Has Germaine Greer lost the plot?

[WeLoveFlowers]

Her recent remarks that ‘unconsiderate sex’ can be worse than getting raped by a stranger are completely baffling. Has she lost the plot? I can’t get behind her on this one and wish she was no longer treated as as a spokesperson for feminism.

I agree entirely with your interpretation, but that's not what she said. She could easily have clarified if that's what she meant, so I'm assuming she meant what she said. She has, after all, been a writer her whole adult life

You are right of course she could have clarified but from the clip I heard it sounded like she didn't have opportunity to do that - I could of course be wrong about that. I also think that although she has been a writer all her life she is also now older (and despite this far more erudite and astute than the vast majority of the population.) This isn't excusing her, as I said above I think her wording is clumsy at best.

I agree that it must be horrible but do women not have the right to refuse sex? If a lover subjected me to inconsiderate sex he wouldn't be getting any more, or at least not without a solemn undertaking to do better.

They do, they can but I think this is part of underestimating the issue - you would have the confidence and means to leave but that wouldn't be true of all women. If your confidence is lowered and the abuse normalised and if you are afraid of rocking the boat for financial or safety reasons (or even for an easier life without rows etc.) you may have sex when you would rather not. What does this so to a woman over a lengthy period of time. Yes, you could argue this was her choice but IMO at this point the 'choice' is rather muddied.

Women do have agency but patriarchy can often insidiously reduce this agency particularly within relationships. Just another point of view of course as I see where you are coming from but I think it is more grey than black or white when it comes to female agency within a patriarchal system.

I agree with your comments on the court system.

Greer's book: "On Rape" has just been published [also available via Kindle]

Here's a review of her book. The article includes this quote:

“Non-consensual sex is banal and deeply ordinary but that is not to say that is not an evil,” Greer writes. She critiques the narrative that suggests raped women “are irrevocably damaged in soul and body, but that if they do not acknowledge this they are in denial ... the victim who takes over her narrative becomes a survivor”.

I don't expect this is a majority view but it resembles my experience.

I was raped twice before I was 20. They were horrible, distressing experiences. However I was by no means "irrevocably damaged in soul and body". Other experiences have been far, far worse. Both times I was quite pleased with myself. I felt I'd done well to escape uninjured, which took some people skills.

I appreciate that rapes vary dramatically but I also feel the idea that rape always ruins women's lives makes us out to be far more fragile and sex-based than we are.

When I say sex-based I mean it's as though our sexual experiences define us - the old idea that a sexually active woman has been "ruined" - that our reputation as "respectable" women has been destroyed and that this is permanent.

I think I get where she’s coming from. Having your Boundrys suddenly and violently violated, or having your self worth slowly eroded over time by someone you trust. I’m not sure whether one could say one is worse than the other, because I think that both scenarios are both incredibly damaging. The former would evoke shock and fear, where the latter is more insidious.
I think she raises an important point, if a bit clumsily. I have had the boiled frog scenario happened to me, and so has my partner, but in a different way, and we’ve both had different reactions.
I take a point about society viewing women’s sexuality as something being granted by men. I don’t think it makes any difference if a woman has her bodily autonomy taken away by a stranger, but in LTR I think she’s onto something. Women tend to defer to men in the bedroom, I did it myself. Sex is viewed as a man thing that we have to do to keep them happy. If women are empowered to treat sex as a me thing and approach it on equal terms Women would have better sex, or no sex if they didn’t feel like it.
Anyway sorry for my poorly expressed ramble. I know what I mean.

non-violent rape

but why is it non-violent?

it wouldn't be rape if the woman consented

therefore it's only non violent because the woman decided not to refuse surely

so why is being so frightened that you go along with being raped considered less emotionally traumatic?

I think she’s wondering along the lines of sex positivity, but not in the libfem sense. Sex positivity in this sense meaning ownership and positive Boundry setting.

There’s plenty of ground for rape and abusive sex to be more or less traumatising without going as far as being ‘irrevocably damaged in body and soul.’

I have PTSD but I’m not irrevocably damaged.

Having your Boundrys suddenly and violently violated, or having your self worth slowly eroded over time by someone you trust. I’m not sure whether one could say one is worse than the other, because I think that both scenarios are both incredibly damaging

And only one of those scenarios is considered illegal (or even a negative thing) by our society.

do women not have the right to refuse sex

We have that right, but unfortunately "consent" is not always given within a vacuum. Pestering, sulking, withholding affection, the threat of removing children, of removing financial support, etc.
all of these affect the "consent" given. Not all women have access to formidable resources such as Mumsnet, and even those that do often feel constrained by societal norms.

My relationship with an inconsiderate-sex man was waaaayyyyyy more damaging to me mentally than the one time I was stranger-raped.

I definitely consider the relationship rapey in my head, but I wouldn't dream of saying it in public iyswim.

I find it troubling that her words appear to create a hierarchy of what is worse- stanger rape vs abuse in a relationship. Why the need to rank terrible acts against women? Both are horrific. It’s impossible to generalise and explain what may cause greater harm and there should be no need to do that.

I think her point is more subtle than has come across in the newspaper headlines.

Rat and kitty have summed up quite well what I took from what she said.

Im still not entirely sure how I actually feel about what she said (if I’ve understood it correctly.)

I DO agree that constant low level shit is seriously erosive - there’s research to back that up in fact. What triggers most divorces (and most divorces are triggered by women) is multiple small acts over years rather than single betrayals. It is apparently easier to forgive an affair than to regain respect after twenty years of low level inconsiderate man child behaviour. I’m sure the same is true for nagging for sex.

I DO agree that the construct of women’s ‘honour’ is a tool to control and oppress us with.

I’m not sure I agree with how’s shes constructed the argument - I get she wants to use the shock value of violent rape to get people talking but anything which plays down the impact of a violent assault (and I know that’s maybe not quite her intent but it’s how the media has played it) is not great.

GG always gets me thinking. I don’t agree with everything she says but I can’t remember when I’ve been able to dismiss whatvshe says out of hand without it raising some sort of further questioning.

I guess on one level it’s easier to retain your self respect after a single violent act - you can rationalise it as the act not being due to you, that it was violent, you tried to resist and couldnt etc. The women I’ve seen in sexually coercive relationships have been crushed by it. It’s eroded their boundaries md self worth at a very critical level. So in that sense o get what she’s saying but I Don’t think that reduces the harm done by violent rape at all. Any violent assault can create a levelnof trauma that is damaging, and that damage occurs both with and separate of societal expectations around it.

I have never been raped by a stranger - but I have consistently "given in", gone along with it, kept the peace and done many things I did not want to, simply because the consequences of not doing them seemed worse.

Over time I became numb and very much damaged. The man I married didn't seem to care if I wanted sex or not and he didn't realise what he was doing was wrong. He just got very irritated and punished me in small ways if I refused. It was a clever strategy on his part. I blamed myself for my sexual dysfunction.

I have no idea how I would feel if I was raped, one time, by a stranger or acquaintance in a more violent way. That's never happened to me. But I do feel changed forever by my marriage.

Maybe trying to conflate these two types of rape is not the answer.

I think I’d have phrased it as: low level crap is just as damaging but in a different maybe less visible way. That our ‘honor’ is a tool to beat us with and that on top of the trauma that accompanies any violent assault, the concept of a woman being ‘damaged goods’ is further damage created by society.

I find it troubling that her words appear to create a hierarchy of what is worse- stanger rape vs abuse in a relationship. I think that she is trying to say the opposite, or that's how it came across when she was speaking at Hay. She is saying that society accepts one as rape and the other as the cost of being in a relationship... she is asking us, society as a whole, to question that! She suggests, strongly, that the day to day humdrum 'little rapes' are more damaging in more ways!

She is, as usual, being provocative and, sadly, most media outlets are being incredibly simplistic in their translation of her words!

I find it troubling that her words appear to create a hierarchy of what is worse- stanger rape vs abuse in a relationship.

I don't think it's even about abuse - or what is recognised as abuse - exactly. More the constant low-level lack of respect from men to women, the prioritisation of the male orgasm, the way sex ed is focused on reproduction and the avoidance thereof (diagrams with no clitoris, anyone?) and so on.

And not just going along with stuff to avoid nagging or sulking - it doesn't need to be that blatant or the man in question to be so disrespectful - but because of the wider socialisation, the not really being aware what you really want or don't want, I don't know, I'm still working on the semi-automatic response of smiling and saying thanks when some dickhead decides to positively appraise my sexual worth in the street...
Arghh I'm struggling to put this into words! But I think the insiduous nature of what I'm describing vs the "stranger rape - clearly wrong" narrative has a lot to answer for in terms of damage. Not so much pitting them against each other as to which is "worse", but comparing and contrasting to highlight the damage done by male-based norms.

Yes, thank you Bowl. Your last post but one is what I wanted to say but couldn’t express.
I was raped when I was 12. It didn’t have a lasting traumatic effect on me, thankfully, but my ex, The only man I had consensual sex with, who was the sort of bloke who jumped on top, then sniveled and apologised afterwards, did. Enthusiastic consent was never a bar he aimed for. He’d make out like there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t interested in sex and didn’t enjoy it, so I ended up believing it.
Turns out there was nothing wrong with me, I just didn’t want to have sex with him, or any other man. When I came out as a lesbian I then had lots of people saying ’but you’ve only slept with one man, how do you know you won’t find another man you want to sleep with?’ So my sexuality still wasn’t my own, and I just hadn’t found the right man to bring it out yet, but that’s a whole different conversation.
It’s ridiculous to try to rank trauma, if that is indeed what GG is suggesting. Some trauma is short lived and passes with time, some trauma can take years to surface, and comes out in ways that are hard to unpick, some trauma can build up slowly over time and unnoticed, but its damaging effects can‘t be predicted and it works differently in each individual.

I heard GG speak in person a few weeks ago. I wanted to hear her in context, because so often all we hear of her is a controversial sound bite.

She was speaking on consent (and an interesting article on the topic on Feminist Current atm, not by Greer). I didn't think she had lost the plot. She is unorthodox; she is also a rape survivor herself, which gives her more right to comment than I do.

I think she expressed very clearly the corrosive nature of bad relationships. Her view is that men in long term relationships can do as much damage to a woman as rape by a stranger.

For someone who is anti marriage, never had kids, I feel she has a lot of compassion for those of us who do, and who struggle with our relationships with our male partners.

I also think she is quite tired. She commented more than once that she is getting old. She finds solace and instruction in poetry, apparently.

It's not possible to agree with all things Germaine. She's said some stuff I've raised an eyebrow at, and more. But she is a brilliant woman, and - I felt upon seeing and hearing from her - ultimately a compassionate woman, especially but not only towards women and children.

I'd encourage people to read her essay On Rape, because I think GG is always better in full context.

Fwiw I didn't think, in the talk she gave that I attended anyway, that she was trying to rank trauma.

It's late and I'm not very good at paraphrasing, but she was critiquing the concept of 'consent' as being a line that divides harmful sex from non-harmful sex. She was making the point that, due to living under patriarchy, women are socialised to consent to all sorts of things that are harmful. Some of which take place in long term relationships or marriages. And that if our idea of harm is limited to violent rape by a stranger, we are missing a large part of the picture of female experience.

That sometimes the most corrosive experiences are those we consent to, enacted by those we love but who do not love us in return enough to refrain from harm.

I didn't see her at Hay but friends had tickets and one of them, returning to our campsite afterwards, summed up her interpretation of what GG had said as 'exploring the issues of sleeping with the enemy.'

It's the error of judgement in comparing one thing with another to make that point though...it causes me to question her judgement entirely. There was no need to make the point in those terms.

She talks shit most of the time. Especially in this instance. I wonder if we should just ignore her and she might go away?

Who else is talking about consent in any meaningful way right now? All I see online is young women desperate to be submissive and cool, within a very toxic culture.
So no.

I think she forces us to think about women's issues in ways we may otherwise have overlooked. I don't think she's trying to establish a hierarchy, that might be an over-simplification. I think she's trying to broaden our understanding of how women consent to and navigate their relationships with men. Without this we will never be equal.

That sometimes the most corrosive experiences are those we consent to, enacted by those we love but who do not love us in return enough to refrain from harm.

I think that's quite powerful.

Yeah sometimes she talks utter shite, but generally shes on point.