GG guardian article - Rape - "bad sex"

[Chaosandcoffee]

guardian link

Germaine Greer talking at Hay about reducing sentences for rape - well actually just reframing rape altogether - rejecting it as a violent crime in itself - where there isn't physical injury etc.

Don't know if there's already a thread. I've just deleted my attempt at discussion. I've reread the article and I don't feel like trying to be rational and open minded. But maybe someone can help me out.

Re: being traumatised. I’ve experienced ‘date rape’ childhood sexual abuse and also something similar to the watching your best friend being blown up example GG mentioned and they did all traumatise me in different ways.

The date rape became more traumatic when I reported it to police because they couldn’t have cared less if they tried.

Totally respect your point tokenbrit but to offer a counter viewpoint I’ve also been burgled and that barely affected me at all (now that was something I just thought of as annoying when for months after I’d go to find something then realise it had been taken).

TBH the main reason I think she’s being unhelpful here is she is also centring the victim’s feelings, just in a different way.

A crime is a public harm one of the biggest problems with prosecuting rape is that it is often the victim that is on trial in practice rather than the accused.

Can we try to move the criminal justice system to a point where rape victims are treated like victims of other crimes? Yes I think we can but the criminal justice system exists within patriarchy which is invested in rape and a rape culture which unconsciously enforces rape culture through the way it handles rape.

That’s not a counter point! That is my point. There’s no right or wrong amount of trauma for anything but weirdly with rape we are expected to be utterly wrecked by it or it doesn’t count. Whereas no one would say, well you can’t really have been burgled because you’re not shattered by it.

A counter point of view / experience I meant, token, sorry just offering the other view.

Being burgled wouldn’t make it anywhere on my list of things that have traumatised me but for you it was obviously devastating.

As an aside, my burglary was committed by someone I knew and ended in conviction and the treatment by the police was completely different to my experience of reporting rape.

Offred you have made really good points. The purpose of any rape legislation has to be first and foresmost to deter men from doing it - same as measures to reduce any social ill. Any sense of retribution the victim may get is almost an accidental consequence, really.

I get that. Sorry, I really didn’t mean to be snippy.

I do think that GGs point is very relevant and I think it’s a shame its being reduced to the sound bites that are harmful, like ‘bad sex’ and ‘no harm’ when her actual discussion is much more nuanced.

If we keep framing rape as the worst thing that can happen ever, then we keep having to play the right kind of victim in order to get justice.

This if and then is not correct for me. The then is more about rape myths and not understanding trauma rather a general misunderstanding of the impact. Eg Like you say....

And the truth is most women freeze, behave normally afterwards, exchange texts, yes I made my rapist a cuppa afterwards (v common apparently).

Of course all experience is different and the law should be concerned with wider knowledge of impact. I would suggest being unbothered by rape is not typical, despite being a valid response. Although I admit that's a guess. If it is common to find it a annoyance compared to burglary I'd be fascinated to understand that more.

The thing is, juries don’t want to convict people of rape because it is the worst crime ever. Except, it happens so frequently that really it’s on a par with, I don’t know, shoplifting? Plenty of people are convicted of shoplifting with a far lower burden of proof.

If we reframe the conversation (unlikely) so that rape is seen like any other crime (and treat the degree of violence and harm as separate to the act, as with burglary etc), then convictions will be much easier to achieve. Which means that conviction WILL be a deterrent. Which p, lets face it, it really isn’t right now. Almost every rape goes unpunished currently.

As far as I can seem GG isn’t saying rape is trivial and should be treated as such. Quite the opposite.

To clarify that about freezing, making tea etc. I don’t mean because the victim is unbothered, I mean that that’s how some of us behave despite how we feel, because it’s a conditioned response and trauma is a weird thing.

I was told my rapist wouldn’t be charged because I was drinking, because I made him a drink afterwards, because I didn’t immediately phone the police. Basically I wasn’t traumatised enough.

I think rapes should be categorised. Give more lenient sentences to rapes without assault or kidnap. People find it too hard to accept that rape can be such a wide spectrum. This leads to non violent rapes not being seen as 'true' rape.

There is still a widely held belief that rape is a stranger beating you up and pinning you down, that if you havent fought and struggled then you wern't raped. It's this view that stops convictions of rapes without assault. It also makes men who rape without assault think they are not rapists. So let's keep rape for violent rape and categorise non consentual sex as something else. Thats not minimising its effect, its just saying its a different crime and a different experience.

I also agree jurys don't want to convict because 'it's the worst crime ever' especially if the man doesn't fit the rapist stereotypes.

I wonder if, 60 years down the line and as a victim of a brutal violent rape there might be a very personal element of GG being haunted by the bad memories of her own rape and this is how she is still "processing" it.

One way of dealing with bad stuff is by trying to minimise it.

I'm probably way off the mark here, but just because GG is an extremely intellectual academic person it does not mean that deep down her reactions are bound to be different from many other women.

I could be utterly mad of course.......

So let's keep rape for violent rape and categorise non consentual sex as something else. Thats not minimising its effect, its just saying its a different crime and a different experience.

Rape literally is non-consensual sex though so what you’re proposing is to actually change the definition of rape to mean “non-consensual sex with violence”. This definitely is minimising rape, i.e. non-consensual sex. It suggests that non-consensual sex alone is not serious enough to actually be described using the word created specifically to describe it.

If you kidnap and rape someone and the case gets to court you will usually be charged with false imprisonment/kidnapping/assault etc in addition to rape. So there are already harsher penalties for rapes involving these factors. No need to recategoise.

The persistence of rape as a widespread crime, the low prosecution and even lower conviction rates are nothing to do with the sentence but are to do with a range of factors, mostly cultural (as offred said) and lowering sentences does nothing to address those causes.

Finally, on the matter of shoplifting needing a lower burden of proof - this absolutely is not true. Minor crimes require the same weight of evidence to convict. It’s just that in the case of shoplifting that evidence is much easier to gather and widespread misconceptions about the crime are less likely to play into verdicts. And in any case it would be utterly, utterly wrong to significantly lower the evidence required to convict someone of rape. The standard must ALWAYS be beyond treasonable doubt.

One way of dealing with bad stuff is by trying to minimise it.

Absolutely. I have thought this about her too.

Reasonable not treasonable

Categories of rape with rape plus violence would simply be codifying rape myths and rape culture into law IMO.

I think we need to get away from the idea that physical violence is somehow worse than anything else.

It’s a different kind of prejudice that.

Rape + kidnap + violence are three separate crimes.

All that is not much different to the heirarchy of illness stuff in medicine re physical/mental health.

Read Evan stark on coercive control re victim narratives and how unhelpful it is to focus on physical violence

Agree on codifying rape myths into law. Well put

I understand that rape is non consentual sex and that assault and kidnap are separate crimes - but that is not the perception of the majority. When most people think rape they think beaten, dragged off, physically forced. So when someone says they were raped by say a friend, there was no struggle and no violence people don't believe them and it never even gets to court.

So we do need to look at how to change that. Was it Fern Britton that sat on national telly and said the Ched Evens rape case (pre overturn) was not a 'bad rape'.

If we can re-catogorise then we can move away from language like that.

I understand that rape is non consentual sex and that assault and kidnap are separate crimes - but that is not the perception of the majority.

So basically the public have misunderstood what rape is so we should change the legal definition to be in line with their ignorance?

I think violence is the worst thing to happen to an adult. Lots of people, myself included submit to rape so as to avoid violence and injury.

IMO if you assumed consent and didn't check, you are a rapist

I'm going to be seeing my DP later, we're going out for dinner, we may end up making move, at no point will I ask for consent. What am I?

Would it just be moving away from that language by formalising the misunderstanding behind it.

So if (and I know there's a difference of opinion) recategorising rape, rethinking sentencing etc led to fewer assaults, do you think the impact of effectively codifying rape myths in law negates the benefits of fewer assault. I hope I'm not asking a completely ridiculous question.

I'm seeing that I've been naive in my idea of "pragmatism".

I'm going to be seeing my DP later, we're going out for dinner, we may end up making move, at no point will I ask for consent. What am I?

With respect, hasn't that discussion been done repeatedly on MN.