Male Rape Skit on Saturday Night Live, Aired on August 28, 2010

Last Saturday night, Saturday Night Live aired a program which included a skit that portrayed male rape in prison as "humorous". The segment included a couple of actors who were supposedly "scaring some kids straight" with talk about "what it's like to be in a prison". They described, in rather graphic detail, aspects of male rape in prison settings as, supposedly, a way to "show the kids why not to break the law".  Throughout the segment, as is common on SNL, there was a continuous 'laugh track'.

Least anyone forget, rape is a crime. Shall I repeat this: RAPE IS A CRIME. Whether a woman or man is raped, it is a violation of their legal rights as a citizen. Few people doubt that violent sexual penetration of females, by males (and sometimes other females) is a criminal act and should not be condoned. But, apparently, in the minds of the script writers at SNL, violent and unwanted sexual penetration of males, especially in a prison setting, is "humorous" and should be laughed at.

I find this bizarre, in the extreme. As an article that I read a couple of years ago, by a man who had been repeatedly raped in prison, noted "When the judge sentenced me, he didn't say 'you are hereby sentenced to 10 years in prison and are to be subjected to repeated violent sexual penetration, with the government representatives and/or guards providing you no protection nor legal recourse'. He only sentenced me to prison." Yet, male rape in prisons is an all too common occurrence in the "criminal justice system". And many in the society seem to treat it like "oh, that's just the way it is and nothing can be done about it".

This is simply intolerable. We have a greatly increased awareness in this culture about the horrendous reality of female sexual violation, and an increased willingness to prosecute such crimes. Yet violent sexual penetration of males, either in terms of cultural awareness of its occurrence (by family members, members of the clergy, intimate partners, and/or in prison) or willingness to see it as an intolerable crime to stop and prosecute, lags far behind. Sexual child abuse is far too common in our culture, and frankly that of male children doesn't lag too far behind statistics for female children - one in 5 girls, one in 7 boys (and that is only the latest figures). A number of studies have pointed out that around 70% of males in prison were themselves sexually abused as children. These are statistics, and facts, that our society continues to allow itself to be in denial about.

Violent sexual penetration, of males, by males (or female 'caregivers'), either as children or as adults, IS A CRIME, and should be treated as such. That males who serve time in prison (or 'justice systems', as they are commonly referred to) do not receive adequate protection from the prison system - and thereby do not have access to 'justice' within that system - is not something that this society can continue to ignore, and definitely not something it should crack jokes about or find humorous. Least we forget, people who serve their time in prison systems eventually are released. The trauma of prison itself is profound enough, without having the emotional trauma of sexual rape added to it.

Just in case SNL writers forgot, wealthy males don't usually end up in such settings, and that applies to network executives. Show some dignity for the real world of male experience; don't portray violent criminal sexual penetration of men as 'funny'. There's nothing funny about it. Any woman can tell you that.