It’s not always about the former, but it’s certainly never about the latter.
I know of at least one all-male secret society that used to initiate new members (who had no choice about joining) with a mock “rape”. It was, as per the headline here, a form of “hazing”, and typically there was much laughter and fisticuffs, generally resulting in bruising of everyone involved but rarely bloodshed. The members of that particular organization eventually grew up and they don’t do that any more, but they are all still good friends so I will not name them. For them, as rowdy teenagers, it was a way to flaunt social conventions and defy the Olds - perhaps appropriate to junior high students, I dunno.
I wrote the preceding paragraph to explain this one. It seems to me that these Customs officers haven’t mentally advanced from the norm of defiant 15-year-olds, and they think they are some kind of privileged boy’s club. That is not who I want rummaging through people’s luggage!
