Third time is a spanking.

[anagramofbrat]

This is gonna be one of those entries where I lose friends on all sides of the spectrum. SO BE IT.

Something I remember quite clearly from the Ramona books is Mr. Quimby's fondness for quoting adages from his mother. A lot of them I kinda wrinkled my nose up at, especially at how they were phrased, some made sense to me, as being the child of older parents, they were pretty analogous to things my own mother would say (if not necessarily agree with). One of these was in regards to telling the same joke multiple times: "First time is funny, second time is silly, third time is a spanking."

Yeah, okay, I think we'd all agree that a spanking for telling a joke three times is a little extreme, and it's not as if Mr. Quimby was acting upon this rule himself with his daughters. (What's going on in the book is that Ramona has made a silly pun at the dinner table enough times to be wearying.) He's merely pointing out that its not funny anymore. The point is gotten, dinner continues reasonably without incident as far as I remember.

HARD RIGHT TIME NOW.

I'll admit that I don't really care for Penny Arcade as a comic. Occasionally something will resonate and very occasionally make me laugh, but for the most part, I keep it on my comics feed because I like to know what's going on in Gamer Monolith news. I'll also admit that when the "raped by dickwolves" strip first came out a few months back, while I didn't find it gut-splittingly hiliarious, I did kinda snort and roll my eyes at the greater comment on MMO quest tropes, despite the crassness of the example, but I pretty much forgot about it as soon as I read it.

First time's funny.

Yes yes, I know, as a survivor of sexual abuse I probably should be more up in arms. Honestly, though, in certain slants and contexts, I do find rape jokes funny. Rape isn't one of my personal triggers, and I genuinely thank the gods for that because it really is everywhere and having that on top of the things that do happen to trigger me would indeed be devastating. However, there are people out there who DON'T find this shit funny, who have survived far more brutal assaults than I have, and have to deal with the daily repercussions of them. There are people who indeed do react to the word "rape" with horrifying vivid flashbacks of what happened to them. There are people out there who may not have been themselves raped or assaulted, but have to deal with the constant threat of such every day, either in their workplace, their neighborhoods, and sometimes, tragically, within their own homes. So yeah, for them, rape is not something to be casually joked about, in fact when it is, it's damaging and hurtful. Like opening up a wound and pouring not salt, but acid into it. I totally get that.

If you happened to miss what the hell happened (this is a pretty good breakdown of the fail over the past six months), there was a general outcry against the strip. PA's response has pretty much been "Fuck you, fuck your triggers, get over it, OMG STOP BEING SO SENSITIVE DICKWOLVES ARE FUNNY."

Here is why rape really isn't funny. Seriously, click that link and read. I'll wait.

Done? Okay go back to the bit about the effects of sexual assault on victims. Don't wanna? here:

Victims of sexual assault are:
3 times more likely to suffer from depression.
6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.
26 times more likely to abuse drugs.
4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.

Yeah. About that.

Also? It's not just women being oversensitive whiny asses, kids. 1 out of 33 men have also experienced some form of sexual assault in their lifetime. To put that in relevant context, that's at least 750 Pax East 2010 attendees, and that's with an assumption that attendance numbers were evenly split by gender, which I very much doubt.

For the record, if someone tells you that something you said or did was offensive to them, the only correct answer is "I'm sorry I offended you" and don't fucking do it again. I repeat, that is the ONLY correct answer. Take some responsibility for how you affect someone else. Don't put it on the offended party by telling them they are oversensitive or by saying "I'm sorry you were offended by my harmless joke." APOLOGY: DOING IT WRONG. Doing that makes you a douchebag. That's right. A douchebag. </george_takei>

Second time silly douchey.

Stupid me, I thought the whole shit-tastic mess had died a sad little death months ago. NOPE. I'm a bit late to the party, but I did find out this afternoon that PA released (and then subsequently pulled) dickwolves T-shirts and pennants, and that there is now continued wankery about THAT.

...What??

What's the problem, you might ask, they yanked the merchandise! See, they're not total dicks! Um. That's a little like saying that since black vultures are not completely covered in feathers, that makes them somehow not totally birds. My problem is that considering the huge flak the comic caused, producing a T-shirt to commemorate it is a purposeful additional kick to the groin of everyone already hurt and angry over this. They pulled it, it's a moot point, right? NO. NO, FUCK YOU, NO. It shouldn't have come to pulling the damn shirt, the shirt should never have made it to production. This shit should have stopped with an apology and dropped, but they keep bringing it back up and finding ways to make it worse. I honestly would have been relatively okay with it dying after the last bit of controversy, since the Internet is full of douchebags and after a couple of days attention migrates. But no, by making a T-shirt, regardless of whether it iss available to the general public or not (and the shirt stayed on sale for about two months so a lot of people have gotten them), they've purposely raised an issue that people are already hurt/offended by and rubbed their noses in it. Again. JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN.

Third time's a spanking.

So now something that might have been mildly snortworthy at best and offensive/triggering at worst is now not only not funny, but ragemaking. Like seriously, I can't see the words Dick and Wolf in close proximity without feeling my blood pressure go up. (Which makes watching Law and Order credits interesting, let me tell ya.) Trouble is, there is no spanking Penny Arcade on this; they're pretty firmly committed to dismissing everyone who has a problem with the strip and its aftermath. "Gabe" gives the following reason for yanking the shirt: "We want PAX to be a place were everyone feels welcome and we’ve worked really hard to make that happen. From not allowing booth babes to making sure we have panels that represent all our attendees." I could make a really nasty comment about this, but since he hangs himself in the following paragraph, I don't have to: "I’ve gotten a couple messages from people saying they are “conflicted” about coming to PAX. My response to them is: don’t come. Just don’t do it. In fact give me your name and I’ll refund your money if you already bought a ticket. I’ll even put you on a list so that if, in a moment of weakness you try to by a ticket we can cancel the order." If that's how they feel about it, I don't really understand why they even bothered to pull the shirts in the first place. Especially since after the post explaining why they were pulled, "Gabe" stated on twitter that people already in possession of a dickwolves shirt would not only be allowed to wear it to PAX but that he'd be wearing his.

Desk-on. Apply directly to the forehead. GYEEEEEAAAAARGH.

So yeah, at this point, I've gone from mildly amused, to annoyed, to pissed off and frustrated enough to post my two cents. Not that I really think doing so is honestly going to do jack shit other than venting my displeasure. Everyone I've talked to about this has already picked their sides, and I know from some frustrating personal experience that convincing people off of Team Dickwolves is a bit like convincing a hardcore Bella/Jacob shipper that Bella and Edward are OTP. Despite the fact that it's, oh, canon. Or, in the case of dickwolves, wrong. Nor does this affect whether I'm going to PAXEast or not, seeing as with my financial ugh I can't really afford to go this year anyway. I'd like to go in 2012, especially if all the #Squirekids are going. Course, shirts or no, this year or next, the damage is done, because you know even now several asshats are frantically sewing their dickwolf costumes to wear and will probably run around the con going up to random people and humping their legs or something... and people are going to think it's awesome. I just hope they think it's just as awesome if my response to getting "dickwolfed" is a hard kick to the nads and a thumb to the eyeball, cause if you're going to deliberately create unsafe space for me, I feel obliged to return the favor.

Note to self, wear steel toed boots to whatever PAX I attend.

ETA: non friend commentary screened. I'm not interested in outside wankery on this.

ETA2: ehh never mind i just locked the post from further comments. I realize thats probably going to piss folk off moar and violates my usual policy of encouraging people to tell me when i'm wrong, but upon thinking about it, i realize i don't have my usual level of trollface and popcorn interest in seeing which of my friends are on what side (i'm pretty sure i know where y'all stand by now) and having you cockfight it out. Also, this is the blue moon occasion where i'm off the fence i usually ride like a prize stallion and am pretty solid in how i feel about it. For whatever its worth, it seems like a flounce/chickenshit/fuck you move even to me, lol. But whatever. Its not like if you really want to talk to me about this you don't know where and how to get a hold of me. I just dont want to do it here. Interpret that as you will, i suppose.

Comments

[lsmsrbls.livejournal.com]

The insensitive assholes who are basically telling rape victims to get over it need to get over the original joke because it's far more insignificant and inconsequential to their lives than the traumatic experience of real rape was for the victims and those close to victims.

Excellently put.