I can't stop being appalled by how stupidly some people on the internet use "rape" as a term for anything remotely negative happening. "I got raped by my credit card company for $35."

And @TeamRAPE? Holy crap, some people deserve to fall in a woodchipper.

Hopefully this will bookend the Dickwolves thing:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/2/2/mat…

Wow. Just...wow.

That dude Mike from the Penny Arcade is a toxic little fucker aint he?

Keeps on escalating rather than say he fucked up.

It's Shakesville, actually, not Shakespear's Sister. Changed a long time ago.

I don't like it when people try to tell other people how not to use the word "rape."

"It's not funny."

Yes it fucking can be, I don't give a fuck if you don't like rape jokes because of whatever happened to you. The world doesn't need to flow around you to keep you comfortable.

Not responding to Shakesville at all was/would have been the proper "response" to that original post. The author admitted to not having a sense of humor, for fuck's sake. Her opinion never deserved to be taken seriously.

I don't think (male) nerd culture is any different from less nerdy culture where driven by or centred around men, in so far as unthinking jokes and threats about rape are concerned. For example, I seem to recall a news story highlighted by SLOG a while back about some New York Post columnist attacking a lady as both deserving to be raped and being too unattractive to actually be a target. It's this sort of fucked up rhetoric (and the often disturbing responses, or lack thereof, it garners) that leads many women and feminists to fear we live in a 'rape culture'.

I don't think the problem is so pervasive that we can characterize the whole of American civilization thusly, but it certainly is an issue which deserves a far more serious response at broader and larger levels than it currently receives. Calling people out on their bullshit is the first step. But what next? Can assholes like these kids even be convinced what they're all about is utterly wrong?

nerds do not redefine adulthood, they waste it

As someone who posts a lot on the forums of Penny Arcade I can tell you that there is not some sort of consensus on this issue. This blogger is getting one side of the story, an ugly side, to be sure.

As for myself, both sides can be correct. It's OK to be offended by rape jokes and it's OK to make them. Rape jokes trivialize rape in the same way as any joke about violence trivializes it, but sometimes that's what we do as people. We trivialize what we find scary or ugly or frightening.

In the case of the comic, Mike and Jerry were, in fact, making a joke about how awful some of the trappings of traditional game quests can be if taken too literally (why not rescue ALL the slaves). The response, to make a dick wolf SHIRT, goes a bit too far, but we're talking about a comic that has a character that IS A FRUIT RAPING ROBOT for crying out loud. If you are offended, don't read it, don't support it, and if you ARE a fan, except for this one issue, that's fine too. Please continue to email Mike and Jerry and see if you can persuade them.

@5

The obscure Almodovar movie "Kika" has a hilarious rape scene. I find rape to be very difficult to find humor in, outside of the gallows variety. That one scene is a testament to Almodovar's genius, where he expertly arranges a series of incidents together in such a way that you're ROTFLMAO.

That whole dick thing went totally out of control, and incredibly stupidly, but anyone--I don't care who, I don't care about your circumstances, I don't care what happened to you in what way or under what circumstances or whatever else you have in your history--ANYONE who says anything that even vaguely comes off as,

Such and such is off-limits in comedy or the arts because of...

Is wrong. Sorry; you are wrong. Penny Arcade should have just said, "It's art. Here's our next piece," and been done with it. The moment we cease to discuss, address, or deride something for any one person or group's benefit, we've given they thing they are uncomfortable with undue power.

@6: No, she has a sense of humor, and quite a silly, bawdy one at that. But she's a rape survivor and as such doesn't find rape funny. I'm a rape survivor and I was NOT offended by the comic. We deal with these things in our own way, and keshmeshi, her opinion deserves to be taken just as seriously as yours. Or mine. Or that of the boys at Penny Arcade. And you know that.

The idea that we must shun any cultural output that might at some point make somebody feel emotionally unpleasant is awesome.
(Watch out: Slippery-slope trigger)

@3: "In the end I just disagree with these people about what’s funny and that’s perfectly okay."

God, what an acerbic little prick.

Tycho has quiet a few words about the issue in today's blog post: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/2/2/mat…

I wouldn't say that people offended by that comic don't have a sense of humour; I might, however, question their literacy.

Rape is part of the narrative strategy used in that strip to indicate that the slaves lead horrific lives. It is not glorifying rape, or contributing to rape culture, to have a fictional character complain about being raped as a form of torture.

There are aspects of how gaming culture treats women and rape that range from questionable to outright revolting, but this strip is not one of them.

Holy shit, radical feminists are grossly overreacting to something? Stop the fucking presses!

The dickwolf strip was hilarious. You know why? Because in context, IT'S GOD DAMNED HILARIOUS.

Shut the fuck up and go be shrill somewhere else you joyless harridans.

The comic uses being raped by dickwolves as an example of a terrible thing.

A dickwolf was described in the next strip as "A mythological creature whose every limb was an erect phallus". People found this amusing, and thus the dickwolf shirt was born.

Now I guess Penny Arcade is part of the rape culture, whatever that means.

And there really wasn't much controversy until 4chan /v/ got wind of it.

It's worth mentioning that the people who complained and got the Dickwolf shirt pulled, went on to make and sell their own "dickwolf survivor" shirt, featuring a dead wolf. So I guess rape jokes are totally OK, depending on who's making them.

Imagine George W. Bush getting raped by a hippopotamus.

Try not to laugh.

Et voilà!

@11: Personally I tend to be a fan a free expression, but when you're free to express yourself others are equally free to tell you you're fucked up. Liss didn't like the comic and she said so. It should have ended there, not because her opinion has no validity, but because the boys at Penny Arcade should have had thick enough skins (Srsly! It's the internet!) to be able to shrug off the criticism of one radfem, and move on. The fact that they felt the need to escalate is telling, and the fact that it has gotten to this level of ugliness kind of lends credence to the idea that rape culture exists rather than the other way around.

Hm. I didn't really think the comic itself was worth debating about, despite the initial controversy. When you start selling shirts with the intent of pissing off a specific demographic, that's a little more questionable. But the dudes who mocked and threatened Stanton are the assholes I was most concerned with, and whom, I thought, most worried Paul, as well.

Interesting that most of the responses should focus on defending the comic that started everything, rather than addressing the storm that followed.

The idea that rape jokes perpuate a "rape culture" is moronic. Jokes are not rape, and rape jokes can be funny. Ask George Carlin, Louis CK, or any other stand-up comic who has used them to get laughs

Fuck the thought police. It's people like this that give the impression feminists have no sense of humor.

@22 Is it really that interesting that people would address the source of the controversy? I guess if you think it's interesting to point out that they're more interested in the argument than the meta-argument?

Or maybe it's that nobody feels the need to defend those who threaten others? Should every post someone makes about freedom of expression or about the comic have a token, "Of course threatening people is a bad thing" preface?

@22: What were you expecting? "People shouldn't have made death threats?" Well no shit people shouldn't have made death threats.

here is a Daily Show bit that has some rape-ish jokes in it.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-fe…

and it's nerdy too 'cause there is an abacus. booyah.

@12 and 21,

Melissa McEwen DID NOT write the original post. It was written by a guest blogger who claimed to have a "dark" sense of humor and then went on to say that she can't stand any form of comedy. Her opinion was nonsensical and did not merit a response.

Okay people, here's the thing: theere's a strip. I didn't find it very funny, and also not very insulting.

Then they made a FUCKING.T-SHIRT. WITH. A. FUCKING. DICKWOLVES. PRINT.

Which, for you assholes out there who don't get it, is essentially saying "yay rape is so funny, LULZ", which is essentially saying "Ok, we don't actully want women to read/like/attend our shit, we just want creeps."

But most of you "omg feminists have no sense of humor" asshats don't seem to get that.

@24, Don't be ridiculous. Taking into account that Paul dismisses what most of you have talking about as "pretty standard Internet back and forth", and considering #21's point, I'd say the the general response has had a sort of 'elephant in the room' character to it.

And since the joke Tycho and Gabe proffered was not actually a rape joke, but merely a joke which mentioned rape (albeit in a markedly bizarre fashion), I find the many defences of jokes about rape to be even further beside the point. Besides, Penny Arcade neither needs nor desires your permission to continue making comics however they please. The bigger and much more relevant questions here are:

-Do we live in or allow for a 'rape culture'?
-Does this incident, taken as a whole, evince some sort of problem prevalent in our society (be it 'rape culture' or something else)?
-Should something be done if there is a problem, and if so, what?

@23, I would like an example, please, of a female comedian who has made a rape joke.

And there's definitely a valid argument to make that rape jokes -- jokes about rape, jokes about rape survivors, jokes about prison rape -- do feed into a "rape culture" in a way that jokes about murder don't feed into a "murder culture."

I mean, look: society doesn't condone murder. Jokes about murder are more or less acceptable because if you kill someone and are caught, you are very likely to go to prison. The same just isn't true of rapists -- look at the attempts to limit abortion funding to "forcible" rapes! Look at the cultural cover that Roman Polanski has for his rape of a thirteen year old! Look at any number of decisions over the last seventy billion years that make the argument that victims of rape invite the rape on themselves. The same just simply isn't true of murder, for all the shrieking that people like Jack Thompson and Tipper Gore have done about the deleterious effects of violent media on children.

So, yeah, jokes about rape *do* perpetuate a rape culture, if only because there isn't a really clear line in the sand socially about the absolute unacceptability of rape. Yes, yes, we all condemn rape in theory, but not in practice. You come back to me when rape survivors aren't being asked to pay for their own rape kits, when the vast majority of rape cases are reported and prosecuted, when rape isn't used as an instrument of torture and coercion in prisons and POW camps, and then we can talk about how absolutely hiiiiiiilarious rape jokes are. Jesus.

Also, let me say that I am a fan of Penny Arcade, and I thought the point of the strip was well taken -- that player morality is hugely commodified and stripped of actual meaning by games -- but that doesn't mean that the use of rape as an example of hilariously awful treatment isn't problematic. I mean, replace the man in the strip with a six year old child and tell me that doesn't make the strip seem much, much creepier, even though the ostensible joke is EXACTLY THE SAME.

@27: Like I said, Penny Arcade should have had thick enough skins to let it go, but the fact that the original poster had no sense of humor is immaterial. What is germane to this conversation is the level of escalation in response to her criticism.

@30: You are a good man. Thank you.

If Sarah Silverman hasn't made a rape joke before, I'd be stunned.

@30, Lisa Lampanelli makes a joke about rape regularly. Google and do your own homework moving forward, ok?

Also, "there isn't a really clear line in the sand socially about the absolute unacceptability of rape?" Huh? I'd think all those laws against it send a pretty clear message.

Now, if you want to talk about rape kits and other aspects of rape investigation, fine. I'd probably agree with you on most counts. But that isn't germane to this conversation, which is about fucking JOKES.

@30: I will grant that rape jokes exist. I will grant that portions of our society don't see rape as absolutely unacceptable.

I do not see anything to indicate that the former effects or furthers the latter.

Jokes about murder exist, but you still contend that our society does not exhibit a 'murder culture.' You assert that the difference is that a murderer is more likely to be punished than a rapist, but I submit that this is begging the question.

@22 Agreed. What's interesting here is not that an internet comic was offensive or that somebody overreacted to its offensiveness. It's the wildly disproportionate shitstorm that followed that gets me. The PA strip doesn't demonstrate that male nerd culture is still wildly misogynistic; those who felt the need to defend the strip in militaristic terms, including some of the commenters above, do.

Sarah Silverman had a whole bit about being raped in The Aristocrats, a film which may have set a world record for rape jokes in a single piece.

@36, I'd be the first to agree that nobody should be getting death threats for authoring or criticizing a webcomic. That's pure craziness.

@33, 34, 37, thanks! (Although there's a difference between a woman making a rape joke and a man making a rape joke. It's, like, if Dave Chappelle does a skit about black stereotypes, that's a different breed of humor than if, say, Gallagher does one. See?)

Now, 34, 35, what about all those laws against rape? There are a number of laws, sure, but there's also a tremendous cultural argument about what does and doesn't constitute what rape *is*, in a way that there simply ISN'T about murder. Like, we are ~5 posts away from somebody bringing up the "self responsibility" argument, and that's a VALID LEGAL ARGUMENT for a rape defense in a way that it isn't for murder. You dress yourself up in $100 bills and go caroling through the bad part of town, someone who murders you is still going to jail. You strip down to the nines and get plastered at The Roofie Taphouse, your rapists can get away with it.

And, okay, can I say this? A "rape culture" doesn't necessarily encourage rape; that's not what the term means. It's not the idea that some asshole down at the Improv cracks a rape joke and some asshole in the audience thinks, "Hey, that's a good idea!" And, frankly, that's kind of a shallow argument. Did minstrel shows *cause* lynchings? Do homophobic army jokes *cause* gaybashings? Of course not. But they *do* give cover to the people that do those things. They *do* encourage people to think that the people those jokes are aimed at aren't worth sympathizing with, that their experiences are *funny* on some level.

What makes a murder culture? I'd say a culture that either (a) encourages or allows murders to happen or (b) fails to prosecute murderers when they are arrested. As examples of type (a), look at the United States before dueling was outlawed. Murder was socially sanctioned under specific circumstances. For type (b), the idea that certain types of murder were acceptable was fairly common until recently -- see for example the "wronged" husband killing his wife and her lover in a fit of rage. Now, certainly, there's still some sympathy for people pushed too far -- that's why we have murder in the 2nd degree, and reduced sentencing. BUT MURDERERS STILL DO TIME. If the United States has a murder culture, it's fairly weak; the rule is, kill someone FOR WHATEVER REASON, go to jail.

The same just isn't true of rape. While we've moved pretty much away from a type (a) rape culture -- soldiers aren't *encouraged* to rape their prisoners anymore -- we're still pretty solidly type (b). Unless a rape is hands-down "forcible" rape, there's always a certain amount of wiggle room. There's just so much more acceptance of rape as being sometimes justified than there is of murder.

The death threats weren't death threats as such; they were just a tasteless Twitter attack by someone who was throwing the PA guys words back at them -- in the vein of "You think words don't matter -- well, what about if I use words that bother you?!?" way. Uncalled for yes... but to hop on them as "death threats" really just seems like they were waiting out the controversy until you can find one nut job to level the playing field.

It's always been interesting to see how the two guys from PA handle controversies like this (which seem to happen at least a couple of times a year, but clearly this is the worst shitstorm they've gotten themselves into). I kinda get the feeling that Gabe (or whatever his real name is) has really limited social/interpersonal/conflict resolution skills and always winds up escalating things with aggressive responses that don't really consider the full ramifications of his statements, while Tycho winds up trying to clean up whatever mess they've made...clearly, this one's spun way out of their hands.

I think their big, boneheaded mistake on this one was to market a product based on this strip. They clearly knew there was controversy over this one given the response that popped up after it first ran (which, for what its worth, I kinda feel that the heat they took was disproportionate to their offence & that they were taking it on the chin for the wider gaming community's use of "rape" as a commonplace verb) and still made the decision to market it...this would have blown over if it just sat as an old strip in their archives, but now its come back to bite them hard...

People need to learn that rape is only funny when a hamster is raping someone in an Eddie Murphy Disney movie, and then only if the victim is a man. In that ONE INSTANCE, it is comedically sublime.

@39 It's all but a given that racial and ethnic minorities in the United States will have faced some form of racism on more than one occasion throughout their lives. RAINN estimates 1 in 6 women (and 1 in 33 men) will be sexually assaulted in their lives. Gender alone would therefore not seem to confer or deny a right to make rape jokes in the same way race sometimes might.

Nor is it impossible for a person to tell an insensitive, inappropriate, hurtful, or socially damaging joke about their own demographic. That there are some women who tell jokes about rape does not mean rape jokes are okay, even for women, if we concede that jokes about sexual assault may reinforce a sort of rape culture.

Even if some jokes about or involving rape may be relatively innocuous (possibly regardless the sex or gender of the person telling them), if we admit that many such jokes are not harmless, it may then behoove us to err on the side of caution. This, however, would be less an argument for censorship than for thoughtful consideration of one's actions. Society does not always see things that way, and may decide to go with a blanket rule, or react against any similar suggestion for fear of it becoming a universal rule--as we see in the case of racial language and jokes.

@39: Murder isn't the only comparison to rape. What about violence in general. Being beat badly is similar in many ways to being raped, being violated against ones will. Some people say that America has a culture of violence but even in countries where this isn't true I'm sure men and women make violent jokes.

@40: How could you possibly know what every email/twitter/etc they received said?

@41: I think we can all agree the dickwolves shirt was a boneheaded move that probably, in their eyes, was meant to stick it to people who wanted them to censor. It was tasteless, but penny-arcade never claimed to possess a particular sense of taste.

@39: It still seems like begging the question.

Q: Why are rape jokes bad?
A: Because they contribute to rape culture.
Q: Why don't murder jokes contribute to murder culture?
A: Because our society treats murder differently than rape.
Q: Why does our society treat murder differently than rape?
A: Because of rape culture.

@44 - yeah, when I opened the story to comment, there were still just 4 comments, so I thought I was being insightful 'n shit when I called that out. Apparently, my browser had cached the page from the first time I looked at it, so immediately after I posted, another 40 items appeared (which basically made my points redunant)...ah well...

@45, I don't think that's what he's saying; especially with that last Q&A. Where you see an explanation as to why there is a difference, what is actually being offered is evidence of the difference itself. Also, 'begging the question' is not the same as offering a circular argument.

@43, I totally agree with you. Rape jokes are problematic, regardless of source, the same way race jokes are -- one of the reasons Chapelle's Show went off the air was Dave Chapelle's increasing discomfort with the way his humor was reinforcing cultural racism -- although I'd argue that since women are 5.5 times as likely as men to be sexually assaulted, that makes male jokes about rape a lot more aggressive.

And I'm also with you as regards censorship. I would never suggest that people shouldn't be *allowed* to make jokes about rape. But I think we do have a duty to stand up against tasteless jokes that don't do anything except use rape as a punchline.

Which I don't particularly think this strip was, but certainly the shirts were. I mean, what are you saying by wearing that? "I am/identify with a monster whose only purpose is rape?" That's beyond tasteless.

@47:

Begging the question [...] is a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise.

Circular reasoning is a formal logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises.

(Granted, my source is Wikipedia, but that's as much research as I'm willing to do for this.)

At any rate, I haven't seen anything to convince me that A (rape jokes) leads to B (rape culture). Only examples of A and B and assertions of causality.

Ben, they are similar fallacies in terms of relying upon assumptions, but they are not the same, largely for how they rely upon their assumptions. One smuggles the conclusion into the premise, the other relies upon the conclusion for the premise, but does not contain it. If you have to check Wikipedia to back up your use of terms, maybe you shouldn't be using them in the first place.

What's more, causality is not being argued. Reinforcement is.

@50, I know what "begging the question" means. That's not what I'm doing, as far as I can tell.

Also, I haven't said that rape jokes lead to rape culture. In fact, I think I said that they didn't lead to anything one way or the other, just that they were problematical in light of the way our culture deals with and condones rape. But, hey, thanks for being kind of a dillweed about explaining it to me!

@51, yes, thank you.

Crap this thread is moving fast!

@44: I disagree with your comparison of rape with general mayhem. I’ve been beaten, and I’ve been raped and beaten. Personally, given the choice, I’ll take the punch in the face.
They are not “similar in many ways”. Not at all.
I think Post Mortem @43 puts it quite well. Censorship isn’t the answer, thoughtful consideration of one’s actions is. And when one chooses to be tasteless, to act as if one is the victim when called out on one’s behavior, is disingenuous. As I said it is interesting that instead of letting it go, Penny Arcade chose to escalate. What, one wonders, is so threatening about one, humor challenged radfem’s opinion?

I'd like to discuss the Bitch thing (even though as a group we don't seem to care that much?). I've basically stopped reading all the Feminist blogs that I used to because inevitably EVERY FUCKING DISCUSSION goes like this: 1.)Author posts 2.) someone says "this triggered me" 3.) someone says "you're too sensitive" 4.) "you're not sensitive enough" 5.) author of original post or blog editor apologizes, publicly regrets ever having an opinion, and once again validates our culture of outrage.

The Penny Arcade thing got out of hand. But Bitch selectively removing some novels and refusing to remove others, is, for lack of a better word, both paternalistic and cowardly.

@55 Maybe I haven't been exposed to enough of this sort of thing, but if a blogger sets forth a series of harmless recommendations of what to do with leisure time, and then changes it a little, I don't really see that as something to worry about one way or another.

@47: Here’s a site I like. It covers all sorts of stuff, and give examples. I’ve found it pretty cool and helpful.
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/

@51: I'm not sure what you're saying. My best guess is that you think people should already know everything that they don't know.

@52: I actually wasn't trying to be a dillweed, and I wasn't directing that comment at you (you can tell by the part at the beginning of it, where I said @47, by which I meant that my comment was directed at comment number 47, which was written by someone who is not you [now I am trying to be a dillweed]). But since we're breaking out the ad hominems now, I'll just say check ya later and be done with this thread.

@54 I'm not saying they are the same exact thing. Nor is one instance of rape like another or one instance of assault like another. They are both crimes that can be committed against a person with similarly traumatizing results and they both involve coercion and humiliation. It could even be said that rape is a specific form of violent assault. My reason for comparing the two was that both can be equally as horrible in the eyes of the victim but no one seems to give people who claim that violent jokes cause violence much credence.

I would claim that the language that actually trivializes rape and violence is usually much more clear ("so and so should be beat and raped," "the lady deserved to be raped, the politician deserved to be shot," etc.

@28 No one said rape was funny... but a mythological creature whose every limb is an erect phallus? That's funny. That's shirtworthy.

Hell, now I've got my cosplay idea for PAX.

That strip was hilarious IMO because it highlights--as one commenter already explained--how devoid of real morality games can be. Sure, you found another dozen captives along the way, but the quest is already complete when you find five, so the game considers that enough and the others are left to their fate. There's no way you can help them, hence the punchline. In this case, their fate is the most ridiculous scenario the PA guys could come up with.

I think of this sort of stuff all the time when I play RPGs; how the denizens of these fictional realms would react if they were real and lived in such a weird place. I think of how the room full of dead orcs will be received by the dwarven scouting party that follows, or what the residents of Novac will think when they find that hotel room completely covered in teddy bears. This strip was written with that mindset, one that Gabe has written about as having, I believe.

As to the creation of the shirt itself, it's not in good taste, but then they make a lot of products that their fans clamor for, based on their strips. It's how they make a living; making products off the strips that people will buy. They wouldn't have made it if their fans were not wishing to purchase them. I have yet to see the outrage regarding the strip about Gabe sucking off 100 horses because Duke Nukem Forever is going to be made. ("Animal cruelty is not as prevalent in our culture as rape is," "false equivalency" etc, etc.) I'm with those who call "thought police" on this.

@56: It just seems hypocritical that some titles were removed due to complaints from "radicals" but authors specifically asking to be removed from the list was told that it wasn't their prerogative...

This whole Penny Arcade rape joke argument is actually pretty old news. Maybe I'm just burnt out on it already.

@55: It can get that way, yeah. I mean love Shakesville, but I do end up doing a lot of eye rolling from time to time. Less so on Tiger Beatdown and Feministe, and I do love me some Blag Hag. As far as Radfem blogs, I like Rage Against the Man-chine, because 92 isn't a big baby about dissenting opinions. I've taken it to the mat with some of her regulars on porn and BDSM, and she has never once pulled one of my comments.
Regarding the Bitch kerfuffle, do I agree with how they handled it? No. But it’s their space and it’s their job to deal with the heat their decision draws down on them.

@63: Thanks! I haven't been to Rage Against the Man-chine. I'll have to check it out.

@62 The comic, and the complaint against it is old news. The shirt issue, however, is new.

The shirt recently disappeared from the PA store without comment. They kept quiet on the matter until they were flooded with e-mails, asking where the shirt went. At that point, Gabe posted a short note saying it was taken down because someone said they wouldn't speak at Pax if they were selling it.

@59: I, for one, do not argue causality regarding rape jokes and the act of rape. It’s not that explicit. And again, I was not offended by the strip in question. But I think it is useful to examine one’s attitudes on the subject and consider how a pervasive diminishment of an appalling act can lead to it seeming less appalling.
And I’m afraid we are just going to have to disagree as to whether or not being beaten is as horrifying as being raped.

@58 I was suggesting people shouldn't use terms they are not familiar with. Lissa in @47 pleasantly pointed out that more people than just you and Wikipedia consider 'circular argument' and 'begging the question' to be synonyms, and so I apologize for implying you were ignorant of the words you were using. I still don't think the guy you were referring to was begging the question, but I was incorrect in saying your terms were confused.

@64: Some of the regulars there are pretty far out on the fringe just FYI. There is a cadre that's of the opinion that all vaginal penetration of ANY kind is inherently not only patriarchal, but harmful if not out right deadly to women. So, no dick, no dildos, no nuthin'. They make me laugh, but it's a great place to kick around ideas, and there are a lot of very smart and passionate women who post there.

@67- shit, I was going to say that it was an Ontological argument, glad i didn't open up that can of circular worms.:)

42: A basic variation on "dog humping leg". Which makes the point that rape jokes is only funny if they end up with the rapist being (at least) humiliated.
Which sort of leads back toward a dick wolf,,,

59: I think the point of comparing rape to violent assault (rather than murder) is that, like rape cases, there seem to be seen to be "mitigating circumstances" in some cases where (for whatever reason), the attacker is less culperable than in other cases. That's probably also true in murder cases, but the mitigating circumstances tend to be less clear cut.
We (in Australia, and the USA) certainly have violent cultures (especially in certain circumstances); whether we have rape cultures I do not know, but I don't see it publically ritualised and celebrated like I do with (for example) violent contact sports.

err, 59 should be 66...

@71: I understand why he compared rape to assault rather than murder. That part makes sense. As far as not seeing rape culture, that might be partly due to gender. There are things as a man (and I am assuming from your picture that you are a man) that you never have to think about and might never even notice.

What I'm surprised nobody here has pointed out is that...well, this isn't the first time. A response from PA in regards to criticism is generally ALWAYS escalation, because they tend to keep poking fun at the original parts of the problem. Check out their history with that video-game-hating former? lawyer, Jack Thompson.

I am also vaguely puzzled that a comic strip featuring a robot that by its own definition rapes fruit is somehow okay to read (fruit can't consent!), until they make a rape joke about rape being a bad thing? Something seems backwards here.

Also, I am female and I thought the strips were hilarious, but that's because I also have friends who do MMORPGs and yeah, the quests do seem a little questionable when taken on their own outside the context of the game.

73: I will grant you that women SHOULD be more aware than men of the possibility of rape (if only on statistical grounds), but that doesn't mean men (even straight men) NEVER have to think about it or notice it. Nor does the unliklihood of its occurance necessarily preclude the consideration of the act and its place (if it has one) in our culture.
And really, I still don't see any culturally sanctioned rape (except maybe of child molesters in prison). I see slut culture, and bimbo culture, and whore culture, and model body image culture, and diet culture, and violence culture, and sport culture, and gun culture, and even S&M or B&D culture, but not rape culture.
If we had a culture of rape (or even any sub-culture that seriously considers rape to be acceptable (as opposed to any sub-culture that might consider rape play acceptable)), I would expect to see it (at least in sublimated form) used commonly in advertising, promoted by celebrities, or at least see the merits debated openly within our society (especially among men, who do most of the raping).
So, sure, we have rape in our societies. Some individuals (mostly men) think that rape is acceptable. But the fact that very, very few of those people seriously and openly advocate rape suggests to me that, as a culture, we DO NOT support rape.

Here's the mistake that radicals on the left and right always make regarding to artists.

ARTIST: *joke*
RADICAL: I'm offended!
ARTIST: serious business
RADICAL: Very serious! Artists should always serve my agenda.
ARTIST: *starts throwing feces*
RADICAL: Why can't we have an intellectual discussion about this?
ARTIST: *drowns the radical with more feces*

ARTIST: *joke*
anyone else: that joke isn't funny
ARTIST: YOU DON'T GET IT I'M TOO EDGY FOR YOU STOP OPPRESSING ME HELP HELP FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS!!!!!
a third individual: but you're not funny, just sayin'
ARTIST: THOUGHT POLICE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Congratulations, you just might be Carlos Mencia

I would like to point out that the fragile and childish egos of the "nerds" that did this is present in this thread too. Look at all these posts by the same couple of people trying to e-convince other assholes of their opinions. Its in this desire to be right that people stoop to things like inter-death threats and aspergers-esque fixation.

There is so much derp in this thread. SO MUCH DERP.

Seriously: Thanks for keeping it thoughtful and relatively civil, everyone. Slog certainly is a different place than it was two years ago.

@41

Yeah, I keep muttering "someone whose primary communication style is edgy humor probably shouldn't do PR."

Nerds R smart, yet they never thought of this. Web comics are serious bizness. Get a pro. Don't open your own mouth and wedge in your own foot.

I have yet to see the outrage regarding the strip about Gabe sucking off 100 horses because Duke Nukem Forever is going to be made.

I stopped reading Penny Arcade many years ago because of stuff like this. I don't find them very funny. Their occasional success at observational humor is totally overshadowed by their reliance (and "Nerd culture" in general shares this reliance) on and lust for two weak humor crutches: in jokes and pushing the envelope of the offensive.

There are plenty of other, funnier webcomics out there. They tend to be less successful, because they aren't engaged in near-continuous fanservice, but in my opinion they're smarter, better written, and less reliant on hackery.

I also found this comment, from the Penny Arcade post linked above, to be rich with irony:

The fact of the matter is that the strip that started all this is about how empty, amoral, and borderline vile electronic heroism actually is.

If you replace "electronic heroism" with "Nerd culture," you have an excellent summation of this entire story. I'd argue that Penny Arcade has become a mecca for fans of the empty, amoral and vile, and that they've abdicated responsibility for that.

I'm glad somebody mentioned The Aristocrats because the catalyzing moment for that movie was Gilbert Gottfried's telling the joke at Hef's roast in response to people booing his 9/11 jokes. The point is that in terms of expression and humor, nothing should be off-limits. Penny Arcade weren't endorsing rape with the Dickwolves T-shirt, they were needling those who would click their tongues and censor them. As for the other item, removing Living Dead Girl from your list because of its "triggering nature"?! Are you serious?! Ugh.

@77 I don't think you saw what I did there.

@60 - If my niece and I see dickwolf costumes at PAX, we are going to play dumb, walk right up to them, and ask them to explain the costume to us. Should be fun to see them talk through it.

@73: Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I think we have a misunderstanding here. The term rape culture is used to describe a pervasive attitude which demeans women, reducing them to parts and holes, thus facilitating and reinforcing the idea that rape is acceptable and that men cannot be expected NOT to rape. Many of the things you listed are part of what defines rape culture.

Rape culture often likes to call itself "Common Sense". This is why we even have the terms "date rape" or "gray rape" and why rape victims have their lives and behavior scrutinized so minutely.
Did she have a drink?
Was her skirt short?
Did she walk home alone? Then what did she expect?
It's only common sense.

Was her assailant drunk?
Was he some one she knew?
Had she flirted/kissed/ had sex with him before? Then how could he be blamed?
It's only common sense.

No. No, it's not.

At least now we all know webcomics rape people. The more you know.

@86: As a male, I have to point out that I have never before heard the term "gray rape." And I live in the USA, which apparently has a pervasive "rape culture", so I don't see how that's possible. I actually had to google that phrase to realize that your second scenario is an illustration of it.

I quit reading Penny Arcade the day that Gabe drew a comic that implied his own wife was about to be assaulted by a lech who wanted to drink her breast milk. Disheartening to know that it's continued downhill every since.

Keep it classy, guys.

@75 - you kinda just gave examples of rape culture. What are "slut culture, and bimbo culture, and whore culture, and model body image culture" but other words to say she's asking for it by putting herself out there. What's a boy to do with all these women being sluts and bimbos?

It's not blatant as in no guy who thinks himself a good guy would say "I'm going to rape" they say "She wore that short skirt, made out with me, what did she think would happen when we were alone?". That way, he gets sympathy for being "mistaken", but she's still raped.

I know less than nothing about any of this, but anyone making threats of violence against someone on either side of this controversy should be found, arrested, and sent to jail.