In which a MEP decides he wants to open a few cans of worms and merrily roll about in them
rogerhelmermep.wordpress.comSeriously what is this guy on.
So, after deciding he wants to discuss murder (hilariously using an example that is degrading to women, just for good measure) and throwing in that England should bring back hanging, This Roger Helmer guy bundles into the issue of rape. In support of Ken Clarke’s suggestion that some rape is serious and some rape is not.
And his examples of rape are fantastically bad, I actually vomited a little in my mouth.
“The first is the classic “stranger-rape”, where a masked individual emerges from the bushes, hits his victim over the head with a blunt instrument, drags her into the undergrowth and rapes her, and the leaves her unconscious, careless whether she lives or dies.
The second is “date rape”. Imagine that a woman voluntarily goes to her boyfriend’s apartment, voluntarily goes into the bedroom, voluntarily undresses and gets into bed, perhaps anticipating sex, or naïvely expecting merely a cuddle. But at the last minute she gets cold feet and says “Stop!”. The young man, in the heat of the moment, is unable to restrain himself and carries on.”
Ok. Ok. Let’s start my saying his example of stranger rape aka “serious rape” is a hilariously cliched scene that is actually uncommon, most rapes are not a guy leaping out and attacking at random. it is these ideas of what rape is that stops a lot of victims from actually reporting attacks, because they feel the law will not take them seriously if they were not grabbed at random and let in an alleyway by some bins for a homeless man to find. By perpetuating this belief that ‘real rape’ is stranger rape where a man grabs you at random and attacks you no only isolates victims but also supports victim blame in other rape cases.
I’m not going to even start on his second scenario yet because this guy is a gift that keeps on giving, and his comments concerning the second scenario are just rage-inducing gold;-
Let me make another point which will certainly get me vilified, but which I think is important to make: while in the first case, the blame is squarely on the perpetrator and does not attach to the victim, in the second case the victim surely shares a part of the responsibility, if only for establishing reasonable expectations in her boyfriend’s mind.
Ok, so, if you are attacked at random by a stranger it probably isn’t your fault. But if you go to bed with a member of the opposite, or same, sex and you have a relationship with them but you don’t actually want to have sex, you just want to sleep, well that is just naïve. You are just a silly woman to assume that you can lie in a bed with your partner and he isn’t going to think you want to have sex with him, and to think that saying “stop” or “not tonight” is going to having any effect is laughable, because it is perfectly acceptable for your partner to demand sex from you without your consent. According to this guy, who later says “It is naive for a woman to undress and get into a man’s bed and not expect him to draw the obvious conclusion.”
so rapists that leap from bushes deserve to get hanged, apparently, but rape within relationships and marriages is the fault of the victim being petulant and naïve for thinking they have the right to say no to sex when in bed, trying to sleep, with their partner.
And I suppose other cases that fall into ‘date rape’ which is really just ‘acquaintance rape’, where a victim knows or has spoken to the rapist in some way prior to the attack and is commonly felicitated by drugs and alcohol, I suppose is somewhere in the middle? I suppose he can assume the victim has some blame because if you talk to someone or accept the offer of a drink off them, or drunkly dance or kiss them, maybe flirt with them or none of the above just simply know their name you could be giving the impression sex is on the cards.
I mean, really, his little second scenario there is suggesting that in a relationship the woman in the man’s property. He can have sex with her whenever he wants, whether she likes it or not, and she is a fool to think otherwise.
Not only this but men are completely out of control of their actions. Being in proximity to a women in any stage of undress and in or near a bed automatically leaves them with no choice but to have sex with them, even if the woman refuses.
This is not only an old-fashioned, misinformed and horrifically stupid view on rape, it is also damaging to victims and offensive to both men and women whether they are rape victims or not. I’m tiring of this notion that all men are potential rapists that cannot control themselves given certain circumstances so women must learn how to not provoke the rapist within. Seriously.
Just another Torie MEP digging a hole. I’m starting to think they are all just pigs.
Really, look up this guy’s wikipedia page. He’s more trouble than he’s worth really. He’s just a bit of a douche.
And apparently on top of being an expenses fiddling, homophobic, rude against the church, anti-trans, pro-health-privatisation, unable to stick to a speed limit and rude to environmentalists he’s a rape-sympathising misogynist. Lovely.
Read the comments for a little more faith in the public, but why are these people in my government?
[TRIGGER WARNING] "Some rape victims shares responsibility for the crime."
rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com
Link to his original article.
This discussion from the Guardian.
Helmer described a “classic stranger rape” scenario, where a “masked individual emerges from the bushes, hits his victim over the head with a blunt instrument, drags her into the undergrowth and rapes her, and then leaves her unconscious, careless whether she lives or dies”.
He then described “date rape” as being when a woman “voluntarily goes to her boyfriend’s apartment, voluntarily goes into the bedroom, voluntarily undresses and gets into bed, perhaps anticipating sex, or naively expecting merely a cuddle.
“But at the last minute she gets cold feet and says ‘Stop!’ The young man, in the heat of the moment, is unable to restrain himself and carries on.
“In both cases an offence has been committed, and the perpetrators deserve to be convicted and punished.
“But whereas in the first case, I’d again be quite happy to hang the guy, I think that most right-thinking people would expect a much lighter sentence in the second case. Rape is always wrong, but not always equally culpable.”
The East Midlands MEP admitted he would be vilified for adding: “While in the first case, the blame is squarely on the perpetrator and does not attach to the victim; in the second case, the victim surely shares a part of the responsibility, if only for establishing reasonable expectations in her boyfriend’s mind.”
You know what a reasonable expectation is? That a boy will respect the fact that NO means NO. No means no if the person (because you know, men get raped too) is drunk. No means no if the person is dressed like a stripper. No means no if the person is naked in your bed. No means no if the persons says yes first and then changes her mind. When no has been said, the girl no longer has any responsibility; it is the boys responsibility to understand the basic fact that NO MEANS NO.
It is a reasonable expectation that a man should CHOOSE not to rape a woman. That is the only expectation that matters and the only person to blame is the perpetrator.
Roger Helmer, ladies and gentlemen.
Yeah, I can’t think of any historical cultures which had gays, it’s been universally hated.
Oh gods.
Why did I look into this man’s history and past comments? What the actual fuck.
I’m going to stop posting about him now hopefully so we can all forget and go back to being happy in the lack of knowledge that this person actually exists and is actually representing my country on a national level to the actual European Union and people actually voted for him.
Oh my God. Roger Helmer makes me want to commit crimes (which if I commit in certain circumstances, he'll stick up for me!) Why are people like him even allowed to voice their opinions?
If you beat him up he might argue that possibly he was partly responsible for the beating and as such you should have a lenient sentence - because, really, after getting onto a blog and writing a post like that, surely he should understand that he is giving off signals that he wants to be physically harmed? Your expectation that you should be allowed to injure him is reasonable given the context.
Thankfully his blog has a very amusing looking picture of him and a very low-resolution photograph of the Union Jack as his banner - these are clear signs that he should not be considered reasonable. Also that banner has white text overlapping with very light grey images, which is a dreadful idea.
Free speech, of course. Frankly I don’t mind that he’s allowed to say what he thinks… it’s quite refreshing to have a politician who is open and obvious about their bigotry, one who openly admits to being stuck in the 19th century, rather than one who tries to deny that they hold horrifyingly outdated views (see the British National Party). I believe the idea is that if these kinds of people have a platform to speak on, then the people will theoretically see how awful they are and not vote for them.
Roger Helmer On "Tory Radio"
toryradio.comSo I was looking through Roger Helmer’s blog to see if he’d posted anything else I could have a good rant at him for because, I’ll be honest, there are very few things I find quite as gratifying as having a good rant at someone who is deserving. I saw that there’d been an edit to the last post he made about rape - he’s apparently done a radio interview! So obviously I clicked and had a good listen.
[Roger Helmer] said following intense interest in his original piece.
“Intense interest”? That’s an unusual way of describing 227 overwhelmingly negative comments essentially saying variations on “how the fuck can you possibly justify this viewpoint”.
Do you know, one of the curious things I have found during my years in politics is that very often people read a blog or an article that I have written and instead of reading what I have actually said, they put on it an interpretation of what they think I might have said or perhaps would have said, so I frequently get criticism, I find for saying things that I actually didn’t say at all.
In the second case the victim surely shares a part of the responsibility.
The young man, in the heat of the moment, is unable to restrain himself and carries on.
I think that most right-thinking people would expect a much lighter sentence in the second case.
Actually, I think you’ll find you’re being blamed for the things you did say. Nobody else needs to make things up to paint you as unreasonable, you do an awfully good job of doing that yourself.
