Has Germaine Greer lost the plot?

There’s plenty of ground for rape and abusive sex to be more or less traumatising without going as far as being ‘irrevocably damaged in body and soul.’

I have PTSD but I’m not irrevocably damaged.

I think she’s wondering along the lines of sex positivity, but not in the libfem sense. Sex positivity in this sense meaning ownership and positive Boundry setting.

non-violent rape

but why is it non-violent?

it wouldn't be rape if the woman consented

therefore it's only non violent because the woman decided not to refuse surely

so why is being so frightened that you go along with being raped considered less emotionally traumatic?

I think I get where she’s coming from. Having your Boundrys suddenly and violently violated, or having your self worth slowly eroded over time by someone you trust. I’m not sure whether one could say one is worse than the other, because I think that both scenarios are both incredibly damaging. The former would evoke shock and fear, where the latter is more insidious.
I think she raises an important point, if a bit clumsily. I have had the boiled frog scenario happened to me, and so has my partner, but in a different way, and we’ve both had different reactions.
I take a point about society viewing women’s sexuality as something being granted by men. I don’t think it makes any difference if a woman has her bodily autonomy taken away by a stranger, but in LTR I think she’s onto something. Women tend to defer to men in the bedroom, I did it myself. Sex is viewed as a man thing that we have to do to keep them happy. If women are empowered to treat sex as a me thing and approach it on equal terms Women would have better sex, or no sex if they didn’t feel like it.
Anyway sorry for my poorly expressed ramble. I know what I mean.

Here's a review of her book. The article includes this quote:

“Non-consensual sex is banal and deeply ordinary but that is not to say that is not an evil,” Greer writes. She critiques the narrative that suggests raped women “are irrevocably damaged in soul and body, but that if they do not acknowledge this they are in denial ... the victim who takes over her narrative becomes a survivor”.

I don't expect this is a majority view but it resembles my experience.

I was raped twice before I was 20. They were horrible, distressing experiences. However I was by no means "irrevocably damaged in soul and body". Other experiences have been far, far worse. Both times I was quite pleased with myself. I felt I'd done well to escape uninjured, which took some people skills.

I appreciate that rapes vary dramatically but I also feel the idea that rape always ruins women's lives makes us out to be far more fragile and sex-based than we are.

When I say sex-based I mean it's as though our sexual experiences define us - the old idea that a sexually active woman has been "ruined" - that our reputation as "respectable" women has been destroyed and that this is permanent.

Greer's book: "On Rape" has just been published [also available via Kindle]

I agree entirely with your interpretation, but that's not what she said. She could easily have clarified if that's what she meant, so I'm assuming she meant what she said. She has, after all, been a writer her whole adult life

You are right of course she could have clarified but from the clip I heard it sounded like she didn't have opportunity to do that - I could of course be wrong about that. I also think that although she has been a writer all her life she is also now older (and despite this far more erudite and astute than the vast majority of the population.) This isn't excusing her, as I said above I think her wording is clumsy at best.

I agree that it must be horrible but do women not have the right to refuse sex? If a lover subjected me to inconsiderate sex he wouldn't be getting any more, or at least not without a solemn undertaking to do better.

They do, they can but I think this is part of underestimating the issue - you would have the confidence and means to leave but that wouldn't be true of all women. If your confidence is lowered and the abuse normalised and if you are afraid of rocking the boat for financial or safety reasons (or even for an easier life without rows etc.) you may have sex when you would rather not. What does this so to a woman over a lengthy period of time. Yes, you could argue this was her choice but IMO at this point the 'choice' is rather muddied.

Women do have agency but patriarchy can often insidiously reduce this agency particularly within relationships. Just another point of view of course as I see where you are coming from but I think it is more grey than black or white when it comes to female agency within a patriarchal system.

I agree with your comments on the court system.

Prawn I agree that it must be horrible but do women not have the right to refuse sex? If a lover subjected me to inconsiderate sex he wouldn't be getting any more, or at least not without a solemn undertaking to do better.

If you've never experienced "better", and don't live in a sociey that promotes it, you wouldn't know there was anything else.

If it weren't for patriarchal systems of control, would we be as deeply hurt by non-violent rape as we are in today's society?

errr.. I'm not traumatised by my rape, I barely even think about it, I don't think my precious virginity was stolen by it and I've lost something irreplaceable and of un-countable value for instance - but yes, frankly, someone shoving a piece of themselves inside someone else I think should be shocking. I do think we should consider it deeply invasive (what with it being exactly that). I don't think that we should ever take lightly someone sticking a part of themselves in someone else without permission - be that a penis in a vagina, a finger up a nostril, or a toe in a mouth.

In fact, if we talk about other orifices/appendages that can be combined, it becomes completely obvious that yes, of course it's a big thing, of course people should be angry when it's done to them!

Plant, what you’ve explained makes a lot of sense.

Apologies, massively x-posted with everyone!

Kitty said at the moment I'm taking from her comments that we - as a society - underestimate the impact of low level undermining of a woman's consent or self-worth within a relationship.

I agree entirely with your interpretation, but that's not what she said. She could easily have clarified if that's what she meant, so I'm assuming she meant what she said. She has, after all, been a writer her whole adult life.

From the little I can find easily, she has a point. This from the Times before paywall kicks in:

Constant “unconsiderate” sex with a partner can be worse than rape by a stranger, the feminist writer Germaine Greer has suggested.

While rape by a stranger is “bloody bad luck”, it does not necessarily force a woman to reassess her whole life in the way that abuse by loved ones can, Greer said.

The Australian writer was speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme as part of a round of publicity for her essay On Rape, which has prompted controversy around the world.

She said: “I think it is important we don’t diminish the effects of constant unconsiderate use of a woman's body by the man she loves..."

I agree. It makes sense psychologically - constant lower-level trauma can have a more profound effect than a big, one off event (although people seem reluctant to accept this too). It's to do with the lack of social support, the lack of escape anytime soon, the denial of your own self because you have to supress that to survive and keep going with the status quo.

I've thought about this a lot, aside from her comments. Personally, I ended up at a place where I didn't see how I could ever have sex (with a man) again as all the (consensual) sex I'd had felt... kind of abusive. Performing femininity in the extreme. It feels wrong to use the word abusive (compared to real abuse) but I don't have the words or concepts to hand to describe my experiences, compared to the useful shorthand of the word "rape". Other life experiences have shown me that it is easier to deal with stuff that can be summed up neatly and others have a concept of "that's a bad thing", compared to quietly horrible stuff that's difficult to explain so no-one understands... Consent is confusing too, if you consider all the conditioning we go through to be compliant.

Jamie, I think this is a fundamental question that Greer's been skirting around for some time. I agree with her that the experience of being in a relationship where one is continually pressured into/ expected to be available for sex is very damaging in its own way.

There's an article about it in The Telegraph.

It doesn't improve on further reading. She says I think it’s important that we don’t diminish the effect of constant unconsiderate (sic) use of a woman’s body by the man who she loves.

In some ways it is worse to be abused and treated without consideration by the people who are at the centre of your life.

I agree that it must be horrible but do women not have the right to refuse sex? If a lover subjected me to inconsiderate sex he wouldn't be getting any more, or at least not without a solemn undertaking to do better.

She goes on to attack the way the court system treats rape victims. One of the things that I find really interesting here is the idea that the woman who complains of rape is herself not a party to the action, she is a piece of evidence and she will be examined to find if out if the claim she is making that the offence has occurred is true.

She perhaps hasn't considered that all victims of crime are in much the same boat, though there are seldom witnesses to rape.

But in the first section she seems to be denying that women have agency which is weird for a feminist.

She compares violent rape by a stranger to being hit by a bus missing the point that it's far less arbitrary than that, as the bus in question is deliberately being driven at women.

she was warning about the dangers of trans impinging in women's spaces a long time ago and was vilified, so I'd read what she says carefully, she's been right many times before

Cross posted with Kitty. Seems like she was trying to make a point about the damage caused by years of mistreatment.

She raises an important point then.

I wonder how much sex women would have if there were no social, physical, emotional or financial penalties for saying no.

Quite a lot of things she says on the surface of it seem a bit bonkers but I think she good at provoking debates and sometimes out of those debates comes some useful stuff. I feel like she probably knows this and is perhaps why she does it.

I've not read anything about this latest comment other than what the OP said but perhaps it will spark a conversation about how damaging to a woman's mental health years of unconsiderate sex might be vs a one time rape incident.

I'm not advocating for either position but just pointing out what type of conversation might be started based on the comments of someone with a public profile of Greer.

Crossed posts - Thanks Kitty

So often these soundbites are presented out of context.

Need to read what you are talking about, can you link please?

There are a couple of other threads on this, quite long ones. There is a clear disagreement on how to interpret what she said.

I don't think she is saying that a violent stranger rape is worse than inconsiderate sex, but hat he latter is rape, by definition... and, if we want to increase the number of convictions for rape we need to do a lot more around education of men and women about sex and consent.

Ok, so I looked it up and the sound file is here
www.thesun.co.uk/video/news/germaine-greer-sparks-anger-after-claiming-inconsiderate-sex-is-worse-than-rape/

for anyone who wants to hear it in context. It seems to me that what she is saying (and somewhat clumsily uses the word 'worse') is that the misuse of a woman's body, or co-ercion into sex constantly (or on a day to day basis) by a loved one leaves a lasting and internalised shame and resignation on a woman. Where stranger rape is a one time thing - to be clear, a horrendous, violent violation leaving a person affected forever - is to be distinguished but not considered worse than low level continuous erosion of a woman's consent within a 'loving' relationship. The effects of this being a steady chipping away at a woman's self-worth by someone they love shouldn't be under-estimated. I don't know if I agree with it, I think they are two different things but at the moment I'm taking from her comments that we - as a society - underestimate the impact of low level undermining of a woman's consent or self-worth within a relationship. She has always been concerned with this issue - the day to day impact of patriarchy on women and the gradual almost imperceptible chipping away at women. I think she feels this kind of thing is easily ignored and dismissed in a way that stranger rape cannot be. She's highlighting this issue but I think stranger rape has it's own brand of violence and violation and leaves a woman feeling unsafe for a considerable amount of time (or for the rest of her life). It happens once and leaves an impact which can be identified. Rape, casual assault so frequent they are normalised within a relationship can't be pinpointed in the same way or are taboo so they go ignored and untreated. This is the differentiation I'm seeing but I think the word 'worse' was ill-judged.

I think the choice of words may be somewhat clumsy and with more time she may have qualified them but this was after all, an interview with limited time to speak.

Rape is about the visceral experience of having no bodily autonomy.

Yup, GG sees the world in a very distinctive way. Often, though, the world has a way of catching her up. I do think her focus on the problematic nature of sex is actually very appropriate for our time. Given the proliferation of porn and the marketing expectations of what women are up for (see a thread on here at the moment about the goody-bag offered to freshers) I think some of the questions she poses are relevant. The only reason she's promoted as a feminist icon is that no one has come forward here in the UK to take her crown — which I suspect she'd willingly give.