By 
When I began doing stand-up a little over four years ago, I attended a very popular, highly respected open mic. Within the first 30 minutes, a guy got up and told a joke about how his girlfriend wouldn't have anal sex with him, and his punch line was "That's what she thinks." He went on to muse about different scenarios in which he could rape his girlfriend. And people laughed.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I was flooded with the memory of my ex-boyfriend, who would always stick his fingers in my ass when we'd have sex even though I'd repeatedly say no and tell him I didn't like it. I was shocked and disgusted and angry—really angry—by this guy's set. But also, it hurt. It physically caused pain to hear a man disregard a woman's body and feelings so aggressively just to get a laugh. It hurts every time.
I live and perform in Chicago, where I host a show called Feminist Happy Hour. It's also a city where white men dominate most performance spaces, especially comedy rooms where rape jokes and victim blaming are celebrated as much as the Blackhawks. And it's not just the humor that's toxic, as women who perform in Chicago experience assault that happens offstage as much as it does onstage.
The intersections of power and race and privilege make white-dude comics a very specific trope. Comedy, as an institution, is already inherently sexist (and racist, and homophobic). There is an informal agreement among comics that nothing is off-limits, which works out best for cisgender, straight, white guys. If you're the most powerful person in the room, nothing is off-limits.
But this issue isn't just Chicago's problem, or New York's. There is a larger cultural conversation about comedy, accountability, and the experiences of being a woman, which was triggered last week by the UCB rape investigation, Inside Amy Schumer writer Kurt Metzger's Facebook post, and Schumer's problematic responses to it all. After engaging in online messaging with a friend of mine, Metzger asked to call in as a guest on Feminist Happy Hour.
While I have watched Inside Amy Schumer occasionally, and I was tuned into UCB's investigation and subsequent banning of comedian Aaron Glaser following two women's rape accusations, I did not know Kurt Metzger's name before his Facebook rant went viral. I do, however, remember his online harassment of Lindy West and Sady Doyle in 2013. But when this story broke, it was just the white noise of white male privilege in comedy. Oh, a man said something horrible about women? And he's a writer, now producer, on a commercially successful comedy show? Yep, sounds about right. It's essential to note that Metzger is not just a writer on your average comedy show. This is woman-driven comedy (very rare) often celebrated for being feminist (super rare). Which is why a conversation with Metzger felt like an opportunity to raise some awareness about rape culture, accountability, and white male privilege.
The focus was mostly on his Facebook post and what he's learned since then regarding the truth of what happened. It's all a bit unclear because he didn't use any names but, basically, he wanted everyone to know his Facebook post was based on misinformation given to him by one guy about another. Even though he learned this while there was already an official investigation underway by UCB, Metzger told me that there was "nothing to go on," and, in my words: he believed his dudes over the actual accusers and official investigation by UCB. He was later contacted by a woman who shared what he called "explicit details" of what happened to her, and that conversation is what led him to feelings of remorse. (You can listen to our conversation below; it has been lightly edited to trim dead air at the beginning and end of the call.)
This is where the root of the problem lies—not even with Metzger in particular, although he's not really helping. Metzger is just an individual symptom of our culturally embedded distrust of women that includes a severe lack of acknowledgement for their experiences and their worth. That is what rape culture is. You know why men think women lie about rape? Because that's what they do—they make shit up to cover their asses. (See: Ryan Lochte). Metzger took a man on his word (reminder: that man lied), but in order to believe a women he needed to hear explicit details. This is not simply a personality flaw of Metzger's, or every other guy who honors the informal bro-code system. This is indicative of a culture that has taught men that their thoughts and opinions matter more than women's actual experiences.
Metzger illustrated this by spending most of the time talking, not listening, about himself, his past traumas—how this is all affecting him. Not once did Metzger offer any reflection on what this has taught him about women's lives and experiences. He made no mention of how this might change his perspective in comedy. In fact, I'm confident it won't. At one point he pointed out, "I'm not in trouble for my stand-up." I did, eventually, get him to say, "I'm sorry for shaming victims." (Sure, I had to interrupt him and be very loud and force him to repeat after me—kind of how I imagine he is in a writer's room. )
The blind spot of white male privilege is exactly that: invisibility. If you believe you are entitled to something, it makes it much more difficult to understand how to take responsibility about how it feels to be someone else. Metzger, like most white male comics, thinks he's entitled to his jokes no matter who finds them offensive. Towards the end of our post-show interaction, Metzger felt it was necessary to make a joke about how listening to the victim's story "ruined six different kinds of porn" for him. When I repeated what Metzger said to another male comic I know, he chuckled and then tried to mansplain why it's funny.
I get it, dudes.
What I want is for Metzger, and the rest of the comedy world, to get is why it's not. It's not that just that you don't trust women—it's that you are actively participating in harming us. If you don't understand what that means: take a class, read a book, do a Google search. Better yet: ask a woman, and when she tells you, listen. Listen and hear it, and don't say anything stupid.
In fact, just don't say anything.
