Since Pakistani men have apparently run out of their share of bounty lying unconscious in the hospitals or aboard the moving trains or rendered helpless by the angels of death, they have decided to take a peek inside their houses to indulge the inner beasts. There is probably nothing more blood-curdling than a girl being subjected to an unimaginable trauma by none other than her father and that he invited his just-as-execrable friends to join the party simply takes the cake. Before the moral brigade sharpens its daggers to poke holes at the timing of the mishap or the clothing of the victim, as it lets out an overexaggerated sigh at men being slaves to animal instincts, it would be very beneficial to remember the relation between the principal accused and his prey. While science has already refuted this much-thrown-around buzzword by shedding some light at the negligible incidence of rape in the animal kingdom, biology is not the issue here. What we are being attacked by are repulsive monsters fast shredding the societal structure to pieces. Sadly, the reductive deliberations upon the whats, whys and wherefores as the entire society conveniently forgets to assign guilt to right shoulders spell out the vulnerability of women in bold letters. Dare take a step outside without the divine protection of a man and you would be treated as public property. Try shutting all doors and sealing all windows and you are still not safe because a deranged father, grandfather, brother or uncle already has his eyes pinned on you. At this point, mentioning the over 14,000 women that have been raped in Pakistan in the last four years seems like a futile exercise. Even more pointless becomes the need to stress upon correcting the faulty justice system so that it may stand guard against the nearly 97 per cent of the accused enjoying a slip through the back door. Unless and until the patriarchal notions that strangely encourage men to take ownership of their female relatives with as much regard as a pet cow or an old piece of furniture, sexual violations would continue to smear mud on our familial structures. Let the silenced come out of their dark, secluded corners and allow them to pull the drapes on those who proudly toot the horns of their spick-and-span character. Violence cannot ruin lives just because males see it as a gendered prerogative. At least, not anymore. *