Germaine Greer says punishment for rape should be reduced...

[JambalayaJane]

Article in the guardian today...www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/30/germaine-greer-calls-for-punishment-for-to-be-reduced?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=276620&subid=7213752&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2 I started reading it ready to be horrified but she has some good points. Any thoughts?

I’ve only had a cursory read on the Guardian website but couldn’t see a single ‘good point’ to what she was saying.

Some of her points in isolation are absolutely correct. Her conclusion is utterly fucking ridiculous.

Many rapes are non-violent and committed by entitled men who simply don’t care enough whether they get consent, but who would never consider they’d committed a rape. I don’t see how almost decriminalising this would minimise this problem - how would it even improve conviction rates? If she could show me that it would, and that would therefore be more a deterrent than a system where about 5% of reported rapes lead to a conviction, then maybe I’d listen. Why she needs to throw in a bunch of baiting bullshit I have no idea.

Oh, apart from rapists bring branded. Although I’d suggest a big fat ‘R’ in the middle of their foreheads.

Don’t you think that part of what she is saying is rape is viewed only as a violent crime. Sometimes it isn’t - DV victims who too afraid to ‘fight’ because they know what the consequences might be, inexperienced teens who are too afraid or too embarrassed to say it’s not what they want etc etc. And in those cases our current system utterly fails the victims as without the ‘violence’ required to get a conviction or to persuade a jury then thousands of rapists are walking free.

But what about the rapes that are violent? She hasn’t addressed that issue at all - or so it seems. And saying PTSD doesn’t or shouldn’t apply? How on earth does she get to decide this?

I will have to have more of a read on what she actually means when I have more time than for a cursory glance but my first impression was one of horror.

I was horrified. But there is an underlying point, I think.

Non consensual sex is rape.

Kidnap is kidnap.

Punching someone or dragging them by their hair is assault.

Sometimes people get distracted by brutal rapes and think the more mundane rape somehow doesn't count. If we reduced the sentence for non consensual sex but added on all the other charges, rape as a crime may be recognised better.

I think it's ok to talk about it and mull the idea over. I'm not convinced it's a good idea though.

Actually, a thorough read later and I agree with her.

There is no way to express what I am trying to say without appearing to minimise rape. I don't. I would love a world where selfish greedy men who will take what they want with no regard to you were tattooed!

I think she makes some very valid points. But it's difficult to agree with anything she's said without appearing to minimise rape. I do think the ptsd point is quite interesting- the idea that trauma is worsened by expecting the victim to be traumatised and telling them they must be, encouraging them to dwell on it almost. Of course, it will be traumatic for some even in a vacuum, so by saying that you risk victims feeling that they don't have a reason to feel the way they do and invalidating their emotions. It's hard to see what the answer is.

she is basically saying the trauma of a lot of rape is because of the value we've placed on sex and purity etc, and take away the morality of sex and its just an annoyance.

It does seem strange that 70% of people have PTSD after a rape compred to 20% of combat veterens and can see her point.

I do love how Greer says what she believes and stands by it,

I don't understand why people fawn over her.

I do

I have mixed thoughts. I read it similarly to Branleuse.

The act of having a penis in your vagina is not, for most women, intrinsically violent.

The act of coercion (by whatever method) is the crime. That should be punished, proportional to the means used. I don’t think she’s said differently?

I think she is trying to separate the act of penetrative sex from the means by which that is achieved. Expecting females to suffer severe trauma is placing a value on sex/virginity that no female should be bound to. It also creates a massive pressure on the victim to demonstrate trauma in order to be supported in reporting.

Rape is a frequent crime. Obviously, far too frequent. She’s arguing, I think, that we should view it accordingly. If a wife knew that her husband wasn’t going to go to prison after a long and protracted trial where her knickers are paraded around court, she might be more tempted to report and the justice system might be more tempted to convict. The burden of proof is rape trials is unique, and for such a common crime, that needs to change. Recognition that it’s common, that women are very likely to be truthfully reporting because it’s common, is where I think she’s heading.

Just some jumbled thoughts.

Yes!

There are all sorts of abuses tied up with rape/sexual abuse. The damage often comes from the other abuses- coercion, deceit, secrecy, abuse of trust...

Years ago, dirty old men in macs went around flashing and we knew which uncle was a bit handsy. There was an attitude of shrugging it off, laughing about it. That is not the same as the deliberate targeted abuse of someone which erodes their security etc.

Of course, combat veterans were prepared for what might happen. They know where they are. Women live like it every day. Sleeping with the enemy.

I haven't read the article

But from what i can read on the thread

Couldn't it lead to women being in trouble for fighting back?

So in effect the court saying that if the rape isnt violent then it has a sentence of lets say a year

But the victim attempts to prevent the rape and gets beaten up but the perpetrator isn't charged with assault...because it was the victims fault that she fought back

Does that make sense,

And I dont care if someone punches me on the nose or grabs my bag from me

I will be frightened and upset obviously

But someone putting their penis in my mouth isn't the same thing at all

Ok

Im reading the other thread on this and some of its making sense

I will read the article later

"The act of having a penis in your vagina is not, for most women, intrinsically violent."

Is this not supporting the view that the purpose of women is to be the receptacle for penetrative sex, the idea that this is what women are for?

She went way to too far. I'm increasingly wondering what she's trying to achieve. I suspect desperate trying to stay in some sort of limelight might come into it.

assassinated

I agree

And surely for some men having a penis inserted somewhere in their body is also not an act of violence

So that should be ok as well?

Here's a thread by the Secret Barrister -

twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1002092355799920641

"This is ridiculous. Reducing the punishment for rape will achieve nothing. Greer’s theory appears to be that lesser punishment will equal more guilty pleas and fewer trials. It won’t. Guilty defendants deny sex offences not (just) because of the sentence, but bc of the stigma."

While it's possible that if someone thought they could get their rapist convicted of a lesser crime more might come forward and more might be put in jail, I'm not sure that's certain even on the first bit.

As I've said on many threads, I've been raped by women. My knowing that by law they would not be charged with let alone convicted of rape regardless of how violent it was or the bloody horrific state I was left in afterwards, I feel is a big part of why I didn't feel I could come forward on it. I think much like her example of a woman with a rapist husband, the internalizing that no one is going to see it as rape, no one is going to take it seriously, it's not as serious as..., is it really worth...and that loop is what keeps people silent, not that it isn't traumatic.

As for her PTSD comment, while I know that combat vets are the one's usually held up for it and deserve far better care than what they get, most of the research I've seen for a while shows there are many other groups that are more affected and more likely than vets to deal with PTSD. Children who experience severe and/or extensive trauma, abuse, neglect are frequently cited as most likely and most affected likely because of how the brain is still developing more rapidly and trauma becoming an early entrenched part of one's representation of the world is harder to process. While there is some evidence that encouraging people to label and think on things as traumatic does impact mental health negatively, dismissing such things as just bad/annoying/whatever isn't really the answer either, that has a host of negative mental health impacts as well. I don't get even if for some reason you thought some rape wasn't traumatic thinking that it should then just be put at the entirely other end of the scale. We need better mental health care to help people process horrible things so we can lessen their negative effects as best we can, not tell them to essentially walk it off as that came across to me.

There's already a thread on this.

@branleuse, I address the different rates of PTSD on the first page of the other, older, thread.