Q Mannivan “rape is a spectrum”

[Helpmaboa]

Has anyone else seen this? I didn’t believe it could be true, even for the Greens, so searched for it, and lo and behold it seems to be an actual interview

A video interview from YouTube last year

There are also comments about “different modes of consent”

Surely this is now too much? If it’s true

https://x.com/joelandland/status/2086060973807255786?s=46&t=9nUj9BEk_qVJghGVBCwIRQ

The PP you refer to shared her story after my post. It was very moving to read about her horrendous experiences.

This is my response to the idea that rape is on a spectrum: It’s very hard for a woman who’s been raped to go to the police - only a small number actually do. It can take her years and years to process and to accept what’s happened. If rape is a spectrum then there will be girls and women who might think that what happened to them wasn’t “enough” of a rape or was at the less serious end of the spectrum and perhaps not worth reporting. This might deter them from reporting it and being able to see their perpetrator brought to justice; it might also prevent them from moving on with their lives and suffering even more psychological distress. The word spectrum in the context of rape minimises the seriousness of the crime. This is just my opinion.

And I stand by my comment about men whatever their professional status pontificating about rape.

We need to disagree here, I believe including men in the conversation about sexual abuse is the only way to improve the culture that allows it.

We need men to feel empowered to challenge behaviour before it escalates, excluding them from the conversation does not do that.

As for a spectrum, there seems to be two arguments going on here.

The first of which is that Q said that there is a spectrum of how people perceive offenders, which is very true.

The 2nd is how the offences are treated by the law and victims, as I’ve mentioned before the law needs to view every crime on a spectrum, no matter how distasteful.

No Murder will be treated identically by the courts for the same reasons of culpability, vulnerability, mental health, premeditation etc..

The same goes for any other crime, I understand how emotive sexual crimes are but the hard fact is it must be assessed and treated in the same way as any other crime in law.

The example I’ve given before is one of a stranger attacking an unknown vulnerable woman in a lane at night compared to a teenager being charged for continuing to have intercourse with a partner who suddenly withdraws consent during the act.

Both are rape, both deserve to be punished, both will cause trauma.

Both are wrong.

But there is a difference in factors such as premeditation, risk to public and violence which means the punishment will be very different.

Yet have exhibited completely no understanding of the context involved or even an acknowledgement that there are other valid viewpoints.

Your entire argument is basically ‘Trust me love, I’ve read it, I know what I’m talking about, everything else is a bleeding idiot’.

What legal training do you have @Meeplemakeglasgow ?

Nothing surprises me from the Greens. Mad as brushes.

I got a 3 in my ‘O’ Grade in 1983.

Excellent, more intellectual debate

I’m not entirely sure of the purpose of your question, if it was to identify if I work in criminal law then no I don’t, but I did study it extensively when working towards my LLB and have lectured/tutored on the subject.

Beyond that I’m not comfortable listing my career history on Mumsnet.

My post wasn’t directed at any particular person, it’s quite clear I refer to others on the thread in the plural. So my referring to prior comments calling for deportation was not directed personally at you.

giving the impression that there is a sliding scale of rape and indeed consent.
I think you may have inferred that. The rape as a spectrum concept is incompatible with a sliding scale concept.

I’m disabled, I need a transcript I can’t just watch the interview.

Ok, but what you describe as a spectrum, is to me a scale. A spectrum is like colours of the rainbow, no? Where no colour is worth more than another, they are all equal but vividly different. A scale is where you rank things by highest to lowest and that implies some are more important than others.

I don’t think a spectrum minimises the crime, if anything it maintains the seriousness while allowing for a spectrum of circumstances to all qualify as rape. For example, it used to be you had to have physical injuries to prove rape. Today we recognise not all rape includes being beaten up. I could go on.

And was he pontificating? Who introduced the topic? If the interviewer introduced it with a question about rape, then he has got to give some kind of response as an elected official. He can’t just blank her.

I think 'spectrum' implies that it goes from 'least bad' to 'most bad', and that some 'types' of rape can be classified as innately less harmful than others.
When really, the impact of rape varies from woman to woman, not from type to type.

The technically much less invasive but ongoing sexual abuse I suffered from my stepfather as a child affected me far more deeply, and caused far more lasting trauma than my boyfriend coercing and intimidating me into sex work as an under-age teenager, for instance.

It's not about a spectrum, it's about the actual individual impact on the victim, as well as the potential impact the act could have had on any victim.

What this man did was centre the rapist rather than the victim, and seek to make the rapist relatable and sympathetic, while practically erasing the victim altogether. It's clear who his priority is and who he identifies with, and it's not the victims.

I think the second meaning of the word 'spectrum' is being used, here, tbf, as the rainbow spectrum usage has no real point:

1. a band of colours, as seen in a rainbow, produced by separation of the components of light by their different degrees of refraction according to wavelength.
2. used to classify something in terms of its position on a scale between two extreme points.

I haven’t read the interview and therefore have no opinion on what was said. But a sliding scale and a spectrum are two completely different things.

A sliding scale would simply classify things on line - from bad to worse. Whether a spectrum is multifaceted. Rape occurs in many different contexts basically whether often the media focus on the stranger danger aspect.

But it’s not the norm to say that. Usually advocacy groups say that sexual violence is on a spectrum. Which is slightly different.

To me you’re describing a scale, not a spectrum. I completely agree there is no less bad to more bad, it is all rape. The political spectrum for example isn’t a scale of best to worst, it’s just a way of ordering views as they go from one orientation to another.

I don’t know if he centred one or the other, it depends on the questions he was asked by the interviewer. No one has found me a transcript. I’m sorry I can’t watch an interview. Did you watch it? Was the interviewer guiding the focus on to rapists? Or did he do a not answer the question and witter on about rapists? As politicians are known for dodging questions so I would not be suprised. And honestly, as he is a man, isn’t it more appropriate for him to speak about the role of men as rapists rather than mansplain about rape victims? So I’m torn here as to what he actually did that was so bad some posters are using string language and even calling for his deportation.

Yes, the way he centred the rapist, and their rehabilitation, and said 'any one of us could be guilty of rape'...it was very telling. You can definitely see who he identifies with, to a rather worrisome extent.

Yes, the second one is referring to say the political spectrum, but the two extreme points, and all the ones in between are equal in the eyes of the law, one is not superior to the other.

He is a man with a penis, of course he is going to identify with the male perspective and be interested in pushing men to not rape women, and whether rehabilitating those who have raped women is even possible.

We tell men they need to step up and take care of their shit and stop their fellow men from raping. Well a male politician saying it’s regular guys from all walks of life who are rapists, all men are capable of rape and we need to stop the raping - isn’t that part of it?

Isn’t better than Farage who is saying it’s only those Pakistani men that are raping because their cultures are so alien and they don’t respect women, stop immigration and we stop rape, because good English men don’t do that sort of thing. When we know for a fact, yes they do! This is a MALE violence problem, not an immigration problem.

And it makes sense for men to address the root of rape- the rapists- if we want to prevent it from happening.

As the definition says, it's about classifying something between two extreme points. There's a degree of 'better' and 'worse' in that which I don't think is useful when talking about rape.

I can't find a transcript, and I listened to the interview a few weeks ago, but he brought it up, and focused heavily on humanising rapists, rehabilitating them, how any one of us could commit rape, and how some rape was 'less scary'(the interviewer agreed). Victims were almost entirely erased, and it seemed to focus on sympathising with rapists.

I read the definition differently as it is neither explicit or implicit that the two extremes are least to worst- the examples given were:

Range of Opinions: A wide set of different views, such as across a political system.
Human Emotion: A full array of feelings, like joy, sadness, anger, and fear.

It’s more about how different the two extremes are to each other without attaching a value to them.

Thanks for describing your recollection of the interview. I agree he could have done better.

I’ve listened to part of it again, and it stems from a conversation about abolition. I did the best I could with typing out a transcript for you!

Q: “This question also leads to imaginations of a just society […] questions of abolitions and ah, of what it means to think of rehabilitating, um, rapists for instance as we said, right, into society. And I think our distaste towards rape is towards rape, it’s towards the idea and the act of rape, not the myth of this monster rapist as we are now born (?) to be thinking of it that way. Um. Because there definitely is a demonisation of rape, and a sense of…um, it is a spectrum, as much as I don’t seek to lighten—”

Female Interviewer: “Yeah, it’s not always the sort of [gestures] scary act”

A brief back and forth in which they agree a range of things can be rape.

Q: “It is a spectrum and – none of which is any worse, or less, or any worse, but it is a spectrum of things that constitute that one homogenised word rape. And I think, there’s also different modes of, not just consent, but also ideas of not but also context and conditions under which rape is, well, rape.

And I think in that circumstance, the idea that this rapist is the big burly man is not necessarily unfounded, because that’s the individual I’m more scared of on a day to day basis, but it’s also an entity that is misconstrued simply because I think any individual um, is capable of rape. Um. Including yourself and me.

And I think that scary thought is the one that’s hardest to contend with. And beginning with contending with those harder facts, and beginning to ask what are those conditions to lead individuals like ourselves to be in that position and commit such an act, is the kind of question that can lead one to be sufficient carers towards even perpetrators of crimes like rape. But whether care is sufficient, again, there are enough people who have said no [...]”

He goes on to say that he doesn’t believe society is ready for abolition yet.

There are some things that aren't so bad in there, but I see a lot of sympathising with rapists, he complains that rape is 'demonised', he talks about caring for perpetrators, not victims, he tries to imply that the female interviewer is as likely to be a rapist as a man, and also to say that our distaste is towards rape and not rapists (it should be both!) Also, the mention of context and conditions in addition to consent feels like a potential red flag.

Thank you Otterly, do you recall the question he was answering?

I will go in order. I mostly agree with you he’s said some concerning things that shows he doesn’t really understand rape and is, as is typical with men, identifying with the rapist not the victim.

I feel like the demonisation of rape is actually part of the sentence right before where he refers to monster rapist. Monsters, demons- evil creatures that aren’t human who rape is a bit of a myth, because it’s ordinary men. I recall reading the list of the 51 men who raped Giselle Pelicot. All so utterly ordinary.

not the myth of this monster rapist as we are now born (?) to be thinking of it that way. Um. Because there definitely is a demonisation of rape.

that doesn’t read like a complaint to me. I think that part is fine.

It is clear he is thinking of a spectrum the same way I do at least so I’m good with that:
It is a spectrum and – none of which is any worse, or less, or any worse not scale of less to worse.

This part, I agree with you is really very concerning.
beginning to ask what are those conditions to lead individuals like ourselves to be in that position and commit such an act, is the kind of question that can lead one to be sufficient carers towards even perpetrators of crimes like rape. But whether care is sufficient, again, there are enough people who have said no [

Like who gives a fuck what reasons a man has for rape? this sounds very like societal conditions put men in conditions that then cause them to rape. That’s bollocks. It’s a choice. It’s not societies fault. The choice of the word carers for even rapists is clumsy, maybe he’s talking carers in terms of psycho-social intervention while in prison to prevent reoffending, but it’s not cool to use the word ‘carers’ because that’s the term used for disabled or elderly or injured/ill people. Raping isn’t a mental lillness or disability, it sullies the word carer to use it like that.

doesn’t believe society is ready for abolition
Abolition of what? I’ve missed that part.

he tries to imply that the female interviewer is as likely to be a rapist as a man

I agree. While, it is true everyone is capable of it under most law systems where you don’t need a penis to rape. He should have acknowledged that sexual assault with penetration, whether classified as rape or not based on the sex of perpetrator, is almost exclusively a male crime. I agree by leaving that unsaid, omitting it he’s trying to make a false equivalence there the well women do it too can’t be said with out saying that it’s 1 women to every 1000 men.

Our distaste is towards rape and the myth monster rapist, I think he’s just saying what’s currently true, not what should be. I agree with you that it should be towards both. Too often excuses are made for the rapist if he is perceived as a decent guy who was drunk or high, or missed signs that consent wasn’t really there, or it’s one awful mistake in a life of fine upstanding citizen. When we look how rape cases are decided a big burly black Muslim man and a rap sheet of minor crimes is much more likely to be convicted than a high earning white banker with a wife and kids and connections who presents as charming and mild mannered and things got out of hand at a company Christmas do.

If we don’t see the archetype ‘monster’ we don’t want to believe that man is a rapist and convictions reflect these biases.

on this I somewhat agree with you.
“there’s also different modes of, not just consent, but also ideas of not but also context and conditions under which rape is, well, rape”

Not sure what to make of it, although if I’m being generous I would think it refers to the fact that rape with consent can still be rape depending on the context and conditions. I consented to my rapes by my ex, but it was still rape because that consent was under the condition of coercion and the context was I didn’t want to, it hurt, it made me bleed, but I still consented and went along with it to avoid his anger and lashing out at me. I still am grappling with it myself because I am still not quite believing those were rapes. I would never have realised unless the police and social worker had told me I was describing rape.

I think I am applying it to my life experiences, and you could be right in that he may be meaning something else entirely and if so, what that is could be concerning given he said other concerning things.

I tend to agree with this view. If we want to discuss rape and consent, we have to not be squeamish about understanding the nuances it. All crimes have a spectrum and rape is no different, I’m not sure why anyone wants to pretend it is. The law recognises it when it comes to sentencing guidelines, I’ve never seen anyone challenge that (other than to say the overall sentencing is never enough).

We must start from the first principle that all rape is criminal, all rape is traumatic, all people who commit the crime should feel the full weight of the law. Then we should look at the different types of rape. 30 years ago I went home with a guy from the pub, we had consensual sex. About 2 hours later I woke up and he started again, I didn’t want to, I never actually said no, but I struggled and it should have been clear I was not up for it. After a minute or two, I gave in and let it happen. It wasn’t bad, or painful, I was annoyed but it didn’t particularly feel violated. I made my excuses and left. It was decades later that I realised this was rape. The guy probably wouldn’t have considered it as rape. To my mind he is not in the same category as someone who drags a woman off the street and brutally rapes her. That’s not to say he was a good guy. He did a bad thing, he would have deserved whatever sentence he got if he had been convicted.

If I went along to a support group for rape survivors, told my story and claimed my experience was anything like yours, I’m sure nothing would be said, but for sure a whole bunch of people would think I was out of line to even suggest it.

It’s pretty pointless entering a discussion on an interview one has neither read nor watched/listened

I’ve asked for a transcript, @OtterlyAstounding couldn’t find one either but did transcribe some of it for me. So there isn’t a version to read for those of us who can’t really watch/listen.

However, the main gist of the issues are there, if you’d care to discuss them. I’ve reread your posts and there is a lot of judgement without explanation as to your thought process or views.

dangerous to witter shite in an effort to sound deep and intellectual about subjects that are in fact very clear cut. These are the kind of vague comments you have made.

talking pure shite and giving the impression that there is a sliding scale of rape and indeed consent. - except we learned that the rape as a spectrum comment was said with the disclaimer this doesn’t mean a sliding scale of less to most bad. And there hasn’t been anything indicating a sliding scale of consent only that consent is affected by situations and circumstances- which again is true.

I really enjoyed talking with other posters who have taken the time to consider the topic in some depth and give reasoned replies. Thank for for starting the thread OP. It’s too bad you don’t seem to want to have an intellectual discussion or consider perhaps the issue is not as clear cut when you look beyond the surface.

I’m so sorry you went through that.
It is like mine were in that it was rape.
But you’re right there are both similarities and differences.
It’s been thought of as a spectrum for a long time, and it’s good that it has been. So many types of rape we’re not considered to be rape socially or legally in the past, to now recognise them for rape doesn’t dilute the seriousness of it at all imho. It acknowledges that the archetype (stranger(s) dragging a woman off the street and violently raping with physical injury) isn’t the only kind of rape that meets the threshold for rape.

I agree completely we can’t be squeamish about the nuances and be able to talk about rape. If anything for our daughters and grand daughters- what they know or don’t know as rape depends on this sharing of knowledge regarding different nuances that you can’t get from reading the dry language of the law or in any high school sex ed class.