Helen Mirren – now there's a sensible woman. This is an article from The Independent, London.
Is Helen Mirren right about date rape?
The actress stepped into a political and social minefield when she claimed date rape should not be a matter for the courts. Paul Vallely examines an issue which raises divisive issues of women’s rights and personal responsibility
The Independent, Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Causing controversy: Helen Mirren’s comments have angered women’s groups and anti-rape campaigners
It might be that Helen Mirren didn’t quite know what she was doing when she, casually it seemed, ventured the thought that date rape was, in some circumstances not an issue for the courts but one which needed to be worked through as part of the subtle negotiations of modern gender manners. Or it may be that the award-winning actress deliberately wandered into a political minefield out of a conviction that the pendulum has swung too far on the issue. There is, controversially, a new sense of that in the air.
Dame Helen’s contention was that a woman who voluntarily ended up in a man’s bedroom and engaged in sexual activity – but then said no to intercourse – could not seriously expect to take that man to court on a charge of rape if he ignored her last-minute insistence that she did not want full sex. That had happened to her “a couple of times” 40 years ago when she was a budding actress. She had not reported the incidents to police because “you couldn’t do that in those days”. And perhaps, she suggested, that was not such a bad thing.
Such views violate the current orthodoxy that, when it comes to sexual consent, no means no. Women’s groups and anti-rape campaigners were infuriated by the 63-year-old’s views, which, they insist, hark back to a mindset that transferred the blame for rape from the rapist to the victim, by suggesting that what a woman wears, or how she behaves, can in someway mitigate the culpability of the man who violates her. It is back to the subliminal “she was asking for it” defence.
There was a time when such arguments were openly advanced in court by defence barristers – and police officers, who in their initial investigations would aggressively interrogate women reporting rape on the commonly held assumption that 60 per cent of all rape claims were false, and that women needed to be given the kind of hard time they could expect in court. Such a case was graphically catalogued in 1982 by the criminologist and film-maker Roger Graef, in a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the Thames Valley Police. The film was instrumental in the changes in the law that followed.
But Mr Graef himself came in for some fierce criticism earlier this month when, 25 years on, he made a follow-up film for Panorama. He found that specially trained officers now treat women with a sensitivity unheard of before his previous film. But he also discovered that the conviction rate for rape was even lower than it was two decades ago. Only 5 per cent of reported rapes in Britain now end in a successful prosecution – one of the lowest conviction rates in the developed world. A key determinant, Mr Graef concluded, was today’s “ladette culture” in which young women routinely drink to excess. Where victims of rape have been drinking, the chances of conviction are seriously lowered. Defence barristers who can no longer raise questions in court about the victim’s “provocative” clothes, or her previous history of sexual liaisons, can raise questions about the amount of alcohol she has consumed – and introduce CCTV footage of the woman in a drunken state.
Since in almost half of all rapes, both victim and perpetrator have been drinking, that has a material impact on the rate of conviction. And the impact goes beyond the courtroom. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority recently revealed it had reduced payouts to 14 rape victims because they had been drinking.
Mr Graef has, for his pains, been lambasted for all this on a variety of feminist websites. Now Helen Mirren is coming in for the same stick. What part of “no” does she not understand, they ask. But rape, like abortion, is one of those totemic subjects that sets off resonances across a wider landscape of social politics. Questions about personal responsibility here became entangled with different models of feminism and femininity.
There are those, like Mr Graef, who clearly lament that – in his words – a “ladette culture has spread across UK towns and cities and abroad, more and more women have gone out on the town, drinking to excess and behaving ever more raucously, sending blunt signals to young men also on the prowl”. Opposed to that is the opinion of one of their website critics, to the effect that “Men go and get smashed and nothing happens to them. If we want gender equality, women should be able to go and get smashed without fear of being taken advantage of.”
Or, in the words of another of Roger Graef’s interlocutors: “Although this culture does result in some of the most pitifully overdressed, over-tanned, overly made-up women getting completely trashed, and stumbling barefoot on Dublin’s cobblestones, what Mr Graef is essentially saying is they’re ‘asking’ for it. Nowhere does he discuss why these girls are doing the completely idiotic things they’re doing.” It is impossible, says another feminist blogger, to contend that “a woman must take responsibility for her actions” and simultaneously to insist that “there’s no excuse for rape”.
Yet that is precisely what Dame Helen clearly believes. She pulls no punches in her account of what happened when she was forced to have sex at the end of dates in her late teens and twenties when she moved to London. There was not, she says, “excessive violence”. She was not hit. But she was “locked in a room and made to have sex against my will”. But for all that, she insists that, although it was rape, the men involved should not necessarily be considered rapists in a criminal sense. She even raised doubts about the case of the boxer Mike Tyson, who was convicted of raping a Miss Black America contestant in a hotel room in 1992, concluding: “It’s such a tricky area isn’t it? Especially if there is no violence. I mean, look at Mike Tyson. I don’t think he was a rapist.”
Those who have made the journey from this old paradigm of semiotic complexity and sexual confusion to the more black-and-white view that all non-consensual sex is a crime are angered by those such as Dame Helen who refuse to make the same journey. And, like so many illiberal liberals in modern political debate, they are intolerant of those who do not conform to their new orthodoxy.
But there are still clearly issues here which have not been resolved. One of the great fears about rape is that it will be perpetrated by a stranger but the vast majority of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. Likewise, fears about the spiking of drinks are often disproportionate to the true risks; date-rape drugs are rarely detected in tests on rape victims – the figure is as low as 2 per cent according to one British study.
The commonest drug involved is alcohol. Fewer than 30 per cent of all rapes, according to one American study, are committed where neither the victim nor the perpetrator had been drinking. It raises tricky issues on the question of consent. “Drunken consent is still consent,” a barrister submitted in one rape case recently – and was backed by the judge who dismissed allegations of rape brought by a 21-year-old Aberystwyth student, who had got drunk at a party at the university arts centre and subsequently had sex with a college security guard. But, conversely, it can potently be argued that no one can give proper consent to anything when they are so drunk. And things become more confused when it is perceptions of consent, not just actual consent, that are in dispute.
There are also issues on degree. Is there a material psychological distinction to be drawn between the act of power and control in a stranger rape, and failure to control lost in a sexual encounter by two individuals in a relationship?
On the question of personal responsibility, it is clear that it is the rapist who must bear all moral blame for a rape. Women always retain the right to say no whatever condition they are in. But is consuming crippling doses of alcohol a violation of personal responsibility that materially compromises them? A drunken driver may have to accept total responsibility for a car he crashes but if the driver in the car he hits is not wearing a seatbelt, the insurance companies involved will not ignore that fact.
These are issues of real contention which are not easily dispensed with. It is, of course, possible to generate false controversy about rape – as twits like the wannabe pop star and actor Rhys Ifans did earlier this month with a puerile remark about date rape being a good thing, for guys at any rate. There was even a saddo Californian rock band that released a single called “Date Rape” which included the line “If it wasn’t for date rape I’d never get laid”. Such controversialists deserve all the opprobrium that has been is showered upon them. But Helen Mirren’s thoughts deserve a response which is altogether more considered.
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QUOTE
” It is impossible, says another feminist blogger, to contend that “a woman must take responsibility for her actions” and simultaneously to insist that “there’s no excuse for rape”.
UNQUOTE
I think it’s a dangerous path to follow, quite frankly. It’s true that some attitudes and attire are not suitable for any place and occasion, and women, to an extent should be aware of this. On the other hand a man should be responsible enough not to exploit such a situation if and when it arises.
A woman I know once made a very insightful comment about men-women relationships. she told me that what “comes naturally” to a woman can be very easily misinterpreted as a sexual signal by a man. She told me that since she started working in a male-only environment she doesn’t bend over to pick something she dropped (like most women do, I noticed) but keeps her back straight and bends her knees. It never occurred to her that she was providing “light entertainment” until she overheard one of her colleagues mention it.
Another “accident-prone zone” arises during conversation. When addressing someone, women hold eye contact for longer than men, on average. A man can very easily misread the eye contact as “above average interest”. Add a couple of whiskeys to that …
Of course this only applies to “grey areas”. I quite agree with Helen Mirren that once a woman is naked, in a bedroom, and things get out of hand well it’s not 100% rape, even though the sex (whatever extent, not just penetration) may have happened without the woman’s consent.
But then again, I may be saying this because I am a *ahem* man …
[Daphne – Many men are prone to interpreting normal human interest as sexual interest, that’s true -especially middle-aged men – but then it is also true that many women get a kick out of making men interested in them even if they do not return that interest in the slightest. It’s a sexual power game. Some women get an even bigger kick out of this when the man is married, because then it’s a double-coup: getting a man’s interest and spiting another woman. It’s particularly true of some women who have never been married or who are not currently in a relationship. It makes them feel better about themselves to lead somebody else’s husband on. That way they can tell themselves that marriage is not all it’s cracked up to be, that husbands are unfaithful and that they are more attractive than wives. I have yet to meet a man who does this sort of thing to spite another man or to make himself feel better. The fact remains, Zizzu, that after the age of 20 every woman is aware of her sexual power, particularly if she has been attractive to men since her early teens. By that time she has already learned how to use it and how not to use it. It takes just a few more years before she also learns how to effectively communicate ‘I like you as a person but I am not interested otherwise’ signals, and even becomes adept at turning a man’s sexual interest into far more valuable friendship. If certain women seem to have a lot of friends who are men and to get along with them, it’s because they mastered the art of Not Flirting. There is no great secret to doing this: you simply forget that the man is a man and talk to him as if he were a woman – in other words, no flirting and no ‘opposite sex’ body language. It works like a charm. But lots of women are silly enough not to want that: they would rather have a sexual admirer for six months than a friend for life.]
So would you say that these “grey area” rapes are sexual power games gone wrong? I think that it could be the case sometimes…
[Daphne – Yes, that’s what they are. Grown-up, intelligent women reason as Helen Mirren does. See the most recent post. If they don’t want to end up in a mess, they don’t put themselves in a messy situation. And if they make the mistake of doing so, then they take responsibility for their actions, instead of doing what children do and saying that it’s not their fault. And this is why I believe that the laws which allow women to say it’s not their fault are reducing women once more to the level of children, as they were in the past. Poor silly woman, she’s incapable of sound judgement, so the law must protect her. Incapable of sound judgement was the reason given for not allowing women the vote or control of their own property and financial affairs, or even of their own children.]
I forget where I got this, but once I heard that during a case in court the judge (or magistrate ) ordered the plaintiff (the victim) to come to court dressed in the same clothes she was wearing on the day the incident happened.
When the day arrived she turned up in a tight fitting pair of jeans and when he saw her, the judge threw the case out, saying that it would have been impossible for the defendant to rape her if she was really wearing those jeans… sexist? I’m in two minds about it. But I can understand where’s he’s coming from.
I used to practice judo and during training we used to fight each other regardless of sex. (Judo can be a bit like horseplay at times). I was impressed with women’s physical strength. Weight for weight a man simply just can’t turn a woman any way he likes. I can’t imagine a man raping a woman who puts up a fight unless he knocks her unconscious.
[Daphne – Or uses a knife or gun, which is usually the case in real rapes, or wraps his hands round her throat and strangles her. Even in cases where husbands rape wives after beating them up – the rape, like the beating – only happens because the woman doesn’t fight back effectively, because she is cowed after years of intimidation, or because she was weak-willed to start with, which is why her husband chose her. And that’s why women are more cynical about rape than men are, because we know this. Many of us have been accosted by men who’ve had too much to drink, and it’s nothing that a good kick between the legs doesn’t sort out in two seconds. There is no way I am going to collude in this portrayal of women as victims who can’t protect themselves against unarmed men.]
I forgot to add that it was an italian court.
What about this incident, which happened earlier this year? Incredible aye!!!
http://www.thelocal.se/12046/20080527/
[Daphne – I didn’t know men could be raped. If they don’t want to have sex, the necessary instrument doesn’t function. Or am I missing something somewhere?]
I would classify “male rape” as unauthorised access to the aforementioned instrument …
Oral sex (as was the case in the linked article) does not require an erection.
[Daphne – Nor does it constitute rape.]
Daphne, I am of the same opinion, but to my recollection, the woman was found ‘guilty’!!!! I wanted to point out how ridiculous this court case was!
Zizzu, you might have unauthorised access to the instrument, but only the owner can make the instrument function.
“Daphne – I didn’t know men could be raped”
Well, theoretically they are sodomized but it often happens!
[Daphne – By another man, though, not by a woman as alleged in this article.]
“If they don’t want to have sex, the necessary instrument doesn’t function.”
Well, technically the lower brain of a man have a will on it’s own. It was not that long ago a Norwegian man actually won a lawsuit against a woman who had raped him in his sleep (he had supposedly clearly said now before he went to bed – fairly intoxicated). I have a hard time reading – not to say writing – about it without having a silly smirk on my face though.
It’s just another tragic trait we men live with. Christopher Hitchens once state that the only time he prayed was for a failed erection (not revealing if the prayer was answered). So while many men have a hard time getting it up, other wishes it would stay down.
Actually a man can be raped too. He could for example refuse the advances of a woman he is sexually attracted to and who can arouse him, because he is married or in a relationship. There is a difference between being sexually aroused by someone and wanting to have sex with that person.
[Daphne – Oh, for crying out loud. Rape is not about SAYING no. It’s about MEANING no.]
small correction… he didn’t pray “for a failed…”, he prayed “over a failed…”.
“she then performed oral sex on him against his will”
Oh come on, and what was he doing in the meantime, twiddling his fingers…
@ Pegasus
He was probably doing it for the greater glory of Sweden
yes I find that a little hard to believe. I’m a guy, and I don’t see how any woman could ‘perform oral sex’ on me against my will. Unless she drugged him, then tied him up. Was the guy married by any chance? Guys do come up with some crazy excuses when caught playing away!
I once read of a date rape case, and the man’s defence rested on the argument that the woman was saying “no” while simultaneously ripping his shirt off!
[Daphne – Date rape is about sex. Real rape is about violence and hatred of women. That’s the key difference on which sentencing should hang. Looks like nobody was doing much thinking in thisn trial, least of all the defence lawyer. Shame.]
Date rape may be about sex and “real” rape (as you refer to it) about violence an hatred towards women. However, rape they both are, which essentially means that a person is having sex forced upon her/ him. Once the element of forcing oneself upon another comes into play, rape is name of the game. Yes, a woman may be stupid, she may be drunk, she may have being unaware of what she was doing exaclty, she may be naive, she may have been tickled pink by the attention, she may have gotten herself into a sticky situation – but once she realises that she wants to go no further down the road to total sexual consummation, then that “no” must be respected (and don’t give me stories of men who are raring to go being unable to control themselves).
If a man needs an accomplice to keep down a woman, then you can bet your bottom dollar that the woman was resisting what has now become an attack. You can also bet your bottom dollar that the man doing the act would have noticed that the woman he is forcing himself upon DOES NOT WANT what he is doing.
If he goes ahead and continues with what he’s doing, it’s rape alright, no matter what brought the two together, how they reached the beach or the bed or whatever, how drunk they were etc.,
Helen Mirren admits, in her interviews, in which she generally delights in uncovering the more unsavoury areas of her past (drug-taking, shop-lifting, sex), that she was at times locked in a room and sex forced on her, and that she felt frightened. If that does not reek of rape, apart also from obstructing a person’s freedom against their will, then I don’t know what is.
What you think may start out as a date rape, does eventually end up a violent rape – every time. Locking people in rooms, pinning them down to sumbit to one’s wishes, getting assistants to pin down the victim, getting one’s way with a person just because one is stronger, even the very fact that one insists that one’s will should win over the victim’s – this is all about the misuse of power. One may not use overt physical violence (bumps and bruises), but one may employ psychological violence to achieve one’s aims, and one must not underestimate the power of the latter.
The fact that a person is stupid, naive, drunk, confused enough to get him/ herself into a sticky situation, does not give others the right to abuse that person. In fact one has the moral duty to protect that person rather than to mess her up further. More despiccable is the person who preys on these people, for the very reason that they are more vulnerable at the time.
[Zizzu – I used to practice judo and during training we used to fight each other regardless of sex. (Judo can be a bit like horseplay at times). I was impressed with women’s physical strength. Weight for weight a man simply just can’t turn a woman any way he likes. I can’t imagine a man raping a woman who puts up a fight unless he knocks her unconscious.]
Weight for weight. I don’t know exactly how Judo is played. Do people play opponents of the same weight? Do you think that, in cases of rape, this applies? Does the rapist choose victims of his same weight? Indeed, does a rapist choose a Judo wrestler if he can help it? Don’t you think that a female Judo wrestler is stronger and more attuned to fighting back than your average lady?
Don’t you make any allowances for the element of surprise in the situation of a physical and sexual attack on someone? What do you think goes through a woman’s mind when she is raped? Does she possibly feel afraid? May it come to pass that she is so afraid for her life that she is afraid to fight back? Can you imagine the thoughts racing through her mind? Have you ever heard of the flight or fight reaction? Can you imagine the panic? Can you imagine being over-powered by someone who is much stronger than you are? Can you imagine the pain?
Has anyone you know ever been raped? If yes, have you asked her whether she think a woman ever “asks for it”? Have you asked her how she felt during the attack? After the attack? Did she enjoy it? Did she feel over-powered? Did she feel pertrified? Was a kick between the legs enough to put off the aggressor? Don’t you think an unarmed, but aggressive, man can threaten a woman and rape her, maybe even hurt her, if he has set his mind to it? Have you ever heard of murder taking place without any weapon to speak of?
Should such a crime as rape be trivialised because you and others harbour the false idea that all women can fight back as efficiently as a Judo wrestler, or can even put a very aggressive man off by aiming a kick between the legs?
Think!
@ Moggy
My point is that women – irrespective of whether or not they practice judo – are stronger than most people would imagine. A woman who senses danger will definitely fight like there’s no tomorrow. And I repeat that unless the aggressor is either twice her size or knocks her unconscious or threatens her with a weapon, there is no way he is going to get his way.
All the factors you mention are natural reactions to such a situation, obviously, but they don’t remove the fact that if a woman at least tries to fight back she will get raped.
Nobody’s saying that ALL girls who get raped are “asking for it”, but some people like to put themselves in dangerous situations. Take the example of the Swedish girl who went down to the beach, drunk with two unknown men? Would you do that? Isn’t that reckless behaviour of the highest degree? Of course, she shouldn’t have been raped, but as the saying goes “jekk tilghab man-nar, tinharaq”
@ Moggy
And I don’t think that men walk around thinking “Hmmm, so who shall I rape today?” unless they are psychopaths, but that’s a different story. I think that an “unarmed and aggressive” man raping innocent young ladies is a bit too cliched.
I can understand your fear of the situation. Rape is beyond “disgusting”, but you severely underestimate members of your own sex.
P.S. You have forgotten to mention the “ritual” rape of invading soldiers in your rant, too.
P.S. You have forgotten to mention the “ritual” rape of invading soldiers in your rant, too.
During the Bangladesh war and under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the warring Islamic soldiers were given in advance, papers by their religious leaders, with written permission to contract “temporary” marriages with the female victims they would be ritually raping in the course of the war as the need arose. That way they would not be committing any un-Islamic crime punishable by death.
[Zizzu – My point is that women – irrespective of whether or not they practice judo – are stronger than most people would imagine. A woman who senses danger will definitely fight like there’s no tomorrow. And I repeat that unless the aggressor is either twice her size or knocks her unconscious or threatens her with a weapon, there is no way he is going to get his way.
All the factors you mention are natural reactions to such a situation, obviously, but they don’t remove the fact that if a woman at least tries to fight back she will get raped.
Nobody’s saying that ALL girls who get raped are “asking for it”, but some people like to put themselves in dangerous situations. Take the example of the Swedish girl who went down to the beach, drunk with two unknown men? Would you do that? Isn’t that reckless behaviour of the highest degree? Of course, she shouldn’t have been raped, but as the saying goes “jekk tilghab man-nar, tinharaq”]
No, a woman who senses danger will not always fight like there’s no tomorrow. Many women who have been raped describe themselves feeling petrified with fear and unable to fight back. In violent rape, by all means a weapon may be used, but a man can do enough damage with his own hands if you want me to spell it out to you, and most women know this, and remember this in what is certainly a pretty terrifying moment.
The reason women don’t fight back is basically that they think that they will be killed during the attack, and feel completely over-powered, but physically and emotionally. If you’re not trained to fight back, it can be difficult to do so. And this is not something I’m making up, but what women who have experienced the ordeal say.
The Swedish girl was stupid and naive, and no I would not do what she did, but there again getting drunk and acting stupidly is not against the law, whereas forcing oneself sexually on someone else who is specifically stating that she does not want to go that far, is.
Here again it is good to point out that this Swedish girl was raped by one man, who was aided and abetted by another (very noble), who most probably held the girl down. Do you still think a weapon is needed in similar cases? Would a woman be, do you think, in a position to fight off two men? What about gang rape?
Maybe one should examine in greater detail why certain men can’t take no for an answer, and why some of them feel that a woman’s wishes do not carry the same weight as do theirs.
[Zizzu – And I don’t think that men walk around thinking “Hmmm, so who shall I rape today?” unless they are psychopaths, but that’s a different story. I think that an “unarmed and aggressive” man raping innocent young ladies is a bit too cliched.
I can understand your fear of the situation. Rape is beyond “disgusting”, but you severely underestimate members of your own sex.]
Men rape in all sorts of circumstances and for different reasons. They may be psychopaths, people suffering from paranoia and/ or having power issues concerning women, drunkards, youths involved with a group of young men looking for some excitement in their lives, men who’ve come to think that a woman who goes out on a date with them owes them something at the end of the evening, violent husbands, abusive fathers……the list is endless.
I am hardly one to underestimate my own sex. I judge my own sex, not on our ability to fight off a filthy rapist, but on the fact that women have proved again and again that they are equal to the men who have tried to dominate them since time immemorial. It may, on the other hand be, that due to the fact that you are a peace-loving, gentle bloke, you underestimate the callousness of certain choice members of your sex.