Patricia Lockwood’s poem the rape joke is under serious debate for being inappropriate, while the actual poem explains and displays why rape jokes are harmful and damaging to some people.
The poem starts off by giving a scenario of a victim who was raped. It depicts the actual scenery of a person involving a horrible graphic personal experience in a rape crime(this person being the victim). While some argue on the graphic lines in this poem it actually symbolizes an act of letting people know that rape is no laughing matter.

“The joke is that he was seven years older. The joke is that you had known him for years, since you were too young to be interesting to him. You liked that use of the word interesting, as if you were a piece of knowledge that someone could be desperate to acquire, to assimilate, and to spit back out in different form through his goatee mouth. Then suddenly you were older, but not very old at all. The rape joke is that you had been drinking wine coolers. Wine coolers!” Who drinks wine coolers? People who get raped, according to the rape joke. This was just some of the poem which is briefly describing the situation of a girl (the victim) and the boy she’s known most of her life (the criminal).

The Rape Joke is not a joking matter, but a cry out to the people of how something like this happens. For the people who joke about a situation as serious as rape, this poem is stating that the victim isn’t laughing. It isn’t funny to them, so why would it be funny to you? This story is a powerful example and use of freedom of speech especially toward the views of rape on the world today, and on another note, it states and explains an actual situation or something that could happen in real life and not in some fairy tale.

Lastly this story could inspired many young people to change their views about rape and the jokes of it. People have realized that the argument Patricia wrote in her poem is subtle. People understand how something such as this would be, and in some cases is misinterpreted. It turns out the rape joke isn’t about joking of rape, but about what it is like to be raped in the point of view of the victim. Even then it is an issue pointed towards the people on why rape is nothing to joke about. Patricia also says, “you don’t ever have to write about it. But if you do, you can write about it any way you want.” This is said to mean that a person can write about it how they want if they choose and they don’t need a barrier or a censor bar, that they can express freely with a pencil and paper without anyone to tell you how appropriate or inappropriate their expressions are.