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.

I think GG is wrong. We don't need to make rape a less serious crime, we need to make it so the focus is on the perpetrator, not the victim. It is maddening to me that in the recent rape trial in Ireland the victim was cross examined for DAYS (I want to say 8?) and yet the men were questioned for much much less time. It's maddening that in the Ched Evans case his legal team were able to get her previous consensual sexual experiences entered into court and be discussed, as though liking rough sex when conscious and consenting means you can rape someone, they're the same, right?

Bloody hell no.

I've worked in a sexual assault referral center, and its disheartening seeing case after case not go to court, when you've got forensic evidence, when she said no, when she called the police ASAP. I had to leave, it was wearing me down.

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

If it reduces assaults and increases conviction, yes.

Alot of rapists don't see themselves and rapists and the courts seem to agree due to that misunderstanding.

If men understood that non violent rape was still a sex crime that would land you on the sex offenders register maybe they wouldn't do it. Maybe they would look for consent.

Of course it may change nothing because its men's entitled attitude that is the main problem and the fact law is controlled mainly by those same entitled men.

I fail to see how anything would be helped by giving society new words to express ‘not bad rape’ and actually codifying this as a principle into law.

It would be exactly the opposite of what is needed and if you think you can codify just a little bit of rape myth into law without causing the total legitimisation of rape culture I say you are very naive!

You think non violent rape is a misunderstanding?

The thing is, the law says nothing about violence in its definition of rape.

Rape is the insertion of the penis into the mouth, anus or vagina without consent.

So the public may have the wrong idea - the law however is already quite clear and simple!

Even if I thought that non-violent rape was a misunderstanding on the part of the rapist, why do rapists get excepted from the general principle that not knowing the law is not a defence?

Glosswitch called GG “the Morrissey of feminism” once. Am inclined to agree.

Ha ha! That’s an excellent comparison!

Not sure about this. I think to an extent, she has a point. Rape is painted as the most horrific thing anyone could be accused of. For that reason, a counter-narrative that women lie about it has sprung up. We imagine rapists to be monsters, inhuman, and that is why when a 'nice boy' gets accused, we need to blame it on the woman and depict her as a liar. We are told that because rape is so incredibly heinous, we need the absolute highest amount of proof and we all know that the result of this is a very low conviction rate.

It would be better to acknowledge that rape is not unusual and any man, even if he is nice as pie to everyone else, can be a rapist. And also that rapist doesn't mean subhuman monster, it means someone who is a selfish arsehole, but essentially typifies an extreme of male entitlement. Given the prevalence of rape, many, many men are rapists. I am not sure about sending a message by lowering sentences though. I do think that trivialises it, although we have to remember that many women are raped on a regular basis within their relationships.

I also think the narrative around trauma is unhelpful, just as it is in the case of abortion. Women are told that they have to feel trauma and that this is the worst thing that could happen to them. They may feel like they are reacting the 'wrong' way if they don't feel trauma. I do not deny in any way that rape is a traumatic experience- of course it is. But why is it seen to be so much harder to get over rape than getting over being mugged or being beaten? Both involve violation. It might be that rape is inherently worse or it might be that we think it is worse because we have always been told that it is. I don't know what the answer is.

I personally think we need to do away with jury trials for rape cases and have them decided by a judge with specialist training in sexual offences. Juries are dangerous and often hold deep-seated prejudices. In a group of 12, there are bound to be leaders and followers and we have no way of knowing how the jury comes to its verdict. I suspect many, more timid jurors, will go with the majority. We did away with juries for fraud because the general public doesn't understand fraud. I believe the general public does not understand rape.

I am not going to do Germaine Greer down on this, infact I am going to say THANKYOU, to a very Brilliant and Controversial Women, who has never allowed us to be too comfortable with her beliefs. This is her last Hurrah! IMHO, She has set up a premise that will challenge every thinking feminist out there, for years and get us to wake up to how little has changed! She seems happy to throw herself under the bus for this, lets not do that for her. She is a Philosopher, it is not her job to make us all comfortable but it is her job as a Philosopher to CHALLENGE our very beliefs and perceptions. Thus, when you are in your 80's and your intellectual career and capacity is near its end, you have to be bold and very, very controversial to get the discussion going. Her rape did not define her and she saw no justice for any victim ever in the History of rape, she is looking back and seeing so much more to her life than rape and so she has used that in working through her theory.

Her Premise is f*king bold as hell : Rape is used to undermine Women in a Patriarchal Society, even in law. Getting society to take rape seriously has NOT worked, only placated. It is used to focus Women away from their own empowerment and towards subjugation in equal measures with little to no justice. Who says Women are broken after rape...Women do! Why do Women do that? What say you?

Could it be because throughout history MEN have said Women are broken and unclean after rape and are valueless thus the law reflects that? What say you?

Why are we saying as Women what men are saying? Women of rape are broken? What say you?

We need to deconstruct it, even if it hurts our own sense of reality and as a Philosopher she is actually asking us to disprove her theory but come up with a better reality than we have currently, that is her gift to us. That is what a Philosophers job is, to come up with a premise, theory and conclusion, then ask others to argue for/against, in the hope we can all find a truth we can live with until new cracks form and a new theory must be posited. xxx

I will read the book and then I will start to break it down, challenge it, let it challenge me and then I hope we can all get to discussing just exactly what it says in its written context. I will not throw her under the bus but I can argue against her theory if it is warranted, she deserves that respect at least. xxxx

I agree with that @winniefred.

Yes, I'm looking forward to reading the book and seeing how much it challenges me, and how much I end up agreeing and disagreeing with her arguments.

GG, as ever, has thrown a spanner in the wheels of society and asked us all to challenge our assumptions. We don't have to agree with her, but we do have to address the fact that the current system doesn't work for anyone. Except millions of rapists.

Rape is effectively legal - something must be done to remedy that, and that something will involve some challenging and uncomfortable dialogues.

I personally think we need to do away with jury trials for rape cases and have them decided by a judge with specialist training in sexual offences.

Yes, I think this would make an enormous difference. Rape cases would still need to get to court though and that’s the biggest hurdle at the moment.

We don't have to agree with her, but we do have to address the fact that the current system doesn't work for anyone.

But many, many feminists have been addressing this for a very long time, without speaking in a way that trivialises and dismisses women’s experiences. The way GG talks about women is utterly unforgivable. I recall her recently complaining about women who “opened their legs” for Harvey Weinstein and his ilk. The fact the language she uses has so many overlaps with the language your garden variety male misogynist uses should set alarm bells ringing.

I don’t think it’s really GG that is the real problem. I also think I’m pretty sick of the expectation that women are collectively responsible for misogynistic men but that misogynistic men are not responsible for themselves.

I would also say that most of the time I disagree with GG but I feel this is the value.

She is brash, she is outrageous, she creates the space for these discussions to happen because or the combination of this and that she is a feminist philosopher.

That was poorly worded. I mean the expectation that when GG (an individual woman) speaks she must have regard to the collective misogyny of men (and society) and moderate her language but that misogynistic men are just misogynistic men and they are not expected to have regard to the material reality of being a woman.

Re how women hear what she says this is vastly more affected by the narrative being dominated by misogyny and the fact she is a feminist philosopher acts to mitigate it. Ultimately we cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.

I don’t think ‘people being upset’ is a reason not to say, and what people are far more upset about than Greer is rape culture.

GG is, IMO, pretty good at getting people upset but if being upset is where it begins and ends then you’ve missed out.

Women not being able to talk about rape because it is so terribly upsetting and devastating and shameful is part of the imposed narrative of silence IMO.

That does not mean I think women are not upset by the things she has said here or that they are not upsetting for good reasons, but it can’t begin and end with being upset and GG should not start moderating language or opinion in order to appease. That would be a concession that serves no important purpose IMO.

I have absolutely no problem in standing right here and telling everyone I have been terribly devastated and my life has been changed forever by rape AND that I’m still glad GG said what she said in the way that she said it and gave me the opportunity to articulate precisely why I disagree from a feminist perspective and in a feminist community.

GG has plenty of women who'll agree with her here

(I found that after googling the 'conjugal rights' GG refers to)

Our entire culture around sex itself needs to change. Too much consensual sex is transactional. It’s about things being done to rather than with women. Porn is also making things much much worse.

We are seeing especially in the light of Weinstein, #metoo and all those reprehensible sportsmen who have raped lately this reinforcement that women and sex are almost expected trappings of male success. As much as I’m in favour of getting all this out into the light of day it unfortunately reinforced the message that women are not good enough on their own merits to participate in the higher echelons of fame and fortune.

I had an ex-gf who was an actress and had to strip in auditions and all manner of inappropriate things, and what’s worse this was actually taught as the norm in her University Drama degree.

I’m reading something by a woman called Dworkin that all penetrative sex is rape. Whilst that’s objectively not true, I think viewed through a cultural lens I can sort of see what she’s might be getting at.

In short if so much consensual sex wasn’t so seeped in an anti-female pleasure and fulfilment culture rapes would be way more obvious and easy to deal with. Us men don’t want to surrender the sexual paradigm we have, but clearly we do and in the long run it will be better for all of us.

Well, obviously she isn’t the real problem. Women are not the real problem. But I disagree that she’s helping anything.

the expectation that when GG (an individual woman) speaks she must have regard to the collective misogyny of men (and society) and moderate her language but that misogynistic men are just misogynistic men

This is not what I’m saying at all. I don’t expect her to moderate her language due to the collective misogyny of men, but I do expect her to moderate her language to avoid unnecessary hurt to women. I would hope men would do the same thing, while I recognise that they so often don’t. But obviously I have higher expectations for a woman setting herself up as a great feminist thinker than I do for your run-of the-mill man. I don’t hold women collectively to a higher standard; I just strongly feel this one in particular should know better. To me it’s clear she cares far more about getting attention than she does about women, or she would not speak so contemptuously of them.

Would we have been able to discuss and dismantle rape culture in this thread if she had moderated her language to suit one particular type of experience re rape? The particular type of experience which patriarchy has decided is the only valid type?

I’m not for a second disagreeing that what she frequently says is brash, upsetting, outrageous, often completely free of nuance...

What that has resulted in is three threads of feminist dismantling and teasing out of nuance.

She’s not talking to general society, she’s talking to feminists IMO and she is not doing the work, she is challenging others to do it.

What if instead of reducing the penalty for rape, we introduce a staggered system? So similar to when someone gets found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter there could be:
Rape
"Reckless penetration" for cases where consent was not clearly sought
"Reckless endangerment through penetration" for cases where condoms were removed risking pregnancy / STIs
"Injury caused through reckless penetration" and so on plus the usual aggravating factors.

Plus generally a review of the clear issues with the jury system and continued use of rape myths.