Why Does Popular Culture Treat Prison Rape As a Joke?

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/141594/why_does_popular_culture_treat_prison_rape_as_a_joke/

Believe it: There exists a board game called "Don’t Drop the Soap" in which players are tasked with fighting their way through a prison. John Sebelius designed it as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is the son of Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services.

Gillius, Inc., the company selling Sebelius’ game online, promises a certificate of authenticity to the first 3,000 purchasers of the game that invites players to "steal painkillers from the nurse's desk in the Infirmary, avoid being cornered by the Aryans in the Shower Room, fight off Latin Kings in Gang War, and try not to smoke your entire stash in The Hole.

"The artistry of each handcrafted piece is matched with comparable humor & intelligence on every card. Stack your smokes, sharpen your shank, and get ready for an experience that only someone on the outside could appreciate." So goes the game’s promotional copy.

It’s certainly not the first time that rape in prisons is spun for humor (though perhaps it’s the first time that such humor is alleged as intelligent). Untold numbers of YouTube videos, Hollywood movies, and late night talk show monologues play off the soap meme. Meanwhile, Andy Borowitz just released the "Bernie Madoff edition" of his 2003 book, Who Moved My Soap?: The CEO's Guide to Surviving Prison.

This cartooning of abuse renders moot any sensitive and serious response to it. It’s also unique to abuse among male inmates; the ubiquitous caricature comes alongside a relative silence about rape in women’s prisons. There’s no soap-dropping counterpart "joke" referring to the abuse of female inmates. Ultimately, these distorted punch-line/silence memes enforce each other and perpetuate the reality of prison rape.

I've been a fan of David Letterman for something like thirty years, but I hate when he does jokes about Bernie Madoff and his new "prison husband."

revenge feels good.

(If you doubt that, look at a fucking, piece of shit Hustler magazine with its sick cartoons.)

The reason is that our popular culture is messed up and sadistic and thinks making fun of victims is hilarious. It's a bully culture. Pop culture excuses the extreme hierarchies and the abuse of underdogs in our society rather than questioning the predominant way of doing things.

It goes beyond thinking rape of women is funny, and it goes beyond even homophobia.

There are people who think the rape of women is abhorrent, and who support gay rights to the point of believing in equal marriage as well as in all other equal civil rights for gay people, who STILL make prison rape jokes, or at least allusions to prison rape jokes.

At least, there are men like that who do this.

It's like it's the one little mental leap that they haven't somehow yet made. These men, who would never tell a joke in which a woman gets raped, who would never tell a gay joke, and who might well confront someone who did, somehow still make jokes about how that corrupt politician is going to jail and is going to be the girlfriend of some guy named Bubba.

The only conclusion I can arrive at is that this isn't prejudice against people perceived as weak enough to be raped, it isn't prejudice against gays...it's one of the last remaining acceptable prejudices: that against the incarcerated.

Because, of course, we want to believe that all incarcerated people deserve to be where they are. And when someone of whom we have evidence that he fully deserves to go to prison gets convicted and goes to prison, the feeling amongst many people is that he also deserves whatever terrible things may happen to him there. And what's the most terrible thing most men can imagine happening to them, short of being killed?

I think the truth is more to be found there than anyplace else.

In the eyes of these people, it's OK to joke about these men being raped because they are criminals. It turns the table on them for the wrong they did. It is, thus, "OK" in a way that joking about women being raped outside prison or about gay men isn't necessarily OK to them. Because it's not really about rape, and it's not really about gay sex. To them, it's about payback.

As for woman-on-woman rape, I think they just don't want to go there. Far more comfortable to joke about how women who go to prison are going to become tough and masculine.

false bravado. Hasn't that old joke, this history of the joke, involved male false bravado, "whistling past the graveyard"?

might be slightly more aware of how screwed up it is and not treat it like a joke.

Nope.

I find the idea of non-consensual sex, in ALL of its forms, to be without a shred of humor. Anyone willing to make jokes about prison rape might as well make similar jokes about date rape, or child molestation. The people being raped in prison aren't generally the violent criminals that pose a danger to society. Even the ones guilty of some crime or another don't deserve rape as part of their punishment. And anyone who thinks so is a piece of shit.

this kind of gallows humor has been around since time immemorial.
humor is a defense mechanism with dealing with socially awkward or unpleasant circumstances.

You don't see similar humor about women because we as a society have at least evolved to the point of accepting that rape of women is horrible and should be shunned at all times and ways.

It's sad but that's how it's been for quite some time.
the violation of men is just not seen as important when in the prison system, it's seen as part of their punishment for breaking the law.

this probably ranges all the way back to the very first homo sapiens who stepped in a saber tooth tiger turd.

Better ones:
1) Why isn't prison rape prosecuted?
2) Why is it used as a management tool by prison authorities?
3) Why aren't prison staff prosecuted for turning a blind eye to rape?

and a revenge fantasy against people who (supposedly) deserve punishment of the worst sort.

Because Puritan America still regards aggression as masculine, and sexual submission as unmanly, we laugh at the idea of a violent offender's being victimized in turn. We can tell ourselves that the crime was somehow "deserved," and allow ourselves to stop thinking about it.

It's wrong to laugh at or even tolerate torture and rape, but these reasons are why we continue to perpetuate this lowest form of humor.

I know someone whose 3 year old nephew was murdered in Texas by his male babysitter. The child's family is Catholic. One family member (the one I know) convinced the rest of the family members to argue against the death penalty being given because they are Catholic. But he told me the real reason was that he knew child abusers get abused and raped in prison and he wanted this person to experience that. It made me sick.

and when "stuff" happens to bad people, it's ok..because they "deserve" it.

Our society values "macho" over just about everything else, so the very thought of a macho guy, getting treated like a "girl", is somehow funny to them..

It's why the coliseum was so popular "back in the day".:(

The introverts remain quiet, and think about it, coming to their own conclusions. The extroverts, not sure what they think of it, need the input of others reactions to tell them if it's good, bad, or something in they gray area between the two. So they talk about it. Sometimes crudely.

And of course, we have our brilliant cultural-corporate engineers who have learned how to keep us divided by playing the two groups against each other, so nobody will notice it's actually the corporate honchos who most need a few behind-the-bars treatments.

in society, have fewer rights, less powerful etc. is unworthy of the term.

And yes, prison inmates are about as powerless as you can get.

nt

Undoubtedly, many of the people who joke about prison rape are motivated in part by a feeling that the official punishment for crime is insufficient, and rape makes up for that. There seems to be a lip-smacking sense of satisfaction in their "don't drop the soap" jokes. My question to them is: in that case, why not make it official? I don't like punishment being left up to criminals: you can't trust them! So why not sentence an offender to five years inside plus three anal rapes a week? I imagine that almost all the jokers would be horrified by this suggestion, as anyone with an ounce of humanity should; but in that case, how can the unofficial equivalent be a source of amused satisfaction?

the concept or being forced the "cockmeat sandwich" as the joke went in the second Harold and Kumar movie, or worse yet, being subject to repeated and almost intitutionalized anal rape, is frightening as hell, even to "macho" guys who wouldn't normally admit any fear. Therefore, they laugh at what scares them in order to give them some power over that fear.

instead we are angered and vocal when it comes to any jokes about rape, including prison rape

now

i am not bashing your theory, i am extending it cause i think you have a point

just that some men are not very emotionally equipped to deal with those same feelings, and resort to humor or violence as an outlet.

that is what i was looking for. the difference. and you are probably right on. whereas women can take the "uncomfortableness" of it, .... males need to joke or express violence with it. get it.

Although I know there are people who would like to have writers and comedians adhere to a strict PC standard. Too bad.

That's why.

Look at the stories aimed at children in our society. They have clearly delineated "good guys" and "bad guys". The bad guys are only capable of evil. The good guys can do no wrong, even when their actions are identical to the actions of the bad guys. It leaves torture as an almost inevitable outcome.

When assholes tell my friend, who is a rape victim, and I to lighten up when their rape jokes trigger my friend's PTSD there is a fucking problem. :grr: