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

[LokiBear]

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

Her comment that, most rapes don’t involve any injury whatsoever irritates me. While it’s true that there can be obvious vaginal trauma after rape the opposite isn’t true and lack of visible trauma doesn’t mean that violent sex didn’t happen. The vagina can accommodate unwanted, forceful sex.

weezol I know, my experience was similar, I came back to the thread to say ‘ruin’ does not have to mean in the nineteenth century sense.
Ruin can mean psychological damage, it can mean financial damage as you then have massive legal bills from divorce (because leaving is the only way out) and child contact disputes which are still used as a means of control. Ruin because sorting it out can take years of your life when you could have been doing other things. Ruin because every time there is a debate, discussion or dispute about rape in the press it is not just another news story, it causes distress. Ruin because actually you do have flashbacks and anxiety and hyper vigilance in certain situations (hallmarks of PTSD). Ruin because you don’t see yourself having a relationship again.

Ruin because there is a healthy ideal of companionate, loving and respectful marriage which does not include rape, and you did not have that.

I do not sit at home crying about what happened, I have a life to live, and I defy anyone to say it is not a life worth living. But I only think this because I do not think about what has been ruined, not because nothing was lost. That is what survivors do. That is why the language is not of victimhood. But this does not mean no crime occurred. What happened to me was not ‘just bad sex’.

She is pointing out that not all rapes are horrifically violent... that if we can see that this is true we can accept that marital rape is as much of a crime as the Tarantino esque gang bang rapes (see Ched Evans again).

But she's saying marital rape is LESS of a crime and deserves LESS punishment. What you're saying here directly contradicts her comments. So you don't agree with her.

She has a long track record of saying things to force society to re-evaluate its ideas of women!

Oh, well, that's okay then. She can say rape is sometimes just annoying and not really a big deal so long as she's trying to stir up debate.

That's why it needs exploring as an idea rather than just a in reduction sentences for all rape convictions. And it needs to keep the name rape. The current system has not decreased the incidence of rape. I know teenagers who talk of non consensual sex as commonplace. They do not connect it to rape. Because it is not violent. No consequences experienced or expected. Nothing to shape their behaviour.

I know teenagers who talk of non consensual sex as commonplace. They do not connect it to rape. Because it is not violent. No consequences experienced or expected. Nothing to shape their behaviour.

Just as Greer wants it. Not really that much of a crime, not if it's not violent. Lesser consequences required, because it's not really a big deal. It's just annoying.

You are repeatedly arguing the opposite point to Greer and yet repeatedly defending her. It is idiotic.

Ah! I see!

I see it as she is saying that marital rape IS RAPE and should be punished as such. That maybe marital rape is the standard we prosecute by, set the tariff to.

Then ALL rape gets a definite sentence. And then, where there is additional violence, additional trauma, further sentencing can be applied.

And I do like the idea of branding all rapists and forcing them out into their own community to display their brand, their shame!

Ah. That was not my reading of it.

Or rather, my reading of it was more like Samphire's.

Maybe that is probably the crux of the disagreement, then!

Which does show that society really does need to revisit its outdated view of rape, sentencing etc.

Emphasis on the likelihood of a consequence being experienced, rather than the severity of it.

She is not ‘downgrading’ violent rape.

She is ‘upgrading’ unwanted sex.

So even in your reading she's saying that rape itself - while a crime - isn't that big a deal and the punishment for it should be lowered to 200 hours of community service. And that women should only be traumatised by rape if it's violent. Because rape by itself is just "an annoyance".

And you're in support of these ideas?

@TheStoic "Unwanted sex" is rape just as much as "violent rape" is.

It's a big enough deal for there to be no misconceptions about what it entails, so that it does not go unpunished because a particular rape does not meet an erroneous threshold that includes physical violence.

???!!!! Again, I have absolutely no idea how you got that from anything I wrote.

Community service would, in my book, be part of a prison sentence. Which is why I would volunteer to be on the sentencing board: XX years and, before you go inside, whilst everyone remembers you, 200 hours of branded community service within 500metres of your home and place of work!

Greer didn't specify anything other than there should be some form of humiliation, via public display of a brand "R" But as her whole issue was that what we currently do does not work and we need to increase prosecutions, sheprobably isn't saying they should be let off easily!

Absolutely, Fallen

The lowering of a sentence is in the context of the woefully poor rate at which rapists are reported, tried and convicted. Even 200 hours community service would be more than most rapists get now. Most rapists get nothing of course.

Community service would, in my book, be part of a prison sentence.

That's not what Greer is saying. She is saying we should lessen the punishment for non-violent rape because it's less serious than violent rape. Either you agree with that or you don't.

so that it does not go unpunished because a particular rape does not meet an erroneous threshold that includes physical violence.

That is exactly the opposite of what she's saying. If it doesn't include violence it's "bad sex" rather than "violent rape". It's "annoying" rather than traumatising. The threshold for Greer IS physical violence.

The lowering of a sentence is in the context of the woefully poor rate at which rapists are reported, tried and convicted.

Explain to me how reducing the severity of marital rape as a crime will lead to more reporting and convictions.

I have already explained what I think she is saying. We continue to disagree.

That is part of her intent. Start a discussion, make people look again.

Nothing you can say will make me believe she is saying that some rape is acceptable, I just don't read her words that way. I doubt I will change your mind either.

But we do have common ground... more rapists need to be successfully prosecuted. How can we help make that happen?

I don’t understand how reclassifying rape as a crime that is not ubiquitously violent is going to increase convictions. GG postulates that women may be more likely to be believed but I can’t see how this is a natural progression.

"Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime, and some rapes are, think about it as non consensual … that is bad sex"

Rape trials were foundering and not ending in convictions as lawyers argued over the issue of consent, she said. Why not believe the woman and lower the penalty?

"If we are going to say trust us, believe us, if we do say that our accusation should stand as evidence, then we do have to reduce the tariff for rape.”

No, she is saying that a woman's word should be taken as evidence, and believed, in a trial for rape. She calls it rape throughout.

I agree with her that not enough rapes are prosecuted as the bar of proof is too high.Maybe if the punishment was less we would have more successful prosecutions,more women believed.
Also that in violent rape the violence should be at the centre not proof of costent with more stringent penalties.
As for the most rape being bad sex I took this to mean that we don't always recognise rape.That many of us ,if we examined our experiences closely would find that we had non consensual sex,not violent but unwanted.
I would want to read more of the book but from this little she may have a point.What we are doing now is not working.

But there can be trauma and violence in marital rape, so I am not sure how you distinguish it from other rape.

I am starting from the point of unwanted sex being rape, but unwanted sex can include violence and trauma. I don’t think marital rape is some kind of benign misunderstanding that does not by nature involve violence or trauma. That is not true. So why is marital rape set apart as different? If it is set apart as different in GG’s analysis.

@CuriousaboutSamphire Nothing you can say will make me believe she is saying that some rape is acceptable

I didn't say she said it was acceptable - just less unacceptable. And she said that herself. "Most rape is just lazy, just careless, insensitive." It deserves less of a punishment than violent rape because it is less of a crime.

How can we help make that happen?

Certainly not by downgrading the severity of rape as a crime.