As Survivors, Dylan Adler and Kelly Bachman’s “Rape Victims Are Horny Too” Might Just Have One of the Best Hours of Comedy on Trauma

News ,

Sourcing comedy from trauma isn’t anything new within the art form of comedy. Yet, it feels as though, after centuries of the art evolving, joking about one’s scars, both physical and emotional, is a precarious endeavor. More specifically, the ever sharp topic of rape has been delicately been the catalyst for captivating and moving comedy specials by survivors and esteemed comedians Hannah Gadsby and Cameron Esposito with Nanette and Rape Jokes, respectively.

Dylan Adler and Kelly Bachman have broken new ground by doing an entire album of simultaneously cheeky and as-starkly-vulnerable-as-can-be comedy songs and stories about being rape survivors. The title itself Rape Victims Are Horny Too is, in of itself, both a trigger warning and the perfect spark for an almost unbelievably trailblazing hour of comedy. As both Dylan and Kelly are rape survivors, they take back agency over their lives and their truths with such gleeful abandon with songs such as “Tell Me I’m Hot (Don’t Touch Me)” that you’ll be flabbergasted from both the lyrics and that you’re laughing heartily at them.

Rape Victims Are Horny Too dances so playfully and also so masterfully with taking power back from victimhood, but without going over-the-top in a way that diminishes the gravity of trauma. Adler and Bachman speak so specifically (as well as sing sassy lyrics over hit pop songs) of their experiences of being mansplained to about rape culture or about the unchecked advances at gay clubs while focusing on how they kept their humanity as intact as possible. Though one hopefully hasn’t been subject to rape/sexual assault/harassment/etc., there is undeniable relatability in their extremely human truths, especially when done up with some show tunes.

The power of narratives, specifically the overarching mainstream ones already in place that people just assume are truth, get rightfully dismantled here too. Woven into the themes of rape culture in Rape Victims Are Horny Too are plenty of imagery of sexual abusers that aren’t straight, cis white men. The inner workings of rape as perpetrated by queer people and women are pointedly detailed on several tracks. Their inclusion highlights why having conversations about rape, on all levels, needs to happen if we’re to address it meaningfully as a civilization.

As far as we’re concerned, Rape Victims Are Horny Too is as much of a tour de force of comedy as 2022 will bring thanks to the audacity, courage, and deftness of Kelly Bachman and Dylan Adler. If you’re pondering about comedy supposed power to affect change in such dark times, this hour of joke songs about rape might end up being irrefutable proof.

Rape Victims Are Horny Too is now streaming across platforms. Please listen and enjoy, knowing full well what the contents of the album are, here.