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| It's hard not to be angry when men won't discuss rape and abuse | It's hard not to be angry when men won't discuss rape and abuse |
| (36 minutes later) | |
| Most weeks some lovely, caring berks tell me I am a man–hating witch, so let's get it out there. Sometimes I am. The acceptable kind of suck-it-up feminism (I love men really!) is hard to sustain after yet more abuse stories, "grooming stories", or the details of the Tia Sharp murder. | |
| Do I think all men are rapists? No. Do I think all women can be raped? Yes. From one-year-old babies to octogenarian women, females are raped. That's just a fact. How else do we explain that Oxford police ignored children and their parents' pleas for help? Out of the mouths of babes … comes what? Trashy, smack-induced lies? One of these girls had run away more than a hundred times in a year and spoke of "torture sex". At 12. | Do I think all men are rapists? No. Do I think all women can be raped? Yes. From one-year-old babies to octogenarian women, females are raped. That's just a fact. How else do we explain that Oxford police ignored children and their parents' pleas for help? Out of the mouths of babes … comes what? Trashy, smack-induced lies? One of these girls had run away more than a hundred times in a year and spoke of "torture sex". At 12. |
| Doubtless most men are as appalled by this and will resent being tarnished with the same brush. I am not doing that, but I want to simply question the male reluctance to look at gender, power and the resulting institutional failures it results in. Turning a blind eye to what some men do does not help any of us. | Doubtless most men are as appalled by this and will resent being tarnished with the same brush. I am not doing that, but I want to simply question the male reluctance to look at gender, power and the resulting institutional failures it results in. Turning a blind eye to what some men do does not help any of us. |
| Most men don't want to rape a nine-year-old, but still male sexuality as it is lived is little discussed as it is "natural", whereas female sexuality is a major performance. A real production. Most men want consenting sex with a woman who enjoys it. Well, that's one of my bizarre fantasies. | Most men don't want to rape a nine-year-old, but still male sexuality as it is lived is little discussed as it is "natural", whereas female sexuality is a major performance. A real production. Most men want consenting sex with a woman who enjoys it. Well, that's one of my bizarre fantasies. |
| Actually, though, many men who enjoy just this still spend lots of time going to whores – or, as we must now say, "sex workers". New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny recently described the new "neo-Victorian" attitude to "rescuing" porn actors and actresses. I guess she is modern and I am old-fashioned, but some sex work is a bit rubbish. Being locked in a room for 16 hours, gouged out on smack, feeling tired, lonely and ill, often without even being able to speak much English, is not so empowering after all. But it's not the sex that's the problem, apparently, its the working conditions (we must not stigmatise sex workers). | Actually, though, many men who enjoy just this still spend lots of time going to whores – or, as we must now say, "sex workers". New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny recently described the new "neo-Victorian" attitude to "rescuing" porn actors and actresses. I guess she is modern and I am old-fashioned, but some sex work is a bit rubbish. Being locked in a room for 16 hours, gouged out on smack, feeling tired, lonely and ill, often without even being able to speak much English, is not so empowering after all. But it's not the sex that's the problem, apparently, its the working conditions (we must not stigmatise sex workers). |
| No. I say let's stigmatise the punters – or at least find out a little bit more about these average guys. When I was Penny's age I had a kid in a pushchair and men used to proposition me with: "I don't mind the kid, love." Hardly Belle du Jour. Somehow the glamour disappeared faster than the feathers on a "burlesque" dancer – which, again, I old-fashionedly refuse to accept as anything other than a better "class" of stripper. But hey, maybe loads of people are now way more enlightened and happy when their daughter says: "Guess what, Dad? I got four A*s and I am going to be a sex worker!" | No. I say let's stigmatise the punters – or at least find out a little bit more about these average guys. When I was Penny's age I had a kid in a pushchair and men used to proposition me with: "I don't mind the kid, love." Hardly Belle du Jour. Somehow the glamour disappeared faster than the feathers on a "burlesque" dancer – which, again, I old-fashionedly refuse to accept as anything other than a better "class" of stripper. But hey, maybe loads of people are now way more enlightened and happy when their daughter says: "Guess what, Dad? I got four A*s and I am going to be a sex worker!" |
| This conflation of rape, prostitution and grooming you may find difficult, but the growing objectification of women, while we are being told equality is progressing, frightens me. In other parts of the world it is horrific. Rape is now the key weapon of mass destruction. You can demoralise, impregnate and spread HIV to destroy the enemy. This is not new, but it is finally being recognised as a war crime. We know about Vietnam, and some soldiers were brave enough to talk about the male-on-male rapes back in 1969. Now it is estimated that up to 250,000 women were raped in Rwanda in three months in 1994; 60,000 in Sierra Leone; 40,000 in Liberia; 200,000 in Congo; and, nearer to home, 60,000 in former Yugoslavia, where the Serbs told Muslim women: "Now you are going to have our children. You are going to have our little Chetniks." | This conflation of rape, prostitution and grooming you may find difficult, but the growing objectification of women, while we are being told equality is progressing, frightens me. In other parts of the world it is horrific. Rape is now the key weapon of mass destruction. You can demoralise, impregnate and spread HIV to destroy the enemy. This is not new, but it is finally being recognised as a war crime. We know about Vietnam, and some soldiers were brave enough to talk about the male-on-male rapes back in 1969. Now it is estimated that up to 250,000 women were raped in Rwanda in three months in 1994; 60,000 in Sierra Leone; 40,000 in Liberia; 200,000 in Congo; and, nearer to home, 60,000 in former Yugoslavia, where the Serbs told Muslim women: "Now you are going to have our children. You are going to have our little Chetniks." |
| Is the penis actually any kind of weapon? Soldiers say they are often are forced to rape at gunpoint but, if they can't get an erection, a broken bottle or sharpened stick will do. I want to know more about the desire to penetrate a traumatised injured woman. Is she simply a spoil of war? Prostitutes are regularly bussed into army camps. They certainly were in the Gulf war. | Is the penis actually any kind of weapon? Soldiers say they are often are forced to rape at gunpoint but, if they can't get an erection, a broken bottle or sharpened stick will do. I want to know more about the desire to penetrate a traumatised injured woman. Is she simply a spoil of war? Prostitutes are regularly bussed into army camps. They certainly were in the Gulf war. |
| Surely this is not only to do with testosterone but culture, and Diane Abbott's account of destructive "hyper–masculinity" rings true only when we look at the hyper-femininity that has to accompany it. Women are being beaten back. Men who lose their traditional roles want women back in theirs: stripped, often literally, of all power. | Surely this is not only to do with testosterone but culture, and Diane Abbott's account of destructive "hyper–masculinity" rings true only when we look at the hyper-femininity that has to accompany it. Women are being beaten back. Men who lose their traditional roles want women back in theirs: stripped, often literally, of all power. |
| Every time dreadful things happen, nice guys say: don't associate this with my gender, don't hate me. This is not good enough. When children are injected with heroin and sold, where are the witnesses, the rumours, the men who knew what was going on but said nothing? We are not talking of 40-year-old offences but recent events. The men who had sex with pubescent girls and stubbed their cigarettes out on them probably had wives who did not understand them. | Every time dreadful things happen, nice guys say: don't associate this with my gender, don't hate me. This is not good enough. When children are injected with heroin and sold, where are the witnesses, the rumours, the men who knew what was going on but said nothing? We are not talking of 40-year-old offences but recent events. The men who had sex with pubescent girls and stubbed their cigarettes out on them probably had wives who did not understand them. |
| But I do understand that, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" has now become, "Leave me out of it, you are a man-hater; not everything is about gender." | But I do understand that, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" has now become, "Leave me out of it, you are a man-hater; not everything is about gender." |
| I simply ask that all men and women recognise that the systematic rape and abuse of women that we now accept happens during war, also happens during "peacetime" too. That may be hard, but it is not love that tears us apart. It is hate. | I simply ask that all men and women recognise that the systematic rape and abuse of women that we now accept happens during war, also happens during "peacetime" too. That may be hard, but it is not love that tears us apart. It is hate. |