Mick Hucknall apologises to 1000 women he slept with

[GoldenGreen]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/8178285/Mick-Hucknall-apologises-to-1000-women-he-slept-with.html

The way I am reading this is he is that firstly he is sorry for being unfaithful to whoever he was with at the time - ok I get that.

But I am finding this a little creepy on other levels because I think if you apologise to your groupies, it implies you think you were taking advantage of them at the time? Or is it that he misled them all into thinking they were his only partner (at a rate of 3 a day, that'd be hard to do).

(please MN lawyers note I am not saying that Mick Hucknall has done anything wrong...)

DP reckons I am overthinking this which is quite possible

HerBeatitude. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason that 96% do not end in a conviction is NOT because rape is acceptable but because of difficulty proving it?

If a couple are in a pre-existing sexual relationship and living at close quarters and the woman claims she was raped, I, for one, would think, 'She's telling the truth',but proving it to the level required for a conviction in a court of law may be difficult to achieve.

Has it never occurred to you that the conviction rate may not be down to acceptability of rape, but the fact that it is hard to prove?

You are assuming that the low conviction rate is down to acceptability of rape, when, in fact, other factors may come into play.

The conviction rate is not so low in other countries though. I used to work with an anti rape organisation and often the police would not collect the evidence that was there, or would lose it. We always told women to keep a copy of everything if possible. The CPS often misread evidence and drop cases as a result, I even saw the prosecution in court fail to call key witnesses or would not let the woman tell her story properly. I was really shocked by the way women were treated by the system and would never report now if I was in that position myself.

Of course it has occurred to me Marantha. But i have dismissed it as an explanation, for the reasons that Dittany cites and also because I don't walk around with my eyes closed (anymore) - I realise that rape, far from being unacceptable, is considered an occupational hazard of being a woman and so when we complain about it, an awful lot of people think that to send a rapist to prison is so much worse than a woman putting up with rape (because men's lives and sufferings are so much more worthy of empathy and pity than women's and anyway, rape's not that bad), that juries bend over backwards to find a rapist not guilty, however tenous his defence.

The fact of being raped, is simply not seen as such a big deal. And I think the pornification of our society has actually increased that indifference to the suffering caused by rape - women are constantly being presented in porn as being permanently up for it, but not particularly enjoying it at the same time and if that is how you learn about how sex is (as it is for many boys and young men now), then that will also serve to distance you from having any empathy with a woman who has been raped.

FGS, 85% of rapes aren't even reported. That in itself should tell us how acceptable rape is.

OK, HerBeatitude, I hope you understand that it was a genuine question.
I can at least consider your general view that women's sufferings are not as bad as men's, because, although this is not about rape as such, I have witnessed a family member having her concerns about an (verbally and physically though not sexually abusive) partner poo-poohed by her own MOTHER.
Apparently, when this family member told her own mother that this guy had-in an all too frequent fit of temper- threatened to, 'Punch the fing lights out of his brother-in-law (in a clear attempt to frighten my relative), the mother's reaction was along the lines of 'he's having a bad day' and just to let it 'pass'.
Which horrified me but made me wake up to the fact that with some women, men do definitely come first.
I can't bring myself to speak to the mother now -not out of choice, anyway, only polite words, that is all.

The thing is, this sort of violence is normalised and presented as something that women just have to put up with. People like your relative express regret that the violence happens, but just don't think it's important enough to come straight out and say it's unacceptable - because for them, it isn't, really. It's not nice, but it's soemthing that has to be tolerated. And this attitude extends to an awful lot of abuse, domestic violence and rape IMO.

Blimey, if I woke up next to Mick Hucknall I wouldn't speak to him. I'd get the hell out and vow never to drink that much again.