When someone publically makes a "joke" about rape, what are the good guys to do?

So last night a tweeter called @Blacktieaffair let me know that someone called @Claymorar had tweeted:

"There's an annoying bitch talking so loud in @jadelounge her poes is open to people in Artic. She deserves a gang rape"

Immediately I assumed that the tweet was sent by the same sort of anonymous troll, who a few months ago, tweeted things like:

“It’s not rape if you drop her off at the hospital afterwards.”

I was horrified to learn that Clayton Morar is an actual person and not a troll.  According to his Twitter profile he is a celebrity journalist working as a contributor for the SABC*. After a rather depressingly tiny furor (I blame the late hour) Morar denied explicitly that he had tweeted that.

Apparently he was in a club, had gone to the bar to buy drinks and one of his friends had tweeted from his Twitter account, “playing a prank” and thinking it was “funny”.

To Morar’s defense, his timeline doesn’t look like he is the sort of person who’d make such a statement. 

So if he is innocent, and if it was only a prank, why am I making such a fuss? It was just a stupid joke right, and no-one was actually gang raped.

Well no. Someone WAS gang raped last night. Actually, if you look at the stats it’s very probable that quite a few people were gang raped last night.

Why am I making it Morar’s problem? Hell, why am I making it your problem?

It’s simple. If we, the good guys, who do not rape people, and do not think rape is funny, do NOT make a fuss, who would? 

I read a brilliant article by the Care2 Causes Editors explaining very eloquently why men, the nice guys, the guys like you, shouldn’t stand for this.

For those of you who don’t feel like reading yet another “preachy” article (although you should, it’s brilliant) I will sum it up for you:

Women do not think all men are rapists. RAPISTS think all men are rapists. And because about 1 in 8, conservatively speaking, have raped it’s more than likely that you and me have been in their company without even knowing it. And when a rapist hears a rape joke around a braai, or reads that kind of shit on Twitter, it reinforces his idea that he is normal. A rapist is not going to listen to a bunch of whiny feminists. But if the social censure he receives from MEN is strong enough we might finally see a difference in this country.

As the author says: Ask yourself, who would you rather make uncomfortable. A rape survivor or a rapist?

But enough about what we think. Have your say below.

I think the @claymorar “gang rape joke” twitter furore is:

*Before this story went live someone from the SABC contacted me to express their outrage and dismay.
By: Lili Radloff