RAPE OF THE YANG - In Response to Margaret Atwood's "Rape Fantasies"

It was during the Wednesday night poker game when they officially announced that the case against Kobe Bryant had been dropped. The girl wasn't going to testify. It wasn't like O.J. with the whole room erupting in either anger or jubilee. It was just a bunch of grumbles and half-raised brows. You didn't know which way to sway - you felt guilty about siding with a woman on this issue, but at the same time: you are a huge Dallas Mavericks fan. For the past year and a half, the entire city was only twelve jurors and a dominant center away from a championship.

But he got off. To me, the biggest issue at stake was a season's damnation of watching Bryant-to-Divac pick-and-rolls every night on SportsCenter. But to the men in that room, it meant something else entirely.

"I knew she was lying," says Tyson. Tyson hadn't won a hand all night, so his demeanor was shorter than it was as we were setting up the game. He usually gets this way about an hour into every game. He is what we call dead money.

"We don't know that she was," says Kennedy Smith. He's a lawyer, so his perception is often a bit more skewed. "Just because she dropped the case doesn't mean he's not guilty. I think you have to pay attention to the fact that the public servants that were in charge of prosecuting a rape case in a little town like Eagle, Colorado had to go up against the best defense that Kobe could buy.  That cased was doomed from the start.  The sad thing is that we may never know and this could have terrible repercussions for women in the future that are raped by athletes and too scared to come forward."

"It's your bet, Kennedy," says Tyson impatiently.  He's folded already and dying for the hand to finish so he can see if the next deal gives him the fingers to go all-in.

"She stood to make a lot of cash if she won," I say.  I had folded too and the hand, which had temporarily been disrupted by the breaking news, had already gone on too long.  "Imagine the money she would have taken from Kobe if she would have gone through with it and won."

A reverent moment passes among the men as they contemplate the money, some of them looking at their stacks of chips as if to put it into perspective.

"It makes you almost wish you were a woman," says Jackson Michaels.  "I'd get raped for a couple million dollars.  If I had to sit through bad sex for three minutes just knowing that at the end of it, I'd be a millionaire, I'd find a way to enjoy it."

"I'd let Lisa Leslie rape me for free," says Tyson.  "I would give her carte blanche in violating me however she wants."

"Men can't be raped," I say.  "It's impossible.  Physically, it's impossible."

"Like hell it is," says Kennedy, the lawyer.  "The same endorphins that activate a hard-on are produced when fear is induced.  That, compounded by the blatant insinuation of sex from a dominating woman in a position of complete control, would activate you expediently."

I'd known this guy for years.  Just because he went to law school gave him the right to be a pain in the ass while Jeopardy! was on or a crossword puzzle was in sight.

"So a man can be raped?" I ask.

"Sure," says Tyson.  "Haven't you ever seen Oz?  Or the Shawshank Redemption?" 

"I mean, by a woman?"

"Certainly," says Kennedy.  "It's entirely possible.  In fact, I fantasize about it all the time."