WARNING: Do not read beyond this point unless you have a sense of humor! Here are 15 rape jokes that work.

Could that be the tweet that triggers the end of the affair between the liberal Twitterati and Kim Dotcom?

The tweet came after a joke posted on Saturday, as part of an extended “fly on the wall” riff imaginging the exchanges between Hillary Clinton and John Key.

That read:

Fly on the Wall. John to Hillary: “I am so sorry Madam President aehm Secretary. Please give me another chance. Should we allege some rape?

After being assailed for making light of rape, he removed the tweet. It’s hard to understand what he thought he would gain by lining himself up with Julian Assange.

He subsequently posted:

The world is full of critics. They make no mistakes cause they attempt nothing. I create, I fight, I tweet, I joke, I make mistakes. Got me!

It is important to note that the link in Dotcom’s “15 rape jokes” tweet goes to the blog of respected feminist writer Kate Harding, and her post engages with the recent debate around whether rape jokes can ever be OK. Harding introduces her list by saying that she has chosen “rape jokes that work as jokes – which is to say, A) they’re constructed so that rape victims are not the butt of the joke, and B) they made me laugh”.

She adds: “Emphasis on the “me” there. Not everyone’s going to agree, and some people are going to think I’m a bad feminist, which, what else is new. But I want to be able to link to this post in the future, when this happens again – because it always does – and hordes of young men start screaming – because they always do–that feminists are trying to take all the funny out of comedy AGAIN.”

But that hasn’t satisfied many of Dotcom’s followers.

Some of the responses:

Kim Dotcom rape jokes tweet responses

Storified by Toby Manhire · Mon, Sep 03 2012 15:44:36

Which prompted the following from Dotcom:

I do apologize if I offended anyone. Kate Harding is a feminist who got raped and SHE thought those jokes were funny. I used her headline.

If nothing else, this adventure on Twitter puts paid to anyone still of the conviction that the Coatesville millionaire has a stealth PR team doing his social media.

Update (11.05am): Another tweet from Dotcom, which conjures the soundtrack of a shovel at work:

Rape is the worst kind of crime. My wife told me she felt like she was raped after the raid. I should not have brought this up. Forgive me.