Redistributing Rape

Abstract

This article examines the theory posited in the article Strategic Segregation in the Modern Prison regarding the problem of prison sexual violence and what can be done to correct it. The previous article describes the use of the K6G program by the Los Angeles County Jail to protect vulnerable inmates, gay men and transgendered women, from sexual victimization in all-male correctional institutions. This author explores the issue of gender and masculinity in exclusively male environments, and the use of sexual subordination as a form of gender performance and notes that the K6G program appears to be designed to redistribute prison rape from sexual minorities to some undefined set of heterosexual men. The author speculates on why sexual victimization does not occur in the K6G program and explores the role played by sexual desire in prison environments.