Helen Mirren On Being Raped, And Why Women Should Just Learn To Work It Out

In a GQ interview this weekend, Helen Mirren shit all over rape victims, saying that when a victim chooses to engage in sexual activity with a man, she shouldn't press charges if he then goes on to sexually assault her. Mirren, who admits to being a victim of date rape during her college years, believes that a woman should know better than to kiss a man she doesn't intend to fuck in a private locale and should just keep that British stiff upper lip firmly in place if he then holds her down and forcibly inserts his penis into any of her orifices because, God knows, a man shouldn't be expected to stop engaging in sexual behavior just because a woman asks, let alone, screams, yells, cries or tries to escape.

Mirren told GQ:

If a woman voluntarily ends up in a man’s bedroom with her clothes off? It’s such a tricky area, isn’t it? Especially if there is no violence. I think she has the right to say no at the last second. But I don’t think she can have that man in court under those circumstances.

Mirren admits that she couldn't have reported her date rapes when they occurred, but, apparently, it's better that way. "I guess [date rape] is one of the many subtle parts of the men/women relationship that has to be negotiated and worked out between them," she says.

The attitude — as demonstrated by the Daily Mirror's Sue Carroll — that all date rape victims are women who wake up next to a guy they don't like and go running to the cops is so beyond ridicule that it's hard to even try. Carroll says:

Though in recent years we've become confused by the endless court cases where rape charges are totally demeaned by scorned, ruthless women seeking revenge against men.

Right, naturally. Carroll obviously lacks quite a bit of familiarity with both the legal system and "feminists" — who she accuses of encouraging women to report rapes that weren't rape-y enough for her taste.

Reporting a rape involves a physical examination of all your orifices (without lubrication, by the way, so as not to contaminate the samples) and hours of questioning by police officers, if not a search of your home and the confiscation of your possessions. It involves meeting with prosecutors if someone is even arrested and if you decide to prosecute, "pretend" cross examinations intended to make you cry and question yourself, and lots and lots and lots of talk about your sex life and other personal habits — the rape shield law doesn't shield you from much, actually. Cops will question your friends, they'll ask your significant other (if you have one) to submit a DNA sample and basically your whole life will be rooted through for quite a while to make sure you're not the half-mythical woman crying wolf. Like a rapist, the kind of person who would falsely report a rape is a seriously disturbed individual and not someone who slept with someone regrettable and is looking for some kind of excuse.

So, no, Dame Helen, women and men can't just work it out amongst themselves — unless women and (normal) men agree that all "date" rapists are just, you know, rapists. Knowing him, however briefly, or kissing him does not give him the right to force you (and it didn't give Helen's rapists the right to force her) and every woman should have an absolute right to prosecute her rapist. And a few sick women who get off on falsely accusing men shouldn't tar the rest of the world's victims or be held up as the reason the rest of us shouldn't be allowed to prosecute any more than a few sick men who get off on raping wome,n should be the reason I don't kiss a man I want to kiss, or hang out with a guy I don't intend to fuck.

Mirren Criticized Over Rape Remarks [Time]
Helen Mirren Talks About Being Date Raped, Loving Cocaine [LA Times]
On Helen Mirren: Women Must Wake Up To The Reality Of Date Rape [Mirror]

Send an email to Megan Carpentier, the author of this post, at askalobbyist@gmail.com.

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