Germaine Greer on rape - controversial

It’s too complicated for sound bites TBH so that doesn’t surprise me 🙄

Evan stark in coercive control did a really good job of handling these issues IMO, though he wasn’t specifically writing about rape.

We have been raised to see our virginity as prized and sacred. Rape, even if one isn’t a virgin at the time, is seen as so awful because of this prevailing view.

Yes, this makes me think of the ethos from ancient Rome and Greece, and from our own medieval period that women should kill themselves rather than be raped, or even kill themselves afterward. And I think other cultures sometimes have the same convention. It's related to the notion that women's and a family's "honour" depends on women's bodies being "chaste", because women's bodies belong to the males who control them. That's not to minimise the trauma or crime of rape, but you do have to wonder if these lingering attitudes contribute to making it worse.

I have no problem with her handling her own experience in whatever way she has.

I have an issue with her trying to impose how she handled it on other women.

TBH it’s weird that she was going on about not knowing why people don’t report because there’s no evidence but then getting dangerously close to saying her feelings = how everyone should feel.

I have noticed that feeling like you have agency is necessary for healing and also that it is not uncommon for people to gain a feeling of agency through various degrees of ‘not a big deal’.

I’ve said this before and been slaughtered for saying it on here. I just said I didn’t want rape to define me, I was upset and annoyed with myself at the timebut it really isn’t somoerhing that I think about. It doesn’t play on my mind at all. The man that did it time is a complete bastard and I hate him. But it hasn’t affected any of my actions throughout my life. I haven’t felt I’ve had to not do certain things because once upon a time I was raped. I can completely understand how it could completely destroy someone. But that didn’t happen to me nd I’m not going to be made to feel that I’m wrong because of this.

Problem with GG is that she can be quite inflexible in her approach - it didn’t affect me, so ...

But I do think she is quite correct. We have been raised to see our virginity as prized and sacred. Rape, even if one isn’t a virgin at the time, is seen as so awful because of this prevailing view.

I haven't clicked but I do think she has a right to chose how she defines her experiences. Also traumas don't affect everyone in the same way. We need flexibility. Rape is wrong but the impact of rape is not the same for everyone.

I agree with her to be honest.

I think there is a lot of narrative that insists rape is the most awful and traumatic thing a woman can go through and while I wouldn’t take that away from another woman, it doesn’t apply to me.