Sexual Assault is Always Funny

On Rape and Humor: Why Rape Jokes can be Funny

The rape joke is a complicated topic to tackle, and approaching it carelessly can result in a rather ugly brouhaha. However, a well-timed sexual assault reference can also bring a bit of excitement and laughter to the room, as everyone heartily commiserates on the humor inherent in horrific tragedies. Rape jokes can be fun because it's a painful event and a socially taboo issue that peeks into the deepest and darkest crevasses of the human experience. It's not uncommon for people in heartbreakingly tragic situations to develop a sense of humor about it, so much so that there's a popular term for it- Gallows Humor.

By discussing something in a humorous manner, we can work to devalue its hold over those who have to deal with its very real ramifications. In fact, this is actually the basis for “exposure therapy”, a rather effective way of treating PTSD, quite probably the single biggest concern when dealing with rape victims. In essence, avoiding rape jokes only serves to fetishize rape, turning it into something quasi-sacred and the victims as something other than human. Rape jokes allow a victim to move beyond being just a victim, and return to being an ordinary person who can exist beyond a single moment, to allow them to fight having that moment define them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy

In addition to that, as a bonus point of benefit, rape jokes can actually work as a way to address other relevant issues. Take, for example, this comic.

The "dickwolves" in this comic are not representative or supportive of any sort of rape culture in any way. Rape is used as a punchline, but only as a way to demonstrate the depravity of the characters involved in the scene. If one were to try to assume that the comic is pro-rape, it stops making sense as a joke. The joke relies on a sense of understanding that the hero’s callousness is morally reprehensible. There could be nothing worse than being raped by dickwolves, and yet the hero won’t take a second out of his day to help somebody beyond the bare minimum expectations. It is made aggressively clear that we, as the audience, are expected to be laughing at the fact that we would personally never do something like that, as the shocking actions are as repulsive a thing one could imagine.