Peter Hitchens hates what I do: writing honestly what I think when it annoys him. I'm permanently on the naughty step as far as he's concerned. And this is no exeption - yes he's vomited his vile views about rape again. And yes I'm going to call him an idiot. How anyone so blessed, so clearly intelligent and capable can be so utterly wrong, so astonishingly wrong, so totally bloody stupidly wrong amazes me. It really does.
The naive Mail on Sunday reader may have been seduced into thinking Peter was defending Kenneth Clarke when really it was a convenient vehicle for Peter to peddle his disgusting misogynist views:
"Modern liberals make a few exceptions to their view that lawbreakers need to be let out of jail quickly. One is over child-molesting, which has become the one form of sexual behaviour of which we can all still disapprove. One is when people ‘take the law into their own hands’, by defending themselves, their families or their property. The courts and the police view this as competition, and fear it. So it is crushed with heavy sentences. Another is offences against political correctness. And another is rape. But in this case rape does not usually mean what most people think it means – the forcible abduction and violation of a woman by a stranger. It means a dispute about consent, often between people who are already in a sexual relationship."
Often, not always. So being held down and forcibly sexually penetrated by a friend, relative or neighbour isn't rape it's just a 'dispute about consent'? Oh well, nothing to see here then, move along, no biggy?
And he disapproves of "child molestation" but an uncle grabbing a child on thier 16th birthday and ramming his penis into the now legal adult is just a 'dispute about consent' is it? Not rape. Not real rape.
The last time I looked being raped by your spouse had been outlawed. Presumably Peter Hitchens thinks this is a liberal step too far?
If memory serves me well I think Clarissa Dickson Wright was involved in the last case of legal marital rape. The police forcibly returned a wife to her husband to be forcibly buggered to satisfy his sexual tastes and marital rights? Presumably Peter Hitchens doesn't think that amounts to rape. Just a slight marital dispute then? A domestic. A recalcitrant wife and her forgiving husband, silly old bugger eh?
Other journalists have defended Ken Clarke more intelligently and sensitively. But this offering from Peter is more about his views than Clarkes'. And on this issue I think Peter Hitchens can just bugger off.
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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