Oh, well that's just lovely...
Yeah, so even here in these oh, so Englightened United States, rape's still a sort of taboo thing--for discussion, I mean (of course the act should be taboo!). But shit, check out this case in the UAE.
I would post the article in full here, but it's two pages long. Basic gist, though--French teenager (boy) in the Emirates on vacation with family; French teen raped by some Emirati guys while there; French teen, family, and French diplomats discouraged by Emirati authorities from pressing charges or making a fuss, even threatened with criminal homosexuality (BIG taboo in UAE--it is in the Middle East, after all, where it is in most places illegal), and not told for a few weeks that one of the guys is HIV positive. 0.o Lovely.
You can go and read the whole article if you want. I learned about it on gsa_lj, while shaking my head at another of the shit-fests that seem to ensue whenever race or religion--especially non-Christian--comes up over there. I mean, really--just because everyone salutes the rainbow flag will not keep me from going "Holy shit, you're a fucking moron" when you're saying shit like Palestinians are actually Syrians and OMG Islam is da EVL! and shit. I mean, two years back, during the Israeli-Lebanese thing during the summer, they decided oh-well-Lebanonz Muzlem so their ANTI-GHEY! so letz side w/Izrayal!!! (<--okay! So nobody actually spelled that way! But the fuckery sometimes, I swear!) I felt really bad for one guy over there who had the misfortune of not only being a Muslim, but actually living in Beirut (poor guy had few allies).
But I digress. The focus of this post is the UAE rape case. And really, is the USA so much more enlightened? There's still the sentiment that either men cannot be raped, or that one guy being raped by the other somehow makes the victim gay, right? *rolls eyes* It seems to be a common sentiment everywhere--I mean, with the movie The Kite Runner, there's a controversy with the family of one of the kid actors about the rape scene, because they're afraid that people in their community who see the movie will think that the boy himself was actually raped and then mistreat him (in something I recently read about it, the boy and his family are actually being evacuated from Afghanistan). I don't give a shit if you're "Western" or "Eastern"--the basis of the sentiment isn't much different anywhere, really.
On a semi-related note, given our topic, though entirely unworldly--new WIOOP? chapter's up. Male-on-male lemons--but no more rape (Sado is dead and explained; we are done with the non-con!).