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seems some of these people don't understand
homosexual sex in prison is not performed by homosexuals.
it is the heteros -- the malest of the males -- that want the dominance,not the homosexuals.
dominance is a male thing
any homosexuals (probably a smaller percentage of the prison population by far than of society as a whole) there would very probably be in a submissive rold.
but of course those who rail against homosexuality are ready to say that it's the homosexuals who perform the acts and want the control.
like so many their statements, this grossly ill-informed.
posted by
Xeno-x
on October 17, 2005 at 6:27 AM
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wow...!
That was a great post ozone... Just to clear the air... I think I might have been a little harsh on critter and josh. I just want to understand better where you're coming from. I'm very pro gay marriage, and it has just been ratified in Canada, and I was lucky enough to be in parliament when the bill passed. I get a little defensive about it sometimes, because it hits so close to home: I personally identify as bisexual, although I am currently in a homosexual relationship.
Ozone brought up the integral point that sexuality is a continuum, and this continuum does not stay fixed over time. It flexes and bends. Although rape is often about power, I think it is just as probable that in prison, a frustrated sex drive tries to find an outlet. It can be a way of establishing social dominance, but really, sometimes it's just a matter of extreme horniness and convenience. What of the queer who would have never known they enjoyed queer sex until they were raped in prison? While I think it is still valid to separate homosexual acts from a homosexual identity, this is a matter of culture. Some cultures in Africa have traditions of adolescent boys giving oral sex to older men. This behaviour, however, has more to do with their cosmology than their identity. Believing that masculinity is carried in the materiality of semen, the swallowing of semen becomes the consolidation of masculinity in the boy coming of age (no pun intended :) Without such coming of age rituals, the boys would not become men and go on to marry and reproduce according to their beliefs. This is a test case of where homosexual acts do not equate with the homosexual identity. I agree with ozone's point about emotional attachment as well...
posted by
Trevor_Cunnington
on October 15, 2005 at 9:11 PM
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choosing to become homosexual???
OKAY - I have to make it really clear that this is a quote, cut and pasted from the last comment - no way did I say this - I just wanted to keep it clear and in context when I cut and pasted the comment for referral -
It was written: "As we are informed so often x or y percent of the male population are homosexual, it follows ineluctably that roughly the same percentage will be either homosexual before they entered prison, or became so after entry. Does it not then follow that these people rape others mainly, or solely for the pleasure of it?"
I hesitate to even get in on this discussion about whether or not prison rape is done for pleasure or power.
The answer should be obvious. Prison is hell and survival is all about power. What caught me up in that recent entry was this notion that someone "becomes" homosexual. I'm not even going to indulge myself in a rant over the question "why would you attribute rape in prison to men who just came out and happen to be in prison at this very same coming out time?" Where do you think we get our information about why men rape in prison? Remember, female prison society also uses sex for power. It's just not as hard for people (men in particular) to wrap their minds around women using sex for anything and it's always been easier to deal with the idea of women being sexual with each other. Anyway, we don't "become" homosexual. Our sexual identity is an integral element of the personality and we don't become a different identity any more than we can become a different race.
Like most of life, this is a multi-faceted issue. Perhaps I understand it because I'm not strictly heterosexual, but I'm not at all gay and friends argue that I may not even be bisexual. Just because I think sex with women is more often the hottest and most satisfying sex, does not make me, as a woman, a lesbian or bisexual, although I'd be proud to stake a claim in either identity. It all comes down to where you find your emotional bonds.
When I was single, I loved women, and sex with women was definitely a preference - for sex. However, I don't bond emotionally with women on any level greater than "girlfriend". I didn't consider a night with a woman to be a "date". It was a booty call and I never got involved this way with a woman who wasn't at least as unattached as I was. We were all in it for the sex. I'm a woman, but I think more like a man. Eventually, I bonded with a man who needed a woman who doesn't think so much like a woman.
Where am I going with these personal confessions? I'm trying to make it clear that you just can't make flat statements about sex, attraction, power, rape, prison rape, not-rape. None of it is so simple.Our sexual identity is on a long tightrope stretched out between totally gay and totally straight. Few of us can land right in the center and stay that way and nobody can define what is purely female and purely male in any aspect of the personality. We are an adaptable creature, that's why we're so successful. We adapt to harsh conditions and we survive. In prison, rape is tied to a specific motivation, to define your social position, possibly save your own life, or yield the kind of power that some think necessary for survival. People with less intelligence and less compassion for others will take the obvious, most abusive route for survival. Has nothing whatsoever to do with pleasure or attraction, except that it makes it easier if your bitch is a bitch.
I'll finish with this - about 30 yrs ago, I had a lover who had prison stories. His favorite was about the time he heard terrified screams coming from the shower. He followed the screams and found a huge, muscular prisoner being raped by a skinny man about half his height............Ponder that one.......
posted by
ozonefriendly
on October 15, 2005 at 8:32 PM
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the "my best friend is gay, but" variant of homophobia
most of the time people start a statement kow-towing to norms of political correctness and slap a condition on it, it is dissimulation. Josh and critters' fear that same-sex couples only marry for tax benefits, as they note, is equally applicable to heterosexual couples. This argument cancels itself out because to be fair, you would have to cancel tax benefits for heterosexual couples, which I don't think you want to do. Besides, what is the problem with wanting and getting the benefits and tax-breaks of the married?
posted by
Trevor_Cunnington
on October 15, 2005 at 11:06 AM
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The issue for me is not homosexuality... my best friend happens to be gay and I love him to death. It's (and I have a problem with male/female couples doing this too) the marriage for purposes other than a personal commitment. You don't need a piece of paper and a tax break to love someone. The only issue I have it the two girls or guys that use it as a means of trying to weasel out benefits that apply to married couples.
posted by
Critter_and_Josh
on October 14, 2005 at 12:21 AM
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men raping men in prison?
and such
most of the times those men are not homosexuals.
so there really is no comparison with homosexuals.
just like child molesters -- from what I have heard and seen, most child molesters commit abuse against chldren of the opposite sex.
and priests who molest young boys? - these are just the available people.
priests have been known to molest young girls and nuns -- we need to quit this fallacious connecting of sexual abuse with homosexuality
it's like saying all cats are lions -- see? not all abusers are homosexuals and certainly not all homosexuals are abusers. to say so is to make a false connection.
and those who would want to make such a connection are engaging in faulty conclusions.
using the lion/cat comparison is a good way to sort through these things.
all lions are cats, but not all cats are lions.
posted by
Xeno-x
on October 13, 2005 at 1:36 PM
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ariel70
At no point have I said that such a thing never happens. Rape in general is about power and control, not always. In date rape and such, there is an attraction there but the rape itself is about power and control. In the prison system I am sure there are few, not the norm though, of the rapists who are attracted to the victim. Simple logic would be to apply the statistics for homosexuals into it, which is I think about 3% of the population. So it might be a safe bet to say 3% of the time there is a sexual attraction to it, but that clearly says it is not the majority and is uncommon. And figuring the percent of the population in prisons as well as the percent of those in prison who commit rape, the numbers are going to be real, real low as to homosexuals committing rape in prison. Basically most homosexuals are not guilty of this, well over 99% of them. You can not go and base the arguments against homosexuality on such numbers, as some would like to try and do.
posted by
kooka_lives
on October 13, 2005 at 11:02 AM
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Kooka
I shall certainly do that. But I must say that, although I'm open minded on the subject, I shall need a hell of a lot of convincing that there is never, in any circumstances some element of sexual attraction in this form or rape.
One can never say with conviction that " They do this, that or the other" nor can one ever ascribe the identical motive to a group of people with divergent personalities and degress of violence in them.
posted by
ariel70
on October 13, 2005 at 10:21 AM
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ariel70
While there is pleasure involved, the rapist is not sexually attracted to the victim (Which is actually more common in rape than not, no matter the sex of the victim or rapist). You also do not rape those who are loyal to you, nor do you have consensual sex with them. The studies of the prison systems related to sexual activity show that those who get raped are being raped to show who has the power over them and to teach them a lesson. In some ways who rapes you first is kind of like marking you as theirs. The pleasure is not from sexual attraction, but from power and control. Yeah, it is the way they can get off, but they are normally not gay and have no real attraction to others of their own sex.
There is a lot out there on the study of this. You might want to go and look for some and see what has been discovered.
posted by
kooka_lives
on October 13, 2005 at 10:16 AM
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Renigade
And what was the conclusion of your musings on this subject. Do tell!
posted by
ariel70
on October 13, 2005 at 10:05 AM
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So funny...I was just thinking about this very topic as I mopped the dining room...
posted by
Renigade
on October 13, 2005 at 10:02 AM
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Kooka
You are correct to point to the radical difference between merely being homosexual by nature, and indulging in homosexual activity. But you still seem to be stating, or at least implying, that homosexuals in prison who commit rape do so mainly, or solely for the power over another that it gives them. I believe that this is an illusion.
As we are informed so often x or y percent of the male population are homosexual, it follows ineluctably that roughly the same percentage will be either homosexual before they entered prison, or became so after entry. Does it not then follow that these people rape others mainly, or solely for the pleasure of it?
posted by
ariel70
on October 13, 2005 at 9:56 AM
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