Oh wait, that should be bachelorettes AND prison. My bad.

There are two articesl hanging around my browser looking bored and wondering when I will get around to commenting on them, and today I decided to give in to the guilt and let them have their say.

The first one is another example of procrastination making me quite late for the party on an issue, but it is an opinion piece which concerns the recent hooha over a gay bar banning bachlorette parties.

First of all, before this broke, I had no idea that having your bachelorette party at a gay bar was even a thing. It would not have occurred to me that straight ladies would do this, although in retrospect, the logic of it is obvious. You can have your bachelorette party at a bar with a somewhat outrageous and sexually open atmosphere that is full of hot guys wearing next to nothing shaking their groove things, and yet feel perfectly safe because you are (somewhat naively) sure that none of these hot guys will be hitting on you or any of your future bridesmaids.

Now right of the bat, that sounds exploitative, does it not? The feelings of the gay men who frequent the club are not even a consideration. Maybe they do not like being treated like testosterone wallpaper, or worse, unpaid strippers, for the amusement of a bunch of loud, obnoxious, drunk women who will feel perfectly safe making crude, fumbling passes at them and their boyfriends and who treat the other paying patrons like they are all part of some exotic show.

And all while patting themselves on the back about how progressive they are for being “willing” to have such an important event at a bar for, you know, those people.

Want to be progressive? Have it at a lesbian bar.

That is not even counting the political issue about celebrating marriage in front of people who cannot get married to the person of their choice.

But still, it took me a while to sort out my feelings out about this issue, because like a lot of outsiders, I am inherently biased towards inclusiveness. I do not want to kick anyone out unless it becomes absolutely necessary due to their behaviour. I want everyone to be together and get along. The idea of refusing any defined group entry rankles me. And to do it for political reasons makes me feel ill in the pit of my stomach.

But I think I have to side with the ban on this issue. These bachelorette parties sound like they are highly disruptive to the kind of safe haven atmosphere that a gay bar has to generate in this cruel and unfeeling world. And the sad and undeniable fact is that sometimes, in order to create an atmosphere of inclusion for one group, another group has to be excluded.

Even typing those words makes me feel ill. But there are plenty of other places for ladies to have their stagette parties. Nobody is denying them that right.

They just have to do it somewhere else.

The other story I wanted to touch on is this story from Norway about the world’s nicest prison.

Briefly, the story is about Bastoy Prison, a prison located on a small Norwegian island that is run far more like a summer holiday camp than a prison.

There’s a beach where prisoners sunbathe in the summer, plenty of good fishing spots, a sauna and tennis courts. Horses roam gravel roads. Some of the 115 prisoners here — all men and serving time for murder, rape and trafficking heroin, among other crimes — stay in wooden cottages, painted cheery red. They come and go as they please. Others live in “The Big House,” a white mansion on a hill that, on the inside, looks like a college dorm. A chicken lives in the basement, a guard said, and provides eggs for the inmates.

And here is the kicker : they have a very low recidivism rate. Only 20 percent of inmates reoffend within two years of leaving Bastoy. And that is what we want, right?

I mean, we pay a lot of lip service to the idea that a “penitentiary” is someplace we send people to be “rehabilitated”, right? The idea is prevent crime in the future. We want to make good, normal, law-abiding citizens of these people. Right?

Or do we? I imagine a lot of people would howl with outrage at the idea of a prison that treats murderers and rapists so well. After all, these people have done horrible, horrible things and we need to punish them for it. That is what we want to do and that is what feels good, feels right, when people have made us angry. Lash out, make them suffer, call it justice, and then act surprised when treating people like animals in cages turns them into the very sort of anti-civilized monsters we do not want roaming the streets.

So what is more important, our safety or our urge to punish? The prevention of crime, or our bloodlust for vengeance? What would you say to the relatives of a person killed by someone fresh out of prison who had lived so long in that savage environment that they were barely even human any more?

Would you tell them it was worth it, because we made the criminal suffer? That we would gladly have more citizens suffer and die from the actions of dehumanized brutes rather than restrain our lust for revenge and our deep sick desire for a little piece of the suffering of a stranger?

I mean, we have to hurt and torture and dehumanize somebody, right? Someone has to fill in for all the people in our lives we wish we could punish but cannot or will not. And we have criminals in our power, helpless and vulnerable, perfect whipping boys for whatever is pissing us off.

So what if a few extra people die? Just more of an excuse to punish!

The party never ends!

Or maybe we could learn from Bastoy that what these people need is civilizing influences, not savagery.