Seems the comedy fans are of the consensus that 'It's fine to make rape jokes, just it's a shame he didn't try very hard and just seemed to come out with a poorly crafted piece of abuse instead'.
To me, it sounded like he got caught off guard and reacted without thinking, and when these things blow up, it might be the best move to just deliver a public apology, and then go back to doing what he does without any changes, except to come up with some better retorts in future.
I do think it'd be a travesty for anyone to lose a damn career over a single badly chosen line, but for some reason we seem to take the opinions of people who didn't hear it and weren't there over the actual audience.
Want to bet me that 95% of the people who signed that petition weren't at the show, and probably weren't even offended, but just don't like Tosh, and are usually commenting on youtube clips going 'this fag not funny' and the like?
Still, if the case of Johnathon Ross and Russell Brand is anything to go by, their prank phone call got 2 complaints, until the newspapers got involved and made sure that everyone who wouldn't listen to them by choice got to hear how 'terrible' the things they said were, and suddenly, 30,000 complaints.
Now Ross has his own prime time TV show back, and Russell Brand has too, and he's in movies. Thanks Daily Mail!