The Americans have this thing where if someone is caught for a heinous crime they say, “Guess he’s gonna have to watch out when he bends down to pick up the soap in the prison shower.” The impulse behind the formulation is twofold; primarily, it is related to impotence—secondarily it is about the status victimhood holds in America.
In Tom Clancy’s popular novel Red Storm Rising (1986), the Soviet Union invades the West—Clancy follows various theatres in the conflict, including an invaded Iceland. In this theatre, Clancy concentrates on a rag-tag group of American survivors from the first Soviet assault. As they cross the bleak volcanic landscape—all black and porous, as if the rocks are made from hard sponges—they come across Soviet soldiers who have raided a little farmhouse. The Soviets have killed the parents, raped the teenage daughter (she’s pregnant—Russians are animals, ya know), and are about to loot the place. The Americans, in true John Wayne fashion, wade in and smoke out the bandits.
The lead American kills the rapists in a vicious lingering manner (not insignificant) and rescues the girl; as she tags along with the Americans, she falls in love with the lead. The reason she falls in love is, however, significant—the romance blossoms when he reveals his girlfriend back home was abducted, raped, and murdered. The perpetrator goes pretty much unpunished (strangely not really a problem for Clancy). This makes the girl fully fall in love with the American—you see, they are both victims (it helps to have something in common as a couple—something to talk about in the rocking chairs by the fire in your old age, “Ya remember that gal of mine who was raped and murdered…”).
The message is clear: if you want to get the beautiful blonde ice maiden, you better be a victim—in other words, you better be a woman too. You better be passive—chicks dig a really passive guy. Further, rape is worse than murder; hence it must be punished in a spiteful vicious manner—with humiliation (the grotesque execution of the Soviet soldiers, one of whom is naked from the waist down—it’s all about embarrassment for Clancy). It’s girly, it’s resentful, it’s impotent—grrr, I’m going to claw you with my fingernails. Indeed, Clancy’s characters even say things like, “It’s just the darn’ed-diddly-arnest worst thing in the world what they did to that girl.” Worse than murder, you see.
Clancy is a latent transsexual—quite a bit of “butch” American masculinity, especially “chicks with guns”, is latent transsexualism. This includes the “prison rape” fantasy. The reason this appeals is that it creates more victims, and American society exists to create victims: holocaust survivors, cancer survivors, incest survivors, automotive accident survivors…The whole “survivor” trope—once only associated with people who spent months on a life raft in the Pacific—has subsided since its late ’90s high point but the basic ethic is still there.
Americans would deeply love to have “slavery survivors” although, unfortunately, all the surviving slaves died out before the trope became current—however, some psychologists have suggested that there is an inherited persecution complex from slavery; so there may be hope for a “slavery support group” yet; especially if you trace your DNA ancestry and are traumatised by the realisation your great-great-great-grandfather was owned on a plantation.
The general environment, satirised in Fight Club (1999), is such that you sit around in a circle and talk about your “issues” and “trauma” (don’t really talk about them). The main point is that you are a victim; sweet, sweet victimhood—pump it into my veins. Of course, per Fight Club, perhaps “inside you there are two wolves” and Tyler Durden is about to take charge…However, in most cases, it’s more likely you’ll decide you are a transsexual and become the ur-victim—a woman—instead.
A man kills a family of four and their Labrador, only the mother survives—the house is burned down. Surely, say conservatives, liberals should feel sympathy for the victims? Yet no, they prefer the perpetrator. Why? Well, he is a victim, you see—not just of his upbringing, but also, post-crime, of the entire criminal-justice system. One man against the system—you cannot be more victimised. You are powerless before “the carceral state”. Who can stand against the vast state bureaucracy, the anonymous guards and administrators—the dumb prison walls? Soul on ice.
It is here that “macho liberals” like Clancy step in—for, despite Clancy’s military obsession, he was a total liberal, wanted to be a girl (remember, his hero lets his girlfriend’s murderer get away with it—expresses a vague doubt he should be punished at all). It is the “macho liberal” who favours the “prison rape” fantasy. Why? It creates more victimhood; not only imprisoned but raped. Double victimhood—double status points.
Further, people who make a fuss about “prison rape” want to avoid real punishment—the death penalty. Their English equivalent is a slapper who bangs the side of a black-windowed Serco van that carries a nonce and screams, “”I hope you rot in prison forever. I hope you rot!” (“Leave it, Chell—he’s not worth it.”). The reason people make a big deal about “rotting in prison—it’s worse than the death penalty” and “prison rape” is that, in fact, prison is not worse than death. Whatever their conditions, men will always choose “another day of life”. The number of criminals who beg to be killed or commit suicide due to a life sentence is small.
So the “prison rape” trope serves two purposes: for liberals like Clancy it’s a way to disguise the fact that their perverse resistance to the death penalty is not the correct punishment (“Oh but it’s worse than the death penalty, actually—we’re going to have them tortured inside for thirty years”). This isn’t true; it’s like Clancy’s scene where his American soldiers execute the Soviets for rape—instead of telling them to put their trousers on and then shooting them, there’s this weird execution-through-fracture-to-the-neck-and-choking. This is because rape is worse than murder—and so it must be punished in a peculiar extended torture, itself girly and vindictive.
This view is, of course, a correlate to the “sexual harassment” craze that was in full swing when Clancy was writing—the connection is missed because he covered military affairs and people automatically think “reactionary, very masculine”. Not at all; it’s petty and vindictive—orientated around female victimhood. And, remember, if you are a victim then you also get the beautiful girl—and rape is the worst thing ever (not because it is a crime against your property—daughter or wife—but because women are sacred objects that should always be believed).
So we find that “prison rape” (“let them rot”) constitutes a way to avoid the correct punishment for certain crimes—usually the death penalty—by the insinuation prison is an unbearable torture (if it is so, it means there is a serious failure in justice—in reality, it is an impotent fantasy or “cope” because the real punishment is forbidden). Secondarily, it fulfils a liberal need to see more and more victims in the world—with the criminal, once incarcerated (especially if black), the “ultimate victim” to be subject to therapeutic intervention and, essentially, worship