August 18, 2009

Rapetopia

While working my clinical hours I encounter a vast assortment of people. I have learned to detest the human body and all of the filthy and disgusting things it is capable of. I have also learned to detest most humans for all of the awful and harming things they are capable of doing to themselves and others. It is not uncommon for me to help suture up a stab victim, or to scrub asphalt out of a drunk driver, who just killed three people in a head on collision.

One afternoon my charge nurse and I entered an isolated room. After suiting up with gowns, gloves and masks, I asked for some information on the patient. He had AIDS, and was coughing up blood. The man was young, in his 40's. He laid curled in the fetal position, clutching his stomach as he violently coughed while simultaneously shitting himself.

Several weeks after the incident hubby and I were watching some good ol' Dane Cook in his Rough Around the Edges tour, when the bit came on about a website where you could find out if any sexual predators lived in your neighborhood, so for fun we decided to check it out. Within 2 miles of our house, there were 20 registered sex offenders, and under each name there was a picture, and a list of sexual felony "stats", like a rapist baseball card. This would have been a good time for us to log out, and forget everything we had seen, but we decided to check each picture to see if we recognized anyone.

And then I saw him. My AIDS patient. Staring into the camera with his cold eyes.

I was horrified. Not only did he live just up the street from us, but he also had 4 counts of child sodomization. My heart immediately broke for the young children that this monster had brutalized, raped, and then gave AIDS to.

For the record, if you read my blog and think that I seem a bit cold, withdrawn, and detached from society, this is why. The exasperation and hopelessness I feel towards mankind is because of shit like this.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Strange how I can go from feeling sympathy to absolute disgust after reading about two paragraphs. My heart goes out to the children.

brit said...

I am so sorry. I worked in a police station on my campus for a few years and I hated the beginning of the new semester. Not because it was the scummy students that bothered me, but because of the registering sex offenders that sat directly across from my desk to wait for the officer. Most would try and make small talk with me, never taking their leering eyes off of me. One even went as far as to say "It's such a pain having to do this." It took so much for me to stay composed. I know they probably weren't supposed to, but the officers always told me what each man went to jail for. Disgusting. I'm so sorry.

THE GRAMMARPHILE said...

Wow. That's...heavy.

Bryony said...

my goodness how disturbing! :'(

RogueFiccer said...

What unicornpee said. The world is full of sick, sick, sick people who should be killed to put society out of its misery and that man is one of them. Pedophiles cannot be rehabilitated. It's been proven, so why, exactly, do we continue to allow them back into the general population? *snorts derisively* I like to give people the benefit of the doubt whenever possible, but there are those who've proven they don't deserve it. I've been told I'm cynical, jaded, and have trust issues. I like to think I'm a realist. There's no such thing as a bottom to the depths of human depravity and there are plenty of people who swim regularly in the shallows.

purplegirl said...

There are a lot of reasons I couldn't have a job in healthcare, but this sort of thing is near the top. I already hate the general public for being a bunch of rude fucks; I don't think I could handle loathing them for being sick fucks too.

ME! said...

Unbelieveable! It makes me want to cry thinking that I am raising my daughter in this society...

Anonymous said...

Do you live in a densely populated area?

20 sex predators within 2 miles?

How is someone who molested 5 kids out in society?

Marrock said...

Sadly, over the years society hasn't really changed all that much, all that's really altered is one's awareness of it thanks to all the new ways people get their news & information.

Anonymous said...

I'm usually not so cold hearted myself, but I hope that fucker takes a long, painful time to die. I can't believe that he was still allowed to live in public after he did that to FOUR children. FOUR. WHAT THE HELL.

Sometimes I really want to resign from the human race.

M.L.Daniels said...

That is absolutely the most awful thing I've heard in a long time. I can't imagine how difficult that was/is for you to deal with! My prayers are with those poor children, and with you. He should be in prison for the rest of his life! They must not have known that he had AIDS at the time his offenses were committed.

Pademelon said...

Here in North Queensland, you can't look up sex offenders in your area. The prison/government officials actually have to go to great lengths to hide where released sex offenders live because the risk of vigilantism is so high here. It still strikes me as weird. There was a problem earlier this year when a serial child molester was released. He'd been released a couple of times over the the last 10 years but he always reoffends and gets thrown back in jail. The prison system is different here and I'm still not totally sure how it all works but basically, if a prisoner is deemed unsafe for release or a danger to the community, the warden can recommend against parole (even if the entire sentence has been served) and after some legal approval process, the prisoner can be held indefinitely. For some reason, this guy was ok'ed for release even though he shouldn't really have been and government officials had to help him hide out and move him between towns because he wasn't welcome anywhere and people were trying to hunt him down. Everytime someone figured out where he was, he was kicked out of town. It's kind of crazy.

Kate of Kate Hall said...

Ugh. I did that neighborhood offender search once, and I almost wish I hadn't. While ignorance may not be flat-out bliss, I hate knowing that the older gentleman neighbor who used to lend me his snow shovel when I first moved in had quite collection of child pronography.

Jo ~ said...

While it is disturbing to know how many sex offenders live within a certain mile radius from you, it is equally disturbing that you have no privacy...not only you can google directly to your house, you can get a picture of your house!

http://maps.google.com/