"I'm sure you are right, Chad. I just wonder why most rapes in prison can't be prevented. After all, the inmates are confined and closely guarded."

Stanford Experiment, anyone?

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That may explain why some people act that way in the prison environment (although I'm not willing to throw free will and individual choice out the window). But it doesn't explain why safeguards aren't made at the institutional level to prevent this type of violence from occuring.

After all, prison guards must report to some type of authority - a warden, a board of corrections, the state, etc. So even if the guards become accomplices in the violence, that doesn't mean someone can't and shouldn't say, "This is wrong; we must stop it."

girl on girl*

 but only when they are hot

Well of course they have to be hot, Thomas. :)

I was reading about those "intermediate jails" (forgive my ignorance), sort of a processing station before the hard rocks get shipped to Big Boy Jail. Anybody know what I'm talking about?

Anyway, these things are apparently guarded but the inmates in the sleep area have a system of pulling the cots into a square, getting a rape victim in the middle where they crowd, and basically raping them repeatedly while the guards look on. It's the inmate's world, and the guards don't do a goddamn thing about it. I guess it's a case of "pick your battles", and the guards are looking to get these deviants to the real prison without risking life and limb saving some virgin ass.

I'd rather be torn apart by sharks than get subjugated like this. In the 25TH HOUR with Edward Norton, he plays an Irish drug dealer who isn't exactly a tough guy, who's going up the river for five years (or so), and is terrified of the gang-rape that is 100 percent going to happen "to guys who look like me". He spends the movie trying to find out the best way to avoid this fate.

One hard old gangster tells him he should walk into the prison, find the biggest baddest sonofabitch in the place, and attack him. Better to show no fear and hope to gain some measure of respect, than to go in fearful and timid, signaling the predators to attack YOU.

Norton's character figures out a fairly decent way to avoid the "fresh fish" scenario. I don't know if it'd work or not, considering. But I'll tell you, in jail you'd better make some quick adjustments. If you're a loner, and you're not 100 percent badass (as in: with a rep of being a iron cold goddamn killer in the "real" world, and known as such in the system), you are f**ked. You'd better find your ethnic group real quick, because it's a racially divided world in prison, and unless you're some twink who's hooked up with a "non-white" (if you're white), you're not joining the prison's local Chicano Mob. That's a blood thing, I suspect.

If you're just a normal joe, like me or you, with no reputation, and no connections to the various ethnic groupings, you're going to face some real hardship. Personally, if I went to prison, I'm probably going to pump myself up to find some other loner SOB and beat'm half to death if I can...because you've got to establish some kind of menace, even if it's insanity. According to 25TH HOUR, after the first couple weeks, the predators move on to the easier "fish" that are incoming. At that point, you just need some guys to help watch your back, if you aren't going to join the Nazi Party or something.

I think if I've committed a crime heinous enough to land me with lifers, I'm hoping I'll be killed by the police upon arrest. To hell with prison.

QUOTE: I could make a wry comment here, I suppose, about how there seems to be a preponderance of female homosexuals in mainstream comics. More than their male counterparts, in any case. Probably because very many male writers also like to see the girl "get the girl".

I suspect to this day that this was the reason the character of Willow on Buffy suddenly "turned gay."

QUOTE: I suspect to this day that this was the reason the character of Willow on Buffy suddenly "turned gay."

To an extent.  I seem to recall reading that they originally intended that development for Xander.  However, with the departure of Oz leaving Xander as not only the only "normal" (that is, non-supernatural) Scooby but also the only male Scooby (Giles seen in a slightly different light than the Scooby Gang), they decided not to go that route.

"However, with the departure of Oz"

But Willow was hinted at as gay in the third season (The Evil Vampire Willow episode.).  Oz didn't leave until season 4.  I think the decision might have been reached early in the third season at the latest.

Willow may well have been chosen because she was more universally loved as a character than Xander and the revelation of her sexuality would be more accepted and embraced.