I was watching an episode of “The Practice” the other day and it dealt with some woman who had been raped. Now, rape is one of those red flag issues (like religion, equality, and politics) that people seem incapable of having a rational discussion about. Before I go any further, let me just make it clear for all you pinheads out there that yes, I think rape is a foul crime for which there is no excuse.

Duh? And the Holocaust sucked too. It’s OBVIOUS! Of COURSE I think it was bad.

Unfortunately, the stigma exists in our society that when a man even dares to talk about the subject, he is judged as an evil woman-hater before his points are even expressed or digested. This is indicative of a peculiar form of sexism that fails to notice that RAPE IS NOT EXCLUSIVELY A FEMALE CONCERN! Men also get raped, and I have seen statistics that suggest that this is the most underreported crime in America.

Moment of personal assessment! If you are laughing in snide disgust at the audacity of a man to even make mention of male rape, then you’re one of those evil feminist bitches who does more to hurt the cause of equality than help it. Not all women are like this, just the ones who call for divine vengeance at female rape and laugh at the idea of male rape. And, if you don’t believe that women that cruel can exist...believe me...they’re out there.

Anyway one of the things that started to bother me as I watched “The Practice” was this holier than thou attitude that our society needs to acknowledge rape as the most horrific torture a human being can suffer. Can somebody please enlighten me as to why that’s so important? Why are you only a “good” person if you’re willing to admit rape is the worst? Why isn’t it good enough to simply say that rape is horrific and evil? It’s sort of like people who insist that the Holocaust was the worst thing to ever happen. Nobody disagrees that the Holocaust was horrible, but why do people get competitive? Why do they feel they need society to acknowledge their suffering as the “worst ever.” Does that help with the healing? Or does it just piss off victims of other crimes and other policies of genocide and belittle their suffering and be indifferent and insensitive to their pain?

News flash, being a victim of some crime, even the “worst ever” crime in the history of humankind, does not give you license to torture or destroy innocent people.

Look, when you come right down to it, we’re all victims, we’ve all been abused and mistreated. To sit there and bitch that so and so has been abused more than such and such serves no purpose that I can see. Who gives a shit? Why don’t we try to move on to something more productive?

I got to thinking, and I decided that in order to dispel this notion that rape is the worst thing that can happen to you, I would put together a list of seven things that are worse than being raped. Seven things that, given the choice, I would rather be raped than have to experience. Now keep in mind, this is not meant to diminish the significance of being raped, I’m just trying to put it into perspective. So without further delay:

I would rather be RAPED than:

7. Be killed. Seriously, when you think about it, a typical rape lasts a relatively short amount of time (when compared to an eternity of oblivion). Even if you suffer through some extremely traumatic, brutal rape involving several participants (they say that when women rape men it is often in groups, this might sound hot but think of being assaulted by seven disgusting clones of Roseanne Barr with facial hair and body odor....not a pretty picture). When you come right down to it, most rape victims agree that it isn’t so much the physical part of the assault that is the bad side. The damage comes from the emotional scars that haunt them the rest of their lives. But no matter how deep the emotional scars, you don’t have a chance to overcome them if you’re dead (and this is only number 7 on the list).

6. Watch my girlfriend get raped. HA! Try and make me out to be an asshole with that one you miscreants! I don’t know what you think about things, but my conscience tortures me more than any outward force. The emotional damage of being raped is not even close to how my own guilt of not helping out somebody in need would hurt me.

5. Watch my girlfriend get killed. Notice that if I had to chose between watching her get killed and watching her get raped, I’d have to go with the rape. I’m consistent at least.

4. Watch a child get raped. This applies to any child, anywhere in the world. I don’t have tolerance for child molesters, and frankly, this whole rape dialogue wouldn’t bother me one bit if it was applied with such rage to the child molestation problem. A woman gets raped in America every six minutes, I know that because it’s a statistic that gets shoved down my throat all the time. How often do children get raped? I don’t know, people don’t constantly banter the statistic about. But even if it’s only one child per day, I still say that this issue is far more important than adult rape. Of course, since Catholic priests are mainly responsible for this outrage, and extreme fundamentalist thinking seems to dominate mainstream TV programming (think of the Janet Jackson “scandal”), I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bunch of hush up money spread around to distract us from this real problem.

3. Watch a child get killed. Ok, we’re getting into some nasty territory here.

2. Watch my own child get raped. Ok, so what I’m saying is that I’d rather see some other child get killed than see my own child get raped. Yeah, it’s selfish, but I’m just being honest and I think in an emotionally charged situation like this, most people would do (not say because they’re all lying cowards who want to present an image of being better than they are) exactly the same thing.

1. Watch my own child get killed. This is why I don’t want to have children. Everybody says this is the worst thing that can happen to anybody.

Actually there are a whole bunch more things that I could put on this list, but it has a certain aesthetic dealing as it does only with people being raped or killed. One thing, though, that I might point out is that I would much rather be raped once in my life and have the appearance of somebody like Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt, than never be raped and live a whole life as some repulsive, disgusting, fat, body-hair encrusted, smelly freak that nobody could ever love. I mean, isn’t rape just about emotional torture anyway? What’s a more painful torture than knowing your pain, no matter what it is, is going to be overshadowed and ignored by society’s efforts to alleviate the much lesser pain of people it prefers to you?

The fact is, even with the issue of rape, society would probably be more horrified by the rape of Angelina Jolie than the rape of Roseanne Barr. That’s not right is it? Where’s the fairness in the fact that people who don’t meet a certain standard of approval aren’t given the same sense of compassion?

Well, I guess it’s not about fairness really, it’s just about bitching. But I know this much, in my experience, the people who are forced to carry the heaviest burdens, and endure the most horrible suffering (whether imposed by society or otherwise), are always the ones who complain the least.

And yes, I recognize that I complain a hell of a lot, so don’t feel compelled to write me and point that out.

The End