Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

With previous forms of expressing their masculinity inaccessible, rape is in turn, the most effective way
left to signify dominance over other individuals (taking their manhood).
After all that has happened to the victim, regaining their manhood would be on the brink of
impossible. A Texas inmate stated that there was only two ways to regain your manhood, one being you
kill perpetrator or two you rape someone else. Many inmates go with the latter option and find a victim
weaker than themselves, because it is the easier option of the two. Once the act is done other inmates
realize that the inmate that was once a weak and feeble prey has become a predator as well. The once
victimized inmate then makes a statement that he can take the pain as well as deliver it. (Cronan)
Delivering such pain does not go unnoticed, but the guards rarely but their jobs on the line for
inmates. Many inmates are given mere slaps on the wrists, or placed in solitary confinement for one week,
two weeks, or a month never more. (Barnett, Arnold). For example, a Texas inmate reported to Human
Rights Watch that the correctional officers in his cell block allowed an inmate assigned to a different cell
stay with him for two days. During the two days the inmate was raped continuously and his life was
threatened. When the inmate informed authorities of the acts that took place over the two days it was
logged as an alleged attack. The perpetrator was charged with verbal threatening, and escaped disciplinary
action for the more serious offense.
When inmates try to regain their manhood they complete tasks they never thought they would. On
the popular series Lock-Up a knowingly homosexual man was interviewed. He stated for him to regain
his manhood he had to kill the man who initially raped him. Once he was dead the inmate told MSNBC
that no one troubled him again about trying to take his manhood. He stated ―Because of me being an open
homosexual I was thought to be an easy target, But after I killed that man I wasn‘t a pushover anymore‖.
When no one listens to homosexuals, the only escape route is killing the initial perpetrator.
Homosexual inmates are the most likely to be sexually abused. Because many of the openly gay
inmates are not afraid to showcase their sexuality, correctional officers do not see their abuse as rape.
Gays in prison are bashed even more in prison than outside of prison. Every sexual act they commit
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