"I always wanted
to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”
--Lily Tomlin
My 4th grade girlfriend recently moved to Los Angeles. We’re more akin
to siblings now than anything and I’m thrilled she’s living only 2 minutes
away, 4 with traffic. She moved in with
the love of her life, her new amazing girlfriend.
Last week 4th grade girlfriend and I had drinks. After an hour of repeatedly interrupting each
other to ask the other more questions about their life, out she burst “there’s
something serious we need to discuss.”
My crime - I made a rape joke during a recent Passover seder and
offended her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s younger sister visiting from the Midwest. Bright red and sweating, I threw
up my hands in the air. What can I do to
make this better? Send an email, write a
letter, make a phone call, stop by the house, send a truckload of flowers, buy
a pony?
4th grade girlfriend said “I know you’re a
hopeless romantic and you worship women and would never intend to say anything
mean but you made a rape joke that didn’t land well.”
What percentage of rape jokes land well? Since July 2012 when Daniel Tosh bungled a gang-rape joke to a heckler, hundreds of diagnostic articles arose about
what’s permissible rape humor. This
isn’t one of those pieces. Woody
Allen, Mel Brooks, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Sarah Silverman, Louis CK, Amy
Schumer and Chelsea Peretti, some of the greatest comics have made rape jokes
that land perfectly. Naturally, I’m not
them.
I asked what the joke was but she said neither of them could remember but of
course recalled its offensiveness. I
scoured my brain, nothing. Was it a joke
about raping a woman or using rape as a verb in the context of something else? 4th grade girlfriend questioned why
I was asking. Because I’m in the longest
drought of my life and occasionally masturbation feels like rape, like the
authorities have been notified, like my dick already
filed a temporary restraining order against my hands and it’s all downhill from
here. To self-pacify, I tell myself
chances are it was a self-rape joke. Fortunately
4th grade girlfriend laughed, sympathized about the drought, but nonetheless
and allthemoreso reprimanded me about why the concept of rape is sufficiently
offensive in any context.
She said it’s fixable with an apology email and by telling her
girlfriend that she tore me a new asshole about my behavior. Being torn a new asshole was the last phrase
I’d use in a missive apologizing for a failed rape-joke.
Then I learned that 4th grade girlfriend’s girlfriend is super
protective of her younger sister and younger sister is a 30 year-old virgin
hypersensitive about anything sexual.
I sent an apology email later that night and hardly slept because
the guilt was overwhelming. I confessed
to myself that my humor sprints from the sacred to the profane in nanoseconds,
but my intention is never ever to make someone feel shitty about their life or
offend anyone. I tossed and turned and
felt so guilty I couldn’t even masturbate.
Ok, I tried, unsuccessfully - but it felt like every woman there knew
about the rape joke. They all talk.
I slipped into a deep abyss of contemplating what sex meant to me. I re-made my list of every woman I’ve ever
been with. Did I treat them well? Was I as obsessively generous a lover as I
think I am? Did I ever make a rape joke
to any of them? Have I ever had a rape
fantasy? How do I treat animals? When was the last time I cried during a
romantic comedy? How’s my relationship
with my mother? It went deep, and
pathetic, and I ate pretty much everything in my house to stave off slipping even
deeper into a shame spiral. A chocolate
bar, leftover pizza, half a piece of salmon, popcorn, spoonfuls of peanut
butter and a tall glass of vodka DO NOT REDUCE SHAME SPIRALS.
4th grade girlfriend’s girlfriend accepted my apology but
still doesn’t know what the joke was. It’s not like I can ask her. What if it’s some of my best material?
