so now we're going to sic bobbitt on sex offenders?

Steve Pence, Lt. Governor of Kentucky, is suggesting that castration be examined as a possible means of "dealing with" sex offenders.

Not the best solution, there, Stevie.

Pete over at BlueGrassRoots agrees that this is a bad idea. It's nice that liberal boys agree with me in general, but Pete tends to go the way of making light of the majority of sex crimes. He claims that the category of "sex crime" is too broad, and encompasses too many "little things" like pissing in public and copping a feel at a bar/in the workplace. Ok, so maybe taking a leak in public shouldn't be considered a sex crime, but he makes it sound like it should be ok to "mistake a woman's daring glances for an invitation to grab ass." Needless to say, it's not. And, as TravisG points out in the comments, his "boys will be boys" defense is tired and overused, not to mention misogynistic and damaging.

But I digress.

The basic problem here?

Castration will not stop a man from committing some kind of violence against women - or men, for that matter.
Rape crisis centers, women's advocacy centers, and numerous academic studies have asserted time and time again that rape is about power, not sex.
Therefore, rapists (the vast majority of the time) don't rape just to get their jollies or alleviate sexual frustration. They rape to give themselves a sense of control, of power.
Chopping off a guy's penis is not going to change his desire for power or control.
In fact, I would imagine that the involuntary loss of something that itself symbolizes male privilege, and therefore power, would probably exacerbate the problem.


Of course, then there's the problem of assuming that you can castrate all sex offenders, which assumes that all sex offenders are men. Because, you know, women never rape or commit sex crimes. Duh - you need a penis to do that.