[ExI] Mathematics Risque tale :)

[Adrian Tymes]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 1:19 PM Will Steinberg via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 15:41 Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Tastes change, but I see it as moral progress that rape jokes aren’t seen
>> as funny today.
>>
>
> I agree, which is why I found this joke to be very tasteless.  It's not
> even really funny, it's more like "let's see how many math references I can
> make".  And those math references are used to write a detailed description
> of rape.  I'm no SJW, and I'm definitely not a fan of trigger warnings or
> snowflake culture, but this joke is super creepy, especially because you
> can tell someone had fun writing it.  I think everything is grounds for
> humor, but this isn't a joke, it's just a far-too-detailed description of
> rape.
>

While I could follow along with everything leading up to the rape itself, I
found the rape itself to branch into abstract, impenetrable metaphor - as
most attempts at metaphorical description of rape tend to.  Even in certain
older days, describing the deed itself was vulgar, its details poorly
alluded to.  (Widespread misconceptions about the process and what happens
during it, especially from a female point of view, may have contributed: a
writer can have a hard time making metaphor to what the writer does not
have a clear understanding of.  As others have put it, "most people have
had nowhere near as much sex as most people imagine that most people do.")

For this *and* for the reason of modern sensibilities, I believe it would
have worked better had the actual rape not happened - if, for instance, the
protagonist beat off the would-be rapist and escaped with her (apparent)
virginity intact.
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