OUCH!!
An image and text is making the rounds of Facebook, pinterest, and tumblr right now, but when I searched dKos for a diary about the topic, I found nothing, searching all the way back to 1/1/2011.
So, what is this image?
Here it is:
What is it? Join me below the squiggle...
It's Rape-aXe.
From the text from Facebook:
Rape has become endemic in South Africa, so a medical technician named Sonette Ehlers developed a product that immediately gathered national attention there. Ehlers had never forgotten a rape victim telling her forlornly, “If only I had teeth down there.”
Some time afterward, a man came into the hospital where Ehlers works in excruciating pain because his penis was stuck in his pants zipper.
Ehlers merged those images and came up with a product she called Rapex. It resembles a tube, with barbs inside. The woman inserts it like a tampon, with an applicator, and any man who tries to rape the woman impales himself on the barbs and must go to an emergency room to have the Rapex removed.
When critics complained that it was a medieval punishment, Ehlers replied tersely, “A medieval device for a medieval deed.”
- Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof
On Facebook at
(Psycho)Babbling Mommy, there have already been 222,438 people likes, shared 36,845 times, and has over 13,185 comments, mostly pro, for the sale of the device.
According to snopes.com, this device has never actually been sold, and all we see on the Internet is a prototype.
Thankfully, in the US, this device seems incredibly unnecessary although when my daughter starts college in a few years, I will probably show her this diary and we will talk about the idea of rape, date rape, and living away from family for the first time.
Imagine a world where a woman would want to wear this device every single day before leaving her home. Imagine a world where a woman would feel the need to wear this, inside her home.
From Ehlers' website:
I have been accused of all sorts, my all-time favourite though is that I am the inventor of a most medieval device… my response, quite frankly is that a medieval deed deserves a medieval consequence. It’s the twenty first century, man has supposedly evolved into a more civilised being… yet rape statistics are on the rise! Child and infant rape has increased 400% over the last decade!
Rape Support Group:
http://www.rainn.org/
Other articles:
http://www.smh.com.au/...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...