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Becky Blitch is a 27-year-old activist, volunteer, and public speaker living with spinal muscular atrophy (type II). She is an alumna of Eckerd College ('02), a former Ms. Wheelchair Florida, and is currently pursuing her M.A. in Transformative Leadership at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is the handler of Sydney, a 6-year-old golden retriever service dog, and is currently single. /wink/

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SVU: Glorifying rape?

I just finished watching last night's episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Titled "Undercover," the episode's plot revolves around Det. Benson (Mariska Hargitay) going undercover in a women's prison to investigate abuses by male guards; during the course of her investigation, she herself comes extremely close to being raped, but is saved at the last moment by fellow NYPD Det. "Fin" Tutuola (Ice-T), who is also undercover (posing as a guard). The episode was preceded by the warning, "This program contains scenes of an intense nature. Viewer Discretion Advised." SVU has certainly shown simulated sexual violence in the past, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw in this episode.

I'm having trouble articulating my reaction to the crucial scene, in which the rapist/guard takes Olivia (who he thinks is just another prisoner) to some sort of basement and attempts to rape her. Certain moments of the scene were terrifying, realistic demonstrating that rape is about power, not sex. But other portions of the scene -- particularly the end, just before and after Olivia is "rescued" by Fin -- are almost pornographic, and that really disturbs me. Consider these screenshots:

I'm left with the feeling that there was a subtext here: a strong female character who routinely takes the power away from rapists and abusers is put in the least powerful position a woman can be in. (Not only that, but she's the one who asks to be put in that position by going undercover.) A scene which should have been unequivocally repulsive (like the attempted rape scene in Lifetime's Army Wives) has moments of titillation that completely undercut the whole. Real rape doesn't look like a 70's b-movie.

What saddens me is that SVU has probably done more to educate the masses about issues around sexual abuse than any show other than Oprah. By exaggerating the power dynamics of rape by situating it in a prison, the show had the opportunity to honestly, if tastefully, depict its brutal reality. But instead, they served up a product that simply strengthens the cultural link between sex and violence that underlies rape in the first place.

Yuck.