FC: Ok folks the Rape Train is pulling out of the station!

I heard this in fleet comms in my new alliance and my head fell back so that when my eyes rolled I didn’t sprain something. Not one day in and already someone makes “the joke.”

Ok, look. I know that shock humor is “in” and that somehow includes Rape humor. Because Rape is hilarious. Because the 1 in 3 women and around 1 in 20 men don’t mind you making light of the experiences they’ve gone through, and never suffer from extreme psychological issues because of what happened to them. Because your ability to make a lame, unfunny joke is more important than them.

Rape isn’t funny. It’s so not funny that many third world countries use it as torture for political prisoners, or as part of ethnic warfare. Africa, South America, Asia, Europe, all across the world this horrible crime is used by men to oppress the female population.¹ When you joke about it, your joke has the same effect on the survivors of this crime. It is an oppressive act that is potentially IMMENSELY harmful to the survivors. Over at Afternoon Snooze Button they had a great post, for those of you in the Short Attention Span Theater crowd, I’ll post a nice summary she leaves at the bottom:

Rape is a type of torture, and rape victims experience severe psychological trauma that goes well beyond the physical damage.

The prevalence of sexual assault makes it much more likely that either a rapist or a rape victim will hear a given joke about rape.

Rape jokes perpetuate our society’s fucked up belief that rape isn’t serious.

Rape jokes empower would-be rapists.

Rape jokes further harm the victims of rape.

Rape isn’t murder, where the odds of actually encountering it in the circle of people you know are vanishingly small. Rape occurs everywhere, especially in the US. 1 in 3 women is a survivor of rape. Odds are pretty good that this includes someone you know, even you making the terrible joke. That person may not mind it but I bet someone else does. I want more people playing EvE, and I want more women to feel free to join this community.

So let’s take a look at Rape Train. I think this definition is mostly what people are looking for when they use it in gaming:

This act usually happens during games, either in Sports or in a video game. The rape train refers to one completely destroying/conquering their adversaries, you cant just fuck up one person it has to be a majority. It is a rare act but when it happens everyone around is left in awe, speechless if you will. The person who initiated the rape train event deserves a firm pat on the ass or a much less gay high five with a verbal acknowledgement. The “Rape Trainer” must respond with sounds related to old steam driven trains from the 1800’s.

Despite being “frothing at the mouth” mad about the issue in general, having been on the right side of a night of total domination and ruination of my foes, I know that the desire to put into words just how harshly and totally one has crushed ones’ enemies demands to be met. Fine. Let’s not put the word “Rape” in there though. It doesn’t serve a purpose to enhance anything but the suffering of people to whom the only connection it has is to something horrible and hurtful. Let’s find a better train to ride.

Same challenge as last time. Whoever comes up with the best alternative to “Rape Train” to express the complete and utter domination of their enemies gets a shiny new plex in Jita 4-4.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_Bosnian_War#Major_Conclusions among others