You’ve got it so wrong on rape, Germaine
Flaming Nora, Germaine! I know you are a professional contrarian and all that, but these latest shrill claims about rape are a publicity-hungry provocation too far.
You are, of course, entitled to your mad biddy opinions and I would fight for your right to express them (no thanks needed; well, maybe a little) on stage at Hay Festival but in this instance you are so bloodyminded and wrong-headed I must demur. You say that most rape is just bad sex. Most rape is just down to a lack of communication. Most rape is just insensitive, and to regard it as a “spectacularly violent crime is bull----”.
Talk about a clumsy, broad-brush generalisation; it would be laughable if it weren’t so lazy, derisory if it weren’t so damaging.
You flippantly say rapists should get 200 hours’ community service and an “R” tattoo on their cheek. You sneer at the idea of women suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after an assault. That is just unpleasant.
Rape is an emotionally
charged subject. It is hellishly complex and as most women experience the world, we come across a great many permutations of coercion and blurred lines, heavyhandedness, nastiness and out-and-out savagery.
We know the difference, Germaine. To pretend we don’t is an insult to your intelligence, not ours.
Is rape the worst thing that can happen to a woman, as our culture would have us believe? It depends on the rape. It depends on the woman. It depends on the consequences.
You have revealed you were raped and beaten half-unconscious just before your 19th birthday and chose not to report it, refused to let it define you. That was your decision.
But does that mean no crime was committed?
Are you suggesting our daughters ought to just take on the chin whatever vile brutality is randomly meted out to them at a party? Rape is not about sex, it is about power and anger and humiliation.
I gather you have a forthcoming book to flog, called
On Rape, and in it you make a persuasive case for changes in the law to serve women better.
But nuanced debate grabs fewer headlines than lighting the touchpaper of outrage and watching it burn.
Germaine, you can do better. We certainly deserve better.