3 ms·

Adam Gopnik's piece on The Caging of America does a good job explaining what's going on and summing up my feelings on the topic: "Prison rape is so endemic—mor

Adam Gopnik's piece on The Caging of America does a good job explaining what's going on and summing up my feelings on the topic: "Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncooperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized." http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120130crat_atlarge_gopnik http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120...

wlievens 13y ago
To better picture the severity of that normalisation, just reverse the genders and imagine a TV show where a male inspector threatens a female suspect with prison rape...
brc 13y ago
I remember reading that piece when it came out. I've never made a prison rape joke since, and I always am willing to be the person who makes an uncomfortable pause to hose down someone prison rape joke. Racist and gay hatreds found their support in 'harmless' jokes, and for that to change, the jokes had to change. People still tell prison rape jokes (and include in plotlines) where they would never use a racist or homophobic joke. So the best way forwards to work against the prison rape meme is to be that person who says 'well, I don't find jokes about rape funny at all.' You'll get rolled eyes and mutterings behind your back, but people will look back at this period and wonder why this was such a big public joke instead of a terrible injustice.

wlievens 13y ago

To better picture the severity of that normalisation, just reverse the genders and imagine a TV show where a male inspector threatens a female suspect with prison rape...

brc 13y ago

I remember reading that piece when it came out. I've never made a prison rape joke since, and I always am willing to be the person who makes an uncomfortable pause to hose down someone prison rape joke. Racist and gay hatreds found their support in 'harmless' jokes, and for that to change, the jokes had to change. People still tell prison rape jokes (and include in plotlines) where they would never use a racist or homophobic joke. So the best way forwards to work against the prison rape meme is to be that person who says 'well, I don't find jokes about rape funny at all.' You'll get rolled eyes and mutterings behind your back, but people will look back at this period and wonder why this was such a big public joke instead of a terrible injustice.