All jokes aren't jokes -

In response to a FB repost by the enlightening Cathoel Jorss:

http://oforganon.tumblr.com/post/11150747104/to-all-those-men-who-dont-think-the-rape-jokes-are-a

I spent nearly two hours today sitting near the corner of Bourke and William Sts - reading, watching fashion and style, sunning myself like a lizard, observing a crank of cycle couriers coming and going at the gabble of their radios. It was really enjoyable.

How many of those people who were passing by, sitting near me, making eye contact, avoiding eye contact, would threaten or hurt me in different circumstances? I feel safe in the open, in daylight.

I'm male, I'm tall but as I age I feel more and more vulnerable. I have never felt, imagined or experienced the violently personal invasiveness of rape other than as represented in shockingly chilling disgust in some films. How can you joke about that, how could you laugh in response??

When I was much younger I was always uncomfortable with 'boys talk' and crass jokes but didn't have the guts to acknowledge that in front of my peer group.

Through my career as a schoolteacher I became confident in expressing myself and now, over 30 years later, I have no difficulty in conveying my disgust to people who demean, abuse or bully others, male or female.

But I'm worried, and Katie (forever my best friend) is scared, that one day the teen on the train who's swearing and abusing his girlfriend on the phone will turn on me with a knife, that the bombast at the barbecue will king hit me or the drunk in the row in front will 'glass' us both.

I'm prepared to continue to risk it.