Trigger Warning: Horrified by what happened to Lara Logan in Egypt *title edited by MNHQ*

[slidingdoorsmoments]

This happened in 2011, but I have only just seen a video about it. It has utterly horrified me. Lara Logan was reporting on protests in Egypt, when the camera broke. Her colleague, who spoke the local language realised very quickly that she was in trouble, as he heard the crowds of men starting to talk about attacking Lara. He desperately tried to get her away from the mob, but she was dragged in to the crowd, and up to 200 men ripped all her clothes off, and then raped her and beat her with flagpoles. They then tried to rip her arms and legs off, and tried to rip her scalp off. She was eventually rescued, almost dead, by a crown of women and soldiers. These were muslim men.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGep7a71U/

I find it terrifying, that a group of men would all want to be so violent towards a woman, and not one thought that what they were doing, was wrong/should be stopped.

These are men who insist that women are covered at all times, who insist in no sex before marriage, and it makes me wonder whether they have deprived themselves of being around women, and then when they see one, they just lose all control. As far as I know, nothing like this has happened in the West, where women and sex are (for want of a better phrase) freely available.

Apparently, a high percentage of Egyptian men freely admit that they have sexually assaulted women, which seems at odds with men insisting that women are covered and not allowed sexual freedom.

The whole thing is just awful. That poor lady.

The older I get, the more I realise how accurate Germaine Greer was about how much men hate women.

Much the same has happened here.

My late husband was old enough to do National Service. He spoke in horror of the case that happened in Catterick in the '50s: a local girl got drunk at a dance and was raped in this way.

He told me that the culprits were known, but nothing was ever done about it: the girl was blamed for being drunk.

Both his grandfather survived action in WW1 and used to discuss their experiences when they were together. One of them once said: "They talk about the Germans, but you never hear of them talking about what happened when the Tommies got into the French convent.'

It is so upsetting. Quite a few of us will have had grandfathers or great grandfathers who were actually rapists in the war.

And it could be their own side even. French women were raped by American and British liberators.

Yup. The "Tommies" who raped the French nuns were supposedly liberating them.

@WearyAuldWumman it's still happening. Kenyan women are still trying to get justice for being raped by the British soldiers training there. Hundreds of allegations, the first ones starting in the 70's and still ongoing. It's being "looked at".

It's hellish.

Fair enough, but several of your posts have been about the men wanting sex, or wanting sex with a woman they consider easy and/or attractive.

It isn't. It's about ruthlessly, violently, putting women in their place. As PPs keep highlighting, it's about power. For the participants, it's a bonding experience in which they treat women as prey.

Mass rape is also a feature of warfare - "our boys" are guilty of it, too. In disorganised forces, it looks very much like an objective. In some cases, it actually is.

I agree. Rape has nothing to do with sex.

If it was about sex then good-looking successful men (e.g. footballers) would never commit rape because they can get sex easily enough from consenting women. Except men like that still commit rape.

Rape is about exerting power and control, and about getting pleasure from degrading another human being. It's got nothing in common with sex apart from the physical actions.

Up to 200 men ripped a woman's clothes off, beat her with poles, raped her, tried to pull off her arms, legs and scalp.

This feels beyond even getting a feeling of power. It's something even more horrible and base, and I'm not sure any name in any language is enough to capture it.

I think it is about opportunistic sex too with some.

Sadism. Evil.

Was it Germaine Greer who said women don’t realise how much men hate them.