Truly Shameless

I like Shameless.  I really do.  I like capable, long-suffering Fiona with her barely-hidden vulnerability.  I like ‘Lip with his perfect SAT scores, deadpan delivery and criminal creativity.  I like Ian with his adulterous Muslim boyfriend and his sweet face.  I love Debbie, who is somehow both depressingly old for her age and achingly young.  I like Kevin and Veronica, especially Kevin, and kind of wish they were my nextdoor neighbors.  I don’t really like Frank, that’s pretty much impossible to do, but I find him extremely accurate and enjoyable in a laugh-so-you-don’t-cry kind of way.  The plotlines are generally fun and sometimes clever and almost always heartfelt.  Except one.  I mean, really, who decided that Sheila, an otherwise sweet lady dressed like a 50’s housewife who’s good with kids and imprisoned by anxiety, should also be a rapist? I know it was supposed to be funny when she handcuffed Frank to her bed  and did kinky things to him that he most certainly did not consent to.To state the obvious, it wasn’t, not even slightly, not to me.  What it was was the epitome of a trend I just don’t understand, in which men being raped is a punchline.  It’s not just that these jokes are in extremely poor taste and irredeemably offensive; I also honestly don’t get where the humor is supposed to come from.  Is it the role reversal?  The perceived humiliation of a man being sexually overpowered by a woman?  The supposed impossibility of the scenario? The mere concept of a sexually aggressive woman?  As far as I can figure, it’s the unexpectedness, that shock of the unexpected, two things that don’t belong together (women as sexual predators? Men as victims? Men who don’t want sex? Women who do?).  I guess my problem is that these juxtapositions don’t seem so strange to me.  Afterall, I know that men and boys are sexually assaulted, though most often by other men.  That it’s not half as rare as most people would guess.  And knowing that, Frank screaming “stop” and being ignored isn’t just unfunny, it’s downright nauseating.