Nick Ross on rape - warning you may feel the need to punch a wall

[DuelingFanjo]

sorry it's a daily mail link.

I am full of rage, particularly his comments on aggravated rape. Wtf. Presumably he means that there are situations in which he will not be able to stop himself from raping someone because it is aggravated. This has made me so angry. Please they'll me he no longer works for the BBC. I truly hope he loses his career over this. How the hell are we supposed to educate people who think like this?

"He admitted the edited version was fair but claimed his views were not as thoroughly explained as in the full text of the book."

In the guardian he seems to be saying that he wasn't misrepresented.

Oh, right, because what people are really upset about is that he just didn't explain the rape myths enough.

Silly me.

What a twit that man is.

Huh. How it's 'sacrilege' rather than 'heresy'. He does have a hang-up with religious terminology.

RedHelenB - so does that mean that when one of my Exes decided that it was fine to penetrate me anally whilst I was asleep, repeatedly, that I gave consent to it by sharing a bed with him?

Because I DIDN'T give consent. In fact, I actively made sure he KNEW that he didn't have my consent.

Yet still he continued to do it.

I was unable to do anything about it, as I was asleep (so no way he could have gained my consent), and would wake up to him lying on top of me (I sleep on my front), with his hand over my mouth so that I couldn't say no, or scream, and him having already entered me.

Did I consent to that because I shared a bed with him?

NO I BLOODY DIDN'T!

Rape is rape.

A non-rapist seems to find it easy to know that you ascertain consent BEFORE the act, only rapists seem to find this difficult.

In my mind, there is no way that I gave consent to be anally raped by that ex of mine, despite sharing a bed with him. And he knew it.

He chose to ignore that because he is a rapist, not because it was in any way difficult for him to know that I didn't consent to that particular act, and wouldn't have consented to that particular act.

Non-rapists know how not to rape. Only rapists don't seem to.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22677513

Nick Ross' reply to what was printed...

Is it me, or is he concentrating entirely on women?

And then he says that rape victims are the 'real experts'. If he is a rape victim, that is really sad, but if so, why generalize his experiences to women? And if not, how come he's being disagreed with by so many women?

I do know the likely answer to this conundrum, btw.

I listened to the interview he is very upset that he is being attacked on twitter and feels he has been misrepresented in the mail but he refused to apologise to those he had offended as he had spoken to victims and these were their words

Again flawed research many rape victims feel in some way they are to blame, they can not face what has been done to them so play it down someone how has been involved with victim support would know this unless they have another agenda to push which obviously he has

and apparently he is more of an academic now than a journalist when questioned about victim support distancing themselves from him he was confident they wouldn't once all was explained he came across as a total utter arrogant tosser who really has no idea what he is talking about

good point goshanngorilla. If wearing clothes that cover you up totally, and staying sober protected women from rape, then there would be no rape, ever, in Muslim countries. And I am pretty sure that's not the case.
I had a boyfriend years ago who had been raped as a 14 year old.it didn't occur to me to ask him if his clothes had been too revealing. It had happened at a party, where he willingly drank alchohol and ended up alone in a room with an older man. Again, didn't even cross my mind to say " well, you shouldn't have put yourself in that situation"
It wasn't his fault, and actually, he knew that, partly because men and boys do not get blamed in the same way.

He comes over as a totally arrogant mansplainer doesn't he?

He has said nothing to disown the basic sense of the Mail article. Even if they slightly mis-represented his position (which there's no reason to doubt, they're not exactly know for their integrity), he hasn't actually refuted the main thrust of the article as regards rape - which is that as a society, we are entitled to tell women which rapes they may consider "serious", life-changing, upsetting, needing the intervention of the law and which ones aren't because they don't really count as rape, as decided by him and other rape apologists.

Conveniently for rapists, he decides that the majority of rapes are no big deal: they're the ones which are carried out by the men who know us, with whom we have a pre-existing relationship. Surprise surprise, women complaining about those rapes are still being told that they should probably sort them out without recourse to law (because he hasn't clarified that he didn't mean that). Which implies that he doesn't think those rapes are actually illegal or even rape - he's still allowing that headline to stand without disowning it.

Women are being silenced about the real trauma and suffering men subject them to, because other men subject other women to trauma and suffering men have decided isn't legitimate and therefore must be worse. The basic implication of this POV is that really, the majority of rapes which happen are just normal sex and women should STFU about it and stop being such bloody princesses expecting their bodily integrity to actually mean something when it comes to sex.

Nick Ross is still standing up for rapists, even after the clarifications. Not all of them of course - not the fewer than 10% who attack women they've never met, because he accepts that's not reasonable - but for the 90%+ majority, he's still minimising their behaviour and asserting that it's not something we need to address as a society as far as I can see.

So he still counts as a rape apologist AFAIC.

This might be quite a triggering post so please be aware.

Amanda Platell wrote an article the other day about all the vile child pornography and recorded abuse that is freely available via google, and described in blunt detail a 'How to do it' piece of film showing the rape of a schoolgirl. The tricks of the trade were clear: tell the victims they are secretly enjoying it; tell them they want it; tell them or make them feel in some way that they are to blame; and tell them you are sharing a dirty secret that no-one must know about; and scare them. These tactics are part of the crime. The feelings instilled in the victims are part of the crime.

Personally I think that in turning those victims' feelings - their emotional injuries - into the justification for a massive rape apology, Nick Ross is condoning rapists' crimes.

His whole thesis is bizarre, sickening and bad science.

Oh well, what the heck, though I know no one will read this as nuanced in the mass hysteria.

I think it's good NR talked about male victims of domestic violence, they shouldn't be ignored. I don't mind if NR wants to argue that victims have to take some responsibility in some crimes, and that those victims might include rape victims. And I think it's daft to pretend that all such crimes are the same (we usually instinctively know that the crime is extra heinous if the victim is an especially vulnerable type of person).

Where I was shocked by NR was when he said things like, that how women dressed made a difference to personal responsibility. (I guess male rape victims get to dress how they like ). Using my phone in public isn't an advert for someone to come steal it and then get a lesser punishment from the courts. If I forget to close a window the insurer may refuse to pay out, but I still expect the police to try to catch the burglar and the courts to apply a penalty.

I think under NR's logic then raping a prostitute would be at worst "theft" rather than assault. I had no idea he was so thick. :(

Why does the temptation thing never apply to men who are mugged in dark streets at midnight? Surely putting temptation in the way of any violent crook who may be out and about?

Agree with lijkk, there is nuance to this issue, rather than just the polemics all over here, and I suspect he has been misquoted and his words twisted by both the DM and his opponents, for their own ends.

But he could be a lot clearer in his later responses, he really is not helping himself!

Three reasons why a vagina is not a laptop

Good link about the laptop.

I agree that just because victims of crime sometimes berate themselves for becoming victims, doesn't mean that a crime hasn't been committed, or that the crime is somehow a 'lesser' crime.

People who get their cars nicked might regret leaving them parked in road A and not road B - the 'Who knows, maybe that would have made a difference' internal debate - but no-one suggests in such cases that this means that the car thief should face a lesser charge, or no charge at all.

Lots of victims of all sorts of crimes are bothered by self-doubt, blame and guilt, sometimes for reasons like 'all the fuss and trouble I'm causing'. Sometimes they feel embarrassed. I know I felt terrible last time we got burgled because my DD's I-pod got nicked and she was so upset. But surely that makes the culprit more deserving of censure, not less, because of these negative, guilty feelings they cause in their victims?

Also, it's not just when we're victims of crime, that human beings blame themselves and wonder if they could have done things differently.

FGS, when women have miscarriages, or their babies are born underweight, or if people get diagnosed with cancer or diabetes or heart disease or whatever, they question whether they could have done something different to prevent whatever event it was, happening.

That's human nature isn't it? To question yourself, to ask what you could have done differently to prevent something happening when something bad happens?

That's why people made sacrifices to imaginary beings in the sky, to try and prevent bad things happening and try and make good things happen. The fact that we're human and question ourselves and try and talk ourselves into believing that we can control things that are outside our control - like a man deciding to rape us - doesn't mean that the rape wasn't real or wasn't rape. In that situation, the person who decides to rape the other person has complete control over whether that rape happens or not; the person who is raped, has no control at all.

It is simply astonishing that a journalist with the level of experience and knowledge Nick Ross has had access to, should have gone in for such rape apologist shite. It really is. And it shows how rape culture is the norm and how urgently education is needed.

Absolutely, Basil.

People can blame themselves for all sorts of things that are done to them when they are their lowest ebb. And they are at that lowest ebb because of what has been done to them. Like, say, being cheated on by a spouse; or being defrauded by a clever online scam.

And there are frequently knobbers who will join in the blaming because, interestingly, they are invested for some reason in victim-blaming and condoning the dreadful behaviour.

Ell fuck me, his publishing company don't know the difference between 'hear' and 'here'.

He likes Erin Pizzey.

m.indianexpress.com/news/innovative-clothing-students-come-up-with-antirape-underwear-and-gadgets/1105958/

Like this invention

Re the use of the word aggravate, he does talk in terms of tempting fate and putting temptation in the paths of men who will then feel aggravated to rape.

I got pregnant on Christmas Eve 2001 from a one-night stand with someone I knew to say 'hello' to. I don't think I have ever been so pissed in my entire life; I certainly do not remember agreeing to go back to his house or consenting to sex. The only evidence that I had actually had sex was the copious amount of semen in my jeans (I was still dressed) on Christmas morning.

I was not traumatised, did not suffer and fully expected that I had consented the night before. I wouldn't dream of saying I had been raped. I do remember having spent the whole evening with this bloke chatting in various bars but nothing afterwards. I didn't know it back then but I was an alcoholic and I was forever sleeping around with men I barely knew.

Fantastic post, basil. If Nick Ross could be forced to read just one thing that has been posted on the internet in the last couple of days, I would vote for yours.

I would like him to read a lot more, obv, and very many from this thread.

Do you mcnewpants?

I don't.

There's a South African gadget which, if it really exists, amounts to teeth worn inside your vagina which clamp on a rapist's dick.

I understand the desire to cause pain and humilation to a rapist, but it doesn't stop the idea that women are there to be used or prevent an injured assailant bashing your brains in.

Like women-only compartments on public transport, that are popular in some parts of the world, or not getting pissed, which Nick Ross favours, they are sticking plaster.

Some people abuse other people because they can get away with it because lots of people think it's okay.

Everyone decent person should shout 'no' without recourse to weaselly words or ingenious Heath Robinson inventions.