Last Friday at the Laugh Factory, Daniel Tosh started talking about rape and joked about how rape jokes are always funny. One of the audience members got offended and told him rape jokes are never funny. Tosh fired back saying how it would be funny if she was gang raped right then. She left embarrassed and then told a friend about what happened and that friend thought it’d be great to write a post on Tumblr about how offended they both were.
So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don’t know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find them funny and never have. So I didnt appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”
I know, right?! I’m sympathetically clutching my pearls!
I did it because, even though being “disruptive” is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.
You go, girl. Tell that comedian doing comedy how he offended your sensibilities.
After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing i needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.
Aw, damn. I guess you should have just got up and left right away instead of heckling a comedian and making his show all about yourself. That or Tosh should have moved on to his dead baby jokes.
Tosh has since apologized. Why? I have no idea.
all the out of context misquotes aside, i’d like to sincerely apologize j.mp/PJ8bNs
— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) July 10, 2012
the point i was making before i was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them. #deadbabies
— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) July 10, 2012
Since then, Louis C.K. has tweeted support for Tosh.
@danieltosh your show makes me laugh every time I watch it.And you have pretty eyes.
— Louis C.K. (@louisck) July 11, 2012











