(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about self-defense, moles, and Mexico. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter.

P.S. We are totally serious about the Tattoo Challenge. If someone gets a tattoo of us, we will fly them to NYC (within the continental U.S.) and put them up for two nights.

"Can I Use My Old Vibrator With My New Partner?" from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

Meet "Karen." Karen writes for a website that is not this one. She met "Joe" on an online personals site, and they exchanged a few e-mails trying to set up a drink. He called her "Sparky," was a little slow getting back to her, and made an excuse about illness and religious obligations — which he tries make again below. Where the emails were unsigned, I've prepended the senders' names for clarity. I've also cut some of the initial correspondence in the interests of space, but here's where things get good. Or rather, crappy:

Karen: My parents are in town this weekend, and then next week I'm heading to DC, which leaves me with only this upcoming Monday night free for a drink in the next week and a half. Any chance that works for you and we can meet before this becomes an epic tale of two ships?
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Joe: I dunno. What about tonight?
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Karen: Tonight I'm working on a deadline, alas.
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Joe: On what? Finish it up already.
_________________
Karen: You're impatient for a guy who kept me waiting two entire weeks between the first and second email. It's an oped for [website] about the whole Polanski business. And I just started.
__________________

[an hour later]

Karen: Soooo... you're busy googling me now, I guess? Let me know what you think, and if we can make Monday happen...
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Joe: Hey...High holidays and sick, remember?

And no, I am not googling you. Should I? I don't know your last name, remember?

As for Monday, I'll check my schedule. I suggested tonight because it seemed like a better strategy.
____________________
Karen: Yeah yeah. High holidays and sick only accounts for the second week, Sparky.

You certainly could google me with what you have now. I think "Karen [website]" would do the trick. It's an unusual spelling. But if you do it, you have to give me fair access and spill something that will make you google-able. After all, you're going to get over 20K hits on me once you track down my last name...
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Joe: I'm not googling you. It's no fun when someone WANTS you to do it. Also, where is your creativity? You are calling me by the nickname I gave you?

tsk tsk
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Karen: Hmmmm... you're contrary, in possession of extraordinary impulse control, or YOU HAVE A GOOGLEABLE SECRET YOU DON'T WANT ME TO FIND? Or could it be... all three? Only time will tell.

And now you want me to give you your own nickname on top of it all? Patience, Grasshopper.
____________________
Am I patience, or Grasshopper? And if you are on deadline...how do you have so much time to write?

:)Joe
_____________________
Karen: I don't. In fact, Grasshopper, you and your impertinent banter are distracting me from my socially important work. Way to go. I suggest you busy yourself clearing your schedule for Monday evening instead.
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Joe: By all means, we all know how deeply relevant the Roman Polanski case is. Personally, I'll forgive a lot from the man who gave us Chinatown. She's my sister, My daughter! My Sister!

Just Fuckin fantastic!

I'll let you know about Monday.
________________________
Karen: I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, but with a bit of unsolicited advice: It's best not to make rape or even rape-adjacent jokes via email with someone who's never even heard your tone of voice, and so finds it hard to interpret it in print.
______________________
What? That wasn't a joke. I was quoting from one of the greatest and most fucked up endings of all time.

But now this feels weird, so lets' just call the whole thing off, okay?

Best of luck!

Joe
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Whoa. Grasshopper. Take a deep breath, mmmkay? The part I wasn't sure how to take (aka, how much you were joking about) was whether you were in the camp of folks who'll really forgive Polanski anything b/c he makes awesome movies, or if you were mocking those that make that argument. Which, obviously, I think is a socially relevant question, otherwise I'd be having drinks with you right now instead of staying up trying to churn out coherent prose at 11:30PM.

You seem like someone who likes to debate ideas, so I'd be bummed if you're this easily spooked, but I guess there's not much I can do about it if you are. If you change your mind, I'm still free Monday.

-Karen
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[the next night]

Well,

Here is the thing. All I ever talk about is rape jokes. That's it. It's a weird neurological condition. It has been hard on my family, but me most of all. But if you are okay with that, let's meet for a drink. I am not sure about Monday though.

Joe
______________________

[three days later]

So... you respond to my concern about rape jokes not by clarifying what you meant in the first place but by making a joke about rape jokes? Klassy. I think perhaps you were right - let's quit while we're ahead.

-Karen

P.S. - Since you obviously did not google me, here's the piece I was working on Wednesday night: [link redacted]
_______________________

How long did you think of writing that? Dial it down. I am not your enemy. You are your enemy, here I think.

And no, I did not read your work. I prefer to not read people's professional work before I meet them. And since I won't be meeting you, it seems a waste of my time, no? I also avoid serious conversations about rape before I meet someone. But for the record, since I have had to be a de facto counselor for friends who have been sexually assaulted, i can say emphatically I am against it. The Polanski case has a lot more complications to it, though, not the least of which include judicial misconduct, and a victim who desperately wants the case to go away.

So let's just say we've both had the last word here, so we can move onto exchanges with other people that have a future.

Joe
___________________

Wow. Narcissistic much? I rolled my eyes when I got your response a few days ago, then went on with a pretty busy weekend until this afternoon, when I remembered that I hadn't responded to you and that you might still think we were trying to have plans. Hope it doesn't break your heart that I didn't obsess about you all weekend.

For the record, I have no idea what the fuck you mean about me being my own enemy, but I'm pretty clear you're not mine - you're just a jackass more interested in telling me to "dial it down" about my life's work than he is in actually being real for a minute about a very real subject, and would rather make lame, passive-agressive jokes than take even the time it takes to say "maybe this is too serious a conversation to have over email."

I'm sure you'll take this email in some way that convinces you that you're far superior to me. Enjoy that feeling.

-Karen
_____________

Please stop writing me. I think I've made it clear I am not interested. I do not want to have to block you or report you. Please leave me alone.

Joe

Granted, most people think I get a pass on this because I have been sexually assaulted. Of course, I spent a good part of the hours after my most recent assault alternating between hysterical crying and compulsive vomiting — and cracking jokes. I got tired really quickly of the quiet whispers and the looks of pity and the hushed voices and the overall funerary air in the room. And then, because the cops and the detective and my friend were all too scared to laugh, I told jokes... jokes that descended deeper into "inappropriate" territory because, if I could mock it, if I could laugh at it — and if I could make them laugh at the absurdity of trying to take a written statement from a drunk, hysterical, projectile-vomiting witness who was singing "Red, Red Wine" under her breath (when she could breathe) — then it wasn't actually The Worst Thing In The World.

You're supposed to laugh at that, although no one does — but if I had been mugged, or had my identity stolen or witnessed a crime, it is funny to picture that Exorcist kid spewing vomit everywhere to a reggae beat while the cops look on in horror and try to protect their paperwork. Why is my vagina some sacred crime scene? But, having told this story to Anna and her husband recently — and having upset Anna's husband, who was too horrified by what happened to me to see that there was humor or absurdity in the situation — I know that it is.

Anyway, the first relatively mainstream rape joke comes, of course, from Sarah Silverman's performance in The Aristocrats.
It's an arc of a performance, that starts with her telling a sweet but sick story of performing in an incestuous sex show and culminates in the heart-stopping, clear-eyed revelation that "Joe Franklin raped me." Except, of course, she's proudly trodding on the landmine of comedy — and, honestly, it's so disturbing, it's funny.


Jessica Valenti's recent piece in The Guardian about female comedians praised Wanda Sykes' now-infamous rape joke from her 2006 comedy special about detachable vaginas.

Valenti says:

Sykes brings a biting comedy to the most controversial topics, throwing new light on issues that are all too easily written off as age-old and intractable: rape, for example.

And she does, but let's break down what she's joking about: she's joking about stranger rape, and she's making light of Kobe Bryant's victim, who was raped after she went up to his hotel room at the ungodly hour of 2 in the morning. In fact, you could argue — and I am — that Wanda Sykes is poking fun of that victim for being, you know, stupid enough to get raped. Is it only funny when Wanda Sykes does it? Many of you would say yes (and, in fact have said that it's never funny to say something like that). Do you still think so?

In fact, Jessica Valenti herself recently wrote, in response to a rape joke shown on The Office "there's never really a funny rape joke, is there?" Well, here's the rape joke she — and many of you, judging by our e-mails — didn't like:
To recap, Kelly claims to have been raped when she is confronted with some office malfeasance — as in, she's only saying it to get out of trouble— and it's not the first time she's apparently done such a thing. Is it laugh-out-loud funny? Nah. But is it poking fun of her character and using that kind of hyperbole to mock people who try to use personal crises ("My grandmother died") to get out of responsibility? Sure. Is it, say, less offensive than implying a rape victim was less than smart to head up to Kobe Bryant's room late at night? Technically, I think both are funny, but I have a sick sense of humor.

Which, of course, brings me to the most horrifying of horrifying rape jokes: The South Park episode about Indiana Jones. Although this only has the last two of the three rape scenes depicted in the show, it gives you enough of a sense of what it was about: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are no longer metaphorically raping the Indy franchise, they're really doing it.

Offensive? Yes. Boundary-crossing? Certainly. Horrifying in its detail? Yes. Funny? Arguably so.

Which then, of course, brings it back to the question: when is it funny? And I think the answer is, for a lot of people, when you like or respect the person telling the joke. Which is fine, and it's how most jokes work, but you can't then argue that they're never funny, or they can't ever be funny. Lots of humor comes from the juxtaposition of our civilized collective state of being and the ways in which we betray the lie of that constantly — fart jokes, for instance, are funniest when you really, really should be proper. If we take sexual assault off the table of things we can laugh about or joke about, it's just another way of saying: this is a different crime than any other crime, and so we can and must treat its victims differently than any other crime.

And, you know, fuck that. I got treated differently than any other crime victim once because of the kind of crime that I was the victim of. If I had been mugged, would the cops have been calling my friends and asking them how much I'd been drinking that night? If I had been only robbed, would it have mattered to the cops whether I'd told the guys I was out with that night that I was dating someone? If I had been shot walking out of the bar, would it have been anyone's business if my friend thought that I was flirting or not? And if any of those crimes had been committed instead, would everyone be so horribly offended by me making jokes about it? It's all part of the way in which society wants to treat me differently because of how I was victimized. Let's treat sexual assaults like any other crime and tell some rape jokes. Cool?

Here's mine:

When my victim's advocate called me up the week after I was assaulted, she went over the rape kit results and what I could expect from the process, and asked me if I had any questions. I asked her if they could tell me the name of the man who had been arrested for assaulting me, and I heard her shuffle through papers. His name, she said, was "Hey-zeus" after which I started laughing.

An agnostic, I was raped by Jesus.

Sense And Humour [The Guardian]
The Office's Rape Joke [Feministing]

Related: Rape Case Against Bryant Dismissed [MSNBC]

Earlier: My Sexual Assault Is Not Your Political Issue

The Accused: TMZ
The Crime: Icky sexualization of mammaries.
The Evidence: "Xtina's Rack — What a Boy Wants. They're real (allegedly) and they're spectacular!" See, here's the thing. Sure, breasts are sexualized in certain cultures, but Christina Aguilera: 1. Has implants and 2. Is a new mother who may still be breastfeeding. So it's supposedly funny to write "What a boy wants" cuz like, she had that song, "What A Girl Wants," but actually most men don't "want" milk-filled silicone jugs, do they? Unless by "boy" you mean "child under 2."
The Sentence: Watch the video for "Fighter" 250 times and write a 1000 word essay on these lyrics: "It makes me that much stronger/Makes me work a little bit harder/It makes me that much wiser/So thanks for making me a fighter/Made me learn a little bit faster/Made my skin a little bit thicker/Makes me that much smarter/So thanks for making me a fighter."

The Accused, via reader submission: The Superficial
The Crime: A vile commenter who dreams of homicide.
The Evidence: On topless photos of Lily Allen, Andy writes: "If I were stranded in the Artic[sic] in the dead of winter, I'd slice open that huge belly and crawl inside to keep warm and survive the night. Otherwise I wouldn't touch this disgusting fat pig." Lily Allen is many things, but she is not a tauntaun. Says our reader,"Although there have been some egregious things said in regard to females, their sexuality and their very being, this by far was the most appalling comment I have ever read." Agreed. And thanks for the e-mail.
The Sentence: A one-way ticket to the Arctic to be mauled by a polar bear and experience frostbite.

The Accused, via reader submission: IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com
The Crime: Rape jokes, a gossip-blog favorite.
The Evidence: "Trannycat Doll lead singer(?), Nicole Scherzinger, has taken the first step in dispelling all the rumors that everyone in this group has cocks by getting out of a car at Villa in Hollywood. Despite what my ex-girlfriend tells you, I've seen a lot of vaginas up close, so I'm comfortable saying this chick has one. I guess this is good news. She also looks like Pocahontas, so if you're thinking about raping her, you can say it was just for a history project." How many times to I have to type this? RAPE JOKES. NOT FUCKING FUNNY.
The Sentence: 5,000 word essay on the book "Exterminate Them": Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Slavery of Native Americans During the California Gold Rush, 1848-1868.

That's it for the accused today. We don't have very many because they are usually culled by our own Maria-Mercedes Lara, and she's been out this week. Why? Because she graduated from Eugene Lang, the Liberal Arts College of The New School University, TODAY! She was a double major in both literature and writing. Congrats, Maria!

And if ever any of you see a Crime Against Womanity, don't hesitate to send the link and a short description to tips@jezebel.com with "Missdemeanors" in the subject line.