Can't You Take A Joke?

Nothing is sacred but freedom of speech. The right that enables the Huffington Post to print cartoons about sexual assault and domestic abuse is also what enables us to react with disapproval. Some people may wonder what the point of all this fuss is. Aren't we overreacting? Not by the Huffington Post's standards, we aren't, at least not as spelled out in numerous articles written by their contributors. Links to those articles by the Huffington Post about how harmful rape jokes are to survivors of sexual assault have already been provided in the body of the petition. And it's those very articles that are the genesis of this petition. Had this illustrated guide to assault and battery appeared somewhere in the bowels of 4chan or Encyclopedia Dramatica, nobody, including me, would give it a second look. I'd have shaken my head and moved on. But when it appears on the Huffington Post, along with all their other writing about the harms of trivializing rape and assault, it's necessary that somebody point out the glaring inconsistency. Yes, I can take a joke. It's a discipline I've learned from growing up gay. I've taken a lifetime's worth of jokes that cast me as a promiscuous, HIV-ridden, baseless animal. I've taken those jokes, and the thinly-veiled hostility they ride upon, in stride because I don't care what a desperate comedian in a seedy comedy club says about me, nor do I care when I hear somebody passing me on the street use the term "gay" to describe something he thinks is stupid or undesirable. But the recipient of this petition is not a sleazy comedian or a thoughtless jerk on the sidewalk. It is a news source that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, a Peabody Award in 2010, was named number two out of the 25 best blogs by "Time" magazine in 2009, and in that same year, Arianna Huffington came in at position number 12 on "Forbes'" list of most influential women in media. A publication with those accolades in its trophy room should give more thought to its image and considerable influence. We are insisting through this petition that the Huffington Post conduct itself by higher standards than those of Daniel Tosh.