So, here's the deal. You've never had a violent impulse in your life, but you've just returned home after seeing Tarantino's über-violent Inglourious Basterds and now you're ready to stalk the streets looking for a German to scalp.

You've never been in trouble with the law, and have always been a good citizen, but when you go around to your mate's house, you start to play Grand Theft Auto -- and the thrill of the mandatory criminality is so great that you immediately go out, beat up a prostitute and steal a cop car so you can go on a joy ride.

Then, when you're bailed out from jail, you start to read the Bible to find some spiritual succour, but by the time you get to Deuteronomy 22:28-29 and read: "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father 50 shekels of silver."

So, this is a new problem for you, after all, what is the current exchange rate between euro and Deuteronomy-era shekels?

All of the above examples are completely absurd, of course, and would be laughed out of any sensible conversation, article or court case.

But none of that seems to apply to the latest grubby little film to get the chattering classes all hot and bothered.

Following on from last month's summer silly season sensation, Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, we have Killer Bitch, an apparently grubby little exploitation film starring, of all people, cage fighter Alex Reid -- who is better known for being the execrable Jordan's latest chew-toy.

The film seems to be a low-budget rip-off of the current vogue for torture-porn flicks like the Hostel and Saw franchises.

It features a young female TV presenter being kidnapped and forced to kill five people or else her own family will be slaughtered.

It seems fairly standard low-budget modern horror -- but it also features a rape scene in which the woman appears to ultimately start to enjoy being violated and this has completely outraged anti-rape campaigners.

So far, so tacky, tawdry and exploitative, and campaigners have gone into full turbo outrage mode.

In fact, according to one Criminal Justice expert: "There is something the matter with reinforcing dangerous rape myths".

"Violence and rape are not sexy -- and nor should they be portrayed as such. For women recovering from rape, these scenes are far from just entertainment."

And we now have the usual calls for the film to be banned in case it incites hordes of slavering men on to our streets like a bunch of horny Vikings, raping and pillaging simply because of a B movie with Jordan's boyfriend in it.

The movie has been described by that ubiquitous word, 'offensive'.

But what is genuinely offensive, and something which pisses off every single bloke I know, is this absurd notion we are so utterly Neanderthal that simply by watching a movie we lose control of all of our inhibitions and become a menace to the first woman we come across.

It's actually a classic case of reverse sexism, usually trotted out by anti-porn campaigners and militant feminists who want to blame men for everything.

And I'm sick of it.

After all, it's a bit much to brand half the population as all being potential sexual predators; and it's the kind of crass, insulting and totally bogus blanket judgement which merely diminishes their argument and would be considered completely unacceptable if it were, instead, levelled at woman.

And, even more insultingly, it seems to ignore the fact that every woman who suffers the trauma of rape will have a brother, a father, a boyfriend or a husband who will be there to try and support them.

So to try and say that these men are potentially as bad as the degenerate scumbag who committed the act shows a deep-rooted and not particularly well-hidden streak of misandry.

Campaigners also point out that victims of rape would find the scenes incredibly offensive and traumatic and could even trigger flashbacks.

On this instance, they are undoubtedly right.

After all, if you are faced with a re-enactment of the most horrible and terrifying moment of your whole life, then obviously it is going to bring up bad memories; maybe even memories you have tried to suppress.

Which is why it is probably better that you don't look at a film like this.

But by applying that logic, we should never show footage of 9/11, the Holocaust, the London bombings or anything else that had profoundly traumatic effects on people who were either there or lost loved ones.

If we are to start placing certain scenes and images, whether they are actuality or fictionalised, on a banned list, then we will soon end up in a situation where the only thing which will be deemed to be acceptable and non-offensive viewing will be the Angelus.

And people will get offended by that.

And, applying that logic, will we start retroactively banning films which feature similar content?

After all, we've been down this road before, going back as far as 1971 with Straw Dogs, when Susan George's character is raped and appears to start enjoying it and, even more graphically, there was that truly horrific and repellent rape scene in Man Bites Dog.

But that's the point of Straw Dogs and Man Bites Dog -- rape is meant to be truly horrific. It is meant to be repellent.

When it stops being such, then we as a society have lost our right to exist.

And trust me on this -- if you're the kind of sub human who could even abstractly consider such a grotesque invasion, some crappy picture won't send you over the edge.

iodoherty@independent.ie