WILL NOT DO SHIT AGAINST YOUR LIFE. FUCK OFF ALREADY.
I like you.
Hi, I am a guy who doesn’t find rape funny, who has been unimpressed with PA during this entire debacle (and has given up on reading their comic, FYI) and has been active in the last four blog posts kirby has made arguing against the flawed logic and idiots (and others who whilst I still don’t agree with them, have at least handled themselves more appropriately).
Good for you? Do you want a medal for being a decent human being?
The issue here is that you were NOT a victim. There was no attacker, you were involved in an accident.
Rape is not an “accident.” Rape is a conscious decision by an individual to violate another person’s body.
Your comparison is insulting, and the implication that survivors should just get over it and shut up about when they are reminded again and again by society that their attacks are not taken seriously is BEYOND disgusting.
Rape is not an “accident.” Rape is a conscious decision by an individual to violate another person’s body.
Exactly. I notice that news coverage of violence (especially violence against women) uses passive-voice construction that removes the perpetrator–”a woman was attacked in her home”; “four local women have been raped”, etc. It’s like it just happened. Funny how that works.
In college I was attacked (not sexual assault) and severely beaten by a stranger. My parents persistently referred to this incident as “my accident”. Erm, no.
Interpersonal violence is not an accident–it is an active choice on the part of the perpetrator.
“You know what I didn’t do?”
Realize that you’re not the standard for how strong other human beings should be? Realize your experiences don’t entitle you to tell other people how to deal with their experiences?
“You know what I did? I chuckled about it, and went back to watching my TV show. I accepted the fact that altough the joke made me uncomfortable, my discomfort was my issue, and not something I needed to force on everyone else.”
No, obviously what you do feel that you need to force on everyone else is your idea that everyone else should deal with things like you do and that anyone who doesn’t is obviously a weak little professional victim. Thank goodness we have such an impressive specimen of humanity we can all use as an example. Of how to be a self-righteous douchebag who defines the pain of other people as being less worthy of consideration than his own.
Wow… quite a stark observation.
Damn right it’s a stark observation. “Everybody should be just like me in dealing with trauma and if they’re not they’re just weak and wallowing in their victimhood” got old a long time ago. It’s a ridiculously bullshit standard and the proponents of it would likely NEVER want applied to themselves.
(trigger warning for description of serious injury)
Almost twenty years ago I took a running chainsaw right across the top of my thigh. It went near clean through the muscle to bone in the space of less than two seconds of contact. After only a moment of disorientation from shock I was able to bind it up as best I could and walk from the job site to a phone to call an ambulance. If I expected everyone to be able to deal with such a severe injury as calmly as I did, I would be a complete fucking asshole. Recognizing that you, as an individual, can handle something others might not be able to handle is fine. Believing that other people are somehow inferior to you because they can’t handle things that you can, that’s just arrogant nonsense. I’ve had a gutfull of all the internet Übermensches that have been weighing in on this issue like they’ve got a royal appointment to tell other people how to deal with pain and trauma. It’s just another form of bullying and I can’t stomach bullies.
Mike and Jerry have owned up to their behavior, although it took a threat against Mike’s family for them to finally do so.
Let’s please put this behind us. It’s gotten way too fucked-up and even as someone merely observing this whole thing some things have gotten much too scary.
Unfortunately, I think we’re way past that happening, for a couple reasons.
1) It has gone on too long before Mike finally apologized and Jerry finally weighed in. I thought their posts were good but long, long overdue. What are your thoughts on their posts Courtney?
2) There are people who still want blood. fucknopennyarcade.tumblr.com is a good example. I don’t think they’d stop for any reason at this point; they will probably continue attacking Penny Arcade and its fans. I can see the rationale here – they fucked up, and they fucked up bad. I’m sure there are still Penny Arcade fans who are going to keep being assholes to people who were offended. There are parties on both sides who don’t want to stop.
I don’t know why. What do people attacking it honestly hope to accomplish? Mike and Jerry apologized and said they handled it wrong, and that’s more or less all that they will probably do, so what is continuing the argument going to do?
Courtney – do you think any resolution, or at least a ceasefire, can be reached now that the Penny Arcade guys have backed down and asked their fans to do the same? Jerry’s post I found particularly interesting, especially when he mentions that he would rather no fan have said anything at all.
Interesting addendum: the website I linked, fucknopennyarcade.tumblr.com, has a link to your site Courtney. They seem to have a…um…more violent message than you. Yours is one of anger, hurt, and frustration, whereas they purport that they actually want to bring down Penny Arcade as an organization.
Weird?
Some of us were/are Penny Arcade fans and are still upset with them for trolling survivors. I don’t want to stop reading something I’ve read for 10 years (and which provided positive identification back when my parents still hated video games) because they can’t be arsed to not go out of their way to say “fuck you” to some of their fans.
That they then acted hurt that some of their fans were the people they trolled and/or thought it was super uncool to troll vulnerable folks in general was even less cool. When people talk, you should at least try listening, not take their hurt as a personal attack. The kid my 5-year-old kicked on the playground didn’t start crying just to spite him, no matter what my kid thinks.
It’s not the us vs them thing that Mike seems to be portraying it as. While he has made it clear he’d prefer a smaller audience if it meant he didn’t have to think about people other than himself, that’s not actually a get-out-of-criticism-free card, especially not when running and profiting from two 40,000-person large conventions that are supposedly welcoming to all gamers.
People had been talking about their casual misogyny for a long time, especially people more alienated from their community than I. Trying to change game culture is also about changing what is considered the face of game culture, and at some point that will involve Penny Arcade either changing or getting pushed aside.
However, publicly shaming them into stepping down is unlikely to work. They’re two highly privileged guys who’ve built their career on their perception of their own oppression and social ostracism, so social ostracism simply plays into their hand. (See also: The Big Bang Theory, in all it’s homophobic, misogynistic joy, high ratings and inexplicable message of how unpopular it is. Geeks were hipsters before hipsters were cool.)
My best hope is that over time PA becomes more self-aware and start listening to and empathizing with experiences of people less like them. Watching daughters grow up, for example, leads some men to an awareness of dynamics their privilege had previously allowed them to ignore.
It’ll fizzle out of existence, you can be certain of that… probably within the next few weeks now that the apologies have been made and the reason for blood lust is no longer there.
I completely agree with you, the apologies were very much overdue, and I’m willing to bet PA will be much quicker to react to upset fans, in a more appropriate manner, from now on.
I seriously lost a considerable amount of respect for PA guys though (not that there was much there to begin with), and I won’t be going to PAX to shake their hands anytime soon.
Oh wow, after checking out that website… it might take quite a bit more than a few weeks for this whole thing to fizzle out. Damn…
Yeah, that’s what I mean. I can’t tell if they’re actually that outraged or just think it’ll be fun or are trolling or what’s going on there but the owner of that site is seriously out for blood in a bad way.
Well, I’m gonna do just about all I can do right now, ask them to stop. Feel free to help me out:
http://fucknopennyarcade.tumblr.com/ask
In retrospect…they didn’t really apologize for their actions. Mike’s comment isn’t enough (given how far down his foot has gone into his throat, I think he could do better), and Jerry’s commentary has this undertone of “yeah this all happened and yes rape is very bad and don’t do it but still rape culture isn’t real”, which… yeah.
Not to mention it took a personal threat against Mike’s family for his decency to kick in :/
I still want this whole thing to die away.
You’re sorry you’ve caused this? Months and months of this going on and you’re sorry you caused it? That’s it?
Well then, as long as you’re sorry! I guess that makes it all better then.
Whipping people into a frenzy for months was totally going to turn out ok? It’s alright though, because you’re sorry.
Valuable lesson here kids, you can do whatever you want in life as long as you’re sorry.
Reading is fundamental.
She is apologizing for triggering rape survivors. Not for criticizing the original strip, nor any of the responses.
I suspect you know this, but you’d rather be deliberately obtuse.
I’m sorry but I’ve never seen so much whining about internet etiquette in a single thread before in my life. You’re talking about a niche video game site cracking a joke about the word “rape” (commonly used vernacular in online play, by the way, should we outlaw that too?) like this was published on CNN.
“People in the spotlight should be a bit more careful about not offending people, because they establish a standard for what is OK and not OK to post and comment about.”
If you base all of your posting and blogging on what these PA idiots (I love them, btw) are doing, you might want to just unplug the internet from your PC until you figure out how to think for yourself. I thought the point was to break rules and cause controversy.
“I really wish they’d just do a family-friendly clothing requirement at PAX”
Are you serious? This is exactly the kind of sterilization that should be as far away from niche gatherings like PAX as humanly possible. Geeks have just as much right to express themselves as the rest of us and I can all but guarantee you that no one is going to PAX to rape someone. I just did a Google search for PAX rapes and Comicon Rapes and couldn’t find a single news entry.
It doesn’t happen.
Look I’ve never been raped, I don’t know anyone who has been and I’m sorry if this comment comes across as callous. Messed up stuff happens to everyone, and so called “triggers” can conjur memories of all sorts of things (a tweet post recently “triggered” memories of witnessing a suicide). Should I get pissed off at Twitter? How about the poster? Why not the news story the poster and I were discussing that sparked the whole suicide talk to begin with? Where does it end?
If you feel like the PA kids have been treating this like a joke, it’s because it is.
You seem unaware that Penny Arcade is a webcomic that draws millions of hits a month and is considered a major arbiter of opinion within the gaming industry. You seem further unaware that PAX and its subsidiary cons are some of the largest conventions in the world for the gaming industry, with attendance figures comparable to E3 and the Paris Game Show. Describing PA or PAX as a ‘niche site’ or ‘niche show’ when it’s one of the largest sites on the internet (for comparison’s sake, PA sometimes surpasses fark.com in daily pageviews as percentage of the global internet traffic, according to Alexa) is disingenuous at best.
You seem further unaware that sexual harassment is not infrequent at geek cons, and that this is considered quite a problem among female gamers/geeks who have frequently felt their safety threatened at these events. If you can’t come up with a story of rape or sexual harassment in con culture, then your google is broken. This is why it’s distressing that a con that had previously seemed to work harder than most to make itself an open environment is being aligned with the dickwolf merchandise and the message it displays.
Your comment does indeed come across as callous, and you seem not at all to perceive the extent of the problem or the reason(s) people are upset.
Why is there a size limit for something being niche? Who decided this limit? Was it you?
Just because something is niche doesn’t mean it can’t draw in a large crowd, it just means it’s a niche that many people are interested in.
Oh good, it’s you again.
“You’re talking about a niche video game site cracking a joke about the word “rape” (commonly used vernacular in online play, by the way, should we outlaw that too?) like this was published on CNN.”
This, by the way, is a helpful example of RAPE CULTURE, for all the PA supporters wondering what that is.
“I just did a Google search for PAX rapes and Comicon Rapes and couldn’t find a single news entry.
It doesn’t happen.”
Entirely aside from the point you’re making, this hurts me as a professional searcher. This is profoundly not how information works.
as to your first point – YES! and hundred, a thousand, a MILLION TIMES YES!!! *STOP USING RAPE IN A STUPID AND FRIVOLIOUS MANNER!!!!!!!!!!!!*
also: it may be try that YOU have never been raped. i’ll bet everything i OWN that you *DO* know someone who’s been raped. unless you only know 2 other people, and all of you were completely secluded sexless amoebas, it’s literally NOT POSSIBLE.
but the fact that you know people who have been raped, but DON’T KNOW that they’ve been raped, should tell you something. something about our culture, if nothing else – a culture that all but REQUIRES people who have been raped to lie [or at least not speak truth] is a messed up culture with MANY things wrong with it.
just… look, the point that *YOU* have not been raped and therefor CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE A RAPE SURVIVOR was a good damned point. YOU DON’T KNOW. you don’t know the hell, the triggers, the flashbacks, the fear, the constant worry that HE* is going to somehow crawl out of the grave and do it MORE…
[*HE in my case - only 98% of rapist, according to current data, are male... and dead he is. makes the nightmares rather worse, actually]
the original comic did offend me, but not enough for me to really do anything – and the offense was partially based on the standard “There they go again, making rape out to be something NOT HORRIBLE, in fact making it something FUNNY instad of TERRIFYING” [also partially based on the fact that, even only 2 years ago, it WOULD have truly triggered me]
and that was *MY* problem. it was minor.
but my friend who damned near killed himself, because he’s pretty damned messed up right now and was shocked that his “heros” considered rape to be A) a joke B) imaginary and C) only perpetrated by “mythological beasts” [and C) is TRUE, in a sense - the "scary man hiding in a bush to rape a stranger" *IS* a myth... but not a weird animal that could never be] was just too much ON TOP of all the other rape culture BS he waded thru every damned day.
where you DON’T KNOW, generally the proper thing to do is NOT SPEAK FROM YOUR IGNORANCE. if you’re feeling brave, perhaps you could *ASK* – but, seriously, if you don’t know, DON’T TALK ABOUT IT AS IF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS “TRUTH” OR WHAT PEOPLE “SHOULD” DO. telling rape survivors and those with PTSD [like me. and my friends. and LOTS of others] that they were WRONG to be fucking TRIGGERED – a thing that NONE OF US EVER WANT TO BE AND HAVE LITTLE TO NO CONTROL OVER – is actually borderline EVIL. it’s certainly breathtakingly assinine. DON’T DO IT.
over all, i thought the ORIGINAL “rant” about the comic was actually pretty damned mild – and the poster probably never even thought the guys at PA would ever see it – why would they see it? why would the poster THINK they would see it? it was just another case of “Popular piece of pop culture AGAIN does thing that reinforces rape culture. when are people going to get it?”
RAPE CULTURE is a thing. it is the thing that allows you to NOT KNOW that you know people who have been raped.
it’s the thing that allows people to say shit like “what was she wearing” “was she drinking” “didn’t she know better” and, my favorite, “well, LOOK at her – obviously, looking like that, he couldn’t help himself”
[the first time i was raped by HIM, i was 12. he was my stepfather. the ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD knew he beat me, he broke my nose, he threw me THRU a fence - but when he raped me, they all said "she seduced him". when i tried to get help, tried to get a neighbor to call the police, i was told i was a horrible slut, get out of her house before her husband saw me, and maybe in the future i should "think" before i seduce ugly creepy scary men who beat me on a daily basis. so this particular comic ALSO triggered some stuff for me, but i've BEEN in therapy for my PTSD and i wasn't very affected.]
what actually made me ANGRY was they’re incredibly ignorant, priveleged and arrogant “appology”. NO ONE – EVER – said “this comic will make someone rape”.
what was SAID was “this comic A) has trigger some people and B) this comic perpetrates rape culture”
they addressed neither point, pulled out a strawman, set it on fire, and threw every fucking rape survivor on the pyre of their hubris.
and then they made TSHIRTS about it, and profited from our pain.
THAT is where i got angry.
it would have been FAR better for them to do and say NOTHING – like they did EVERY OTHER TIME SOMEONE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT HOW PA CONTRIBUTES TO RAPE CULTURE. cuz it’s all happened before, except the PA guys didn’t, in those previous situations, say ANYTHING in response. probably because they didn’t even know anything had been said.
Life Lesson: when someone says “you just hurt me” the proper thing to do is say “i’m sorry, i did not mean to hurt you.”
period.
Oops, I forgot to include my question I wanted to ask.
Aren’t both vague and fairly specific Trigger Warnings a pretty big trigger for people? I mean, if I opened an article and saw at the top [Trigger Warning for rape, violence/etc] the first thing it would do is make me think of my own experience.
Usually the mention of the word “rape” won’t cause an actual trigger, though it may make them uncomfortable. Extensive details of sexual assault often does, at least in comparison. It is a warning of things much worse yet to come, so that those who do not want to see it can avoid it.
What a shocking realization, and certainly one that wasn’t long overdue. Now wait to see if a large coalition of sites turn this voluntary self-censorship into a PA-sized debacle for you. Oh wait no, famous nerds are an easier political target.
I am genuinely sorry – if that’s not coming across in my post please let me know and I’ll gladly rephrase so that the meaning is clear.
Also, I would like to think that if Mike had actually apologized, the issue would have dropped.
To answer your question in the other comment – I can’t comment on how other people use or interpret them. For me, there are days when I’m just not up to a story that features rape. Knowing at the top of the post that the content’s there lets me make a very quick judgment of whether to scroll down or close the tab, rather than read and be surprised by the content once I’m already engaged. Usually they aren’t something I even pay attention to – this last week, they’ve been invaluable. It’s not something that I expect to ever be implemented in the wider world, but I do try to use them here when appropriate.
A question: It might have been dropped if Mike had apologized for…what?
“People in the spotlight should be a bit more careful about not offending people, because they establish a standard for what is OK and not OK to post and comment about.”
But PA has specifically made it their business TO offend. They make offensive comics. They always have. When Jack Thompson was rolling out phrases like “culture of violence” and “murder simulator” and putting crying mothers in front of people talking about how video games killed their poor boy, they chose a road that offended a lot of people then too. Jack tried to SUE them.
There seems to be a problem where you want them to make a statement along the lines of “you’re right, there IS a rape culture, we didn’t really think about it but now that we’ve been made aware of it, we think we acted wrongly”
but that assumes that the only reason people don’t agree with you is that they havent thought about it. What then is the correct response for those who HAVE thought about it, have researched it, and still disagree?
Trigger warning etc:
No, I imagine what she would want is recognition that people actually got offended and triggered. This is not at all to say you should retract the comic, not at all, but take for example the PA comic about piracy not too long ago. They got a lot of feedback from people who pirate and from software companies, both sides in that issue and tried to have a conversation.
In this case however Mike mocked the people who had simply said they had been hurt by the comic, made fun of all rape victims with PTSD and then made a shirt that was another big “fuck you” to these people.
Where “these people” are people who have been raped and feel bad when the word is brought up. These are the people he felt he needed to fight to the last drop. Not the people attacking them for having Jesus in the strip, not the pirates, not any of the other far more morally ambiguous groups but fucking victims of actual rape. Now sure not all of rape victims have PTSD, and not everyone who complained are themselves rape victims, but do you see what he might want to apologize for?
A reasonable response would have been “We’re sorry people are offended by the comic, it was not our intention. However we have made jokes involving rape in the past, and we probably will in the future, this is something we will at least have in mind.”
Something like that. Not “TEAM RAPE ASSEMBLE THE DICKWOLVES SHIRTS!”.
Just to slarify, that wasnt about piracy, it was about second hand games. The PA guys never entered into such a discussion about piracy, they actually reacted to prates in the same mock them and shut them down manner.
Which is not totally relvant to this discussion, certainly, just felt the need to keep things straight.
now, heres the thing: Mike did not make fun of all rape victims with PTSD.(Which is not the same as saying that noone should have been personally offended by what mike did say. The penny arcade guys are jerks, make no mistake. They’ve never potrayed themselves as anything but really.)
Likewise, i do not think the DICKWOLVES shirt was a fuck you to people who have gone through the traumas of rape. I like the Dickwolves. The concept makes me smile, the word rolls off my toungue. I find it enjoyable to say, I find the concept gives me a chuckle. The dickwolves existed not to be rapists, but because the concept tickled them.
So, at no point whatsoever do i feel that the dickwolves shirts were anything at all like saying TEAM RAPE ASSEMBLE THE DICKWOLVES SHIRTS.
(I am of course aware of the team rape twitter account. and the dick wolvington twitter account. I do not see how they reflect on Mike of Jerry any more than the guy who said mikes wife and daughter should be killed reflects on Courtney.)
Now, as for their reaction to the response to the first comic, It certainly wasnt a stunning example of comic brilliance, but i did not find it offensive. I did find the original shakesville response(and in fact, the entire blog) offensive, and damaging. Perhaps because of this, i may have read their response comic in the same vein as they were thinking when they created it. It was not rape victims they were mocking, they were mocking hyperbole.
Many people have said that the comic wasnt the issue. But it was. It was the comic that sparked all of this. It was the FACT that the comic was an issue, to shakesville in particular, that lead to the next responce, that became an issue for more, that lead to the next response etc etc etc.
At the core though, the argument is still that the original comic was, or was NOT fine. That cannot be seperated. And, if you are of the opinion that the original comic is fine, you may very well be of the opinion that it is entirely valid for them to draw a dickwolf, or make merch about the dickwolf.
At this point, no appology would work because there are 100 different things to appologize, and theyre all trying to hide under the same banner. Hell its reached the point where even jerry’s response, which has, to my knowledge, been treated as very respectfull written and thought out by most people with a functioning brain, was critisized because it wasnt fast enough.
How can you argue that they need to consider other sides of an issue, and educate themselves on it, AND also complain that they were not fast enough? Exactly how quickly do people think one can properly educate themselves on this subject?
As so often happens when power/gender politics comes up, it was immediately reduced to a dogmatic binary by both sides, where neither can afford to give any quater, and sweeping statements, generalizations, and exclusions hold court. The discussion becomes all of nothing.
Thanks for being considerate of other survivors’ feelings in making this decision. Though I personally liked the DSG shirt and considered buying one, I can see how some people found it triggering and I’m glad you could respect that too. As for the way people have been treating you on the internets in the past few weeks…it actually makes me sick. I’m really impressed with the way you’ve been handling things, and I am proud to know you.
I think you have been reading too much of this.
http://derailingfordummies.com/
So uh.
I was reading about everything surrounding this while doing some laundry and I stumbled across the wonderful twitter messages asking you to “provide documentation that you were raped” and “just get therapy.”
I knew that the internet was full of disgusting, deplorable human beings but seriously? That’s the most screwed up thing I’ve seen in awhile.
Not related to this post but didn’t know where else to put comments. I think your decision was a good one though, no need to keep antagonism going from both sides.
Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape.
I didn’t see a trigger warning on this.
I just bought two of your shirts a couple days ago and was planning to wear them (not at the same time) because I figured that there might be some apologists wearing the DW shirt. I thought I could demonstrate that even though I believe that the original criticism of the comic was overblown, that it’s more important that PAX be a safe space for everyone, and I thought the shirt would in some small way demonstrate that.
However.
I don’t want to knowingly trigger anyone. So now I’m conflicted. It can’t be a safe space and not a safe space at the same time. As a big privileged white het cis guy, if you think I shouldn’t wear it, I won’t.
I really wish they’d just do a family-friendly clothing requirement at PAX, as that would take care of all of this (as well as complaints I’ve heard from people in past years about some rather explicit/gross stuff their kids have seen on con-goer t-shirts).
The thing that clarified it for me is, “What do you have to gain by wearing it?” I would hazard not a lot.
What defines family-friendly?
One of their biggest mascots is the “Fruit Fucker”
This seems like an unreasonable expectation of this type of event. People attend PAX to celebrate the things they enjoy, you can’t force them to hold back because some attendees might be sensitive to the subject matter.
DivX is a drunk, should they ban all pictures of him because people in AA might be sensitive to his drinking?
Apologists?
Seriously?
Ok then, so are we also setting as off limits all things Frankenstein (grave robbing and corpse desecration), Jabba the Hutt merch (slave ownershipand crime in general), Silence of the Lamb (I mean dude, CANNIBALISM), and any movie involving murder?
I wasn’t aware “AblativMeatshld” was actually a synonym for “obtuse.”
I’m really glad you decided to do this, and I’m glad this entire debacle is starting to fizzle down.
I’ve read the entirety of the Timeline of the Debacle:
http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/3041940865/the-pratfall-of-penny-arcade-a-timeline
And I have to say, this is another prime example of the internets blowing something completely our of proportion, and then, perpetuated by insensitive people (person) that make remarks without understanding the full extent of their actions.
The original comic wasn’t even that appalling, it used the term ‘rape’ in a light humorous context, it didn’t spend more than 2 words desensitizing the issue or insulting those affected by it. I don’t see how reading that comic would cause a rape survivor any more outrage than seeing the word in a health pamphlet or in any other form.
The part where this turned into a nasty issue (in my opinion) was when PA spokesperson ‘Mike’ started publicly defending his right of “free speech”, or the right to do humorous comics based on any subject, including rape. Comments like “I’ll be wearing mine [dickwolf t-shirt] to PAX”, or “it feels pretty good. Why?” when asked how it felt to be actively encouraging rape culture.
And this is really the crucial component here, that statement shows a level of immaturity and ignorance from the part of ‘Mike’ that really makes me sad. What he doesn’t understand is that hundreds, or thousands of people read what he says, and he kind of establishes a standard of behavior that is “acceptable” to post on the internet. And some of his less sensitive readers might take that a cue to just take the concept and run with it, infuriating many more people than the comic did (which is exactly what happened!).
This issue isn’t about the right to make a joke about rape or not, this issue is about what “internet courtesy” is, and who defines it. People in the spotlight should be a bit more careful about not offending people, because they establish a standard for what is OK and not OK to post and comment about.
I just hope that the guys at PA learn their lesson from this incident, I don’t want them to stop making crude jokes about shit like this, I just want them to stop making these discussions about them and their rights to write or blog, and understand that what they do is establish conventions that other people go by during their internet lives.
The majority of the debacle could have easily been avoided if at the time PA took down the dickwolves t-shirt they simply said:
“We write comics because we think it’s funny, not because we want to offend people. Some people were pretty upset by our recent comic about ‘dickwolves’, and while we don’t think the comic has any ill intentions we’re no longer selling the t-shirt because we don’t want to be seen as advocating or desensitizing rape. I apologize to those affected. Case closed.”
If you read their actual response you’ll immediately understand what I’m talking about:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=18157336&postcount=15
That’s it. Show some curtsey and a tad of sensitivity people (this is also commonly known as ‘professionalism’).
I just want to add that I’ve never been raped, and when I say: “I don’t see how reading that comic would cause a rape survivor any more outrage(…)”, I’m making an assumption that will be true for some, but not for everyone (some people, might very well be very insulted by the comic).
I don’t want to undermine anyone’s opinions or feelings toward the issue, feel free to point out how wrong I am, just be nice please.
It’s interesting that in this article you seem to be saying that while you were conflicted, you persisted to sell your shirts even though someone had said to you that they found them triggering.
“when I put these up for sale, I heard indirectly that someone I knew didn’t like the shirts because they found them triggering for the same reasons as the Penny Arcade Dickwolves merchandise. I told myself that I was protesting something and that negotiating the line of “allowable” rape survivor self-expression wasn’t something I was interested in being policed about.”
So while you advocate others censoring themselves in the interest of respecting other people’s triggers, you feel that you have reasons strong enough to ignore other people’s discomforts to pursue your own agenda?
I can’t help but feel there are some double standards going on here. You cannot criticize someone else’s subjective reasoning, and then claim that your own is sacrosanct. You are just another side in an argument.