We have the technology to severely limit rape and other forms of abuse in out prison system we just have not will to stop it. The abuse some endure is prison is a major driver for the joining prison gangs and coming out more dangerous than they went in.

The threat of rape and assault is treated like just another deterrent to crime. Even shows like SVU when the lead characters are supposedly extra sensitive to sex abuse you see them use the threat of sexual assault in prison to pressure men to cooperate. We would never tolerate a system when women were subjected to an environment where men can rape them at will but when it is other men be raped then we giggle.

My pet psychobabble theory is the that there is a genetic component to male homophobia. Sex in the human mind has a control and dominance factor that we can ignore but it is there and there is almost always a power factor in sex. The male sex drive is such that even straight men will sometimes resort to forcing other men to satisfy them sexually if they don't have other options or since rape is about power and control they don't always care about the gender of the person they are dominating as long as they are dominated. We even have otherwise straight men pay male prostitutes to let them perform sex act on them because being dominated by another man turns them on. The isn't homosexuality that is just straight up fetish. I think both of these groups are distinctly different than homosexual men. It may describe some homosexual men but it has nothing more to do with their homosexuality than raping women has to do with being heterosexual. As a culture I think we need to separate these groups in how we talk about and understand homosexuality. The guy how likes to rape weak men is not a homosexual he is a sexual predator with a non different target. Being a monster has nothing to do with your sexual identity and everything to do with how screwed up are.

If you talk to a lot of men the fear of being raped is their greatest fear about prison and the way the human mind works that fear will often spill over to the attitude about gay sex. It is hard to have a positive attitude about an act that causes you such fundamental personal fear. I know it has to influence mine.

I do think removing the real fear that you could personally become the victim of repeating male on male rape would go along way towards changing the underlying attitude of gay sex. Look at the recent case before SCOTUS because the jury didn't think prison was much of hardship for gay men because I guess getting raped by another man is not supposed to matter if your gay. Beyond the fundamental moral obligation to protect people in the custody of the state we need to better understand the wide spread damage keeping the largest prison population in the world in a state where in cost state of fear and the fight or be a victim is doing to our nation. Most people forget that something as simple as bad car wreck when they had one more beer than they should have is all it takes to end up living in that world.

That is my wandering half coherent rant for the day. Please carry on.