judyxberman:

Louis CK responded to the rape joke controversy in a way that’s entirely consistent with his comedy. Rather than casting a hero or a villain, he painted the picture of a media circus perpetuated by two equally ridiculous groups: “This is a fight between comedians and bloggers, which is like, we’re all just… hyperbole and garbage comes out of those two places.” Then, he noted that the Tosh incident had put comedians into conflict with their “natural enemy,” feminists. While the latter are “stereotypically” humorless and comics are known for being ultra-sensitive to criticism, the outrage on both sides was inevitable. Later in the discussion, CK picked out two other groups who were both wrong about the controversy: women, who think everyone should care about their personal feelings, and men, who don’t listen to women when they’re upset.

There is clearly a grain of truth to each of these binaries, but what’s disappointing is CK’s conspicuous failure to address the elephant in the room — the joke Tosh actually made. As plenty of writers, from Jezebel to Splitsider, have pointed out, this controversy is not primarily about all rape jokes. In fact, some feminists have responded with lists of rape jokes they actually find funny — and various Louis CK bits are turning up on these lists, because his jokes always complicate and intensify, rather than simplify and ridicule, the idea of rape. From CK we get, “You should never rape anyone. Unless you have a reason. Like you want to fuck someone, and they won’t let you. In which case what other option do you have. How else are you supposed to have an orgasm in their body if you don’t rape them. Like what the fuck? Ah, OK. That’s fucked up.” What Tosh did was reply to a heckler who called out “rape jokes are never funny” by cracking, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her.” (At least, that’s what happened according to the heckler, an account the Tosh camp has lightly disputed but not gone out of its way to correct.) There is a big difference between CK’s joke and Tosh’s, and while CK may not be eager to publicly take issue with a fellow comedian, making a distinction between well-constructed and astute bits that don’t trivialize horribly traumatic events and vaguely threatening statements that aren’t even a little bit funny would actually have been a really healthy and helpful thing for comedy.

Here’s the whole post, where you can scroll down to the comments for some very original and important mansplanations.

As usual, it’s depressing and enlightening that when you say, “I like Louis CK a lot but don’t entirely agree with this one thing he did,” everyone reads, “I hate Louis CK because I’m an angry feminist who hates comedy.” Complicated.