Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Rape is Funny

I found this topic pretty interesting, especially since it's a topic that few people talk about. I have certainly heard my share of prison rape jokes, and I find even myself understanding the concept of "well they got themselves in there in the first place." Looking at it from another angle, however, I see that although a prison person has gotten themselves in that situation, there are different levels of crime. But regardless of the crime, rape shouldn't be the unintended reprocussion of that crime. But then again, if people are getting raped within prison, not saying its acceptable, that also shows the types of people who are in there (and thank god they aren't on the streets!). But a good point was brought up, if we can't control rape in an isolated atmosphere with officers holding guns, then what type of hope can we have that we can prevent it in the outside world where boundaries can easily be broken? It's a scary thought.

Although I think that rape should not be joked about, I can see where it stems from. In this day and age there are a lot of things that are more widely accepted as well as talked about. Fifty years ago we weren't even allowed to see a man and a woman sharing the same bed on t.v. and now we have shows and movies with various sex scenes and controversial acts. This makes me wonder if all this stimuli has created our society to become somewhat numb to these larger issues, especially of rape. Although most of us (or I at least hope) know that rape is a very harmful thing, we constantly hear or see movies about it and so maybe we have come to the point where the shock value diminishes. I know earlier this year we spoke about war and war photos and questioned how much numbness is created by viewing such things frequently through the news, video games, movies, etc.

1 comment:

Lauren K. Hansen said...

I would think that a lot of the rape that occurs in prisons stems more from mental anguish and sexual frustration than from the fact that most prisoners are inherently "rapists." Of course - it goes without saying that many prisoners are violent. However - I don't think that every man who is involve in rape in prison would have done the same "on the streets."