I think that most people would be in agreement that rape is one of the most awful crimes out there, and I’m fairly certain almost every woman ever would say this as well. It just seems like there’s no question about this in today’s society.
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Turns out that it definitely isn’t every woman ever who feels this way though as writer/public intellectual (I read that on her Wikipedia page and thought it was lolz so included it) Germaine Greer made some pretty controversial comments at the Hay Festival yesterday when she said that rape wasn’t really a crime and most cases of it was just bad sex. Here’s what Greer – who was actually violently raped herself at a party when she was 19 – had to say about it:
We are told it’s one of the most violent crimes in the world – bullshit. Most rape is just lazy, just careless, just insensitive.
Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal right, he is raping her. It will never end up in a court of law.
Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime – and some rapes are – think about it as non-consensual, that is, bad sex.
Sex where there is no communication, no tenderness, no mention of love.
We used to talk about lovemaking but the official position now is that 70 per cent of rape victims suffer PTSD and only 20 per cent of veterans.
At this point you think, what the hell are you saying? That something that leaves no sign, no injury, nothing, is more damaging to women than seeing your best friend blown up by an IED is to a veteran?
We haven’t been destroyed, we’ve been bloody annoyed, is what we’ve been.
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I don’t think rapists should be jailed. Two hundred hours of community service would do me.
I have suggested maybe a little tattoo would be a good thing, maybe an R on your hand. I’d prefer it on the cheek really.
It’s mad that rape sentences could be heavier than those for attempted murder because rape isn’t carried out by a specific group of criminals – a lot of it happens almost by accident.
In case you’re wondering whether with my apparently flippant attitude I actually have any understanding of the gravity of the crime of rape, I was violently raped days before my 19th birthday. I was beaten half-unconscious.
I was found wandering in the street very confused and rescued, thank God, because the people in the car were a man and a woman. If there had been four men in that car I don’t think you would have heard of me again.
The issue of consent should be removed from prosecutions and some cases could be treated as grievous bodily harm – a crime that carries a lighter sentence and would therefore not prove so off-putting to juries.
Where it’s his word against hers and the penalty is seven years or something, juries won’t convict.
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Wow. I’m really unsure what she’s trying to achieve by saying stuff like this other than to be controversial for the sake of being controversial. I can kind of see the point she’s trying to make but I think she’s worded it very badly and it’s very demeaning and disrespectful to the countless women out there that haven’t consented to having sex with someone and have been left scarred and distraught by the experience.
It seems like there are a lot of people are have been genuinely affected by situations such as that who aren’t the ‘annoyed and disappointed’ – and probably money grabbing – women that Greer is referring to in her speech. Have some compassion/do some research. Don’t think her comments are doing anyone any favours and this has been evidenced by the amount of people that walked out of her talk at Hay Festival and the amount of people talking about her negatively today. Good one.
For more of the same, check out this guy who is officially the world’s worst paedophile. Wonder what Germaine Greer thinks about him?
