We here at YoungNotions almost always provide you with humor to get you through the day. We are a comedy blog, and comedy is our number one objective.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Our number one objective is to make you feel better. Often, that’s done with fart jokes. Once in a while, we do a political rant, or address something that affects us here at YoungNotions deeply. Sometimes, we have a heart-warming story to share.

Today is none of those things. Today, we do a public service announcement about sex, rape, and STDs.

We have a tendency to shame people for having an STD. Because, you see, it involves sex. It involves sex with sluts, or dirty people… making bad choices and engaging in shameful acts. STDs are different from other diseases because of that sex aspect.

Sex is horrible, and you should only engage in it only inside of wedlock for procreation purposes.

Most of the people that read this blog fall into the liberal demographic, so I know that few of you are buying that load of garbage. Sex is natural, it’s fun, and it’s a wonderful expression of love. Engaging in sex does not make you a bad person.

And yet, we put STDs in a separate classification of disease, with connotations of promiscuity and stupidity. Only sluts get STDs, and only stupid people don’t protect themselves.

No one blames me for catching a cold. We all know it can happen even if I don’t shake hands with people, even if I scrub my hands every 5 minutes, even if I never step outside.

Protection is never 100%, you can catch some STDs non-sexually, and “safer” sex does not mean you’re “safe.”.

I bring this up because an article was brought to my attention from a very dear friend of mine who thought I could use it for a YoungNotions post. And there are elements of funny in it, but I want to make sure that I’m very clear on what elements I find funny about this.

Richard Thomas, Rapist, Upset He Might Have Gotten HIV From Victim

What I do not find funny:

A woman was raped.
Someone with an STD was raped.
A slut with an STD was raped.
A rapist may have contracted an STD.
A rapist may have contracted an STD from his victim.

Now, humor is subjective, and you may find this hysterical, and I will not tell you that you are wrong. I may disagree, I may even find it horrifying that you think it’s funny to call a rape victim a slut, but I will not tell you it’s not funny. I will tell you it’s not funny to me, and probably to a very large group of people. But I don’t claim to have your background or your sense of humor. Maybe you find it funny because you were raped once and find calling victims sluts darkly funny as a satire against how our society treats rape victims. I can see that. But none of that is intrinsically funny to me.

I don’t find his possible HIV contraction funny. I don’t even find it poetic justice, as I’m tired of people shaming and blaming people for having STDs.

What I do find funny is that HE is so horrified that he may have contracted an STD that he collapsed upon hearing the news.

Because that guy was so full of a need to control, to dominate, to be a big man, to take what he wanted, and when faced with news he found distasteful, he fucking fainted like a Victorian lady seeing someone showing a little scandalous ankle.

I just want to pinch his cheeks and say to him in a voice you would use for a 5 year old “who’s a big, tough rapist? Are you a big tough guy? Are you? you’re such a big tough guy?”

All that huff and puff, and it took one little disease covered in our societal shame to bring him down.

So yes. Today’s post isn’t inherently funny. It’s a lot of comedy theory and social commentary. I’ll admit that a lot of this is focused on the STD carriers of the world, about helping to tear down connotations and ideals surrounding STDs, and the idea that it’s okay to use it as a weapon against someone.

So, 20% of the population, this one’s for you. I hope you feel better. Because that is our number one goal.

Number two is fart jokes.