Without doubt social networking has played a huge part in aiding the development and spread of rape-based "jokes" and memes. Rape is available to everyone and can be easily accessed via Facebook or Google. It is truly horrifying that the word rape has been degraded to the extent of the "Frape" (when someone accesses your Facebook account and takes advantage of this). Of all the words in the English dictionary, of all the synonyms for "violate" the word rape has been chosen to refer to a nonsensical, inconsequential occurrence- the victims mainly being 11 year olds who left their account logged on at their best friend's house. It angers me that rape is seen as a laughing matter. There is nothing funny about a woman being taken advantage of in the most brutal and personal way imaginable. Perhaps this very fact is what attracts the sadists that produce memes to do with the degrading of women. The western world appears to be full of WOMEN HATERS.Misogynists have been in their element with Operation Yewtree spilling all kinds of filthy and indecent images on to our computer screens. In my opinion there is no such thing as a Jimmy Savile joke. Jokes have to be funny. The definition of rape is forced sexual intercourse. One party has not consented to the act. Rape is a vile crime and it infuriates me how regularly this is forgotten. Compared to terrorist attacks rape gets very little coverage. No one has died so why should people care? Almost every person alive is guilty of thinking this inadvertently. The news stories that people tut at and say "Oh that is terrible", "How sad", "How could one person commit such disgraceful and destructive crimes?" are murders. WE LOVE ganging up on religions and races. Take the incident in Woolwich yesterday. A man lost his life in a terrorist attack and the whole world cares. Rightly so- we should care- there is nothing wrong with that. But what about the girl that just got violently gang raped behind a club in Liverpool- should less attention be paid to her? "There are terrorists in the world plotting against us", you may say, "terrorists could kill anyone at any time!" My response would be: "How do terrorists differ greatly from rapists?". EVERY girl is vulnerable to being raped and it would be sexist of me not to mention the men that are also domestically abused and raped. It is a massive problem and affects the victim for their entire life.
85000 women are raped in England and Wales every year. 1 in every 5 women has experienced sexual violence since the age of 16. Undoubtedly, you know one of these women. Perhaps you don't know if it was your mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin or best friend but it was probably one of them. Are your actions on the internet aiding the rape culture? Did you pat down your handful of snow onto the already enormous snowball that is gathering speed by sharing that "funny" image of the rape sloth? Are you brave enough to stop this from going any further? It is too late for "nipping in the bud" but it is not too late to give rape victims a voice. You need to protect yourself, your future and your community. No one deserves to be raped and those adding their likes, their "lol"s, their "lmfao"s are guilty of contributing to a twisted and disgusting society that I am not comfortable living in. nERD
