Germaine Greer

[shine bright 2]

What is wrong with her? It made me so sad reading her comments about rape. I don’t understand how she can say those things. I haven’t felt angry like this in along time. I wish I could talk to her and understand why she is saying what she is.

She says its b******t to say rape is violent that its just c**p sex. My ex hit me in the face dragged me by my hair and raped and sodomized me while my kids slept in the room next door.

I want to write to her or tweet because I don’t understand how she could say that.

[SunshineRainflower]

Yeah I didn’t understand why she said that too, it seemed to be a commentary about how rape is currently handled in the justice system saying the system can’t cope with all the rapists, but her comments didn’t make any sense to me. It’s like saying ‘well there’s too many murders to take them all seriously, so let’s just downgrade the punishment for murder so we can process all the murderers.’ That’s what I understood from it anyway, it didn’t make sense to me at all and seemed an incredibly insensitive and strange thing to say.

I agree with you that rape should continue to be acknowledged as the horrific crime that it is. I am so sorry to hear what you went through, it sounds truly horrific. I was raped too but it was more of a coercive type of rape taking advantage of me when I was ill, and I’ve only just found out recently from my counsellor that it is also classed as rape. I can only imagine how bad your experience was and how it has left you feeling.

[shine bright 2]

Its strange isn’t it. He was more cohesive when we were together. I had no idea that it was wrong until I spoke about the more violent rape which happened as his way of punishing me when I left him. I was Lind if mind blown qhne the police lady said that if I didn’t want I to happen then it was rape. Spent so much time just teyin to stop him being angry.
I don’t know why the article really got to me…I guess because the hurt he caused is so huge. I was forces to move 170 miles in preparation for when he gets out I’m hidden even from friends and family, I gave up my job and e erything I knew. We packed and the police moved us. O have nightmares, scars and at one point my hair started to fall out.
….just needed to vent anger.
Can ask sunshine…does the Counselling help? I’ve seen psychologist as part of thing with police but it always makes me feel worse for a while. Last time my nightmares changed from him suffocating me and the kids to me finding him dead in my wardrobe….really bad. Need to self harm got worse too.do you think in the lon term it helps to talk. There are something’s I just can’t say.

[SunshineRainflower]

Hi Shine Bright,

Yes I would say therapy definitely helps, but the key is to get the right therapist. This is the 4th one I am speaking to, as one just made me feel uncomfortable, another was sort of cold and I just knew I couldn’t tell her everything, another one told me she didn’t even believe me! That was terrible. Now this 4th experience seems better although it’s just early stages so I’ll see how it goes, but I am pretty sure therapy is going to be a key part of my recovery.

Make sure you ‘interview’ them first and check their training. Are they trained in domestic abuse? Do they understand trauma? Do they understand PTSD? Then check how you feel with them and if you feel you could share everything you felt would help. This time I really want to get it all out because previously I just couldn’t say it all and it held me back from healing everything. Shame held me back but I’m learning to let go of the shame now.

It’s absolutely understandable the depth of your feelings, you have been through a shocking trauma most people can’t even imagine. Germaine Greer’s words will probably have triggered your PTSD and anger, absolutely understandably (I saw articles criticising her for her words for this exact reason, they are so offensive for all the rape survivors to hear. People were so disgusted they walked out of her lecture so you’re not alone in your thoughts about it).

You have done brilliantly, I remember when you posted when you were moving. I really hope it’s going well. Just take it one day at a time and don’t put pressure on yourself to feel ok about everything. I think we’ll all get to a ‘more healed’ place eventually but it will take time for us to work through everything we have been through.

[Freedomfighter]

Hi Shine bright 2
So sorry to hear what you’ve been through and are still trying to deal with. Regarding your question about counselling, SunshineRainflower is right, it depends a lot on the counsellor, but also how you feel with them. You mentioned about feeling worse after. Unfortunately this can be the case I’ve found. Taking about traumatic experiences brings back the memories of how you felt at the time, so if you felt like me terrified, confused, ashamed etc etc. However with a good counsellor they can help you understand the way you feel, the questions, doubts, fears etc and come to terms with what happened and to realise it is not your fault, no one deserves to be raped especially by someone who is supposed to love and protect you.
It’s not an easy quick solution to the nightmare of trying to come to terms with what happened to you. For me it was worse because he tried to rape me before we were married, then made out that it was a misunderstanding and that when I passed out later I’d had a nightmare because I’d got it into my head that he’d tried to rape me. He’d force fed me half a litre of neat vodka during the attempt ‘to calm me down because I was hysterical and trying to scream’
Later he coerced me into having sex to prove I believed him. I was too scared to argue at the time but he told me after that I couldn’t really have believed he’d tried to rape me, or I wouldn’t have ‘agreed’ to have sex after and couldn’t I see how ridiculous that sounds?
I knew that even if he had tried to rape me, no one would believe me.
I was so confused I couldn’t be sure. I ended up marrying him. It wasn’t until a few years later when he got me really drunk with spiked cocktails that he managed to rape me that I realised I’d been right the first time. I was planning to leave him when I found out I was pregnant.
I buried the memories of both incidents. It was the only way I could deal with it on my own- pretend it never happened. So to drag it all back up in Therapy after decades of suppressing the memories was traumatic. I couldn’t understand why I’d even married him let alone stayed with him for decades. She helped me understand that I was looking at the actions of a teenager with the hindsight of a mature woman. That I now knew what my husband was really like whereas back then I was totally taken in by his mask and lies. Therapy has helped me enormously, but I know some people just aren’t ready to face their demons yet.
Good luck what ever you decide. I hope this chapter of your life will be much happier. Hugs
PS Miss Greer is a very strong opinionated and confident woman, her perspective on life is very different to most women’s. Or maybe she’s just a control freak and can’t accept that someone raped her talking away her freedom of choice, or maybe she has never been raped! At the end of the day, her opinion doesn’t alter what happened to you or me or how traumatic the experience was for us. We are the ones who have to deal with the scars and move on with our lives. I doubt any of the ladies on here would agree with her opinions.

[shine bright 2]

Thanks sunshine…yes that’s what I’m worried about,that I’ll get someone who doesn’t fit, who makes me feel worse. I feel under some pressure from thoaw who helped us moved. Like its kind of part of the deal.. Bit at the end of the day I need to so I when I am ready not when someone else says.

Freedom fighter..nothing u say sounds ridiculous at all. I guess sometimes we want to be convinced. We don’t want to believe the worst. My ex constantly tried to persuade me that his behaviour was normal, that in our culture men habe “more sex drive” that our rwligio. Teaches that women always have to be available to their husband’s. I only ever slept with him so I just believed it. If u want to hear ridiculous he told me that if I didn’t have sex when ever he wanted he would get really Ill. I believed him. I sat with a police lady who had to explain. To me that a) it’s not true and b) this was another form of coherersio or in her words rape.
I can’t imagine how awful it must be to be unsure what happened and then to have that sudden realisation.
Hope you are both OK

[KIP.]

Hey shinebright just wanted to share that my ex said he couldn’t masterbate that he could only climax having sex and that husbands have conjugal rights! That was his way of getting sex. So when you’re abused and have so little headspace you can be made to believe almost anything. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Very sick men. Onwards and upwards 👍

[shine bright 2]

Very true KIP!! Think we are moving forward in little tiny steps. I had a friend who always told me I wasn’t stupid but that I was just innocent and kind and that just took advantage of that.

Would love to tweet that lady…but I don’t even know how to tweet haha..only thirty something in the world who can’t! Thinking about doing some courses to get more intelligent!
I can’t believe she was raped and beaten but says those thing..I think maybe she copes that way I dunno. It makes me feel like I’m weak, but I know I’m not because I’m surviving. I don’t think its weak to hurt is it?

[iwillbeok]

No shinebright2, it is not weak to hurt! What these abusers have done to us is traumatic but it’s two-fold as I see it 1) the initial trauma (abuse, rape, beatings) and then 2) the way they twist things around on us – make us believe it is our fault and normalise it.

I only saw Greer had made some statements when I saw this original post so I googled to see what it was about… I was so angry! How dare she?! How very dare she?! Who the hell does she think is making a blanket statement like that?

This is so damaging and dangerous – I think this just plays right into the hands of rape-culture and these horrible men’s feelings of entitlement (as shown by the new groups Incels – shudder!). Most rape, Greer, is not lazy, or insensitive, or just bad sex! Good grief! It is entitlement at its highest! In my case it was the opposite of lazy – it was cold, calculated and controlling. It was manipulative and coercive and designed to break me, to put me back in my place, to reinforce who ran the show. It was dressed up by him as an attempt to “improve the intimacy in our marriage”. It was so the opposite of lazy, it took effort, so much effort on his part to put the mask back on and play happy marriage and happy family. I now call him ‘the gentleman rapist’. The only justice I will get is divorcing him for unreasonable behaviour.

There have been some very insightful articles so far – damning what she says One quote which stood out: (Germaine Greer’s comments on rape are dangerous and damaging – Laura Bates)

Ultimately, if Greer is saying we need to take rape less seriously, she needn’t worry … society is already doing a pretty great job of that all by itself.

I agree as some others have said that this is also very sad for Greer as this appears to me to be her coping mechanism; how she has processed her experience and lack of justice; her lack of belief that she could even get justice so didn’t even report it.Ironically, this will, I imagine be the only time my ex-husband will ever agree with Greer! He always disagreed with the stats about rape/abuse.

I was also angry about her comments that the idea that PTSD in rape victims was higher than in vets. The difference, and I think it is a significant one is training and expectation. Vets are trained to go into a combat zone, where they know the enemy is going to be hostile, where they have the knowledge that their team is behind them 100%. Those of us in abusive marriages/relationships go into it with the expectation that we are loved and will be looked after. We are not expecting our loved one to attack us, we are then isolated by them and so have no team at our back. We also, often, have the added worry of protecting our children. It is a completely different scenario, yet she paints it as us being delicate little snowflakes. We are frigging tough!

iwillbeok x

[iwillbeok]

Oops, was meant to say “…that the idea that PTSD in rape victims was higher than in vets, was laughable.”

[shine bright 2]

I’m sorry iwillbeok.sorry those things happened.

That’s so true what u say. When I talked to the police they said the rape is rarely about the need for sex but about the news for control and power over someone.

I married him as a teenager and in years of marriage it never occurred to me that what he did in that time was rape. When I left him he sort revenge. He raped me in a way designed to humiliate and destroy me. He did that while my kids slept in the other bedroom
He hit me so hard I couldn’t argue or fight anymore. He had take half my clothes off and he made me take the last bit off myself…the last tiny pieced dignity gone. I. Our religion some ki da of sex is not allowed. I was tired.and bleeding and he told me to turn over. I let him do it and I thought I would die there and then. He is big….eight stones heavier than me. It was agony. After I spent two days sitting on an ice pack wrapped in a towel. Sometimess I think I can still feel his spit I side my body from where he spat I side me.
Bad sex? No. He chose to do something he knew would cause me the deepest shame, that would rip and hurt me.

I think you are right about PTSD. Its the shock that someone who is supposes to love you could do those things to you. Its violence that isn’t in a battlefield but in you own home.

I think she needs help and I really wish she hadn’t said what’s he did.

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