Salman Khan fans have it tough, don’t they? They have to defend him every single time: whether it is for allegedly killing blackbucks, for “not killing people” while driving drunk, for behaving like a jerk with his girlfriends, or more recently, for his misplaced rape comment.
But we have to step away from the momentary outrage and focus on the real issue at hand. And that is that the narrative on rape is badly flawed – not just in India but all over the world.
Now, Salman isn’t the first man to liken physical pain, or a characteristically bad situation to being raped – and he certainly won’t be the last. Rape has often been portrayed, in pop culture and casual conversations, as not being able to walk straight.
Rape is not “twenty minutes of action”, which is what the Stanford sex offender Brock Turner’s father called it. Nor is it a man’s mistake (remember: Mulayam’s ‘Boys will be boys, rape is not a big deal’ remark?)
So lets not trivialise the issue of rape anymore and let’s begin with Salman’s comment. Because rape is anything but “being human”.
Do you understand, Salman fans?
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