solarbird: (pindar-most-unpleasant)
solarbird ([personal profile] solarbird) wrote2008-07-18 08:54 am
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Funny like three caskets

This report is contested, and I am told (by [livejournal.com profile] zarq in comments) that the Yahoo! editorial (and several other sources I saw with the same information) are all incorrect - the joke was not told this year, but 22 years ago in a Senatorial campaign.
Sadly all too revealing...
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'
&mdash Senator John McCain, on the campaign trail, last week
(Spotted via [livejournal.com profile] emrecom.)

[identity profile] hubbit.livejournal.com 2008-07-18 04:27 pm (UTC)(link)
ThinkProgress (http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/15/mccain-finds-rape-hilarious/) also mentions that McCain accepted, then turned down a campaign contribution from Clayton Williams, who during his run against Ann Richards for Governor of TX, commented that women should lay back and enjoy being raped.

I'm from Bloomington, Indiana, former home of a basketball coach who looked in his mirror to see God. Said bastardball coach was being interviewed by Connie Chung in April, 1988 when, in philosophizing about the other teams that Indiana was beating at the time, he invented this horrific metaphor: "I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it."

There must be a "Neanderthal Gene" somewhere.

[identity profile] zarq.livejournal.com 2008-07-18 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
*nod* Bobby Knight. I remember the uproar. Williams repeated the sentiment a couple of years later.

There must be a "Neanderthal Gene" somewhere.

Honestly, I think it's an insidious cultural poison, instead. After all, rape isn't about sex. It's about demeaning and intimidating a powerless victim. So, when boys are taught culturally that women are inferior or weak, a disgusting conclusion is drawn and emphasized: that rape and violence are acceptable methods of exercising power and control over women.