Does Humor Belong in Rape Stories?

[LtBroccoli]

I consider myself a writer of "Rape Comedy".
ALL of my stories originate from a joke, or at least a situation that I find funny.
And then I work backward or outward from there.
(I also like to revolve my stories around music that I like. Oh, and holidays.)
My favorite New Years Eve story (Not yet published here) starts with the true story of someone I know who crashed their car after a Canadian goose flew into her windshield. Hilarious, to me. (To her, not so much.)

That being said, Rape Comedy can be a hard sell, since at least 81.3% of the population agrees with the statement:
"There's nothing funny about rape." (86.1%, if you add an exclamation mark after that sentence.)*

But it's OK with me of other people don't "get" my sense of humor.
I'm used to being in a minority, even if it's a minority of one.
My own thoughts on the matter are good enough for me.

*Obviously, I pulled both of those percentages directly out of my ass. But until someone shows me a study that refutes them, those are the stat's I'm goin' with.

To quote the great George Carlin "Bullshit. Rape can be funny, I can prove it. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd."

[LtBroccoli]

It depends on the story and the situation. I'll throw comedy in whenever I can, but it's not always in the best taste. Then again, look at the content we write.

I like to throw in comedy because comedy is a very important part of life. Some people use comedy as a crutch, relief, a way to break anxiety, or some of many other reasons. Sometimes I've used comedy to show how calm one set of characters are in the middle of the act, even if it's just the juxtaposition of showing how bad of a time the victims are in.

Because of this, it makes sense that we have comedy in our stories. Comedy is part of life.

[skuttrusk]

I thought of a 6th reason for comedy to play a part.

6) Comedy can free the author from the bounds of realism. Sometimes, in a story, you reach a point where nothing more can befall the victim without straying beyond the bounds of plausibility. But if the story establishes that strict likelihood is not an aim, then you can dial up the heat as much as you like, increasing the victim's suffering and making her a walking punchline to every rape joke ever written at the same time. Win-win!

This is perhaps my prime reason for using comedy.

[HumiliationInc]

I agree with pretty much what everyone has said here: If the overall tone of the piece is not wholly serious or has absurdist elements, then it can most definitely be funny. For an example on this site, I find Claire's story about the Peterson cult absolutely hysterical, because it's a satirical take on the manosphere and incel culture. On the other hand, if a piece of media is otherwise serious, then an attempt to be funny somewhere in it will create glaring tone dissonance. However, it's possible to put a joke in an otherwise serious work that someone in-universe may find funny. For example, The Joker from any iteration of Batman is always quipping about disturbing things that he finds funny, but the audience isn't supposed to. The jokes are supposed to further drive home the point that The Joker's a sociopath.

Typically speaking, it's easier to get away with jokes about male rape and still be sociably acceptable—I think the TvTropes website even has an entry that talks in depth about that. It's easy to find jokes about dropping the soap in prison and most people don't bat an eye at that. I think the best example of humorous female rape comes from the Rapeman movies and manga series out of Japan. It's a satirical take on the average guy with an average job donning a super hero costume and fighting crime in his off-time. I think Rapeman works as a comedy for two reasons: 1. The protagonist gets a lot of character development and is just a likable (i.e., not a creep-o) guy, and 2. The women who receive Rapeman's brand of justice are clearly terrible people—most of them being drug queenpins or these Ghislaine Maxwell types running human trafficking rings. So there's a real sense of satisfying karma to their rapes. There's also a very heavy emphasis on dishonor that comes with their ravishing which plays heavy into tropes embedded in Japanese culture.

[Claire]

For an example on this site, I find Claire's story about the Peterson cult absolutely hysterical, because it's a satirical take on the manosphere and incel culture.

And I have to find out about that here and not in the Men at War thread itself?! Oh my broken heart...

Typically speaking, it's easier to get away with jokes about male rape and still be sociably acceptable—I think the TvTropes website even has an entry that talks in depth about that.

I think that is sadly true. I hope that will change over time.

However, it's possible to put a joke in an otherwise serious work that someone in-universe may find funny.

I think most stories nowadays have humorous moments in them. Even in a dead serious drama you can have two people joking with each other if it fits their character. I think the main distinction we should consider is characters making jokes or funny things happening like they might in real life, or jokes that bend in some sense reality itself, like cartoonish humor. It's one thing to have a rapist make a dark but funny remark and another to describe a gang rape where the penis of the rapist gets bigger with each subsequent rapist in the line until it is so big that it is just anatomically impossible to fit into a woman or for a man to even walk around with it.

[ShibbolethParty]

I can only write at all in a humorous, or at least kind of breezy and light-hearted, vein. I think it's just a very different skill to write engaging rape fiction that treats the subject matter with gravitas. I imagine there must be writers to whom that comes naturally, but who would struggle to write a NC story that's light-hearted or funny!

[skuttrusk]

It's probably to do with how you see the world, or anyway how you naturally write about it. In a way, humour can be a way of announcing "this is a fantasy, not grim reality, so it's OK to enjoy it".

[HistBuff]

Humor doesn't ask permission to enter a story and it can be found in any story, no matter how dark. My own usual style tends more toward seriousness, but you'll often hear my gang-rape leader say something like, "Don't worry, Miss, we're not here to kill you. We're just going to gang-rape you and it's going to be over soon if you don't resist." (Then he and his boys proceed to rape her for hours on end.)

[skuttrusk]

Pretty good joke! The laff's on her!
I think humour can be used to bully and humiliate, which makes it a natural element in any rape scene. And in a scenario like the one above it would make the victim look and feel stupid when she realises she's been lied to. A good result.

[chloevee]

A discussion about what "belongs" in a rape story is really amusing to me. What, is humor going to ruin the purity and righteousness of the rape fiction genre?

That's silly of course. There are plenty of things that I find undesirable in rape stories, some a matter of personal taste, and a few that I find offensive. Still, the phrasing of the question made me chuckle.

There's little that I consider off-limits for humor--as long as it's done well, and, most importantly, is funny.

Humor has always been a coping mechanism for me, so I'm even more likely to find humor in dark topics/situations. (I have no idea how people deal with awful shit if they can't laugh about it.)

Related, I also find a lot of humor in the absurdity of situations. The extreme nature of rape and the shock of the experience to the victim can make rape stories particularly well-suited to this kind of humor, given the right characters (@Claire's Record Chaser is a good example of this.)

So yeah, I would add two items to your list: comping mechanisms and absurdity.