Friday, Jul 25, 2008
Attack on Louima showed supreme arrogance; why don't "Buffy" producers worry about sexual content?
Jun 2, 1999 | Is sodomy with a stick worse than death?
BY JILL NELSON
(05/26/99)
It seems incongruous that a population would rile at the story of a sodomy instead of a murder. I think, however, it may have something to do with the feelings behind the actions of Volpe and his confederates.
Murder has been used throughout history as a weapon of fear and last resort. In contrast, what Volpe did was an act of supreme arrogance: to degrade a person, threaten him and then assume that he could be left alive without fear of retribution. That he neglected to even feign an apology to Louima is the most ridiculous thing about the case -- can Volpe be so stupid as to not realize a little false remorse could save him a few months or years in jail?
This case feeds the anger of many in the New York area by illustrating the utter lack of regard that regular citizens are shown by the government. The New York Police Department is a group of largely well-trained and -behaved men and women, but betrayal of their duty to serve the populace rather than lord it over them must be met with the harshest criticism and the longest available jail terms.
-- Geoff Hunt
The media, including Salon, continues to characterize the attack on Louima as sodomy, or a "sexual attack." The suggestion that this act of brutality in any way intersects with a sexual act is both wrong and fundamentally homophobic. Do you call "rape" intercourse? No -- there is a clear distinction between sexual acts and acts that are hateful and violent.
Volpe's intention, which was to make Louima feel like he was powerless and "gay" (which, according to Volpe's frail ego, is a bad thing) is only being reinforced by the media's suggestion that the act was, in fact, sodomy. Sodomy, unlike rape, really is a sexual act. The whole reason that gays fight sodomy laws is because they discriminate against gay sex; Volpe's attack was not sex.
Why can't we just say that Louima had a broom handle forced into his rectum, and quit mixing it up with something even vaguely sexual?
-- Benjamin Keyser
The obvious pleasure with which Jill Nelson imagines the rape of Justin Volpe in prison is repulsive. I didn't realize it was now cool to wish rape on someone. Given the HIV infection rate in American prisons, Nelson is, in fact, fantasizing about Volpe's murder as punishment for beating and sodomizing Louima, a wish that at least should be acknowledged and perhaps subject to more sober reflection.
There is a brief moment of insight at the end of this essay, where Nelson almost begins to analyze the misogyny and homophobia that inform the knot of race and masculinity issues in this case, but settles for the conclusion that because "it all comes down to that same tired dick thing," we will "all continue getting fucked, one way or another, like it or not." I think it is clear that this case and its publicity, the willingness of the mass media to describe the torture of Abner Louima, constitutes an entirely new kind of "dick thing," one that warrants more attention and discussion than this glib, hateful essay gives it.
-- Elliott McEldowney
Nelson raises an interesting point about the "dick" element of the Abner Louima case, but it really is a little more complex than that. Shooting a bullet isn't nearly so personal as deliberating taking a human being, man or woman, into a bathroom with pants down and violating them with a jagged stick, then brandishing it about in an evil rampage. I believe people would be just as outraged if, all other things being equal, this had happened to a woman. Let's hope we don't have to find out.
-- Lisa C. Chamberlain
Associate Editor
Cleveland Free Times
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