"Rape doesn’t have to (and it mostly doesn’t) include violence. It’s often a mundane practice."

[MiladyBerserko]

mobile.twitter.com/sally_hines/status/1433833295649849348

Has Sally Hines been on the sauvignon blanc again, or is she really the most anti woman 'gender studies academic' in the history of women bashing?

@FrancescaContini

I’m really upset by what I have just read by this SH person. How dare she tell other women what rape is or isn’t? Aren’t the numbers of women who have the bravery and tenacity to come forward to report being raped already really small? Does she want rape victims to think - oh well, perhaps it was just bad sex?? I could weep with despair.

I think perhaps she was aiming for the opposite, and wants more women to recognise that their experience of "bad sex" may actually have been rape.

I don't think she's worded any of it well, and I'm not sure I can do any better.

But that's the impression I got, that she wants people to recognise that rape has many forms beyond the stereotype of a stranger in a dark alley. But again, I don't feel she's explained that well if that's what she is getting at.

Not sure why everyone is so confused. Rape doesn't have to be physically violent to be rape. Her point is rape occurs all the time, in relationships, in hookups alike, and is brushed off as bad sex

Because we feel like if there was no physical violence or no knife pulled, then it's not valid. If consent is not given, that is rape, even in the absence of weapons or threats

Surely this is her point?

@PlanDeRaccordement

Rape has to include penetration with a penis, that very act of penetrating someone’s body inches deep without consent is nothing but violence.

So, I don’t see how it cannot be violent, and be “mundane”. I think SHs tweet is literally in service to patriarchy, trying to make us think rape is mostly not violent, but mundane. As in a minor annoyance and we women should stop our complaining about it.

It possibly meshes with her anti-carceral stance (I may be confusing her with Alison Phipps here).

Whether it's rape or not, anti-carcerals are opposed to involving the law - even if somebody is in favour of legal intervention, the changes of a conviction are minimal and either way, there's a huge risk that your life will continue to be disrupted for years to come.

There's possibly a better risk-benefit to convincing yourself that it was just bad sex.

However, I'm feeling soiled that I've even attempted to steelman her argument for her and shall stop.

@huniepop

Not sure why everyone is so confused. Rape doesn't have to be physically violent to be rape. Her point is rape occurs all the time, in relationships, in hookups alike, and is brushed off as bad sex

Because we feel like if there was no physical violence or no knife pulled, then it's not valid. If consent is not given, that is rape, even in the absence of weapons or threats

Surely this is her point?

I think it is but if you follow through her follow-up posts , rather than just the replies , her point becomes very muddled.

@FrancescaContini

WTAF????

I’m beyond horrified. Mundane?????

Women and sometimes men, are raped all the time and don't realise it is. That's what she means by mundane.

Whatever SH actually meant, it’s not clear at all and this alone makes it a horrible tweet.

I wish she would clarify what she meant since the tweets comes across as minimizing rape instead of talking about how it's minimized.

She is shamelessly ripping off Germain Greer who said much the same thing a few years ago.

GG was torn to shreds by those who hadn't heard her speak. I did hear her and whilst the words she used were stark, her tone of voice, body language added a lot

SH is badly plagiarising GG and needs to get a life/job/thought of her own!

Rape is mundane, in that it is a routine and regular part of many relationships. A routine and regular part of dating people you don't know.

It's common and frequently undramatic. It isn't a woman screaming at her attack, running away dishevelled, a man with a satanic leer- as frequently portrayed on TV. It's an ordinary bloke and an ordinary woman, she may cry in the bathroom or in her pillow, or she may not. He will rollover and go to sleep, possibly first grumbling that she's frigid or unenthusiastic.

Society is shocking about enthusiastic consent.

She has clarified.
mobile.twitter.com/sally_hines/status/1434117026604269568
No the misunderstanding wasn't wilful Sally, you genuinely upset a lot of women.

I was enraged by a retired policeman who assured me some rapes were worse than others. I didn't get the opportunity to argue with him- not there, not then.

Some rapes have additional levels of aggression, brutality and injury. Others have additional abuses of trust. Stranger, violent rape is appalling and leaves some women afraid to venture out of their home. Rape committed by a partner, sometimes involving drugs and the woman not even knowing for sure it has happened, leaves a woman afraid to sleep in her own home. Rape which depended on coercion can leave someone unable to know what consent is, what enthusiasm is, what their own preferences are.

Rape is rape.

@Dashinghaberdashery

She has clarified. mobile.twitter.com/sally_hines/status/1434117026604269568 No the misunderstanding wasn't wilful Sally, you genuinely upset a lot of women.

Thank you for posting. I read her clarifying tweets and honestly, it just looks like backpedaling to me. How do you go from saying

“Rape doesn’t have to (and it mostly doesn’t) include violence.”
To
“Rape is violence in and of itself”

And
From “It’s often a mundane practice."
To
“Stranger rape is much less common than rape that take place within relationships and relationship rape is often a frequent practice (re mundane not extraordinary)...”

Mundane doesn’t mean frequent...it means ordinary, customary, normal

@picklemewalnuts

I was enraged by a retired policeman who assured me some rapes were worse than others. I didn't get the opportunity to argue with him- not there, not then.

Some rapes have additional levels of aggression, brutality and injury. Others have additional abuses of trust. Stranger, violent rape is appalling and leaves some women afraid to venture out of their home. Rape committed by a partner, sometimes involving drugs and the woman not even knowing for sure it has happened, leaves a woman afraid to sleep in her own home. Rape which depended on coercion can leave someone unable to know what consent is, what enthusiasm is, what their own preferences are.

Rape is rape.

Totally agree. Rape is rape. Using words such as mundane minimise the act and the effect it has on the (usually female) victim.

“Oh, perhaps I shouldn’t feel so upset/shocked/violated/brutalised (insert whichever adjective is appropriate to describe the feelings) because, after all, that female academic said that RAPE IS OFTEN MUNDANE so perhaps I am overreacting and I should just keep quiet….”

Fuck that. This SH person is a misogynist.

If she had posted this first, at least she would have gotten her point across a bit better. That set of tweets was just garbled. But I still would have argued, because I use a structural analysis of rape as male violence within a male-dominated system and the knee-jerk minimising of that issue by always always needing to say "women rape too" as if there was an equivalence is such an annoying libfem thing to do.

i dont think it minimises the act at all. She has given her point of view and its a point of view that is shared with many people who arent thick and may very well have experienced rape themselves.
People giving their point of view or writing on their own social media does not have to be agreed by everybody. You dont always have to have the most acceptable point of view, and the act of speaking your mind does not mean that you are seeking to have a consensus on a subject with every other woman out there.
Rape in some form happens to practically every woman. Thats the banality of it. Thats the ordinaryness of it. Its a by product of a shit society where men are entitled and women are so out of touch not only with their own sexuality and response and their own rights and needs, that they dont always even know that they are being abused and raped and no, theyre not going mad.

Do we have free speech and freedom of thought or dont we?

Greer's point was that rape is indeed normal, everyday, unsurprising and boring, banal.

But she did at least go on to explain that she wanted society to see rape entirely differently, as bad sex, something that happens within relationships that have no communication, no love, tenderness. Us a thing a care less man describes as a frigid, unloving wife.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/05/31/feminist-germaine-greer-says-most-rape-is-just-bad-sex/

Until men, and women, see that unenthusiastic, say yes to keep him quiet sex us also rape, that gang banged, beaten up, stranger danger isn't the only kind of rape, women will not be heard and the current abysmal rape charges and worse conviction rates will continue.

She focussed on the quiet rape (violent rape being a violent crime to be trued as such in a court) that doesn't need to be prosecuted in court. If that crime was reduced in severity, charge wise, and the punishment was community service, an R tattoo on face or arm, then the pushback against costly 'he said / she said, when she was 18 she had 2 boyfriends, she texted him : she must have wanted it' trials wouldn't matter. Women could push for far more, less punitive punishment for more men. And that more men might realise that having sex with a less than enthusiastic partner us actually rape.

But many didn't listen and focussed on her 'trivialising' of rape and not hearing her central message.

We had a long, often angry, thread on it at the time - Hay Festival 2018

I'm not sure Greer expressed herself much better than Hines.

www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/09/germaine-greer-on-rape-book-three-women-respond

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/04/rape-bad-sex-germaine-greer-suzanne-moore

@Branleuse

i dont think it minimises the act at all. She has given her point of view and its a point of view that is shared with many people who arent thick and may very well have experienced rape themselves. People giving their point of view or writing on their own social media does not have to be agreed by everybody. You dont always have to have the most acceptable point of view, and the act of speaking your mind does not mean that you are seeking to have a consensus on a subject with every other woman out there. Rape in some form happens to practically every woman. Thats the banality of it. Thats the ordinaryness of it. Its a by product of a shit society where men are entitled and women are so out of touch not only with their own sexuality and response and their own rights and needs, that they dont always even know that they are being abused and raped and no, theyre not going mad.

Do we have free speech and freedom of thought or dont we?

Yes, we do have free speech, and that’s why women are allowed to express their disgust at her wording around such a sensitive topic.

I also think she has worded this really badly, I believe she is trying to say there are many. many more situations where sexual interaction is actually rape. Times where "bad sex" is actually rape.

It looks like she's talking about coercive, and otherwise threat and manipulatively forced sex (including suddenly doing something dangerous and/or unconsented e.g. smothering and strangulation) within relationships.

What is called "bad sex" is often rape and that appears to be her point.

I love the men defending women from a woman making a good point about every day sexual violence against women in their own homes though. Perhaps they should go deal with the fucking swaths of more obvious misogyny on twitter from their fellow men. Off you go then boys. No takers? 🤔

I think she is trying to go even further than that, the situation where someone is pushed into having sex, not because they want it but because they fear the consequences of not giving it.

Doesn't have to be violent at all, sulking, ignoring behaviour, pushing and pushing and pushing until they give in. Fear of partner leaving etc. This is not "rape" under the legal term but within someone headspace it certainly could/would be.

giving in not giving it

As I said kimiko her point was, as Hines in is repeating, best expressed in person. Sitting in front of her, hearing her speak, her point was clear. Rape doesn't have to be Tarantino-esque. It can be Family Man and his weekly conjugals.

The punishment for Family Man could be an equally humdrum, socially visible one.

Whatever SH is trying to state, she is doing it as badly as the sex she reports to have had.

I honestly cannot see why people are finding what she said to be offensive, and can only conclude that its to do with sally Hines ( who im not familiar with) as a person