Butt-Fucked by the Telecom Bill

By Julie Winokur, deleted. Posted April 26, 2000.

In 1973, Stephen Donaldson was gang raped for two straight days while in prison where he was being held for participating in a Quaker anti-war protest. Today, as the executive director of Stop Prison Rape, the federal government is prepared to stick it to him again. The Stop Prison Rape (SPR) web page is one of many sites that would be outlawed by the new telecommunications bill signed by President Clinton last week. The law bans "indecent" or "patently offensive" language on the Internet, and it is already the object of a lawsuit filed by 20 non-profit organizations. If Donaldson continues to produce his web site, he might find himself back in jail for as much as two years. SPRÕs web site, which has won numerous awards for excellence, contains graphic descriptions of rape. Told in the prisonersÕ own words, the stories use street language to discuss violence, sex and "certain excretory functions used to humiliate victims." They are explicit, disturbing and, yes, filled with profanity. But rape is a brutal crime and thereÕs no way to portray it in modest language, says Donaldson. Toning down the horrors of rape would do a disservice to the victims and would fail to alert potential victims to the trauma of the crime.When one inmate describes puking after being forced to give another inmate head, or a prisoner talks about wanting to kill himself after being raped, the agony of the violation comes across raw and clear. To self-censor these accounts would not only detract from their impact and authenticity, it would discourage victims from coming forward and telling their stories, insists Donaldson. With virtually no other outlets to help prisoners cope with the aftershock of rape, SPR provides an essential public service. "Without an opportunity to receive psychological treatment for Rape Trauma Syndrome," says Donaldson, "these men and boys will usually return to the community far more violent and antisocial than before. Some will perpetrate the vicious cycle by becoming rapists."Within hours of the telecom bill's signing, a group of 20 organizations filed a lawsuit. The alliance, including SPR, Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the National Writers Union, and the ACLU, claim that the prohibitions of the bill are "unconstitutionally vague and overbroad." They argue that the bill makes no attempt to distinguish between gratuitous obscenity and graphic portrayals of the body found in art, medical texts, and educational material. A statement from the Electronic Frontier Foundation asserts that even the King James Bible could be banned for its references to pissing. If information about breast cancer could be considered offensive, imagine where that puts SPR. The language on SPRÕs web page exceeds George Carlin's seven dirty words (which have already been debated before the Supreme Court) and despite its public service contribution, it would fall into a category somewhere south of pornography. While the organizations filing the lawsuit donÕt deny that certain explicit material is best kept away from young children, they argue that the end-user should determine which material to filter out. "Most people on-line have not accidentally found illicit material," says Lori Fena, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "You have to request the information, so the best censors for children are their parents." Screening and filtering devices, such as NET NANNY and Surfwatch, which are already available, allow computer users to self-censor without violating First Amendment rights. SPR has fully complied with Surfwatch, the most widely used software, but Donaldson urges that there is a distinction between young children and teenagers. While he advocates censoring information about prison rape from youngsters, he says teenagers are a primary target for his web page. They are the ones most likely to be on the brink of breaking the law -- and are also the most vulnerable victims of rape inside the penal system.With an estimated 359,000 men raped in prisons every year, the SPR site has a huge task, and receives roughly 5,000 hits per week. To these people, the online outlet provides education, information, and advocacy, offers encouragement and advice, as well as counseling and legal support. The organization also tracks cover-ups and law suits where prison rape claims are being scrutinized. But perhaps the siteÕs most crucial service is its AIDS prevention counseling. "For many of these victims," says Donaldson, "rape turns a brief detention in a county jail or juvenile facility or a short sentence for a non-violent offense into an agonizing slow death sentence from AIDS." Unfortunately, from the perspective of the cyber censors, information about how to safely perform oral sex or how to most safely be penetrated anally could in no way, shape or form constitute a public service announcement. And since SPR makes a lot of powerful enemies high in the corrections system, Donaldson's concern that he could be targeted under the new legislation is more than an idle, abstract fear.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »