By now, a lot of folks have heard about Glenn Murphy, the head of the Young Republicans in Indiana. If you haven't, I'll just quickly say that he's been accused of sexually assaulting a fellow Young Republican. The accuser woke up to find Murphy's mouth around his private part, while simultaneously attending his own by hand.
Comments popped up here and there on the thread, making jokes, puns, and whatnots. Even one of the updates to the original diary makes use of a quote that is perhaps meant to be funny, given the circumstances, because of the language used.
Despite a lot of the light, jovial tone of many of the comments on the thread, I was pleased to see that many posters spoke up and rightly stated that this is not a humerous incident.
This is sexual assault. You know, rape.
Sexual assault is sexual assault, no matter what gender the individuals are.
It's not funny in the least. Some poor individual was accosted in his sleep, when he could not consent, when he was vulnerable, when he had diminished power to fight off his attacker.
What happened was exceedingly vile. Why are we not more outraged on behalf of the victim? Because he is a Republican? Perhaps. I suspect, though, it is more because he is male.
Often, when some nogoodnik is sent to jail, people make jokes about cellmates who won't take no for an answer, about soap and showers, about making "new friends." All this joking is about someone (a man) potentially getting raped. Where's the humor in this? Why is it so difficult to empathize, to recognize that getting forcibly sodomized or being forced to perform sexual acts on someone or being forced to endure it being done to you so easily turned into joke fodder?
Can you imagine Leno or Letterman making jokes about females going to prison and getting raped? Why is it acceptable to laugh when the scenario has a male in place of the female?
I think we're nowhere near the level of responsibility and sensitivity as a culture regarding the rape of females. But, gads, I'm consistently astounded at how little consideration this form of crime gets when a male is involved as the victim. And the lack of consideration is frequently exhibited by men (though not exclusively).
Is it because this is so horrifying that men don't want to seriously address it? Because then they'd have to talk about getting raped, report it, admit that they were vulnerable in a way that many only like to percieve females as being vulnerable?
Make no mistake. The +vast+ majority of rape victims are female. And, I think, always will be. But males get raped as well. How can we address those hurts until we confront the truths in a serious manner, instead of consigning these hurts to 101 Classic Jokes?
UPDATE:
I wanted to update this diary with an exceedingly insightful post made by somone (Loquatrix) far downthread. I'm putting it in the main body of the diary because I fear that the comment is made so far downthread that not many might have the chance to read it:
No sexual assault is funny. (4+ / 0-)
Recommended by:
njgoldfinch, StopFamilyViolence, Fabian, marykk
It is simply telling that so many people find humour in male-on-male sexual assault.
People in general find sexual assault difficult to comprehend anyway; we all know how very hard it is for a woman even to be believed that she was raped. But for the most part, for many men, rape is someone else's problem. Doesn't really apply to them, and will never happen to them.
Now make it a situation where it's a male sexually assaulting a male, and the entire situation changes. Men suddenly realize they CAN be sexually assaulted. And with all the extra psychic stuff that men have associated with their sexuality... well, it's not just a simple matter of having one's body invaded by a stranger, is it. It's so much worse!! If you're a man sexually assaulted by a man, that might make you homosexual! Just like women get raped because they were secretly giving out signals that they wanted it, perhaps everyone will think this MAN was secretly giving out signals that HE wanted it! Or at least did not try hard enough to fight it off! Oh noes, society will think I am gay!!!
With all that extra stuff going on, it's no surprise that some men should do that thing where they gather together in a pack and try to emit some kind of communal bravado reaction to the whole notion. And I bet if you comb the jocular comments about this particular sexual assault, the majority will have been made by men. Trying to laugh it off seems to be a common male reaction to the obviously overwhelming horror of a man being sexually assaulted by a man, which is naturally that much worse than a woman being raped.
So yes. It's because some men don't want to seriously address it, which in turn is because too many men think women secretly want it when they get raped, which in turn makes those men fearful that if they are sexually assaulted by a man, it's because they secretly want it too.
Lots of attitudes need changing.
by Loquatrix on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 09:41:16 AM PDT