Entertainment

Legitimate rape?

Back in August, Rep. Todd Akin, at the 58th annual National Prayer Breakfast, disgusted the entire female population by saying, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” He lost his re-election bid in Missouri by a wide margin. Surprisingly, that’s all he lost.

Tomorrow night on “SVU,” Lauren Cohan, of “The Walking Dead” (who was sexually assaulted in the show a few weeks ago by the dastardly governor) plays Avery Jordan, a reporter for a sports network who gets sexually assaulted by David Marciano, who plays Virgil on “Homeland.”

Marciano plays Avery’s longtime on-the-road cameraman Rick Purcell, and he is as subtly vile as the governor.

But while the cameraman isn’t powerful like the governor, he is as steely, fake and clever. This “ripped from the headlines” episode tackles the legal issues of rape and the horrific idea of “legitimate rape” — and what happens if the victim becomes pregnant from the rape but chooses to keep the child.

But it also rips a bunch of other TV newsroom stories from the headlines as well.

Because there have been so many incidents in the past few years, it’s hard to remember them all, but in addition to allegations of rape, there were allegations of stalking, affairs between reporters and married anchors, and accusations of institutionalized sexual harassment at a sports network.

And many of them are present in this episode. For starters, because Avery was having an affair with a married anchor at the station, she didn’t report the rape for fear that Rick would retaliate by exposing their affair.

But Rick has begun stalking her and tries to blackmail her with sex photos that he took with a hidden camera he’d installed in her hotel room.

When push comes to shove, Avery reluctantly goes to the police. Tries to prove rape six weeks after the fact when you have been in a love affair with a co-worker. And then she finds out she’s pregnant.

Of course, she loses her job, and the rapist goes on trial and defends himself — very aggressively — bringing in a congressman (yes!) who happens to have been a gynecologist and uses almost the same sentence that Akin used back in August.

I won’t tell you the outcome, but I will tell you that we learn that in New York State an alleged rapist can sue for custody of the baby that results from the rape. In other words, a woman can be violated over and over again legally.

Cohan is excellent as the reporter who loses it all and Marciano is such a good villain that you will want to chase him down the street and beat him bloody.

Despite the fact that “Law & Order: SVU” has been on the air since Buddha was a baby, the episodes manage to stay as fresh as, well, the news. Good work, everybody. Don’t miss it.