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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Post subject: Germaine Greer: reduce penalties for rapists |  |
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Not sure whether to just file this under “crazy ol’ Germaine having another brain-fart”, but it’s such an out-there proposal in the current climate that I couldn’t help but post it:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/30/germaine-greer-calls-for-punishment-for-to-be-reduced
| Quote: | [Greer] said the system was not working and radical change was needed. “I want to turn the discourse about rape upside down. We are not getting anywhere approaching it down the tunnel of history,” she said.
“Most rapes don’t involve any injury whatsoever,” Greer said. “We are told that it is a sexually violent crime, an expert like Quentin Tarantino will tell us that when you use the word rape you’re talking about violence, a throwing them down... it is one of the most violent crimes in the world. Bullshit Tarantino.
“Most rape is just lazy, just careless, insensitive. Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal rights 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.” |
On the one hand, I can totally see why people would find this disgusting: what she’s saying can be boiled down to “rape isn’t so bad”, which is a pretty insensitive and tone-deaf thing to say, Greer’s own personal experiences notwithstanding. It’s not her right to tell others how to feel. Nonetheless, I think it does raise a few thought-provoking (albeit fairly taboo) questions:
1) How much is the trauma and harm of rape (and other acts of sexual asaults) inherent in the act itself, as opposed to mediated by society?
To turn that question on its head, to what extend do our societal discourses further traumatise and harm victims, if at all? Does our treatment of it in the news media and popular entertainment as a horrific, permanently damaging act actually contribute to the psychological damage it causes?
2) Is it possible that harsh sentencing is a factor in the relatively low rate of convictions for sexual assault, and would a lower penalty combined with lower burden of evidence give survivors more closure?
3) Many (though not all) progressives are already campaigning for lowering overall criminal sentences and focusing on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment. Singling out rape for more lenient treatment is obviously hugely problematic; still, isn’t what Greer is suggesting, when combined with the broader matter of all criminal sentencing, a legitimate component of the progressive goal on this issue? That is, isn’t lesser sentences for rapists precisely one of the things that we are fighting for?
I don’t think any sane, compassionate person would ever want rape to be treated as an acceptable phenomenon. Every such act is a transgression against an individual’s liberty and a subordination of their desires in favour of the assailants’. There should absolutely be consequences for rapists. But I think we can accept all of those things and still consider the questions above seriously. If it, for instance, transpires that harsh sentencing for rape both deters would-be rapists and increases some victims’ trauma, then we would just need to acknowledge that paradox and factor it into social policy. Such discussions shouldn’t be off-limits.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace
Last edited by David on Thu May 31, 2018 11:05 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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My thought from that is that the current definition of Rape has been broadened to the point where it loses meaning, which may be her point or not. So the answer is to tighten the definition of rape again, and punish it appropriately, while treat those things that aren't rape also appropriately
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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I think the big issue with rape is the change in its meaning, well encapsulated in Germaine’s highly gendered and mildly ridiculous assumptions about marital sex above. The wicked husband rolling over on his exhausted wife ! Ha ! It’s a figure from the fifties. We now define as “rape” things that would not so long ago have been considered within the range of accepted behaviour. I always think it is interesting that a woman who lies about her fertility status to a partner apparently deserves no censure at all. The ideas about consent around sex have been elasticated way beyond the ideas that underpinned the very violent, very abusive crime prosecuted sixty years ago.
Secondly, the very meaning of sex has changed, from an act of almost sacramental significance sixty years ago, to something of a casual recreation (at least for many people) now. The term “rape”, however, still carries much of the weight of a different age.
It is time for a few new categories of offence, perhaps. To that extent, I think I agree with her.
Edit : Stui’s posting above was simultaneous with this. We broadly agree.
_________________
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| stui magpie wrote: | | My thought from that is that the current definition of Rape has been broadened to the point where it loses meaning, which may be her point or not. So the answer is to tighten the definition of rape again, and punish it appropriately, while treat those things that aren't rape also appropriately |
I agree on some level — I think the definition has been made somewhat elastic and started to pull in some questionable fringe cases – but that still mostly seems more of a question of semantics than actual sentencing. To bring back a classic (and fraught) Nick’s BB point of debate, I don’t think refusing to pay a sex worker after the act is rape, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think it should necessarily be punished any less than it currently is.
One of Greer’s points that will likely be overlooked in the reaction to her comments is that the focus should be on the violence of sex attacks rather than the act of non-consensual sex itself. I expect that such gradations are already very much taken into account in the courts, but such an approach would still likely see many rapes severely punished.
Of course, the harm of rape is not merely the violence but also the violation – and that’s where Greer comes across as way too glib when she says that “a penis can’t kill you”. But it also seems evident to me that that isolated component, violation, is a primarily psychological phenomenon – and, thus, something that can likely be at least somewhat (but likely far from wholly) mitigated or enhanced by social norms.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Yep, broadly agree. You just used more words and eloquence. 
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| David wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | My thought from that is that the current definition of Rape has been broadened to the point where it loses meaning, which may be her point or not. So the answer is to tighten the definition of rape again, and punish it appropriately, while treat those things that aren't rape also appropriately |
I agree on some level — I think the definition has been made somewhat elastic and started to pull in some questionable fringe cases – but that still mostly seems more of a question of semantics than actual sentencing. To bring back a classic (and fraught) Nick’s BB point of debate, I don’t think refusing to pay a sex worker after the act is rape, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think it should necessarily be punished any less than it currently is.
One of Greer’s points that will likely be overlooked in the reaction to her comments is that the focus should be on the violence of sex attacks rather than the act of non-consensual sex itself. I expect that such gradations are already very much taken into account in the courts, but such an approach would still likely see many rapes severely punished.
Of course, the harm of rape is not merely the violence but also the violation – and that’s where Greer comes across as way too glib when she says that “a penis can’t kill you”. But it also seems evident to me that that isolated component, violation, is a primarily psychological phenomenon – and, thus, something that can likely be at least somewhat (but likely far from wholly) mitigated or enhanced by social norms. |
I wasn't quite game to go there, but agreed. The things that some people apparently feel violated about these days make me wonder how they were raised. If someone physically forces them self upon you and forces intercourse, you've been raped and that trauma is there. if someone gooses you in a bar, you can either feel violated and raped or swing around, belt them and tell them to F off. It's a mindset caused by a social construct that is being fed.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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It’s likely also about context – if I get my arse squeezed by a random at a bar tomorrow night, I probably would be surprised but not really be upset about it. But if it happened to me on a semi-regular basis, at bars, on public transport, and so on, and I was also being flashed, cat-called and followed down the street from time to time, it might well become more than a minor annoyance and become something more threatening and humiliating.
Of course, rape is a much more extreme act than that, and likely to be much more inherently frightening and traumatising than a grope on a train. But I think, again, context can play a huge role in how such things are experienced and what impact it will have on one’s life.
_________________
All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | It’s likely also about context – if I get my arse squeezed by a random at a bar tomorrow night, I probably would be surprised but not really be upset about it. But if it happened to me on a semi-regular basis, at bars, on public transport, and so on, and I was also being flashed, cat-called and followed down the street from time to time, it might well become more than a minor annoyance and become something more threatening and humiliating.
Of course, rape is a much more extreme act than that, and likely to be much more inherently frightening and traumatising than a grope on a train. But I think, again, context can play a huge role in how such things are experienced and what impact it will have on one’s life. |
There is indeed no truth without context, but none of the things you mention even approach “violation” and they are not at all like rape. I’d increase penalties for the rape of the English language, however.
_________________
Two more flags before I die! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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I think that's debatable – while I'm certainly not equating any of these with rape, I have no doubt that many women (and men) who have been flashed, groped, rubbed up against or had their house broken into would feel violated, and that returns to my original point: that violation is, in some sense, a purely psychological response*, keeping in mind that psychological harm can, in many ways, be far more debilitating than physical harm on its own.
(*Perhaps you make a distinction between acts that you see as inherently violating and acts that aren't; if so, that might be an interesting line of debate.)
If violation is purely a question of how one cognitively processes an act, the good news is that trauma (at least for these lesser forms of sexual harassment and assault) may not be inevitable, and there may be ways to lessen feelings of violation (and all of the damage that comes with them). The bad news is that minimising the crime and/or telling the victim to just snap out of it or suppress it is likely to only cause more psychological harm in the long run, not less. My (perhaps rather radical) view is that one solution may lie in how we treat sex in general: that if we can demystify it, de-exoticise it and knock it off its pedestal, then we will have a much healthier relationship with it and also far fewer long-term hang-ups when it goes wrong.
I'm often reminded of a quote by Susan Sontag when I consider this subject: "Everything pertaining to sex has been a 'special case' in our culture." (She was talking about America, of course, but it applies to 21st century Australia equally.) Indeed, we see that in the title of that veritable id of American culture, a TV show that deals exclusively with sex crime: "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit". It makes sense then that sex crime must create "special" traumas and be treated with a "special" stigma – and that we have thus managed to infuse it, in so many forms, with a "special" kind of suffering.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | My thought from that is that the current definition of Rape has been broadened to the point where it loses meaning, which may be her point or not. So the answer is to tighten the definition of rape again, and punish it appropriately, while treat those things that aren't rape also appropriately |
I agree on some level — I think the definition has been made somewhat elastic and started to pull in some questionable fringe cases – but that still mostly seems more of a question of semantics than actual sentencing. To bring back a classic (and fraught) Nick’s BB point of debate, I don’t think refusing to pay a sex worker after the act is rape, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think it should necessarily be punished any less than it currently is.
One of Greer’s points that will likely be overlooked in the reaction to her comments is that the focus should be on the violence of sex attacks rather than the act of non-consensual sex itself. I expect that such gradations are already very much taken into account in the courts, but such an approach would still likely see many rapes severely punished.
Of course, the harm of rape is not merely the violence but also the violation – and that’s where Greer comes across as way too glib when she says that “a penis can’t kill you”. But it also seems evident to me that that isolated component, violation, is a primarily psychological phenomenon – and, thus, something that can likely be at least somewhat (but likely far from wholly) mitigated or enhanced by social norms. |
Agree, I’d reckon the mental damage should be taken into consideration, as a priority. She’s a moron bringing the above up, it’s disgusting and demeaning to the victims of serious crime in this vein.
And also any remaining physical damage, because she is very wrong, it can kill, and it can also mean never being able to have your own children,
She’s a really nasty piece of work, and I can’t believe anyone ever listened to her!
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | I think that's debatable – while I'm certainly not equating any of these with rape, I have no doubt that many women (and men) who have been flashed, groped, rubbed up against or had their house broken into would feel violated, and that returns to my original point: that violation is, in some sense, a purely psychological response*, keeping in mind that psychological harm can, in many ways, be far more debilitating than physical harm on its own.
(*Perhaps you make a distinction between acts that you see as inherently violating and acts that aren't; if so, that might be an interesting line of debate.)
If violation is purely a question of how one cognitively processes an act, the good news is that trauma (at least for these lesser forms of sexual harassment and assault) may not be inevitable, and there may be ways to lessen feelings of violation (and all of the damage that comes with them). The bad news is that minimising the crime and/or telling the victim to just snap out of it or suppress it is likely to only cause more psychological harm in the long run, not less. My (perhaps rather radical) view is that one solution may lie in how we treat sex in general: that if we can demystify it, de-exoticise it and knock it off its pedestal, then we will have a much healthier relationship with it and also far fewer long-term hang-ups when it goes wrong.
I'm often reminded of a quote by Susan Sontag when I consider this subject: "Everything pertaining to sex has been a 'special case' in our culture." (She was talking about America, of course, but it applies to 21st century Australia equally.) Indeed, we see that in the title of that veritable id of American culture, a TV show that deals exclusively with sex crime: "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit". It makes sense then that sex crime must create "special" traumas and be treated with a "special" stigma – and that we have thus managed to infuse it, in so many forms, with a "special" kind of suffering. |
Violation, used in the context of sexual matters, used to have the meaning associated with its linguistic root - an act of abuse, force, breakage and violence. Being cat-called may be annoying, but it is not violating unless we are in the world of Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty. In other contexts it can mean merely a contravention (eg a traffic violation), but in relation to sex, it has always meant forceful penetration against the will of the subject - an act which carries terrible risk of severe injury, of terrible diseases, of unwanted pregnancy. When we allow language to reflect the inner state of the speaker, rather than reason between people, we have a range of problems before us.
The latter two of these (disease and pregnancy) are part of the reason why it was considered an especially abhorrent crime, historically. An era which had no remedies against syphilis, and which considered abortion unthinkable, rightly saw rape as an act of the grossest violation of the whole life of the victim.
It was also, though, part of the mystique of sex, as you say. The thought of a world without sexual mystique makes me shudder, for about a hundred reasons, chief among which is that it makes the idea of personal consent a little weaker. The attempt to either utterly regulate sex, or completely diminish its significance, seems to me a harbinger of political tyranny.
The thing that seems most disturbing about GG’s latest display is her proposal that rapists be tattooed with the letter “R” on their foreheads. Even if she had an interesting point to make about the changing meaning of rape, she has shown her long-evident totalitarian tendencies clearly there.
_________________
Two more flags before I die!
Last edited by Mugwump on Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ On that latter point, yes, that does seem to be a promotion of vigilantism over the rule of law, which I don't think is particularly useful.
I would not take such a gloomy view of the idea of demystifying sex, though. Of course, we could never rob sex of its pleasure or its intimacy, and nor should we. Neither can we deny the sex drive as a major biological and psychological human motivator. But I think we can all accept that there is such a thing as being pathologically obsessed with sex, and that is a malady that I would readily diagnose our society with.
Let's look at the way that people grow up in this society – girls going through junior high school, for instance: the problem is not that they are thinking of themselves as sexual beings, but that they are taught by our culture that their worth is primarily dependent on their sexual currency. On the other hand, their sexual desires (and experimentation, like sexting) are rigorously policed by parents and authority figures who can only see them as potential victims, and by their peers who demean them as 'sluts' if they cross a certain arbitrary line. Boys, too, base much of their identity, by way of masculine gender norms, on their sexual prowess and ability to 'score'. Hardcore pornography, usually a blunt, artificial, aggressive and mechanical depiction of the sexual act, may in many cases be young teenagers' conceptual (let alone visual) introduction to sex. And of course that interaction with pornography is a thing that must remain hidden and shameful, because we try and fail to do our best to restrict access to it, thus rejecting the possibility of regulating it, curating it or fostering better alternatives.
On the one hand, sex is omnipresent in the media, popular culture, advertising and so on; on the other, it remains a shameful and anxiety-ridden topic that we seem incapable of confronting in a matter-of-fact way. That isn't a paradox, in my view, but rather two sides of the same coin that actively feed each other. In my view, if we can cure that hysteria and work towards helping the populace develop a healthier, more balanced sexual psyche, we can start to go some way towards building a society with less acute sexual traumas and fewer sex crimes.
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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It’s a complex question. David : the desire to cover the sex organs seems to be pretty universal among human civilizations and cultures, so I suspect it is very, very deeply rooted and forcing it to change will create the usual oppression that accompanies attempts to change human nature.
I smiled when you accepted that sex cannot be divested of its intimacy, in the midst of a discussion about demystifying it : because I do not know how to demystify intimacy, and it prompted the thought that the real issue with sex is that the human species cannot disentangle it from love, even if we try ; and mystique will always surround the granting or withholding of love between autonomous individuals. While some willing sex acts are not themselves loving, consenting to sex, outside prostitution, ncessarily admits the possibility of love with the other person involved. That is why I do not think we will ever be able to demystify it, even if we wanted to (which I do not).
Final point : it seems very clear to me that demystification of sex since the 1960s has seen a very large increase in rates of sexual crime, abortion, and teen pregnancy. So I do not share your confidence that demystifying sex would have the benefits you suppose.
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