I made a poor choice of reading material at breakfast this morning. I picked up a copy of Marie Claire at our favourite brekkie joint whilst waiting for our orders to arrive.. the March 2008 issue to be exact. After flipping through a few pages of advertisments, I was confronted by an article about a "new" form of sexual assault, a kind of fucked up depravity that just keeps on shredding your soul. It was like a car wreck, the concept of it disgusted me but I was bewildered by the depravity of it all and had to continue reading.

Short of coming across as completely sexist, am I wrong to wonder if my interest in such atrocities is to do with being female? Rape scares the hell out of me, as it would anyone, but I always feel inclined to read articles about sexual assault. The reading always sickens me, but I feel compelled to get through it. I feel nauseated just thinking about what I read - I kid you not. But perhaps the awareness lends support to prevention.

I've always maintained that even though women should not have to be more cautious, and not allow themselves to be in possibly dangerous situations, the unfortunate and very tragic reality is that we have to. Somehow society has managed to allow pockets of itself to develop shocking levels of depravity which leaves us all open to what was once unthinkable violation.

Given what we've learnt to be true of todays society, women have to acknowledge the dangers that lurk on every lonely street regardless of the time of day; women must be mindful of the actions and behaviours of theirs and others, even those in their social circle; women must be cautious of how they conduct themselves in the public arena.. and the list continues. I want to believe that we don't have to. I want to subscribe to the train of thought that by lending caution to these issues we somehow make them acceptable and therefore should not - Women should be able to behave as we see fit. Women should be able present ourselves as we see fit. We should be able to go where we want, when we want as we see fit and not have to ever worry about being assaulted. Unfortunately that isn't the reality we live in.

It's easy to ignore the negatives and think of our reality as a pleasant place, where the good triumphs over evil - just like in the stories. There's nothing like learning that a group of boys, the youngest being only fourteen or fifteen years of age, is capable of sexually assaulting and degrading a woman, recording it to video and selling it at their school. They thought it was funny. It really isn't. I'm angry, outraged, disgusted and scared all at the same time. I want to be of the view that they should experience the horror that they inflicted, but that wouldn't accomplish anything - it would just cultivate a cycle of disgusting behaviour. Perpetrators of this sort should be incarcerated for the rest of their natural lives with no level of luxury and with no chance of parole. They should be bestowed a sparse room 4x6 feet, fresh air and with only a small window to see nothing but the sky, three basic meals, a cot with a pillow and a blanket. No entertainment, no contact with the outside world, minimal contact with any other living being. Nothing. Shut them out of the world. Grant them an existence with nothing but time to do with what they will, in solitude. A punishment worse than death.

I can't help but be angry. Everyone should be angry that somehow we've allowed it all to get this bad. The question is, what can we do about it?