Helen Mirren, 63, gave a recent interview to GQ Magazine in which she made some controversial statements about date rape. She is being criticized for saying date rape is still rape, but essentially that women shouldn’t be able to prosecute for it because it’s hard to prove. When you read what she said, the first part sounds reasonable enough, then she makes the assertion that date rape is between two people and shouldn’t be prosecuted in court. It really sounds like she’s saying that these cases should never go to court and that women should have no option other than to deal with the consequences. There is somewhat of a gray area and if something goes as far as she’s stipulating - a woman is there naked on her own free will, the man rapes her, etc. - that’s definitely hard to prove. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t go to court though.
Sadly, Helen says she was date raped twice as a young woman and that she didn’t do anything about it or go to the police because it was hard to prove. It sounds like she thinks other women should keep their silence about it too. To bring her convoluted point home, Mirren says that Mike Tyson isn’t a rapist. Tyson was convicted of raping an 18 year-old beauty pageant contestant in 1991 and served three years out of a six year sentence. The woman had gone voluntarily to his hotel room.
The 63-year-old actress said when she was younger she was forced to have sex against her will and was too “naive” to say no.
Asked if she reported the incidents to the police, she told GQ magazine: “No, you couldn’t do that in those days.
“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.”
If a woman voluntarily ends up in a man’s bedroom, takes all her clothes off and engages in sexual activity in bed with him she has the right to say “no” at the last second, Dame Helen said.
If the man ignored her it was rape, Dame Helen said.
But she said: “I don’t think she can have that man into court under those circumstances.
“I guess it is one of the many subtle parts of the men/women relationship that has to be negotiated and worked out between them.
“Times have changed. I hate young girls going around beating each other up, but I love the fierceness of young girls nowadays, and the way they just say, ‘f*** off’, because I wish I’d been taught to say ‘f*** off’ when I was younger.
“I wish I’d had those words in my arsenal of self-defence. Instead, I was polite and didn’t have the courage to say that to men who wouldn’t accept ‘no’ for an answer.
“I was pretty naive, I went to a convent school until I was 18, and had never spent a night away from home, or gone to parties, or any of that.
“So I was very innocent when I went to college in London, and I was living on my own. And I found guys were horrible, mean, rude, insulting, and so without feeling.
“And I was looking for love and for someone who just liked me, made me laugh and was nice to me. And instead I just met all these creeps.”
She said of her own experiences: “I was (date-raped), yes. A couple of times.
“Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and made to have sex against my will.”
[From Telegraph.co.uk]
If someone locks a woman in a room and forces her to have sex against her will, that’s rape. Of course there are cases when women “lead a man on,” but rape is never justified and that often seems to be the defense that is usually used in these type of cases. It’s also something that’s very difficult to prove.
By saying that it’s something two people have to work out between themselves, Mirren sounds like she wants to set women back 40 years to what she had to go through. Why should women negotiate with men who raped them, or somehow forgive them at the time? That assumes that it’s a reasonable situation with a reasonable person, which it isn’t if rape is involved. Do you think Mirren is still dealing with the pain of what happened to her as a young woman? If she thinks there was no recourse, maybe she feels that she can close the door on something that she had no control over.
Helen Mirren is shown on 6/30/08 at an Armani fashion show. Credit: WENN
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