Have you heard the one about rape? It's funny now

[financeguy]

There's a reason it's called a punchline. At the Edinburgh comedy festival there are rape jokes and domestic violence jokes bouncing through the town. It is strange why comedy, theoretically so revolutionary, should embrace the bloodiest kind of social reaction, but it is so.

I watched a young, gangly comic called Chris Turner position himself as a nerd, boast he went to Oxford University, and tell jokes about Roman numerals. Then it came: "I was waiting for my girlfriend to come round. Because I'd hit her really hard." Afterwards I asked him – why tell jokes about domestic violence? "Because it's funny," he said. "It's funny enough." Then he said he has studied feminism. So this is a culture that mocks the degradation of women; it is, as they say, only material and sometimes promotion. There is a show called Sex Tourist by Chris Dangerfield, which has a flyer you can take to an escort agency for £10 off.

Have you heard the one about rape? It's funny now | Tanya Gold | Comment is free | The Guardian

[Pearl]

I know some people would say its only comedy and not meant to be taken seriously, but these "jokes" reflect a larger issue, at least to me. It seems like men are more willing to voice their misogyny lately. The hell is going on?

[mama cass]

some recent British "comedy" has become really weird... maybe i've been out of the country too long and lost touch with the culture, but i think people are just pushing the extremes to make a name for themselves, the more outrageous and obnoxious the better - i don't get that kind of "humour"...

[Moonlit_Angel]

Yeah, there's tons of topics worth mining for humor that you can go through instead. I get and can definitely appreciate dark humor, gallows humor, heck, I know there's likely people out there who've been through such horrors who can find some sort of black humor in the situation.

But in those cases, that's something that only the most talented of comedians can find a way to talk about and pull off. Most people who go with "violence against women" jokes, though, just wind up coming off like offensive douchebags saying something just for the shock value. And some, I think, aren't joking. And that's when it gets particularly disturbing.

Pearl's right, it does seem like this is happening quite a bit lately. Why, I don't know, but it makes me uneasy.