[adastra22]

Your comment is understandable as a foreigner! Look up our federal prison system sometime. The description is apt.

You either kill someone, or become someone's bitch on the first day, then you'll be alright.

(It's an Office Space reference, btw, but our prisons are genuinely inhumane and not rehabilitative.)

[theshrike79]

American prisoners are, if you look at it objectively, slaves.

They are forced to work for for-profit companies for minimal pay, which is deducted by their living expenses and basic amenities.

[adastra22]

They are literal slaves. The 13th amendment of the constitution:

> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, *except as a punishment for crime* whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Slavery is still legal in the United States of America.

[thaumasiotes]

> They are literal slaves.

It's legal to enslave them, but in general it isn't true that they actually are enslaved.

[js8]

I downvoted you. Reason - I don't see/understand what argument are you making. It seems you're just stating the claim.

[thaumasiotes]

I'm contradicting the claim. Prisoners aren't slaves. They could be enslaved, but they aren't. They are never sold into slavery and almost never compelled to do any work.

This is the opposite of being "literal slaves". They are literally not slaves.

...unless you believe that before the 17th century, everyone in the world was literally a slave? It was legal to enslave them too.

[adastra22]

3/4 of prisoners in the US endure forced labor according to the ACLU:

https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...

[derektank]

Federal prisons are generally quite desirable when compared to state prisons or local jails, especially if you're convicted of a white collar financial crime. They don't call if Club Fed for nothing.

[adastra22]

That's only true of minimum security prisons.

[kelnos]

I think the point here is that the Office Space reference is a joke about rape, which maybe was somewhat acceptable in 1999, but is not cool today.

And even then, it was only acceptable in 1999 because it was a joke about male-male homosexual rape (I doubt it would have been considered funny even back then if it was a joke about a man raping a woman), so on top of being a rape joke, it has some homophobic qualities to it.

(I do remember watching Office Space back in 1999 and finding that line hilarious, but that teenage version of me also thought saying "that's so gay" was a perfectly fine way to be negative about something. Times change, and people grow up and realize that some of the things they thought were funny were actually singling out marginalized groups in shitty ways.)

I think also your use of the phrase didn't really add anything to what you said. Certainly people in the in-group who both know that Office Space reference, and still think it's funny will get it and chuckle, but everyone else will just think it's a weird and/or offensive way to describe it. And leaving it out entirely doesn't water down what you said. If you still feel like you need to emphasize that it's gonna be a maximum-security prison rather than Club Fed, you can just say "maximum-security federal prison", and everyone will understand.

[pbiggar]

It's the phrasing. You're using a fun and casual term for something awful. You are correct about the amount of sexual assault in American prison of course.

[stavros]

Hmm, I didn't get either a fun or a casual vibe from "pounding in the ass", I'm surprised you did.

[garbagewoman]

You do seem pretty nonchalant about rape, though. Maybe think on that for a bit.

[stavros]

Yeah I'm not sure where you're getting all that stuff from, but I'm sure it's 100% you.

[yawpitch]

Your reply to that comment is understandable as an American… in that you got your understanding of your own prison system from your own popular media.

Also in the assumption that a foreigner would or could get an Office Space reference, unless they live in a country America has already successfully culturally colonized.

The point is that the homophobic trope doesn’t add anything to the information given, while it does make it more likely to run afoul of homophobic censors in homophobic countries led by homophobes.

[adastra22]

Three points on that.

First, in this context the popular image, not reality, is what actually matters. Why do people not risk breaking sanctions? Because they don't want to risk prison. Why do Americans fear prison so much? Because of how it is represented in popular media, true or not.

Second, sexual violence in American prisons is a very real concern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_rape_in_the_United_Stat...

Finally, I fail to see how it is a homophobic trope? Nobody wants to be sexually assaulted. It's about the violation, not the act itself.

[yawpitch]

> Why do Americans fear prison so much? Because of how it is represented in popular media, true or not.

Yes, it’s an ouroboros of confirmation bias: the popular media ad nauseum repeats the trope that what they need to fear in prison is ”gay” sexual violence, when what they really need to fear is the violence of the state and its economic interests that threatens to put them there in the first place.

> Second, sexual violence in American prisons is a very real concern

Even if we assume the worst case scenario and double it, sexual violence in prisons is an experience of the minority of prisoners… does that make it less of a concern for those who experience it? Of course not… does it mean that it’s a reason to fear prison, especially when incarcerated for actions that go against entrenched governmental interests? Not really. Again the state violence is the real fear… especially when you note that any percentage of those sexual assaults are perpetrated by “guards”. Isolation, economic exploitation, and the mental health concerns implicit in being deprived of your agency are all much more important fears than the (again trope) that something ”gay” might happen to you.

> Finally, I fail to see how it is a homophobic trope? Nobody wants to be sexually assaulted. It's about the violation, not the act itself.

Not seeing a trope as a trope is kind of the point of a trope. “Ass-pounding” implies a specific kind of sexual activity, associating it with prison implies that all such sexual activity in prison is non-consensual violence — that’s the trope part identified — and also that the act itself is violence and/or something to be feared… something to be -phobic, about, in other words. Given that prisons are still customarily same-sex segregated, then, there’s also the implication that same-sex sexual violence in the form of ass-pounding is a reasonable thing to fear when in prison. Or, in other words, the trope is communicating a homo-phobia on behalf of a culture that presumes one should be afraid of prison because one is afraid of getting one’s ass pounded.

The violation isn’t implicit in the act being mentioned. The fact that you’ve got to explain to a “foreigner” that the violation is implicit because they didn’t know the trope doesn’t make it less of a trope.

[adastra22]

You are reading into it something that isn't there.

[yawpitch]

Or you are choosing to ignore something that is very much and always has been there.

Make the edit requested and nothing of semantic value to the message changes. In fact the actual message gets clearer, while also not servicing as propaganda for a bias you’ve internalized so deeply it’s invisible to you.

[fennecbutt]

Homophobic trope because it's acceptable to joke about prison rape specifically, when the victim involved is a man.

Why don't you see people openly joke about regular rape on HN? Why is a joke about regular rape not a phrase acceptable on here? In the same vein as the 2000s gaming "oh man I'm getting raped over here". Oh yes, because it's considered disgusting and offensive.

[fennecbutt]

No you do not. Provide sources for your information. Making these jokes about prison rape, not as common an occurrence as you'd think, is offensive.

The only reason it's funny is because the subject of these jokes are men (so nobody cares), are engaging in something considered "gay" (which is gross and funny ha ha ewwww).

I don't expect things to change but I'd fight in that war if there was one.

[garbagewoman]

You miss the point. Rape jokes aren’t funny.