Like many women, I've been raped, but I still agree with Ken Clarke | Suzanne Moore | Comment is free | The Guardian

I have been seduced and I have been raped. And unlike certain French intellectuals, I know the difference. Women do, actually. Though of course there are always the likes of Bernard-Henri Levy, with his shirt unbuttoned, just gagging for it while defending such lovely characters as Roman Polanski and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

When women say they have been raped there often follows an accompanying narrative of shame. "I feel so bad. So dirty. So stupid for getting into that situation." We blame ourselves because the culture blames us. I mean, what possessed me to think that I could go through my On the Road stage without that happening? I should have known it's different for girls, right?

It all happened to me a long time ago, and I am as angry at the law in the country that it happened in, as I am with the legal system in this country. What happened defines me less than many other events in my life. That's a choice, perhaps, that not everyone can make. Should I give you a juicy description, because this week rape is a sexy subject, isn't it? This is precisely why I won't. The most salient detail is that the rapist struggled to maintain an erection. This is not uncommon.

There will be people reading this who will respond, saying things such as, "I am not surprised", because some morons still think rape is about sexual attractiveness and desire. Some people think rape is just taking things a little bit too far rather than a form of social control; a way of keeping women in their place.

So was I very seriously raped or less seriously raped? He was a stranger after all. Is that more traumatising than being raped by someone who is meant to care about you? I don't know. I am not every woman. We are all different. Some men force sex on the women they "love" on a regular basis. Most women I know have had an experience of this happening at least once. Most have never gone to the police. I have always hated the expression "date rape" because usually no dates are involved. Rape is rape. But rape is not a party-political issue, and I am fairly disgusted that it has been treated that way this week.

Ken Clarke may have revealed some antediluvian attitudes - but he is practically Andrea Dworkin compared to someone such as John Redwood – and much of what he said was right.

Those who have attacked him have not done women any favours. Yes, in terms of the law, some rapes are more "serious" than others. Sentencing and punishment vary according to circumstances and aggravating factors. Lack of evidence is a key problem. Pretty much everyone agrees that our conviction rates for rape are appallingly low and the system has to change.

Where then do we start with those changes? It is easier to ask for Clarke's resignation and imagine that someone with a magnificently right-on agenda will replace him than actually ask what we might do to change attitudes.

Look at the Sun coming on all caring for rape victims on its front page and its pair of pert breasts on the next. The calls for Clarke's head on a plate are not coming out of a sudden feminist solidarity but because the rightwing don't like Clarke.

Ed Miliband demanding his resignation was another cheap shot. This is short-term point scoring and little to do with preventing rape. It is a terrible shame that just before this government got in Baroness Stern did a review that has now been ignored. Most of what she recommended was precisely about trying to improve rates of reporting, prosecutions and convictions.

All we have had from this government so far was the bizarre proposal from the Lib Dems about waiving anonymity for victims, which was thankfully thrown out. If you want to see that failed "policy" in action you have now only to look at the French again with their "sophisticated" understanding of privacy and affairs. In the Strauss-Kahn case they have named the victim and her child and talked about her looks, her breasts and her buttocks. As if rape is a crime committed only against white supermodels?

What Clarke was buffoonishly trying to express was an attempt to look at lesser sentences for those who plead guilty from the start. Prisons are overcrowded and expensive after all. In the case of rape this is also to try to avoid the trauma of trial, which for so many women is another further violation. We don't know if this will work but we do know that the legal system requires reform. This latest row scuppers rather than enhances the chances of that happening.

I have been quite astonished at the hypocrisy on display. People who have never expressed any interest in this subject (rape, like domestic violence, is seen as a dull "wimmins issue", a sad obsession of dour puritans) have suddenly roused themselves. Have these people been tirelessly campaigning for rape crisis centres to remain open? Or women not to be seen as fair game because they have had a drink? No. But I trust they will now be pressing Boris Johnson to keep open the one small rape crisis centre in London – as indeed he promised he would. That's one small centre serving nearly 4 million women.

What I would also like to see is men stopping covering each others' tracks. Men who rape and harass women often have form and yet their behaviour is covered up.

I have worked in offices where known sexual harassers were simply moved to another floor of the building after a series of complaints. One well-respected newspaper editor once gathered the staff to tell us: "Sexual harassment, dreadful business! Glad it doesn't happen here." But it did, and does in all workplaces, and of course it happens to the young and vulnerable women. It happens in Westminster. It happens at colleges. A tutor once summoned me to his study to inform me he had a wife and mistress but "what I am really looking for is a girlfriend". I don't believe his colleagues didn't know of his teaching "practice". Every time a high-profile man is accused of rape or harassment or assault, not only is there usually a backlog of complaints, there is usually a protective entourage. Tyson, Clinton, Schwarzenegger, Berlusconi etc etc. Powerful men have powerful urges, you see.

There is an argument that we should see rape as an extension of assault and not a specifically horrific crime. It is not the worst thing that can ever happen. A penis is simply a piece of flesh. That's all. But rape culturally is about power and humiliation and real, or threatened, violence.

My daughter, when a student, passed on to me a list of ways of avoiding being raped that her friends were passing around. It was put together after interviewing convicted rapists. What did they look for in their victims? What stuck in my mind was ponytails. They are easier to grab. When you are doing your hair just think about that. Tie your hair up? You are making yourself vulnerable. Have it loose. Well, that's loose.

In many ways, we all remain willfully ignorant in order to get on with our lives. But our political impotence makes this the most opportunistic of crimes. There is more than one way of imprisoning people and rape acts culturally as a form of incarceration. For women always. And for those men who do actually want us to set us free.

via guardian.co.uk