Is it possible to be considered heterosexual when commiting a prison rape.

[musicguy]

This thread is the result of a hijack . It seemed to be an interesting topic however so I thought I would go ahead and start this one.

Here’s a little background…
Originally posted by Stitch

Being raped in prison might give a heterosexual man some bias against homosexuals.

Response fromTheLadyLion

Interesting… considering the majority of prison rapes are committed by heterosexuals on a power trip, looking for a weaker, unwilling person with a hole to invade. As for Stitch’s second statement (not quoted here), I don’t think I’ll even take the time to dignify it with a response.

Response from avalongod

Where did you hear this bit of propaganda. Without doubt power and the desire to be cruel to another living being is a factor in the motivation of prison rapes. But to suggest that these are otherwise straight males who are merely using their penises as weapons without attaining any sexual arousal out of the homosexual contact is simply untrue.

As a researcher who conducts psychological research with a jail population, at least I have never found any evidence to support this statement.

From musicguy

Surely you aren’t suggesting that all or even most rapes in prison are commited by gay males, are you? Because that simply is not the case.

From avalongod

Oh, and what research exactly are you basing this upon? First I want to make it clear that gay men are in no way more prone to rape behavior than heterosexual male. But I think also we typically understand that not everyone fits so neatly into little boxes (gay vs. straight). If, by your reply you mean to suggest that men who commit prison rapes may have leanings in both homosexual and heterosexual directions, I would agree with you…in the sense that many of these individuals have very poor filters regarding whom they choose to have sex with. If, as the previous poster stated, you are meaning to say that it is strictly “heterosexual” males committing these rapes…meaning men who only feel sexual arousal toward women, then you are simply wrong.

this goes back to the old “Rape is about power, not sex” idea which (while still receiving some press) has largely been discarded among serious researchers. Numerous studies have examined the penile tumescence response of men who commit homosexual rapes, and find that they become sexual aroused (using a penile plethesmograph) at depictions of homosexual rape…in some studies equally aroused as by depictions of consensual intercourse (with both males and females) and in some studies more aroused than by depictions of consensual intercourse. While not meaning to imply that power as a motive is irrelevant, it clearly points out that sexual arousal is an important motivator in rape also. So as these individuals demonstrate clear and consistent arousal responses to depictions of violent (and in many cases non-violent) homosexual intercourse, they do not (in my mind) fit the description “heterosexual.” Are these individuals representative of the average gay or biosexual male, of course not. But it is categorically untrue to suggest that the majority of prison rapes are committed by “heterosexual” males

And then I presented cites that seemed to suggest that most perpretrators of rape in prison are considered to be heterosexual. And basically we went back and forth.

Here is my question. If it is true, as avalongod suggests, that the majority of these rapes in prison are committed by homosexual men, and prison rape is a very common occurrence, it would seem that a LOT of men in prison are homosexual. And a lot of homosexuals are into rape. I’m having a hard time buying this.

I don’t think that a homosexual act necessarily means that a person is homosexual. I think there are a lot more factors involved here. But that seems to be what avalongod is suggesting.

Anyone else interested in jumping in?

[Meatros]

I don’t think that a homosexual act necessarily means that a person is homosexual. I think there are a lot more factors involved here. But that seems to be what avalongod is suggesting.

Personally, I think that rape in prison has a variety of factors involved with it other than sexuality alone. I’m of the opinion that the rapist doesn’t have to be a homosexual to commit the act of rape.
I’m going to get into an ugly area here and I’m speculating, so bear with me:
The rapist has his own issues with power, that’s probably a given. The thing with rape in prison is, there aren’t a whole lot of females around. I’m thinking that male rapist want to feel something when they gratify themselves. Since access to a woman isn’t available, and they like the power trip anyway, they go for the man.

Just my (probably wrong) guess.

[John_Mace]

I don’t have the facts on this, but clearly many, if not most, prison rapes are by people who, when they exit prison, would be considered hetero. Think about it. If you’re gay in prison, you’ve got to be somewhere near the bottom of the pecking order, not the top (no pun intended). You get a bunch of men together with no prospect of contact wtih females, and the sex drive is not just going to be put on hold.

[PatriotX]

I thought that the terms heterosexual and homosexual and such were about sexual preference. While a man might rape another man in prison, that doesn’t mean that it is his preference

[AHunter3]

me, in this theory paper:

the primary image that heterosexual society has of the homosexual man is an image of a dominated man, one who is taking on the feminine sexual role, or who has had that role forced upon him. The boys in the schoolyard don’t just say “You faggot”; they also say “Fuck you”. In American prisons, it is widely whispered that there are males (especially young ones) who are utilized as receptacles, who are buggered, sodomized by force -they are considered to be homosexual, but those who rape them or insert into them are not.

Lest anyone misconstrue, I am citing this attitude in my paper, not lending support to it. Raping someone makes someone a rapist. Being raped makes someone a rape victim. Neither activity makes someone homosexual or heterosexual. And neither (male) homosexuality nor femininity has any intrinsic connection to subserviency, nor does (male) heterosexuality or masculinity have anything intrinsically to do with dominance. IMHO.

[Captain_Amazing]

You have a few factors here. Like John Mace mentioned, you have what’s known as situational homosexuality. In an closed off, single sex environment, like prisons, boys’ boarding schools, old naval ships, a certain percentage of men, even those with heterosexual orientations, will enter into homosexual relationships and have homosexual sex, just because they want sexual release, and there are no women around.

It’s also sometimes a power thing, especially when it’s rape. Prisons are really hierarchical places, and raping someone is a way to show your authority and your dominance over them.

[Polycarp]

Huh. Let’s take a good look at what Avalongod had to say.

He does not say that “the majority of rapes in prison are committed by homosexuals” – if by that statement you mean that the men who commit prison rapes are men who would identify as homosexual and seek out same-sex relations on the outside – Kinsey-5 or -6 mean. (And note that consensual sex relations have been known to occur in prison, and moderately coercive ones that are not forcible as well – one of the sort where large, strong inmate trades protection of smaller, weaker inmate for sexual release, making the latter into “his bitch”; the quasi-effeminization of the conception is instructive.

Rather, what Avalongod appears to be saying is that men who commit homosexual acts in prison are predominantly amoral insofar as sex is concerned, with no clearly defined moral standard for what they consider “right” or “wrong” in this regard – as goes along with the fact that they were imprisoned for an act society considers “wrong” in the first place.

What their sexual preference in free outside society might be is irrelevant – they’re in an environment where their sole social contacts, excluding rare visits, are with other prisoners of their own sex, plus guards (there being in some states a few female prison guards at men’s prisons, a fact that is essentially irrelevant).

In any population, the Kinsey numbers refer to orientation – what one’s predominant and expressed preference in sex partners might be. Most people do not lie on the extremes of the scale, totally uninterested at any time in their life in sex with anyone of the same sex (Kinsey-0) or of the opposite sex (-6). In Joe Typical, his principal interest is in women, but he had that thought at age 14 about his best buddy Fred. Though he never acted on it, he’s off the “0” point of the scale by a smidge.

Now, in the prison population we have a group of people with a predominantly amoral outlook on life generally and sex in particular – what gratifies or benefits them personally is their focus. Only a small proportion of them are going to be Kinsey-0’s. Their self-identification as “real men who don’t go in for that fairy stuff” may be a preventative to sex, but the human capacity for rationalization will come to their rescue, as it were, and their thinking will be along the lines that “I’m just getting my rocks off; the guy giving me the blowjob is the one who’s really gay.” (And he in turn is thinking, “I’m not really gay, but they’ll kill me if I don’t have Big Jim’s protection, and doing this is a small price to pay for doing my time without getting ganged up on.”)

Bottom line: for the most part the prison population are Kinsey-1’s, effectively uninterested in sex with men if women are available and willing or seducible but quite capable of getting off with another men when they must spend years behind bars with no access to women.

And, of course, probably there are a large number of people whose prison time does not include sex with anybody but Rosey and her five daughters. Prison rapes, and consensual and coercive prison sex, do exist, but we may be blowing the phenomenon out of proportion in discussing it as though it were common. Qadgop and the two or three prison-guard Dopers might have some instructive comments on this.

[AHunter3]

Here is an ancient post by a poster named Rowan pertinent to the subject, within an interesting thread "Why is being GAY an issue?"

[musicguy]

Poly,

Your post gives me a better understanding of where avalongod is coming from. Thank you for taking the time to do so.

I’m as dense as a potato sometimes but that is why I am here, to learn and understand. At the risk of embarrasing myself, let me put this out on the table.

I can understand that someone who commits a rape in prison might not be 100% heterosexual, although they may absolutely consider themselves to be heterosexual. But let’s say that someone is 100% heterosexual (if there is such a thing). Let’s also say that they are a rapist. Maybe they have raped 10 women and that is why they are in prison. If they rape a prisoner while in prison, are they doing it to satisfy an urge to have gratifying sex? Or do they just have an urge to rape someone, and being that there isn’t a female around, they go for the next best thing, so to speak. Has their rating on the Kinsey scale suddenly changed? Are they now less heterosexual? Or did the rape have absolutely nothing to do with their sexual orientation?

Help me out here

[MrVisible]

Well, the Kinsey scale does take incidental homosexuality into account.

0- Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual 
1- Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual 
2- Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual 
3- Equally heterosexual and homosexual 
4- Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual 
5- Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual 
6- Exclusively homosexual 

I consider myself a Kinsey 5 because of a couple of incidents where a woman was able, willing, friendly, knew I was gay, wanted to anyway, I was horny, and there were no guys available. I would consider a prison rapist to have moved into the Kinsey 1 category.

[Polycarp]

Two quick points:

“Identification” and “orientation” are two slippery concepts to deal with here. The first refers to what one categorizes oneself as; the second to what category of persons contains one’s preferred sex partners. They’re interrelated but distinct, and it’s key to our discussion here what the distinction is.

I’ve told the story a couple of times about the young man I used to know. Most of the time he was intensely interested in finding and bonding with a woman and having hot sex with her. But when he got drunk, he enjoyed sex – with anybody – and reciprocated on the giving of pleasure. He admitted to being turned on by male erections when drunk and would fellate while being fellated, and at least once invited another man to penetrate him anally, and I got the impression from his telling me about it (while drunk) that he enjoyed it. But he considered himself “straight” – he identified as straight – because his principal interest, sober or drunk, was in women; it was merely that he recognized himself as capable of enjoying gay sex as well, and when drunk, was sufficiently uninhibited to enjoy it and seek it out.

What do you call him – gay? straight? bi? The latter is accurate to a third party, but he self-identifies as “straight” (being sufficiently focused on a black/white either/or gay/straight dichotomy to not buy into “bi”) because of his predominantentation.

And one of the key points that Avalongod makes is that these prison men are not sufficiently socially responsible to have healthy sexual interrelationships of mutual desire, but rather are focused on self-gratification. We’re looking here, then, not at their preferred sex partner but rather their preferred sex object – and what they choose to do in an exclusively-same-sex environment is more directly related to their urge to satisfy themselves sexually and their personal self-identification than to any spectrum aimed at examining sexual preference in relationships. On the Kinsey scale, their rating would be the square root of minus one, so to speak – their focus is not on sexual relations but on sexual gratification.

[musicguy]

Poly, thanks again for your insight.

I thought that this topic might be more worthy of debate. I misunderstood avalongod’s posts and for some reason, was offended by them. I was curious to see if I was the only one that felt this way.

Now, I think I was just overly sensitive to his words, too quick to judge him as a person who had a discriminatory view, and not really paying enough attention to what he was actually saying. Food for thought.

avalongod, if you happen to wander over to this thread, let me say that I’ll try to pay better attention next time.