to be a great man it matters what one does off the playing field (Muhammed Ali) . Trying hard and being skillful at something are not qualifications for greatness, just as receiving a large divorce settlement does not make a woman a "whore". That's to say nothing of the super inflated pay packets that are routinely handed out to top sports people. Sounds like a bitter misogynist.

You know, initially, I thought this was a good vid. Now that I've learned more about the content, I can see how unfair it is. Quite misleading. I think I have to retract my "good on you" thoughts. I'm allowed to be wrong, I think.

Elevatorgate... This topic of misogyny in atheism... This entire subject still confuses the shit out of me. How it exploded into a huge deal, whether or not it was an exaggeration... God, it still has me feeling conflicted and confused to this day. The original video that sparked the whole thing was:
http://youtu.be/uKHwduG1Frk?t=4m35s

And rewatching it - I remember why it rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah, there were a ton of reasons why the dude shouldn't have done what he did. Yes, it was creepy. Yes, poor timing. Very poor. But it's the "sexualizing me creeps me out" comment that gets me. It wasn't the the fact that she was stuck on an elevator with some creepy dude who had no tact that creeped her out. It was the sexualization. That always rubbed me wrong - but I am pretty sure it's not what she meant.

If a guy likes her and asks for coffee because he's attracted to her, that's not a big deal. But that's not what happened - that leaves out the important bits. Everything else surrounding the coffee request was a big deal - and yeah, she has the right to say "Guys, don't corner girls you don't know in the elevator to ask them out or back to your hotel room. Not a smooth move and it's really scary. Seriously." But that's not what she said creeped her out... Pretty sure that's what she meant, though. Or something close to it. I very much doubt she meant "Guys, never try to flirt with me. Sexualizing me in any way creeps me out."

Words are a bitch and people read the wrong things into them. That term "sexualized" is probably the pivotal piece of the entire "controversy." Which is a shame, since the whole experience is a valuable lesson to socially awkward, dumbass dudes: don't do the shit that guy did, it's not good.

So from this flowered all sorts of controversy... That I'm still feeling awfully confused and conflicted about. I still feel like things got blown out of proportion in areas and I DO feel like I couldn't step into these communities and speak my mind, because I'm afraid I'd just get ostracized or attacked. Which is a shame. And it's probably those feelings which fuel any frustration or anger that I have because of the whole topic.

I'm also feeling conflicted, because I still wonder if I don't get it. Maybe there's some sort of serious problem I'm not seeing and I'm actually a misogynist and I have no idea. Hope not.

>> ^raverman:

I think we might need a douchbag channel


...at least a misogynist one.

The city of brotherly love is so misogynistic.

But for some it should be mandatory.
>> ^probie:

Most women shouldn't be allowed to wear spandex.
(And before you call me misogynistic, I practice what I preach; you won't (and wouldn't want to) catch me in a pair of Speedos at the beach. )

Most women shouldn't be allowed to wear spandex.

(And before you call me misogynistic, I practice what I preach; you won't (and wouldn't want to) catch me in a pair of Speedos at the beach. )

am I being a misogynist or is it a factual statement when I say:

Man, women were really dumb back then.

Name a foreign country? The United States of America.

No that's not a foreign country. Texas?

Never seen him be so misogynistic. Surprising.

Thank you for your response, it has made your initial comment much clearer. What you need to understand about the video and why my response was so harsh is that the song, while being directly inspired by Akin's comment, is not only about him, but about society's distrust and often denigration of women when it comes to sexual abuse. While you may have a point about Akin (I doubt it), his "slip-up" does not come from out of the blue, but stems from a sadly widespread misconception of sexual abuse, mostly held by religious conservatives who tend to blame the (female) victim, for being "lose", "asking for it", etc etc (when it pertains to homosexual rape/abuse they chalk it up as part of homosexuality's evils; viz the response to abuse in the RCC).

The reason your comment elicited such a drastic, gut-born response is that it echoes every misogynistic table-turning that crops up when sexual abuse of women is being discussed, i.e. the accusation of "man-hating", "fear-mongering" feminazis (as well as the whole "men get raped too!" trope, which no one is denying). Rare are the feminists who hate men (and those who do are wrong to do so, and generally called out for it); what we hate is patriarchy and everything it entails. The tactic of misrepresenting feminist arguments seemed to me what your sarcastic comment was about, hence my reaction.

So the strawman I copiously insulted was the MRA-hole whose misogynistic intent I read into your comment, and to be quite honest, it was (and still is) very hard to read anything else into it. But you have my apologies for insulting you if that was not what the comment was about. And since you and I are not alone in this exchange, I propose posting our discussion on the thread in question, that way people can see what you meant by your comment and see why I reacted how I did. What think you?
In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Where your guessing I'm white comes from, or how my skin color or gender would matter in the least, I don't know. You clearly seem to have some kind of history with MRA people and believe them all to be misogynists, and perhaps they might all be. I don't know, I'm not affiliated with them. But you equating my criticism of the video with being in cahoots with MRA convinced you I had to be pushing some agenda and blinded you not only to the intent of the sarcasm tag but also to any other possible meaning of the post, instead reading a simplistic turning-of-the-tables jab into what you seem to have perceived to be my sexist manifesto. That's the problem with reading a sarcastic post seriously and afterwards taking the sarcasm tag as disingenuous.
What I found objectionable with this video was that the artist misconstrued Todd Akin's incredibly stupid attempt at connecting pregnancy due to rape with his pro-life stance to say so much more than he did, that he considers any of those in lyrics mentioned scenarios of rape to be illegitimate. He didn't say that, though, so with all the things that he could be criticized for, there's no need for the artist to manufacture an outrage that he actually didn't put into words. Maybe you know something about him and his stances on rape that wasn't widely brought up in public during all this, but I only read his public statement linked in the description bar as well as reading about him on wiki and didn't see anything in it even hinting at him thinking all rape is illegitimate. So, what I did was basically the same thing I disliked about the sifted video, taking one aspect of the song that I reacted to; all mentioning of gender as pertaining to rape like: him taking her out, husband's privilege, he didn't have consent, short skirts. As such it's misrepresenting the artist's intended message (as I understand it), that Todd Akin thinks women can't be legitimately raped, to instead say that she thinks only men rape only women, hence the sarcasm tag. It's very easy to put words into other people's mouths.

It's really easy to jump on someone who's already being jumped on, and that is what I thought this video did. I didn't think it brought anything to any discussion, I didn't think it was funny and I thought it was unfunny because I perceived it (and still do, since nobody has divulged any further information) as hate fuel and character attacks based on misrepresentation. This isn't the first time I've reacted to this, as you can see me defending another borderline reprehensible person from what I though was unjust and unwarranted avenue of criticism: http://videosift.com/video/Bill-OReilly-amazed-that-Black-res
taurant-is-civilized

You are free to challenge any post all you like, but telling me to go fuck myself, that I disgust you and that I'm sexist and somehow pushing some misogynistic agenda, which has no basis in anything in the post, is not challenging anything. That's antagonism at best, slander at worst. You don't know anything about me, neither how I act, how I have acted nor how I think and feel, so making all kinds of value judgments on my character and verbally abuse me is completely unwarranted. I didn't discriminate against women in that post, I didn't imply women were less than men, nor do I think that. Both actions and words have consequences, even in internet communities, and any and all rash language and inflammatory rhetoric will still linger on long afterwards.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
I will concede this much: my response was emotionally laden and insulting. But attacking what very clearer appears to be MRA misogynistic BS is not "white knighting", despite my perhaps overly heavy-handed manner. Or does one have to follow specific guidelines in order for their challenge of your comment's apparent ideas to be taken seriously? If you had a valid point to make with that comment, I think it's fair to say you failed miserably at getting it across. So instead of accusing me of "comment noise" because you don't like what I say, why don't you come and clarify what you meant? It's unfair and rather shameful of you to call my response petty and wildly assuming; your comment does not allow many other interpretations than the one I made. The only mere assumptions I made were to your gender and ethnicity, based on the fact that the MRA movement is almost entirely the resort of white males.

Come back to the thread and provide in clear language what you meant by your sarcastic lyrics, and if I was wrong in my interpretation thereof I will be quick to apologise publicly for getting you wrong.

(I am taking this off "private" setting because as a continuation of an open sift discussion I believe it should be available to anyone involved. I stand by my words, and I am sure you do to.)
In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Look, I don't know what emotional baggage you're carrying or what possesses you to go so overboard with white knighting, but you're behaving childishly and if you can't talk to someone you disagree with, or you think you disagree with, without starting to infer your preconceived notions onto them and insult and cuss them out, you are no better than any of the other comment noise that plagues youtube. If you want to rise above such pettyness, apologize for drawing wild conclusions, insulting and accusing me on the basis of those wild conclusions and maybe we can have a discussion about what my post was actually saying about that person's video.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
>> ^Kreegath:

How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬


Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.

Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.

I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant

*quality song btw

Where your guessing I'm white comes from, or how my skin color or gender would matter in the least, I don't know. You clearly seem to have some kind of history with MRA people and believe them all to be misogynists, and perhaps they might all be. I don't know, I'm not affiliated with them. But you equating my criticism of the video with being in cahoots with MRA convinced you I had to be pushing some agenda and blinded you not only to the intent of the sarcasm tag but also to any other possible meaning of the post, instead reading a simplistic turning-of-the-tables jab into what you seem to have perceived to be my sexist manifesto. That's the problem with reading a sarcastic post seriously and afterwards taking the sarcasm tag as disingenuous.
What I found objectionable with this video was that the artist misconstrued Todd Akin's incredibly stupid attempt at connecting pregnancy due to rape with his pro-life stance to say so much more than he did, that he considers any of those in lyrics mentioned scenarios of rape to be illegitimate. He didn't say that, though, so with all the things that he could be criticized for, there's no need for the artist to manufacture an outrage that he actually didn't put into words. Maybe you know something about him and his stances on rape that wasn't widely brought up in public during all this, but I only read his public statement linked in the description bar as well as reading about him on wiki and didn't see anything in it even hinting at him thinking all rape is illegitimate. So, what I did was basically the same thing I disliked about the sifted video, taking one aspect of the song that I reacted to; all mentioning of gender as pertaining to rape like: him taking her out, husband's privilege, he didn't have consent, short skirts. As such it's misrepresenting the artist's intended message (as I understand it), that Todd Akin thinks women can't be legitimately raped, to instead say that she thinks only men rape only women, hence the sarcasm tag. It's very easy to put words into other people's mouths.

It's really easy to jump on someone who's already being jumped on, and that is what I thought this video did. I didn't think it brought anything to any discussion, I didn't think it was funny and I thought it was unfunny because I perceived it (and still do, since nobody has divulged any further information) as hate fuel and character attacks based on misrepresentation. This isn't the first time I've reacted to this, as you can see me defending another borderline reprehensible person from what I though was unjust and unwarranted avenue of criticism: http://videosift.com/video/Bill-OReilly-amazed-that-Black-restaurant-is-civilized

You are free to challenge any post all you like, but telling me to go fuck myself, that I disgust you and that I'm sexist and somehow pushing some misogynistic agenda, which has no basis in anything in the post, is not challenging anything. That's antagonism at best, slander at worst. You don't know anything about me, neither how I act, how I have acted nor how I think and feel, so making all kinds of value judgments on my character and verbally abuse me is completely unwarranted. I didn't discriminate against women in that post, I didn't imply women were less than men, nor do I think that. Both actions and words have consequences, even in internet communities, and any and all rash language and inflammatory rhetoric will still linger on long afterwards.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
I will concede this much: my response was emotionally laden and insulting. But attacking what very clearer appears to be MRA misogynistic BS is not "white knighting", despite my perhaps overly heavy-handed manner. Or does one have to follow specific guidelines in order for their challenge of your comment's apparent ideas to be taken seriously? If you had a valid point to make with that comment, I think it's fair to say you failed miserably at getting it across. So instead of accusing me of "comment noise" because you don't like what I say, why don't you come and clarify what you meant? It's unfair and rather shameful of you to call my response petty and wildly assuming; your comment does not allow many other interpretations than the one I made. The only mere assumptions I made were to your gender and ethnicity, based on the fact that the MRA movement is almost entirely the resort of white males.

Come back to the thread and provide in clear language what you meant by your sarcastic lyrics, and if I was wrong in my interpretation thereof I will be quick to apologise publicly for getting you wrong.

(I am taking this off "private" setting because as a continuation of an open sift discussion I believe it should be available to anyone involved. I stand by my words, and I am sure you do to.)
In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Look, I don't know what emotional baggage you're carrying or what possesses you to go so overboard with white knighting, but you're behaving childishly and if you can't talk to someone you disagree with, or you think you disagree with, without starting to infer your preconceived notions onto them and insult and cuss them out, you are no better than any of the other comment noise that plagues youtube. If you want to rise above such pettyness, apologize for drawing wild conclusions, insulting and accusing me on the basis of those wild conclusions and maybe we can have a discussion about what my post was actually saying about that person's video.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
>> ^Kreegath:

How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬


Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.

Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.

I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant

*quality song btw

I will concede this much: my response was emotionally laden and insulting. But attacking what very clearer appears to be MRA misogynistic BS is not "white knighting", despite my perhaps overly heavy-handed manner. Or does one have to follow specific guidelines in order for their challenge of your comment's apparent ideas to be taken seriously? If you had a valid point to make with that comment, I think it's fair to say you failed miserably at getting it across. So instead of accusing me of "comment noise" because you don't like what I say, why don't you come and clarify what you meant? It's unfair and rather shameful of you to call my response petty and wildly assuming; your comment does not allow many other interpretations than the one I made. The only mere assumptions I made were to your gender and ethnicity, based on the fact that the MRA movement is almost entirely the resort of white males.

Come back to the thread and provide in clear language what you meant by your sarcastic lyrics, and if I was wrong in my interpretation thereof I will be quick to apologise publicly for getting you wrong.

(I am taking this off "private" setting because as a continuation of an open sift discussion I believe it should be available to anyone involved. I stand by my words, and I am sure you do to.)
In reply to this comment by Kreegath:
Look, I don't know what emotional baggage you're carrying or what possesses you to go so overboard with white knighting, but you're behaving childishly and if you can't talk to someone you disagree with, or you think you disagree with, without starting to infer your preconceived notions onto them and insult and cuss them out, you are no better than any of the other comment noise that plagues youtube. If you want to rise above such pettyness, apologize for drawing wild conclusions, insulting and accusing me on the basis of those wild conclusions and maybe we can have a discussion about what my post was actually saying about that person's video.

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
>> ^Kreegath:

How do you know if you're suffering from man hating and fear? ♫
I'll tell you how to spot, man hating and fear ♪
You're not sure you've got, man hating and fear ♬
Well here's a little lesson for you,
Tell me if the following things are true:
I think all rapists are men - man hating and fear
I think all victims are women - man hating and fear
I rub out all grey areas to prove a moot point - man hating and fear
Men should have no rights to defense against allegations of rape - man hating and fear ♬


Oh, looks like we've got an MRA-hole in the house. Let me guess: you're a white male with malignant priviligitis, amirite? Did any one line of the song suggest falsely accusing someone of rape? Or calling all men rapists? Or hating men?? Oh wait, you ticked the sarcasm tag, that makes it all an a-okay bit of humour right? Wrong.

Your kind disgusts me. And by that I don't mean "men"; no, real men (and women, and anyone in between) know to respect another person's consent and their choice to retract it at any given moment. No, by "your kind" I mean the slimy, any-one-who-points-out-the-sexism-in-our-society-is-a-man-hating-feminazi-and-fear-mongerer kind.

I won't stoop to the MRA-low of wishing rape on you, because I would not wish it on anyone. Instead, I'll kindly suggest you go fuck yourself, because anyone in their right mind, male female or otherwise, would not consent to it with you if they knew your sexist stance. /angry rant

*quality song btw

This really is another storm in a bloody teacup.

@ChaosEngine brought up the perfect example of what's wrong on both sides of this type of thing with the Penny Arcade Sixth Slave comic debacle. That comic was absolutely innocuous. Having a slave say they were raped to sleep by dickwolves was merely a ludicrously horrible statement to show what a terrible existence the slave had, and why the player ignoring their pleas because they had fulfilled their quota was such a hilariously callous reaction.

To think that someone could read that and be offended, be offended enough to write a bloody blog post, is just stunning. It absolutely demonstrates a demeanour that's looking for the worst in everything and not the humour. I get that you may not find the comic funny, but to actually get riled up by it, to actually think it was worth telling people that you got riled up by it is stunning.

But then we get to the other ugly side of things. We have people who get angry at the people who got offended, and so they start attacking them (verbally), and start saying just horrible, mean spirited, ugly things. They start saying misogynistic, aggressive things that seem to demonstrate an ACTUAL core of anger/hatred towards women.

And that becomes scary.

So I think both sides are usually wrong in these cases:

* Those who get offended:
A lot of the time have very little reason to actually be offended (especially in the penny arcade example), it's as if they're attuned to their own little sphere of outrage and if someone mentions one of their keywords then they'll go nuts, regardless of the intent of a given joke.

* Those who made the initial joke and/or those who defend them:
Far, far, FAR too often they end up really attacking those that were offended, becoming vile and disgusting and not showing any restraint or compassion at all. Mike Krahulik demonstrates how NOT to handle something like the dickwolves incident. The correct way? 'Sorry you were offended by it, really don't understand how anyone could be, we're not taking it down as we don't see anything wrong with it. Let this be the end of it'. But nooo, he pushed and pushed and pushed it.

Louis CK, as usual, demonstrated that he can joke about horrible things and come up trumps because it's ALWAYS obvious that he's saying things in jest and from a good place (or for pure shock value). When someone says something so shit as 'It'd be funny if she was gang raped right now' without a damn strong demonstration that it was in jest and in no way meant to be mean or serious... well then that's a dick move and probably should be called out.

But for it to be as big as it's got? Gah!

>> ^Sotto_Voce:

Why is this? Surely the intent matters. Take Ann Coulter, for instance. She often couches the ridiculous stuff she says in humor. Now the humor isn't usually very good, but suppose it was. Would that somehow magically make the content of what she is saying OK?

You're missing the point. Of course the intent matters. The intent goes to whether it's funny. Nothing Ann Coulter says can be funny because she's a fucking idiot. On the other hand, Stephen Colbert could repeat an exact speech of hers verbatim and be hilarious.

>> ^Sotto_Voce:

If she's using humor to promulgate an ignorant and bigoted worldview, we can still call her out on the ignorance and bigotry.

Yep and that's exactly what we do. I want to break this down a bit.

>> ^Sotto_Voce:

If she's using humor....

I would replace "using humor" with "attempting to use humour".

>> ^Sotto_Voce:

... to promulgate an ignorant and bigoted worldview...

and that's the point. Coulter isn't funny because she actually believes the vile crap she's espousing. If someone makes a joke about rape and actually believes that rape is in anyway acceptable.... that's not funny. If someone is using a joke about a horrific situation to make you think or take you to such an uncomfortable place that your only escape is to laugh at it, that's comedy genius.


>> ^Sotto_Voce:

Patrice O'Neal is a more pertinent example, and I talked about this in the other thread. He was a genuinely funny guy, and in his act (and elsewhere) he said a lot of horrible things about women. The thing is, he actually meant a lot of that stuff. Even his close friends admit that he was an actual misogynist. Does the fact that he was also funny somehow make his misogyny inoffensive?

I don't really want to comment on this because I'm not really familiar with O'Neals work or life. But let's assume for the sake of argument that what you say is true. It's possible to be really funny and still say unfunny things. If he was genuinely promoting misogyny is some of his material, did you still find it funny?

Personally, if something feels that wrong to me, I find it hard to see humour in it.

>> ^Sotto_Voce:

Also, I think there are two separate points to consider here that some people (not necessarily you) are getting mixed up: (1) Are rape jokes funny?, (2) Are rape jokes offensive? The answer to both questions is "Some of them are." And the thing is, sometimes the exact same joke can be both funny and offensive. These properties can coexist.

I don't really believe so. A funny joke can be shocking, uncomfortable or even borderline offensive, but if you're actually laughing at something, the joke itself was not sufficiently offensive to become unfunny.

>> ^Sotto_Voce:

Even if Tosh's joke had been hilarious (which it obviously wasn't) it still would have been really dickish, and I still would have thought that he ought to make a genuine apology to the woman if he is a decent human being.


To me, it's about your own moral compass. Toshs joke wasn't funny precisely because there was only dickishness to a relatively innocent victim (I say relatively because she went to his show, it's not like he's an unknown).

>> ^ChaosEngine:

My take on the subject is simple: is it funny?
That's the end of it where comedy is concerned. Regardless of what was said, if the content, delivery and context all add up to humour, then by definition it's not offensive to me.


Why is this? Surely the intent matters. Take Ann Coulter, for instance. She often couches the ridiculous stuff she says in humor. Now the humor isn't usually very good, but suppose it was. Would that somehow magically make the content of what she is saying OK? I don't think so. If she's using humor to promulgate an ignorant and bigoted worldview, we can still call her out on the ignorance and bigotry.

Patrice O'Neal is a more pertinent example, and I talked about this in the other thread. He was a genuinely funny guy, and in his act (and elsewhere) he said a lot of horrible things about women. The thing is, he actually meant a lot of that stuff. Even his close friends admit that he was an actual misogynist. Does the fact that he was also funny somehow make his misogyny inoffensive?

Also, I think there are two separate points to consider here that some people (not necessarily you) are getting mixed up: (1) Are rape jokes funny?, (2) Are rape jokes offensive? The answer to both questions is "Some of them are." And the thing is, sometimes the exact same joke can be both funny and offensive. These properties can coexist. An actual racist can make a funny race joke, just like an actual misogynist can make a funny joke about women. The funniness does not erase the fact that these jokes, considering the intent behind them, should be condemned. Even if Tosh's joke had been hilarious (which it obviously wasn't) it still would have been really dickish, and I still would have thought that he ought to make a genuine apology to the woman if he is a decent human being.

@vaire2ube, I'm glad you brought up Patrice O'Neal, because he is a perfect example of the disingenuousness of the "It's just comedy, folks" defense. There is plenty of evidence that O'Neal was a bona fide misogynist, with genuinely toxic views about women. But because he usually expressed those views humorously, any criticism was met with something like "God, can't you take a joke, you humorless feminazi?"

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. Hateful views don't get a pass just because they're followed by a punchline. Good (and even some not-so-good) comedians don't just tell jokes, they convey ideas, and those ideas should be subject to scrutiny just as they would be if they came from Rachel Maddow or Charles Krauthammer. To treat comedy otherwise, to treat it as if it is just light entertainment that shouldn't be taken seriously, is to trivialize it. And the trivialization of comedy is precisely what the greats -- Bruce, Pryor, Carlin -- fought against. To anyone who loves the artform of comedy, the phrase "just a joke" should be anathema.

Patrice O'Neal was a very funny man, but he was also a bigot. His funniness does not excuse his bigotry in the slightest. And Tosh doesn't even have that figleaf. His act is shot through with causal misogyny and disregard for the valid concerns of rape victims. Look, that woman shouldn't have heckled him in the middle of the act. But his response was hugely dickish. Especially given the fact that she had just voiced strong sentiments against rape jokes, which in the mind of most considerate human beings would have triggered a little alarm to the effect of "Maybe she reacts so strongly to rape jokes because she is a rape victim."