Iwas brutally raped as a teen. No, it was not the worst thing in my life but rapists MUST be jailed
After Germaine Greer’s outrageous remark that rapists should only get community service, another feminist, with a very different view, enters the controversy . . .
AS A drama student in 1969, I once got to help a professional company of actors. Inevitably, there was an after-show party and my friends and I were excited to be included in the social life of the grown-ups.
But, what started out as a thrilling night of drinking and chatting to members of the cast took a very dark turn.
When the party moved on to a cast member’s rented flat, I consumed far too much alcohol for one unused to such volumes of the stuff.
Curling up in a corner, I didn’t notice the other partygoers drifting away.
My awakening was rude. I was picked up, thrown down and raped. My cries of ‘No!’ were ignored and seemed to inflame my attacker further. He was huge and heavy and powerful.
As I sobbed, he punched and slapped me. When he rolled away afterwards, he simply said: ‘Off you go.’ I’ve never sobered up so fast in my life and couldn’t get out of there quickly enough.
Nearly 50 years on, I remember that episode with absolute clarity. It was undoubtedly horrifying, humiliating and traumatic.
But the worst thing that’s ever happened to me? Probably not.
Losing my parents in my 50s at the same time as undergoing a mastectomy and chemotherapy as a result of breast cancer was infinitely worse. You really can’t get over those deeply painful and heartbreaking life events and forget about them.
By admitting this, I find myself — in part, at least — agreeing with the ever-controversial feminist Germaine Greer. Last week she caused an explosion like a mushroom cloud with her comments about rape.
Speaking from personal experience at the Hay Literary Festival (when she was an 18-year-old student in Melbourne, Australia, a rugby player dragged her into her car and punched her in the face before raping her) she said rape wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
She was determined to get over it. To not live the rest of her life as a damaged victim — or a ‘rapee’ — as she put it.
She then went on to call for the lowering of punishment for rape and said society should not see it as a ‘spectacularly violent crime,’ but instead view it more as ‘lazy, careless and insensitive. Just bad sex’.
Of course, Ms Greer, who is not averse to publicity, could not have been unaware of the reaction she was likely to get from other feminists and the response to her pronouncements was visceral. How dare she, a revered feminist, trivialise such a terrible crime? How dare she let the sisterhood down in this way?
NeverTHeLeSS,
reflecting on my own personal, very similar experience, I had an understanding of what she meant when she said she had been able to get over her rape and get on with her life. Because I had been able to do the very same.
As dawn broke following my rape, I arrived back at my student house. I showered my attacker away, threw the clothes I’d been wearing in the bin, went to bed and slept.
I woke up with a humdinger of a hangover and a sense of absolute fury. I was angry with myself for making myself vulnerable. It was my fault, I thought, because I’d had so much to drink. It didn’t occur to me to make a complaint to the police. I don’t think I even realised that a crime had been committed. But, of course, it had.
I never told anyone at the time what had happened. I made jokes to friends about the bruises on my face, saying I had fallen over and bumped into doors in my drunken state.
I know now that this was the classic response of women who’ve been beaten. To this day, I’ve never named the rapist. He’s dead now, but I know he had a wife and children and I have never wanted to shame or upset them.
But even then, in my youth and innocence and long before a woman’s right to enjoy a sex life was accepted, I told myself I had nothing to be ashamed of. I’d been silly to be so drunk, but what had happened was not my fault and it was, frankly, best forgotten. I hadn’t been a virgin. He was just another bloke.
Just like Germaine, I thought to myself: You’ve been annoyed, not destroyed. Put it down to
experience. Get on with life. Don’t be a victim. And never put yourself in such a weak position again.
I like to think in doing so that I took some of the power from the man in question and reclaimed it for myself by refusing to let my life be dominated by his abusive behaviour.
That said, it’s all very well for women like Germaine and me — tough, outspoken and open about the sexual experiences that we enjoyed in our youth — to look back on the one we did not consent to and say it was not the worst thing that happened to us. We were not badly hurt and we felt no need to let one 20-minute unpleasant experience ruin the rest of our rich and fulfilling lives.
But I differ from Germaine on the following point: Despite my own experience, I also believe that it is profoundly dangerous to diminish such a crime.
For some victims, there is none of the violence we generally associate with rape — no beating around the head, no strangulation, no wielding of a knife and no fear of death.
Nevertheless, the very act of penetration without consent is a violation, and that in itself is violence. I fully acknowledge that some women’s lives are destroyed by such an act. The virginity which they held as a precious commodity may have been taken, sexually transmitted infection may have been passed on and explanations to a husband or boyfriend may have been deeply traumatic.
Worst of all, a pregnancy may have been the result.
Rape is violation whether it’s perpetrated by a stranger, a husband, a friend or a colleague and whether there’s additional violence or not.
There is no shame in being destroyed by it. Not everyone finds it possible to move on from the experience and put it behind them. I put my rape behind me but I never forgot it. I suspect for both myself and Germaine Greer it has remained a powerful influence on the work we’ve done in sexual politics throughout our lives.
And, thankfully, so many advances have been achieved in the past 50 years in understanding sexual violence and changing the law to reflect the reality. I fully applaud all of them.
Let’s consider for a moment, that when a 19th century woman was raped, it was her father’s or her husband’s rights which had been violated. Now we understand that the crime was committed against a woman — not her male relatives.
In the early 20th century, any woman who appeared in court claiming rape was treated like a child. The judge was required to give the jury a corroboration warning, stating that women and children have a tendency to lie about sexual matters. This archaic warning was rightly removed — but not until the late 1990s.
It was clearly unfair to suggest a victim may be lying and, of course, corroborating evidence is difficult to find when only two people know what happened. It’s her word against his. The alleged victim’s sexual history can now only be raised in England at the discretion of the judge.
In the Seventies, Susan Brownmiller, the feminist author of the groundbreaking Against Our Will, argued that rape was motivated by the need for domination and not by uncontrollable lust. She also laid to rest the idea that a woman wearing a short skirt was ‘asking for it’.
And, one positive consequence of the ‘MeToo’ and ‘TimesUp’ movements is that men have been left in no doubt that uninvited sexual activity is an abuse of power and can lead to serious consequences.
Most encouragingly, young men now want to be part of the conversation with the new generation of young feminists, who are, thankfully, well able to stand up for themselves.
This generation of young men want to know how to flirt, how to behave correctly in their relationships with women and how to ensure that the sex they engage in is good sex. They are open too to the idea of commitment and love. None of this is to say there will no longer be rape — just that women are more protected by the law and the conventional mores of society than ever before. Something for which we should all feel grateful.
LIkE
Germaine, I was fortunate enough not to be badly hurt by my rapist and thankfully was not destroyed by him or made forever fearful of the opposite sex.
But this does not mean I expect the same response from all victims. Unlike Germaine, I fully understand that every woman reacts differently to being raped and those, like me, who recovered should not be considered stronger or superior to those who are broken by such assaults on them.
As for a fitting punishment, Germaine suggested the sentence for the offence might be reduced to 200 hours’ community service and perhaps an ‘r’ tattoo on the rapist’s hand, arm or cheek.
This is where I deviate from her view most vociferously. I would prefer the legal system take complaints seriously from the moment they are made, investigate them thoroughly and correctly and provide an atmosphere in court that’s carefully controlled by a wellinformed judiciary. Then, if the jury convicts, a prison sentence should most definitely follow.
Germaine claimed the legal system cannot cope because rape is so common and it always comes down to the difficult issue of consent, with the victims becoming little more than ‘bits of evidence’.
Frankly, I would have been quite content to be a ‘bit of evidence’ if I’d had the guts to go to the police back in 1969. Yes, I was able to move on and enjoy my life but that doesn’t preclude me from wishing I’d seen the brute punished.