In the title “Rape Joke” and the repeated phrase “The rape joke is” or “The rape joke is that,” Lockwood draws attention to and critiques common tropes about sexual assault. Sometimes Lockwood seems to imply that “the joke” is that the stereotypes are sometimes all too true. For example, it is typical for the assailant to be the victim’s “boyfriend” or romantic partner. It  is also common for people to blame victims because they were drinking alcohol before the assault—as the speaker observes, “Who drinks wine coolers? People who get raped, according to the rape joke.” It is statistically expected that a woman’s rapist will be someone she knows well, and the speaker’s assailant is “like a son to” her parents.

Lockwood repeatedly highlights these “signs,” as the speaker implies that she “should have seen it coming.” This idea contributes to the subsequent victim-blaming that is often part of the fallout of a report of sexual assault. The speaker tries to combat some of these stereotypes, however, by giving her account from the survivor’s perspective. The survivor struggles to recover, as she was “crazy for the next five years”; tries to escape her past trauma by moving to various cities and states; and avoids the subject in her writing for some time. She expresses the struggle to integrate the memory of the assault, a clearly extraordinary invasion of her autonomy, into her ordinary life and sense of self and time.

The poem serves as the speaker’s method of working through the trauma of her rape in her writing. Though the poem itself conveys the difficulty the survivor has in arriving at this point, the speaker is now translating her pain into poetry in an attempt to understand what has happened to her. Near the end of the poem, she reveals that for several years after she was raped, she wrote about “anything else,” intentionally or subconsciously sidestepping her trauma.

In a metapoetic move, the speaker recognizes, “The rape joke is that if you write a poem called Rape Joke, you’re asking for it to become the only thing people remember about you.” This line emphasizes the survivor’s fear that if she makes her story public, her assault will completely define her. The idea that the speaker’s reputation would be dominated by her identity as a rape survivor is limiting and would represent a loss of control over her own sense of self and how she is perceived by others. She would lose her autonomy and identity in a similar way to that in which being raped deprived her of her control over her own body. The parallels between the speaker’s actual rape and her attempt to transcribe it in her poetry are represented through her phrase “you’re asking for it,” a saying commonly levied against rape survivors.

Late in the poem, the speaker asks, “Can rape jokes be funny at all, is the question.” The poem raises the question of what is an “appropriate” response to trauma, and the speaker seems to respond that humor can be a way of dealing with, understanding, or trying to reconcile oneself with a life-changing incident. Lockwood’s repeated use of irony draws attention to the absurdity of the situation, emphasizing the speaker’s feeling that the assault makes no rational sense and is difficult to comprehend and assimilate into her life story.

Some of the details about the speaker’s rapist are darkly humorous, such as his admiration for professional wrestler and actor “The Rock,” that his best friend is called “Peewee,” and that he gives the speaker a copy...

It is common to refer to the idea of power when thinking or talking about rape and sexual assault; it is often said that rape is not about sexual desire but is actually about the power and dominance that the assailant attempts to assert over the victim. In Lockwood’s poem, the speaker suggests that writing about her rape on her own terms is what allows her to reclaim power over her story. In constructing her very serious assault as a “rape joke” instead, Lockwood indicates that she has the right to cope with and talk about her life in whatever way seems most beneficial or productive to her.

Through the poem’s speaker, Lockwood notes that writing about her rape will result in her being identified with—maybe even defined by—her assault. However, in writing her poem on her own terms, attempting to translate her experience of trauma in an authentic manner, the speaker takes control back from her assailant. She states that “this is just how it happened” and includes details that may not be flattering, in the sense that she implies that she sought her rapist’s attention and affection. She views her younger self as naive, even foolish. This self-loathing and shame is all part of her experience of trauma, and she claims it as part of her story. Ultimately, the poem describes the rapist as a deeply flawed, even pathetic man, while the speaker conveys courage in her willingness to be open and honest about her experience.