This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Rape As Comedy: From YKTTW
A rare "rape of a female by a man" example as comedy was seen in a particular "Married with Children" episode (where Al goes grilling burgers), where Al repeatedly drags a protesting Peggy upstairs. May be more of an inversion of the trope, as its usually the other way around.
Gemmifer: I removed " (A notable exception to this trope appears in the fourth season of Farscape, spoiler:where the writers not only acknowledge the rape through drugs of a male character, but the character later confronts his abuser.)" because it's a aversion and doesn't belong into the main text.
Sci Vo: I left Rape Is Funny When It Is Male On Male, Rape Is Funny When It Is Animal On Human, and Rape Is Ok When It Is Female On Male as stub entries for now, in case anyone wants to compare wording, see what I left out or changed. Most of it doesn't seem particularly relevant now, but some may disagree. Also, I can't bring myself to go through all of the examples right now and root out the ones where it's not actually played for laughs, which is a big part of the reason for this: the way that the rape is used in the work is more important for a media trope than the genders/species involved, so the former scheme was fundamentally flawed.
Interestingly, of the two examples of rape of women by animals, the first one was actually sexual harassment and the second one doesn't particularly sound like it was played for laughs. Pulled these:
- An early strip of Questionable Content has Ellen telling Natasha about a a dolphin that tried to mount her at work.
- The Stephanie Plum novel Ten Big Ones involves Stephanie being mounted by seven dogs at once. She doesn't seem traumatised much by this, except for discomfort about a foreign substance in her hair.
Silent Hunter: I'm currently reading said novel and there is an element of humour about it, although Plum doesn't enjoy the experience.
Danel: Seems to me that the biggest distinction here is not between who or what is raping who, but more the way it's played for laughs; some Dead Baby Comedies make rape jokes in full awareness of the horror of rape, deliberately going for transgressiveness. Other examples don't even seem to see it as rape at all - most of these are the ones where a man is raped - especially by a woman - because some male writers don't see this as any sort of hardship. The former can be very funny provided the viewer is in the right mindset; the latter can make the writer appear to be very screwed up.
Sci Vo: @Silent Hunter, oops, my bad. I'll put it back in. @Danel, it's interesting to me that both of those versions use the idea that a real man cannot be raped; it's just that the former deliberately violates it for shock comedy, while the latter naively accepts it.
Sniffnoy: Yeah, it looks to me like male-on-male rape is usually treated as actual rape, it's just much more likely to be played for laughs than rape of a female. But female-on-male rape looks more often just to be treated as not rape - commonly under the "most guys would call that 'lucky'" idea. Alternatively, it's done where the humor comes from the contrast between the victim's, uh, indignance (not usually horror, I don't think, as they still won't treat it fully as rape) at being raped with other people's "most guys would call that 'lucky'" response.
Tulling: Are there any examples of male-on-male rape where the victim is homosexual and it is considered to belong to the "most guys would call that 'lucky'" category?
Sniffnoy: I sure hope not.
Unknown Tropper: Just some examples I've found where woman-on-man rape isn't actually played for laughs:
- Law And Order Special Victims Unit (used for exposing double standards).
- Desperate Housewives (see daytime soap operas)
- daytime soap operas (used neither for comedy nor for horror. It's important to note when the same shows present man-on-woman rapes, it is used for horror)
- The Book of Revelation (exposing double standards, but in pure horror fashion - calling this comedy is sick)
- Myra Breckinridge (punishing the male gender in general. It's just dramatic, I guess)
- pornographic material (likewise)
Sci Vo: Thank you, Unknown Tropper. That kind of stuff is one of the reasons why I felt so strongly about focusing on the way it's used in the work first, and then gender/species second, instead of the other way around. (The other reason was to emphasize that we're cataloging media tropes here, not rapes.)
Unknown Tropper: But now what? Those examples are currently listed as examples of rape as comedy...the uniqueness of woman-on-man rape in story telling is that it's always either played for comedy or used to diss the same people who think it's comedy. Right now you've taken the latter kind and decided it's comedy even if it's against comedy.
Cassius335: Yeah, looking over the examples, most of them don't fall under comedy at all. Maybe move them to a "Rape As Double Standard" page, using the pic from Rape Is Ok When Its Female On Male.
Unknown Tropper: Which is double standards on its own, as 100% of the examples there would be of a woman raping a man (or attempting to)! This is exactly why the former title was right on the money after all. No other type of rape presents double standards. The rest are either exclusively dramatic (man-on-woman) or funny (everything else).
Erebus : Although man-on-woman rape is seldom used as comedy, I have one example in mind : in the anime series Airmaster when Sakamoto Julietta tries to rape Maki (actually for the second time, although the first time doesn't go nearly as far). Her reaction is quite realistic (she frantically tries to break free) yet, unbelievably, the scene is played for laughs. Possibly the most disgusting and painful scene I ever saw in an anime series.
Erebus : Haruhi's behavior is much close to harassment. And sexual harassment as comedy is extremely common in anime...
Unknown Tropper: Exactly. Now back to Cassius335's question - we already have general rape as drama and comedy pages, but should we open up a phoney yet neutral "Rape As Double Standard" page or somehow combine the phrase "woman-on-man" in the title because that's the only scenerio under that title?
Joe: Also, don't forget "rape as double standards" (whether the title mentions it only applies for woman-on-man or not) is just one type of the unique woman-on-man rape. There's also "rape by women as punishment for men" (a-la Myra Breckinridge). So now we already have two categories that don't fit in none of the current categories of rape. Should we open up two new categories then (and again have too many categories for rape)? And how will we name them?
James S: This entry made me think of something that I thought should be put into discussion before putting in the article. Comedian George Carlin had a bit from the 90s trying to show that there are no such things as inherently bad words or jokes, since it all depends on the context. (For example, jokes about black people that would be inappropriate being said by white people, or use of the N-word were fine when they came from Richard Pryor). Another example he used was rape. "Here, do you want me to prove to you that rape can be funny? Just picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd. Hey, why do you think they call him Porky, huh?" I wasn't sure though how much dead baby humor you would want to use, or how exactly it would fit, so I thought I'd throw it in here first.
Twin Bird: I removed those examples for a reason. All the ones under "men by women" because they're not comedy (being atavisms from Rape Is Ok When Its Female On Male), and the Sexy Losers example because it's redundant. I don't have time to remove them again right now, but will someone do it for me?
Twin Bird: Okay, I've done it. Please don't change it back. Those are Examples Looking For A Trope, and it's not to be found here.
Gemmifer: I'm somewhat surprised that you all agree that male-on-male rape (fictional or real) isn't taken seriously by the media. In most cases I've come across it was disturbing and meant to be so in fiction and treated as a serious crime in the news.
Mr Death: Took out the Justice League entry. If Flash had initiated it, maybe you could stretch it, but Tala did; it was entirely consensual on her part. Original is here:
- In the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Great Brain Robbery," the Flash, having switched bodies with Lex Luthor, goes behind closed doors with Luthor's girlfriend Tala, who is telling him he needs to relax, to which he replies "That's not relaxing." Cut to the two of them walking through the hangar with Tala telling Flash-in-Luthor that she likes how much more attentive, caring, and enthusiastic he is than usual. Presumably they did just have sex, and presumably Tala would not have consented had she known that the man she thought was her boyfriend was actually the Flash. Yet this was played for laughs.
Richard AK: I'm putting it back because many jurisdictions have laws on rape specifically referring to the issue wherein someone disguises himself as the victim's husband or lover and has sex with the person under that false apprehension. To take just one example, Section 261.a.5 of California penal law. It doesn't matter that Tala was the initiator: she thought she was initiating sex with her long-term lover Lex Luthor, not with Wally West, and there's every reason to believe she never would have done that had she known who he really was.
I do not think that Rape Is Ok When It Is Female On Male should have been merged into this because even though there is some overlap not all female on male rape that is treated with the Double Standard is considered humerus.
For instance when Vril Dox (I think that's his name i'm not a DC fan) was raped and killed by his team mate she was not vilified for it and to show that it was alright they had him come back from the dead and raise the child that was conceived during his murder
Stuff like this are not considered comical but they are treated as being ok and that is they I think there should be a separate article for them
- In the movie Trading Places, Clarence Beeks finds himself in a cage with a horny male gorilla, in what is supposed to be karmic justice.
- There's a very similar scene involving a gorilla suit at the end of the earlier Trading Places where Clarence Beeks is trapped in a cage with a real gorilla while he is wearing a gorilla suit.
Déjà vu.
So, um...is there a reason for this, or should I go ahead and delete it?
Dangermike: DELETE! DELETE!
Dangermike: Well, now that the merger is complete, we have any number of examples under Rape As Comedy that are not, in fact, comedy. Moving them to Rape as Drama. But not tonight, late & have surgery tomorrow. If I get back and it's already been done for me, I'll somehow live with the massive disappointment.
Shotgun Ninja: This is more a general wondering, but I have to say it. Why does the Rape as Comedy pic make me sad, but the Rape Is Love pic make me laugh my ass off? Shouldn't it be the opposite?
How is it possible for a human having sex with a normal, nonsentient stuffed animal to be rape? In such cases it's a sex toy, not a partner (consenting or no). One might as well claim that using a vibrator is rape.
Nornagest: Removed —
- ** I think you mean bull. "Ox" usually refers specifically to a steer used as a draft animal.
*** Bet you wouldn't give a shit what the difference was if one was raping you.*** If it's a steer you would.
Funny how this could all have been avoided by changing one word in the top-level example.
Dentaku: That Newscaster Etsuko/Foxy Nudes example was a bit on the long side and not even under the correct heading, so I trimmed and moved it.
Shiralee: Can anyone explain how it is possible to "rape" an inanimate object? Better yet, how can you have CONSENTUAL sex with one?
Mullon: Would the whole "Tommy, have you ever seen a grown man naked." thing from Airplane! count, since rape didn't actually happen?
Haven: Man, just trying to read these examples makes me feel a little nauseous.
Octavo: I am unhappy with the way Rape Is Funny When It Is Male On Male's six wicks point to a blank page, but after reading the discussion pages there and here I don't feel clear enough on the content and history to tell how to fix that.
BritBllt: Trimming all this...
- In Buffy The Vampire Slayer Xander (a while after consensual sex with Faith) goes to visit her and ends up tied to a bed, where he is threatened with death in an obviously sexual way. When he's rescued, Angel makes a joke about his safe word, and when Faith appears near the end of the series, Xander never once says "Wait a minute, she sexually assaulted me, I don't want her on my team."
- Then again, everybody else on his team has tried to kill him at some point, including his erstwhile lovers or crushes Buffy, Willow and Anya. Comes with the town.
- That wasn't a joke. Angel asks Faith, "And what, he forgot the safe word?" in a sarcastic and accusing (of Faith) manner.
- Later, in the sixth season episode "Gone", Buffy, while invisible, forces oral sex on Spike, who has just told her to get dressed and get out. The scene is Played for Laughs. In the later episode "Seeing Red", Spike attempts to rape Buffy, but stops himself, obviously horrified by his actions. This scene is not played for laughs.
- In "Gone", given that Spike's reaction is annoyed rather than upset or angry, this troper understood the oral sex to be congruent with the rest of their rocky relationship.
- I wouldn't say Spike stopped himself if he had to be kicked off by Buffy first.
- If Buffy is to be excused of her actions based on the nature of their rocky relationship, then Spike can surely be given some measure of leeway for ignoring what had — in the past — been empty denials. Given that Spike actually stopped once it was undeniably clear that Buffy didn't want sex and that Buffy ignored Spike (who, being openly in love with her could not often have denied a chance to have sex) and continued her act, Buffy no longer comes across as quite the victim. In the end, Spike showed a great deal of remorse for almost raping Buffy where she showed no remorse for any of her actions in their clearly terrible relationship.
- So she was asking for it because she led him on? Are we forgetting that at her birthday party he did what many would consider sexual harassment all night despite her constant pleas for him to stop? The difference between what happened in "Gone" and what happened in "Seeing Red" of course is that one instance was met with mild annoyance on Spike's part and minimal attempts to stop it before ultimately deciding to go with it while the other was met with yells and screams of "No". The latter also occured after Buffy had already explicitly told Spike she was ending their damaging, creepy sexual relationship. Put simply, the difference is that as horrible as the relationship was, it was entirely consentual. What Spike did to Buffy was not. This is why she was the victim and he was not.
down to this...
- In Buffy The Vampire Slayer Xander (a few weeks after having consensual sex with Faith) goes to visit her and ends up tied to a bed, where he is threatened with death in an obviously sexual way. When Faith appears near the end of the series, Xander never once says "wait a minute, she sexually assaulted me, I don't want her on my team." Then again, given that other members of the team have, for one reason or another, tried to kill him...
- Later, in the sixth season episode "Gone", Buffy, while invisible, forces oral sex on Spike, who has just told her to get dressed and get out. The scene is Played for Laughs, though it's not clear how far Buffy would've gone had Spike kept protesting. In the later episode "Seeing Red", Spike attempts to rape Buffy and, once she's broken free of him, is obviously horrified by his actions. That scene is not played for laughs.
Because, I mean... damn. I agree that Angel's "joke" was more an attack on Faith's claim that things were consensual than a jab at Xander, and detailing the Buffy/Spike "no means yes mean no means maybe" relationship would take a team of therapists and maybe a medium to channel the ghost of Sigmund Freud. I also changed it to Buffy breaking loose rather than him stopping: he did stop, but had he kept going it would've turned into a slayer vs. vampire fight, and he knows those usually don't end well. But there's also little doubt he was horrified by his actions, given that it drove him to have his soul restored.
Daibhid C: I'm almost certain the "There was a young man of Cathay" limerick was devised on Im Sorry I Havent A Clue where, standards being different from the fifties, it was broadcast. I find it hard to believe it could have been devised with each contributor "only viewing the rhyming word of the previous line until it was complete"; it fits together too neatly for that. (The composer of the final line would have had no knowledge that the second line mentioned China, for instance.)
dethtoll: THIS
◊ might be a good alternate example picture.
