Trivializing rape

Yes, society deemed that type of joke unacceptable because it was meant to make fun of and purposefully demean and insult black people.

Rape jokes/tumblrs/whatever like Molestia and whatnot are not meant to intentionally demean or make fun of rape victims, it's a character created by someone. There is a clear and defined difference between the two.

Racist people are going to let racist events happen because they're racist, not because they choose to let it happen; It is my firm belief that people do not choose to be murderers or rapists; you can choose to be a racist or not, and peer pressure/your parents are a huge example of why racism is still around today.

Even if rape jokes stopped existing forever, it wouldn't stop rape. This whole thing about people being offended/it promoting 'rape culture' is just theory and hearsay.

Since I like fighting games, does that mean I'm going to go and beat up the guy next to me for looking at me funny? Am I gonna go and bop some white kid because he said something about my mother that was clearly a joke? No.

It's called common sense; you need to have it if you want to live a healthy and happy life on this earth, because I guarantee if you go around hurting people because of a joke, you have no common sense.


It's the internet. If you wanted to, you can find far, far worse than Molestia. Promoting rape culture is saying 'Women deserve to be raped.' or 'She was dressed the part anyway.'

Molestia does not say that anywhere, and neither does John. So I base this whole view on the fact that people are white-knighting for a reason.

 

My response is in red, I had to do this to better address each individual point.

 

Wow, well, a lot of things have been said here, and most of which I agree with. Coming from someone who is typically in the middle of the isle, this is my rambling, unorganized and quite possibly illogical opinion. Take it as you will.


Xander, Saikyo and Zephyr all have good points and are all correct in my view to one degree or another. Mostly I think it all comes down to CONTEXT.

For instance, we had a comedian come to an event that we were hosting for our fire company (my dad is a volunteer firefighter) and he busted on us A LOT for being redneck hillbillies that drink boxed wine and drive big trucks (which, for the most part, is completely accurate), etc., and he pretty much swore like a trucker. Everyone laughed, clapped and thought he was hysterical.

Nobody cared that he used language that would make a sailor blush because we're pretty much all blue-collar workers that aren't offended by superfluous usage of the F-bomb. However, try talking like that at a fancy garden party at a country club and you'll prolly get kicked out by security right quick. Hence, AUDIENCE matters.

Secondly, everyone thought he was hysterical even though he was ripping on us pretty hardcore. Because he's a comedian and that is what they do - and everyone there understood that. But if you just went up to a stranger and tearing them apart like that, more than likely they're going to take serious offense to it. Hence, CONTEXT matters.


The problem is on the internet people (who may or may not be your intended audience) are going to see it and may not get it because they aren't familiar with that person's particular brand of humor, so it can easily get taken out of context. Those same people are also worried that some people may see it and not get the joke, take him seriously, and think that rape is A-OK. This is mostly because people tend to think that other people won't "get it" the way they do, which is both egotistical and silly, but is a very common issue of perspective which is understood in basic psychology.


The truth is, people don't rape or murder because they think it's OK. They do it for many reasons, but they either A) know that it is wrong or B) are clinically insane and don't know the difference between right and wrong in the first place or C) their parents did a terrible job. A sane and rational human being with an intact moral compass is not going to rape another person just because someone on the internet said it's cool to do so, even if they aren't joking.

Humor takes many forms, and it very well can be in bad taste. However, I really don't think that jokes alone are going to contribute to a morally bankrupt society, I think that there has to be general social acceptance of something for it to be legitimately viewed as OK. For instance, comedians and other people make jokes about black people all the time, but as a whole society realizes that it is not ok. Does that mean that racism doesn't exist? Of course not, but I don't see slavery coming back anytime soon.



I view things like murder, rape and needless violence as absolutely abhorrent. But I'm not going to get on a soapbox and start screaming about the moral decline of society because people make jokes about those topics. Should I? Maybe, but I think if people didn't make light of such serious and touchy subjects, then the world would be a much darker place.



*Note: There are A LOT of facets to this discussion that my post does not cover. However, I'm -for now- just getting my general stance across and not being too specific because A) trying to cover every facet of this discussion in a single post is simply not possible, B) because I'm not sure I can even think of every facet of this conversation that will or needs to be covered right now and C) because I'm kinda lazy.

 

I'm white knighting for common sense. I don't have any pity or second thoughts about people who take offense to things when they're in context.

As Frost said, there is a time and a place for everything. If Molestia isn't your thing, just ignore it. If it is, go ahead and pay attention to it.

It's kind of like Voting in america. Only kind of though.

You voted for Obama and think he's doing a bad job? Well, you voted for him, so you should probably be quiet.

I'm done with this topic because it's just going to go in circles on my end.

All I'm trying to say is this: If you're offended by it, get on with your life. He's not saying 'Please, rape women!' and he's not trying to justify rape as a valid thing.

You think I'm trying to say that doing drugs entirely is a good thing (Though I'm for legalization and taxation, that's a different topic though) if I create a pot-smoking pony blog? For all you know it could just be satire or just for fun.


It gets really, really old when people try to white knight behind something because it makes them feel better about themselves.

I don't want studies, I don't want a professional opinion, I want facts. There is no concrete evidence supporting either theory here, so at this point it's more of just an opinion-based argument than an actual discussion.

Courts go off of hard facts and evidence; why shouldn't this? For example, rape rates have gone down 60% since 1993, but with mass media and social networking and whatnot 'promoting rape culture' shouldn't this number be down? Again, that's just a theory though.

 

I believe that some of you may be overlooking a very important fact:
MOLESTIA IS A CARTOON HORSE.
Her "victims" are other cartoon horses.
More importantly, "Ask Molestia" is a Tumblr blog.
If people find it offensive, then perhaps they shouldn't follow it.
Better yet, if they're so easily offended that a suggestive cartoon hurts their feelings, then perhaps they should just stay the hell off the internet.

 

Again, it's easier to comment on individual parts than as something separate. So my response is in red.

 

I honestly didn't think anyone here would be alerted of the DWM thing, that's how little faith had in it. But now there are two sides doing their own dance of incomprehensible, time wasting dance of trolling, abuse and butthurt. I've followed PinkiePony for a long time, she's a cutie patootie, and she does mean well, even if she is being overly idealistic. She HAS offered to release documents of her proving that she's donating all of the money earned from the DWM "movement" to charities, but until I see any factual evidence, I'm going to be weary of both sides and just keep my distance so they tucker each other out and everything will return to normal until another controversial event sparks rage in the Brony fandom yet again.

 

If people have a problem with Molestia, then they have the right to complain.
What they do NOT have the right to do, however, is abuse their own freedom of speech in a self-serving attempt to censor somebody else.

 

True, but do you really think that American culture glorifies rape? Even if we aren't as outraged over cases of rape as we should be (like how people were outraged over the Zimmerman thing) I think our culture condemns it far more than say, Iraq, where if a women gets raped they stone her to death for being a ****.


There is a line between public advocacy and overreacting. Or in this case, just plain ridiculousness.

 

^Also, I can't say I've ever seen rape portrayed as a positive thing.

 

@Ridely Wolf: I don't really see the difference. Freedom of speech is not freedom without consequence, you can say whatever you want but that also means people can tell you to shut up. I don't believe the blog should be taken, but I do wish the artist would take a little more time to think about he's writing.
[MENTION=1040]Frost[/MENTION]: First of all, I don't think it's a solid argument to say that our society is okay because we're not as bad as some other guys. Like, I think that's a bad argument cause it's like saying being shot in the foot is not as bad as being shot in the hand. At some point it's kind meaningless to say that.

Second point, read this article. http://www.portlandfamily.com/posts/the-sexual-exploitation-of-children-in-media/

Like, I know I keep saying rape is glorified in our society culture...though I think I'm more saying Molestia is glorifying rape, but sexual exploitation doesn't really have to be explicitly about rape to contribute to rape culture.


I also would like to reiterate that I don't follow the DWM movement, I'm just trying to explain their reasoning. I've read that it started to raise rape awareness but other members moved into harassment and I don't really that's cool.

 

@Xander
People have every right to complain about Molestia, just like they have the right to complain about South Park, Family Guy, and anything else that annoys them.
The problem lies with the people who feel the need to "protect" others from things that they themselves find offensive.

Also... you spelled Ridley wrong.

 

Um...I agree with you, though to explain why people feel the need the take down Molestia would be just a reiteration of everything else I've said. But yeah, in general censorship is bad.

 

The way I see it, It's the 'rape jokes aren't funny crowd', hiding under the veil of rape culture awareness to try push their opinion onto people. Which to me is quite insulting as it diminishes the credibility of the whole rape culture awareness cause, if anything these people are slowing it's progress by using underhanded tactics to guilt people into censoring content while pretending to be under it's banner to gain credibility and giving it a bad name in doing so. Much like how when the mention of feminist is made, a lot of people assume this straw man, instead of what it actually is because of similar antics by people who call themselves feminists, but are in fact not feminists at all. http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=341 < the straw man

So quite frankly, I think the people who are trying to take that blog down, are the ones trivializing not only rape (by making it a taboo subject), but also an entire movement that is trying to make things better (by portraying it as something that it's not).

As many have mentioned, the context plays a very important role, and as a comedy blog, it holds a comedy platform as such, it does this well through satire, not through exploitative humour sorry to say Xander, I read that propaganda comic too however I noticed its false dichotomy, much like the author says "Humour isn’t as simple as you’d think! It’s a complex thing and can be difficult to understand" it is clearly not even their own forte, the humour that comes from Molestia is that we know rape is wrong already, and the situations portrayed are so far from reality, that it's not something that needs to be spelled out for us (like any joke it would ruin it), however, and it is a sad truth, any satire can and will be taken as truth by someone somewhere, and that's unfortunate, an example is that there are people who actually believe that Colbert is a conservative because of the satirical character he portrays, which could not be further from the truth.

“There are times that my character’s ignorance of himself allows him to say liberal things or even hold liberal ideas without any knowledge of it. In reference to my character, he’s generally conservative… I myself sometimes agree with him. It doesn’t matter to me if my audience knows when that is, but I do sometimes agree with my character. But generally speaking, if you slap me across the face at three A.M. and say, ‘What are you?’ I’d say I’m a liberal.” - Stephen Colbert

Now while it would be nice to limit such things from everyday attitudes and discourse to avoid that as much as possilbe, to try forcibly eliminate all satire everywhere even in the places that it belongs because some people won't get that it's a clever ruse, is just plain silly.

 

I propose putting in some family friendly alternatives to Princess Molestia to calm the flames.

Princess Testia: Princess Celestia who is obsessed with giving each pony a test for everything no matter what.

Princess Pestia: Princess Celestia that constantly heckles everyone about their buisness because she can.

Princess Confesstia: Princess Celestia as a Catholic Priest

Princess Digresstia: Princess Celestia who constantly goes off subject and can't hold a conversation of the same subject matter for more than ten seconds.

Princess Detestia: Princess Celestia who is cynical about everything and constantly pessimistic

Princess Congresstia: Princess Celestia who is also a congresswoman for American politics.

Princess Armrestia: Princess Celestia as a couch.

 

NO NO NO. Those are still bad because reasons.

 

I think Couch Celestia is a FAB idea.

We must do this for the childrensssssssssssssss. . . .

 

Berry with another awesome post.