A Stitch in Haste

"Of course it was horrible...violence is a very horrible thing. That's what you're learning now. Your body is learning it."
--A Clockwork Orange

In a civilized century?

Phases Two through Five of the treatment plan involve "cognitive" treatment. This treatment includes viewing videos that depict violent or other inappropriate sexual activities while a repugnant odor or other unpleasant sensation is applied to elicit a negative association.

This "treatment plan" is for "sexually violent predators" -- in this instance in California, where "SVP's" are routinely subjected to indefinite "civil confinement" (a/k/a an insane asylum) after their prison sentences are up. A class action is working its way through the federal courts challenging various aspects of California's "Sexually Violent Predators Act."

I'm not passing judgment on the California SVP Act generally or the most recent court decision specifically, except to note that the convicts' Eighth Amendment claims were summarily dismissed, since apparently "treatment" is never to be considered "punishment," and can therefore never be unconstitutionally "cruel and unusual."

Not even the Clockwork Orange torture chair? In a civilized century? If that is the law, then the law is a ass.

It's a little-known fact nowadays that the term "clockwork orange" was originally a derogatory slang expression in British English for not just "queer," but "very very very queer" -- the original expression was "queer as a clockwork orange." Also forgotten is that "aversion therapy" of the kind portrayed in the story was primarily -- and commonly -- used to "treat" homosexuality (with gay porn on the screen rather than war crime footage and heterosexual rape scenes).

I would of course be the last person to analogize gays with child molesters. But then again I'm not the one making the comparison, am I? California is.

In a civilized century...

The case is Hydrick v. Hunter, 03-56712 (9th Cir., June 1, 2006).