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Original poster

Trigger warning: Germain Greer's opinion on rape...

568 replies

LokiBear · 03/06/2018 09:36

I can't actually get my head around this. How can a woman think like this? I have two daughters and comments like hers frighten me. I teach consent to 15 year olds and this goes against everything I try to teach them. I just dont get how anyone can think like this.

news.sky.com/story/germaine-greer-says-most-rape-is-bad-sex-not-violent-crime-11390855

OP posts:
Scrumplestiltskin · 04/06/2018 11:49

Tangentially, (and bad analogy crime choice, probably,) people don't think it's wrong to say people who have been burgled are generally upset, do they? Or think that it's wrong to call burglary an upsetting, invasive crime? Because I would call it an upsetting crime, personally, and invasive, and yet that wouldn't mean I'd think people who weren't upset hadn't been burgled.
But to say burglary is no big deal, and just an annoyance, and they should reduce the sentencing to get more convictions (which is where this analogy really slumps,) would be minimising of the crime, and of the impact it does have on many victims.
Whether or not someone is upset has no bearing on whether a crime has been committed, so when it's generally an upsetting crime, why talk it down and minimise it?

nolongersurprised · 04/06/2018 11:50

I don’t think rape is hard to prosecute because of particular understandings of rape in our society. I think rape is hard to prosecute because lack of consent is very hard to retroactively prove.

AutumnMadness · 04/06/2018 11:51

Scrumplestiltskin, nobody is dismissing rape as 'annoying'. Some (or many as I think) women find their experiences of rape as annoying rather than traumatic. Again, let's not confuse normative and descriptive categories. I am not saying that rape should be recognised as annoying, but that women's experiences of rape as annoying rather than traumatic should be recognised.

Yes, I am sure that some or many of these subjective interpretations of rape as annoying are constituted by our patriarchal culture, as you say. But to me this is a somewhat separate question, and if it is not handled carefully, it will create a situation where women are made to feel that they they are not good enough victims. As in "I am not traumatised by my rape. Am I just brainewashed by patriarchy? How can I ensure that I at least come across as traumatised so I don't look like an ignorant anti-feminist?"

Scrumplestiltskin · 04/06/2018 11:51

For me, the imperative in treating rape as a problem is in the fact that it removes the victim's autonomy and right to decide what happens to their own body. How each individual feels about that is up to them, but a great many victims do find it traumatising, which I understand fully.
Well put, Pengggwn

Pumperthepumper · 04/06/2018 11:52

Scrumplestiltskin but I don’t think that’s what anyone is actually saying. GG isn’t trying to minimise any form of rape, she’s looking at ways we can have ALL rape (non traumatic, marital, inter-relationship, coercion) accepted by all as a crime and punished for it.

Pengggwn · 04/06/2018 11:53

Because I would call it an upsetting crime, personally, and invasive, and yet that wouldn't mean I'd think people who weren't upset hadn't been burgled.

This is exactly what these people are doing.

Scrumplestiltskin · 04/06/2018 11:53

AutumnMadness GG dismissed it as "annoying."

I'm also curious to know if you think it would have the same psychological impact on men, as on women, to be penetrated against their will.

Pengggwn · 04/06/2018 11:54

GG isn’t trying to minimise any form of rape

She absolutely is. She says a lot of what we call rape is just bad sex. She says this explicitly.

AutumnMadness · 04/06/2018 11:58

Scrumplestiltskin, no, you interpreted her dismissing it as annoying.

Pengggwn, I am not going to dig through this whole thread to find a relevant post. But by and large people who agree with you here keep focusing on the notion of trauma and I have already provided an example of this discourse.

Pumperthepumper · 04/06/2018 11:58

I'm also curious to know if you think it would have the same psychological impact on men, as on women, to be penetrated against their will.

I think it’s generally accepted that women will be, at some point, sexually harassed, intimidated or coerced. So while I think it’s equally as ‘bad’ for a woman to be raped as for a man, I believe it’s a much, much bigger problem for women.

Pengggwn · 04/06/2018 12:03

AutumnMadness

But I haven't done that, and you said I had. As I say, I have no expectations of you with regards to how being raped made you feel.

AutumnMadness · 04/06/2018 12:06

Pengggwn great, but society in general very much has expectations about how I am supposed to feel. And this is what GG is arguing against.

Pumperthepumper · 04/06/2018 12:07

The ‘bad sex’ line is being really misrepresented here. She didn’t say that meant it wasn’t rape. Here’s the quote:

“Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime and some rapes are, think about it as non consensual … that is bad sex,” she added. “Sex where there is no communication, no tenderness, no mention of love.”

Still rape. Rape between a couple, inter-relationships rape, coercive rape. Bad sex rape.

Pengggwn · 04/06/2018 12:11

AutumnMadness

Society may well have those expectations, but that is because of the input of the many thousands of victims who are quite clear that, for them, it was traumatising to be raped. It is perfectly rational for people to take from that that, in general, rape traumatises people, but there will of course be people who aren't traumatised.

It makes no odds anyway - rape is rape. You can feel fine about what happened to you and choose not to make a complaint. Please don't tell others that they must do the same, or that the sentencing/naming of the crime needs to change because you didn't feel what they did.

Pengggwn · 04/06/2018 12:13

Pumperthepumper

You are choosing to completely change the meaning of her comments. She is saying I should not think of it as rape, I should, rather, think of it as bad sex.

AutumnMadness · 04/06/2018 12:18

Pengggwn, my mistake. I thought I could have a conversation with you. But I see that you just cannot resist the temptation of putting truly horrid words into my mouth that I have not said. Do you have any idea how insulting and belittling you are being?

Pumperthepumper · 04/06/2018 12:21

pengggwyn no, she’s saying ‘rape isn’t always violent’, that nagging someone until they have sex with you doesn’t make it not rape, just because they didn’t physically hold you down.

Luisa27 · 04/06/2018 12:22

Well said Autumn

Pumper - think you’re spot on in your interpretation of what GG was actually saying...

Pengggwn · 04/06/2018 12:23

Pumperthepumper

The problem is that nagging someone until they have sex with you isn't rape. You are trying to suggest that the crime of rape exists on a spectrum that extends into consensual sex, but it doesn't. Nobody has ever been charged under rape laws with nagging someone into sex, absent serious coercive control. Why? Because it isn't rape.

Scrumplestiltskin · 04/06/2018 12:24

AutumnMadness
She says of rape victims:
"We haven't been destroyed, we've been bloody annoyed is what we've been.”
Which is patently false. Many rape victims have been destroyed, and had to attempt the painful, sometimes unsuccessful process of remaking themselves in the wake of their rape.
Now, I will repeat explicitly that:
Rape is not defined by trauma, it is defined by sex without consent. BUT it does have a traumatic impact on many victims, due to the invasive, dehumanising nature of the crime.

And no one has yet been able to address whether or not they think old Greg would just brush off his mate, Johnny, gently buggering him while he was too drunk to stop him after a night out drinking, and just feel a bit crap and stop associating with Johnny, but not be psychologically traumatised. Do we really think that Greg being anally raped by Johnny wouldn't deeply impact him emotionally, and impinge upon his mental well-being and concept of self? In short: do we really think it probably wouldn't be traumatic for Greg?

TheFallenMadonna · 04/06/2018 12:24

She absolutely is. She says a lot of what we call rape is just bad sex.

No. You have that back to front. She says that most rape is what we might call bad sex.

Pengggwn · 04/06/2018 12:25

AutumnMadness

What words have I put into your mouth? You are - if I am not mistaken - supporting a proposal that says the crime of rape shouldn't always be the crime of rape. Sometimes sex without consent should be treated as something else, because it isn't always traumatic. If I am wrong about what you are saying, then I apologise, but it isn't belittling or horrible to disagree with you, based on what I believe you to be saying.

Pengggwn · 04/06/2018 12:25

TheFallenMadonna

I have directly quoted her using the imperative: 'think of it as bad sex'. You are wrong.

Scrumplestiltskin · 04/06/2018 12:26

“Sex where there is no communication, no tenderness, no mention of love.”

I've had lots of amazing consensual sex involving all of the above factors, so that can't be what defines rape.

AutumnMadness · 04/06/2018 12:28

Scrumplestiltskin, GG does not say that about ALL rape victims. Why is this so hard to see? Some women are destroyed by their rapes some are not. I don't think you have a problem with this understanding. So why are you arguing against it?