"all it takes is one good man to cure you of being a lesbian."

Apparently, there is something more dangerous than being a woman in South Africa: being a homosexual woman.

On July 29, BBC published an incredibly disturbing article about the current rape crisis in South Africa, which GCNova has already understood to be completely out of control. The article, however, exposes a new element to the country's tragic situation: corrective rape, or the rape of a homosexual woman in order to either "punish or correct" her sexual preferences and/or behavior. Apparently, "The thinking is, all it takes is one good man to cure you of being a lesbian."

You have got to be kidding me. Any world in which a rapist is described as a "good man" is a world I do not want to live in.

The article also delves into the general issue of gang rape in South Africa, shedding new light on the "macho mentality" that has perpetuated the epidemic. For the men, it has become something like a game, with its own leader--the "marhasimani." The article quotes a young man as defining the term, "A marhasimani is someone who goes to the club, buys a woman a few beers, then with his friends, he would take that woman and go away and have sex with her." Other sources detailed the process, saying that "the friends hide under the bed until the first man is finished and has left the room, then they take turns having sex with the woman, pretending to be the first man. 'The room is dark and the girl is not even going to notice if it's the second guy sleeping with her'."

If that is not sickening enough, the boys vehemently deny that what they are doing is gang rape. Instead, they cite the high cost of buying drinks, the "awareness" of their victim, and the claim that yeah-sometimes-we-have-to-drug-her-but-it-doesn't-happen-all-the-time as justification.

Watch this Youtube video.

The issue is gaining exposure as the courts in South Africa hear the case of Eudy Simelane, an openly gay football star and one of South Africa's leading sportswomen. Let us hope for a conviction and justice for Simelane, as well as the precedent for bringing other corrective rapists to justice in South Africa's future.