Here’s some news for you people who don’t have the internet, television or a conversation with anybody about politics in the last week. Republicans are really trying to soften the definition of rape.



It’s actually kind of creepy. First this Senate candidate in Missourah Todd Akin made his now incredibly famous remarks about a woman’s body shutting down in the case of a “legitimate rape”. Now VP candidate Paul Ryan calls rape “just another method of conception”. Earlier this year republicans were accused of waging a “war on women” but now they just narrowed their target down to rape victims, I guess.

legitimate asshole

With this unsettling contest of “which republic candidate can say the most horrific thing about rape” going on I can’t help but wonder on how Daniel Tosh feels about all this.

Think about it, two months ago Daniel Tosh made a rape joke onstage at the Laugh Factory and made fun of a heckler. Somebody blogged about it (inaccurately according laughspin, it went viral and Tosh became public enemy number 1. He still had some supporters, mostly stand up comics but the damage is done. He didn’t gain any new fans with this. Todd Akin said something way worse and he’s raised $100,000 in donations since the remarks. Paul Ryan said something way worse and it seems nobody but a couple people over at the Huffington Post even noticed.



What really makes what Akin and Ryan said worse is the fact that they have (or potentially will have) power to legislate laws concerning rape. Sure, Daniel Tosh shouldn’t have said what he did but at the end of the day he’s just a comedian. He may have used rape as subject matter for a joke but when you boil it down that’s all it was. A joke. So many people in the media vilified him but it’s not like he has any say in the laws concerning what governs rape, women’s reproductive health or general women’s rights. Akin and Ryan do and they’re getting treated with kid gloves compared to how Tosh got beat up by the media. If I was Daniel Tosh that would really get to me.



I guess the lesson here is that it’s not okay to say awful, dismissive things about rape unless you’re a republican politician. It’s Daniel’s fault he said that stuff in a comedy club. He should have said it on a morning news show or town hall meeting.