Most rape is just bad sex, she says. ‘We are told it’s one of the most violent crimes in the world – bullshit’. She added: ‘Most rape is just lazy, just careless, just insensitive. ‘Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal right, he is raping her. It will never end up in a court of law. ‘Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime – and some rapes are – think about it as non-consensual, that is, bad sex.
Her comments caused some people to walk out of the festival in anger. Sherry Pack said: ‘Dreadful ramblings by Germaine Greer… I’m usually happy to listen to opinions different to my own but today after around 20 minutes I had to walk out.’ Greer was asked what she thought an appropriate sentence for rape would be. ‘Two hundred hours of community service would do me,’ She said. ‘I have suggested maybe a little tattoo would be a good thing, maybe an R on your hand. I’d prefer it on the cheek really.’
In March this year, Greer was accused of victim-blaming after calling alleged victims of Harvey Weinstein ‘career rapees’. She also said the #MeToo movement had not been effective: ‘I don’t actually think it’s gone too far, I don’t think its got anywhere at all. What we need is to sort out the law regarding rape and to sort out our concept of what it is. ‘It’s pointless now bringing up this stuff when most of it no action can be taken. Why wait 20 years?’
