Saturday, March 13, 2010

The Rape Taboo!

Or rather the lack thereof. That is one of those things that has always bothered me about the world. There really isn't a taboo against rape. Its funny too (ha!ha!) because I live in a roughly tabooless world. I mean I don't think incest is the best of ideas and we KNOW that offspring production is a bad idea out of those things, but I think that a situation or two could come along to make me thing that it isn't so bad. I didn't conem lucien valentine when I found out about his incestuous relationship with his sister and I was genuinely sad when she offed herself. In a world so full of sadness what would you go and do that for? Because he wouldn't give you a baby come on now. Okay well CLEARLY there are all sorts of problems going on in that situation but the point remains. There is a pretty heavy incest taboo that I don't feel. I just sort of frown at it, but I do try to approach it with an open mind. But seriously, SERIOUSLY? Rape is one of those things I don't approch with an open mind. Mich like other people I am SO over with holywood movies using it for horrific effect. I guess it is because I feel the full force of what I am watching on the screen and I know that some of the people around me are not.

So yeah rape is inexcusable, yes even in prison, yes even if the person is a pedophile. There is a d in pedophile, while I knew that I just never processed it. Fascinating.

Anyway, so what brought this on? Two articles which I actually care enough about to link to.

One is about prison rape

The other is about how to stop it.

They are both fairly meaty reads and worth your full attention. I'm going to dealing with the second one mostly. See the main problem that we need to deal with when it comes to stopping prison rape is the fact that rape simply isn't a taboo. Hell it isn't even frowned upon. More horribly the way our society is working at the moment is, when a politician tries to do something nice for the inmates (like put in rape safe guards), they are seen as being soft on crime. Being seen as soft on crime is effectively a death knell. At the moment prison rape isn't a problem, by golly it is a feature and its virtues are called out everywhere from Sublime songs, to knowing conversations about what happens to people in prisons.

Furthermore, these rapes are never prosicuted. The rapists are never brought up on charges, hell I don't even know if there is any punitive action from within the prison and this isn't even STARTING to touch on the abuses the guards inflict on the inmates that goes unreported/recorded. This is a huge problem and the root of it, the thing that is staring everyone in the fact but that no one wants to acknowlage is the fact that we, as a society, don't give enough of a shit about rape to put forth any effort in trying to stop it. And that is both sick AND sad.

So first lets get those people who are not on board with me out of the way. BACK it incest because just about everyone agrees with the incest taboo, that's what makes it a fucking taboo. Actually no screw that. I am tired of being accepting of other people's self appointed right to restrict how other people have sex. Those people suck. Also it is much easier to convince someone to take something away from someone else because it makes them happy than it is to convince someone that an extra helping of punishment is wrong. Its true I bet the god hates fags crowd and the pro prison rape crowd have a lot of overlap.

Extrodinary bitterness aside, it is important to undertand that while there is never really a good reason for a brother and sister to have sex, there is also never a reason to say hooray for prison rape. YEP PEOPLE DO! There is no public outcry against it, no humanitarian causes running to the aid of prisoners, fuck there aren't even watchdog groups that monitor the actions of the guards in relation to the inmates.

At the end of the day, once they are out of sight they are out of mind, and that is a fucking horrible way to be. This is a massive humanitarian black hole and the fact that we just let it happen all around us is just frankly bizarre to me. I dunno. I DO know that I am pretty bloody hungry and while I was going to produce another post tonight after this one I think I am going to instead put foods in my body.

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