Jokes That Aren't Funny: Prisoner Rape - Philosophical Fragments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Before Thanksgiving, I joked that many men would not object to the TSA pat-down procedure if it were administered by Victoria's Secret supermodels.\u00a0 It is\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2010\/12\/01\/jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jokes That Aren't Funny: Prisoner Rape - Philosophical Fragments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Before Thanksgiving, I joked that many men would not object to the TSA pat-down procedure if it were administered by Victoria's Secret supermodels.\u00a0 It is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2010\/12\/01\/jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philosophical Fragments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-12-01T04:56:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Timothy Dalrymple\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Timothy Dalrymple\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2010\/12\/01\/jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2010\/12\/01\/jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape\/\",\"name\":\"Jokes That Aren't Funny: Prisoner Rape - Philosophical Fragments\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-12-01T04:56:09+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-12-01T04:56:09+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#\/schema\/person\/de8c9a4caf0177191808914f83826310\"},\"description\":\"Before Thanksgiving, I joked that many men would not object to the TSA pat-down procedure if it were administered by Victoria's Secret supermodels.\u00a0 It is\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2010\/12\/01\/jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2010\/12\/01\/jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2010\/12\/01\/jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Jokes That Aren't Funny: Prisoner Rape\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/\",\"name\":\"Philosophical Fragments\",\"description\":\"Daily Thoughts on Faith, Culture and Politics from Timothy Dalrymple\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#\/schema\/person\/de8c9a4caf0177191808914f83826310\",\"name\":\"Timothy Dalrymple\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53a368bbc8d116657d6af168549f2add?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53a368bbc8d116657d6af168549f2add?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Timothy Dalrymple\"},\"description\":\"Timothy Dalrymple was raised in non-denominational evangelical congregations in California. 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{"id":157,"date":"2010-12-01T00:56:09","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T04:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/philosophicalfragments\/?p=157"},"modified":"2010-12-01T00:56:09","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T04:56:09","slug":"jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2010\/12\/01\/jokes-that-arent-funny-prisoner-rape\/","title":{"rendered":"Jokes That Aren't Funny: Prisoner Rape"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Before Thanksgiving, I joked<\/a> that many men would not object to the TSA pat-down procedure if it were administered by Victoria\u2019s Secret supermodels.\u00a0 It is obviously true, and I meant it not to objectify women but to mock men.\u00a0 Still, a faithful reader objected that I was making light of something serious, and that our standards of holiness had declined.\u00a0 Perhaps he\u2019s right \u2013 but that\u2019s not the point.<\/p>\n

It got me thinking.\u00a0 About the right and wrong uses of humor.\u00a0 The value of humor in bringing light into dark situations.\u00a0 And yet the danger of using humor in a way that degrades what is truly sacred and valuable.<\/p>\n

There is a kind of joke that has bothered me intensely ever since I gained experience in prison ministry.\u00a0 It is the joke that makes light of prisoner rape.\u00a0 You see it all the time on television and in the movies.\u00a0 If a male character was in prison, or is going to prison, people joke about how he will be sexually assaulted.\u00a0 I just saw it, yet again, in the movie Inside Man<\/em>, where Denzel Washington makes a semi-joke by threatening a terrorist that he will, once imprisoned, by forced to perform oral sex on big powerful inmates.\u00a0 Or I remember, in the O. J. Simpson debacle, one joke said that he would enter prison as a tight end and leave prison as a wide receiver.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry to cite such crude jokes.\u00a0 But that\u2019s the point.\u00a0 They\u2019re extremely crude.\u00a0 And they\u2019re inhumane.\u00a0 Why do people find this funny?\u00a0 You cannot spend much time in prison ministry \u2014 get to know the men who live there \u2014 and still find prisoner rape jokes funny.\u00a0 We would never joke in such a way about females being raped by men.\u00a0 So why is it okay to joke about men being raped by men.\u00a0 Prisoner rape is a serious problem.\u00a0 It is brutal, it is humiliating, soul-crushing, and obviously a severe threat to the victim\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

Do we believe that the victims, because they are convicted criminals, deserve it?\u00a0 Some victims of prisoner rape are imprisoned for fairly minor offenses.\u00a0 And what would we think of a judge who sentenced a convict to 10 years in prison and repeated beating, humiliation and rape at the hands of a cellmate?\u00a0 Unfortunately, for some inmates, that\u2019s what a 10-year sentence means.\u00a0 But if a judge directly issued that sentence, well, he would be guilty of cruel and unusual punishment, and guilty of torture to boot.<\/p>\n

Christians should take up the causes that others won\u2019t, and should speak up for people who have no voice.\u00a0 We rarely hear about the problem of prisoner rape, because there is no prisoner\u2019s lobby.\u00a0 We should fight against prisoner rape, and we can start by correcting those who make these jokes.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing funny about rape of any kind.\u00a0 Period.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"