Jesus H. Christ.

India is a Democracy?

Does anybody else sometimes wish that next year's bird flu wipes us all out? The world would be a better place without us.

Oh Cienna. :( I hope some one takes you out for hugs and drinks tonight. It's been a shitty, shitty week.

WTF is wrong with India? Sheesh.

Fuck.

Is this a new thing in India, or is it only new that this shit is getting international attention?

Trigger warnings, please? At least on that last quoted paragraph, possibly on the whole thing.

Are we sure it wasn't a false rape accusation? C'mon, five year old girl, don't be that girl! Think of the boyz!

I don't know, Zebes, but it sounds like a legislate rape to me, not one of those 5-year-olds-with-remorse-afterwards rapes.

I can't even wrap my mind around this. I think my outrage is burned out for this week.

@3 It's only a matter of time. Either a viral pandemic, or an asteroid, or one of our supervolcanoes will pop. But, the post-apocalyptic world won't be any nicer than this one. If there are any survivors, the only improvement may be that the fall of civilization, along with its technology and communications, will at least stop the conveying of bad news from all across the Earth right to our doorsteps for a few hundred years.

@2, @5. India. Yes, clearly, the problem here is India.

Sounds like we need to start chopping off some dicks.

To answer "what the fuck is wrong with India," one huge problem is the simple lack of a functional justice system. People know that crimes will not be punished, and so they commit crimes. Institutionalized misogyny then highlights women as easy victims, who have even less agency when it comes to getting justice. But it is nothing new, we just actually hear about a few cases every now and then.

@7: This is not LiveJournal, it is your responsibility to control your own media consumption, not other people's responsibility to shield you from certain details.

@12 oh right, the problem here is ... what the fuck is your point, dickwad?

How is this a feminist issue? Are we sure this isn't pedophilia, which does not know gender (at least when we're talking about priests and little boys, because that's NOT a homosexual act, right?)

My point is that in the battle between misogyny and bigotry, clearly bigotry wins. "Forget it Jake, it's [India]." As if rape doesn't happen fucking everywhere.

@17 Well, if you'd been paying attention to the news, you jackass, you would have noticed that this is about the fifth time this kind of brutal attack has happened in India in the past few months. So yeah, rape happens everywhere, but India seems to have cornered the market on brutal gang rapes where they practically blend the victim's insides.

I think tehjakers already covered everything @1.

@16 - Wow. Really? That blind, are you?

But hey, if only we wreck our engineering and information systems infrastructure by sending jobs and capital oversees and create a couple of billionaires (just like US) then we've have a world full of civilized democracies instead of a junkyard of crappy code, slave plantations and sexual brutalization.

Gross.

@16,

The majority of rapists who attack children are not pedophiles. They are rapists who saw the child as an easy target.

P.S. Fuck off.

@24:

the child as an easy target, not the female as an easy target. Not a feminist issue.

@25 I think the feminist focus came from the fgm

Words can't describe the total horror I am feeling right now. Next week fucking better be nothing but news stories of kittens and unicorns and free yummy cupcakes

@25 - Then clarify: how old must she be before she is regarded as a female human being?

A five-year-old girl, everybody. Some people out there are okay, or even enjoy, capturing little children and inflicting maximum pain on them. Just for fun. It doesn't bother them or affect them at all.

This may be the worst thing I've read on Slog. I'm thinking back and trying to recall something that trumps the rape and gleeful torture of little children.

@11 Don't forget a deep nuclear winter. That could be one of the major extinction events, taking out many species of plants and animals in addition to humans. Then maybe the rodent descendants would take over?

India has always been like that. It's just that we hear about it because they have electricity now.

@28:

I didn't say she wasn't female. I just didn't abscribe any motives to the rapists based on gender, and neither can you.

Things I have learned from this thread:

1. Female children aren't really female. Therefore,

2. Rape isn't a feminist issue if the victim is a child. And in any case,

3. Hey, it isn't like it's real people getting raped or doing the raping. It's India. Bunch of savage wogs. What do you expect?

4. Some people in this thread need to choke on a bag of dicks.

abscribe = ascribe. Sheesh. In any case; according to SLOG: if a male diddles a little boy, we can't call that a homosexual act, because pedophilia doesn't have anything to do with gender preference; it's a power thing. If a male diddles a little girl, we shouldn't assume it's because he's heterosexual, he's just a pedophile too, right?

In any case, the perpetrators should have their junk boiled in oil.

@33: mutilation and penetration with foreign objects ≠"diddling"

Well, Ciena, look on the bright side. There are a billion people in India, and if you're going to write a column about every rape, you have a job for life.

@35 Maybe I'm just overly sheltered, but until these India stories I had never heard of rape/impalement/disembowelments like these. These are brutal murders/attempted murders almost more than they are rapes. Something in me wants to try to fathom why, even as the rest of me recoils in horror. Is it that these men have no idea of female anatomy, or no clue how to do penetrative sex? We know there are wide swaths of complete ignorance among the poor. Is that what this is? (I mean besides the utter disregard for human dignity and life.) Where the hell did they get the idea to use implements for these assaults? There's something very deeply sick going on there, on top of the usual sick stuff that leads some men to rape and assault women and children.

Any Indian cultural experts in the house who might have a read on this phenomenon?

Yet another example of how human beings are a cancer on the planet.

@37: I don't thing it's cultural. Rape is a crime of violence, and violent means will be used. Google "rape with foreign object" if you feel like being depressed for a couple of hours. There's a focus on it in India because of a couple of high profile cases, but it goes on everywhere. India, the Congo, San Francisco, Brooklyn... everywhere. It's a cop-out to say "Oh, well, what do you expect... India."

The US is hardly a bastion of piety when it comes to taking care of children.

Here's the disgusting perv who raped and killed a 6 month old baby girl. 6 MONTHS OLD! WTF?
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_n…

And the US' record on child abuse and neglect....as reported by the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canad…

@37 I can't even begin to address the fucking lack of insight nor find the point of your very careless comments.

"These are brutal murders/attempted murders almost more than they are rapes."

WHAT. THE. FUCK. I have to come back to this because I just can't right now. I mean, REALLY?!? I can't internet-scream loud enough.

"Something in me wants to try to fathom why, even as the rest of me recoils in horror."

We know the source of your denial and it ain't a fatherfuckin' river: Fear.

Women and girls are oh-so intimate with fear, we live our [w]hole lives knowing that any of the other less-than-half of the world's Homo sapiens population could turn on us at any moment and if they do, it's all our fault. That's like a infinite course meal in fear; the dishes may be different but they're all prepared by the same cock chef and they never stop coming, served with a smirk and a pat on our head.

"Is it that these men have no idea of female anatomy, or no clue how to do penetrative sex? We know there are wide swaths of complete ignorance among the poor. Is that what this is? (I mean besides the utter disregard for human dignity and life.)"

Are you being purposely obtuse? Are you mocking "the poor?" Are you mocking what these patriarchy-sick cocks did to a FIVE YEAR OLD GIRL?!?

HILARIOUS aside, by the way, brings me back to the first rancid burst of your commentary jizz--
"These are brutal murders/attempted murders almost more than they are rapes." + "(I mean besides the utter disregard for human dignity and life.)"
= misogyny
If that equation does not make sense to you then go do some reading until it does--in the words of Lindy West:
"Catch [the fuck] up or own your prejudice."

"Where the hell did they get the idea to use implements for these assaults? There's something very deeply sick going on there, on top of the usual sick stuff that leads some men to rape and assault women and children."

No, no, not really, it's all the same. The "deeply sick [thing] going on" and "the usual sick stuff" are one and the same, varying by degrees only: rape culture; the very necessary and efficient engine of patriarchy.

This is not about getting to third base with your math class crush. This is not about intimacy or romance or lust: it is about control, the sexualization of power, of dominance, of hierarchy.

I cannot contain my utter contempt for your mansplainy, ignorant, concern-trolly and dismissive chauvanism.

What is the point to your comments? I honestly want to know what you are trying so hard to add to this discussion (if you are genuinely engaged and not trolling), but I keep coming up negative. Either you are that naive or that big a dick; if you're both, please see the following.

@38 you make a common mistake in equating men to all humans. I'll fix that for you:
"Yet another example of how [men] are a cancer on the planet."

My fave current quotes:
"All men must die, but we are not men."
-- Daenerys Targaryen, Game of Thrones
&
"It's my favorite kind of battle: two men enter, one me leaves."
-- April Ludgate, Parks'n'Rec

@41 I have only one suggestion for you. You need to learn when people are agreeing with you.

We may not all know the correct phraseology, or be the clearest writers, but you err if you always assume the worst of intentions, attitudes and biases based solely on that.

As for my wondering about the poor in India, India is a deeply-divided country, with seven main castes. These castes dictate, for the most part, the rest of a person's life, in terms of education, social opportunities, employment, etc. Those nearer the bottom of the pile, and that's the largest segment of the Indian population, are severely poor, extremely uneducated, and have the shortest lifespans, at least from what I've read. This may be outdated, and I'm sure someone will correct me, but I think it's still largely true. The middle class in India is tiny. The upper class is tinier. The poor class is huge. Median (half make more, half make less) income in India is reported as $735. Per YEAR.

My impression, from the reporting I've seen, and I just can't read these stories in great detail because they're too revolting, is that these animals who commit these gang rape/murder atrocities are not from the upper income classes.

I certainly wasn't speaking about rape in general, or rape overall, none of which is the least bit acceptable. But, these crimes are in a horrendous class of their own and I can't help but feel there must be something about the Indian social structure that contributes to that.

#42, isn't the whole idea of the caste system to control the animals?

Ugh, the comparison between priests diddling boys and raping a 5-year-old girl is just heinous and a cheap attempt to score points.

We do not distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual when an adult molests a child because the PREFERENCE of the adult isn't relevant relative to the power felt over dominating the child. That doesn't mean that the child's gender is wholly irrelevant in a larger context.