I’ve always bristled at the “regret” sex argument. That scenario is only rendered possible if you have deep shame about the event and are trying to cover that up. They are the ones creating conditions of shame and sin. I’ve had regrettable sex but it was consensual. Since I think consenting adults can have sex when they want to even if they are unmarried, there’s no reason for further action. Clutch pearls here. The false allegation is very rare and the idea that you’d put yourself through an invasive exam just to screw some guy over is ridiculous and shows how much we hate women.
My rapist was a friend. I was 11. He was 14. I never told anyone until I was an adult.
I was assaulted by people known to me. Groped. Kissed non consensually. Coerced into uncomfortable situations.
In the dozen times over my lifetime (I’m now 52) only ONCE was a stranger.
A customer where I worked.
And I was fired for defending myself.
That episode had me in tears. Dana’s breakdown in the bathroom also showed just how much these cases affect the SANE nurses. This was an adult woman. Imagine these nurses having to do this with a child.
I can not imagine how anyone can see this as “feminist propaganda”.
Dang, the comments on Bettina’s article show exactly what kind of people agree with her take (hint: i would not want to hang out with any of them). When i was growing up, it was commonly seen as very romantic for a man to persistently ignore the woman’s lack of interest and pursue her relentlessly until she gave in. This was all part and parcel of the societal moral code that men want it and “good” women don’t. Women were supposed to act like they did not want the man, because wanting the man would make her a slut. The only way a “good” woman could have sex is if the man pressured her into it. So many movies were built around this premise, with the woman all dewy eyed afterwards, like, oh thank you for making me see the light, you gorgeous hunk o’ man!
"Because apparently, some people like Bettina Arndt are still clinging to the idea that rape only really counts when it happens in an alley, committed by a stranger, preferably with ominous lighting and no prior social context. Anything else becomes murky. Complicated. Debatable. Regrettable. A misunderstanding. A private matter. A “bad experience.”"
I wonder if Bettina had this happen to her and has not yet had the framework to understand that it's okay to call a spade a spade. It took me 5 (yes. FUCKING FIVE) rapes at the hands of my "friends" and a lot of reading before my own experience slapped me upside the head. College and my 20s did a number on me.
Either way, I'd watched this exact episode with my now ex partner and applauded Dana for handling this beautifully and how she gave that patient dignity, time, and space- something that unfortunately a crowded emergency room in real life doesn't always provide.
That same ex partner then raped me a few weeks later. I could tell that either he didn't pay attention to the episode of the Pitt, didn't listen to me or simply was like Bettina and shrugged off that non consent and rape are the same thing.
At least that's part of the monolouge I had with him as I tore objects off of his bookshelves like picture frames of the 2 of us together and chucked them at the wall.
As an Australian woman over fifty, I grew up in a world where Bettina Arendt was in every magazine and on every talk show. She was promoted as “the guru” of the female perspective in her career as a sex therapist, and considered to be radically feminist at that time. However, that didn’t last long.
In her midlife her opinions changed dramatically, and in my personal experience of reading things she has said, and seeing her on tv, it became apparent that even in her early career, when she was ostensibly promoting women’s sexual health and freedom, the truth is that at heart, she has always been far more interested in upholding traditional patterns than in forging better ones.
Some might call her a crumb maiden? I would use a much harsher term.
I remember reading something she wrote decades ago, when I was fairly newly married. This was before she began being so overtly outwardly patriarchal. It was about the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire. In today’s light her writing was the same old trope, but at the time I just remember being angry about it. She said that most women are responsive rather than spontaneous and would probably never WANT sex until AFTER they started having it. Which is a disingenuous description of how desire works. Even if you don’t “want” it in the moment, you still have to WANT to “want” it, in order to be prepared to relax and allow your body to develop the desire in its own time.
That’s the fundamental basis of consent, after all!!
Bettina in her position as newspaper agony aunt/relationship counsellor replied to a woman who was struggling to find any desire in her relationship ship, with something along the lines of (I’m paraphrasing) “some women don’t want to so they have to ‘push the boat out’ first, and then they go, oh, this is actually fun after all! So if you never experience spontaneous desire but your husband does then you just have to push the boat out anyway and just wait till the desire happens.”
In other words- it doesn’t matter if YOU don’t want sex, just do it anyway and cross your fingers that you might not hate it.
I remember at the time thinking that was so, so, wrong, when women are already told to put up and shut up and that their pleasure isn’t important as long as the men are satisfied.
Since that time she has become a very public rape and abuse apologist and attracted much controversy from the Australian public for it.
Two days ago a post of hers popped up in my feed and I got so mad I blocked her. It was about how the poor men are doing all the “right things” to prepare for marriage but the majority of young women are making themselves “undesirable” by being, you know, independent, and having firm boundaries, and healthy self esteem!
I just had a quick glance at the Wikipedia page for her and TBH it pretty much sums up exactly what I was going to write here:
“Bettina Mary Arndt AM (born 1 August 1949) is an Australian writer and commentator who specialises in sex and gender issues. Starting as a sex therapist, she established her career in the 1970s publishing and broadcasting as well as writing several books. In the last two decades she has abandoned feminism and attracted controversy with her social commentary and her views on sexual abuse, domestic violence and men's rights advocacy.”
Actually, if you feel like getting angry yourself, go check out the entire Wikipedia entry. It is very accurate and also a very depressing description of someone who absolutely drank the Kool Aid.
So her entire world view is that women have to be married, and since every woman is required to be married then every woman must accept having sex they don't enjoy as part of the job of being married. Since she grew up and became an adult in a world where ever woman was required to be married to survive she sees having sex in exchange for oom and board aka prostitution, as normal, and part of being a meme we of the slave class who must accept our humiliation and harm and soldier on. It's revolting but understandable that she didn't peel back the layers of the onion to the degree that would dismantle the basic premise that the world functions in that way unchangeably. Many women of their time focused on bailing water out of the boat rather than patching the hole, and some patched the hole but didn't get out and swim for shore, or row harder to get off the water.
I worked as an RN in the Emergency Department of a US hospital for over 7 years. I have avoided watching The Pitt because so many medical shows are just soap operas with stethoscopes… ugh! But now I feel the need to tune in because it sounds not only realistic but also honest.
You stated “It is a show where jokes exist because the room is often unbearable without them.” That is the true vibe in an ER… we joke when we can because without that release valve called humor, most of us would spend every break crying in the corner. As it is, we still spend some weeping, just not all.
The system is broken but there are still caregivers who give their all everyday. The society is also broken when someone like Bettina spouts her garbage and a single person considers her perspective viable in the slightest. Thank you for pushing back!!!
Thank you! And everyone I know who works in healthcare says how realistic the show is, which depending on your level of burnt out might not be fun to watch, but it’s definitely not your standard medical drama.
Thank you! That was a great forensic examination of the idiocy that seems to surround rape. I don’t think I’ve read a better explanation of the monstrous condemnation both men and women uses to excuse rape and victim blame.
The thing that this makes me wonder if she's just lashing out because she *didn't* get that. It's (potentially) the same mentality as those who are against student debt relief because 'I had to pay mine back,' never mind that the economics of the time were completely different.
"I had to suffer, so instead of making things better, I just want to make sure everyone else suffers too."
Whatever her actual reasons, it's a very poor take, imo.
I wish people who adhere to the "regret sex" narrative would stop and think about the last thing they did that they regretted and how they handled it, cause I doubt they felt an urge to do anything like what a SA report and exam entails. Let alone the facet of accusing somebody of crime when you know they didn't do it.
I loved this storyline of The Pitt. So perfectly acted by the great Katherine LaNasa, and it's a fantastic example of TV taking a moral stance and acting like the teaching tool and moral leader it is at its best. If you want more of this excellence, I highly recommend the TV series UNBELIEVABLE, based on the equally gripping true-crime book by two Pulitzer prizewinning journalists.https://amzn.to/4nDFeFP Two outstanding female detectives are played by two outstanding actors: Merritt Wever and Toni Colette, crackling with chemistry as they show their misogynist male colleagues how a serial rape investigation is supposed to be handled. First episode, before the female cops take over, is very hard to watch - but it's a chilling indictment of the US "justice" system as is - and as it COULD and should be.
Arndt has been an apologist for rape and for men’s atrocious behaviour since forever. She’s built her entire career feeding into and supporting misogyny. Incels love her.
Sexual assault is still so stigmatised I’m not surprised some people couldn’t handle watching the actual process and steps of a rape kit. Of course they are quiet. It’s called respect, not fragility. The idea that a woman would go through not only - possibly - the most invasive exam known to woman, but the social consequences of saying out loud “I was raped and I’m not staying quiet about it”. Look at how women with mountains of evidence are treated, why the hell would a woman put herself in a position to go through that simply because.. what? The sex was unenjoyable or the guy was uglier than she thought on the night??? It’s inconceivable. The internalised misogyny it takes for a woman to hold that pov is wild.
Of course this is not discounting rape victims who have been shamed into silence or who are afraid or truly don’t realise that what happened was rape because society likes to gaslight women about what constitutes “real rape”. I have nothing but love for my fellow survivors and I know a support system is an important part of healing and coming to terms with everything. However, women shaming other women as seen in the article is just not the answer to anything.
I’ve always bristled at the “regret” sex argument. That scenario is only rendered possible if you have deep shame about the event and are trying to cover that up. They are the ones creating conditions of shame and sin. I’ve had regrettable sex but it was consensual. Since I think consenting adults can have sex when they want to even if they are unmarried, there’s no reason for further action. Clutch pearls here. The false allegation is very rare and the idea that you’d put yourself through an invasive exam just to screw some guy over is ridiculous and shows how much we hate women.
100%
Studies have proved over and over that the statistics of false allegation are the same as false allegations for every other crime - between 2 - 8%.
My rapist was a friend. I was 11. He was 14. I never told anyone until I was an adult.
I was assaulted by people known to me. Groped. Kissed non consensually. Coerced into uncomfortable situations.
In the dozen times over my lifetime (I’m now 52) only ONCE was a stranger.
A customer where I worked.
And I was fired for defending myself.
That episode had me in tears. Dana’s breakdown in the bathroom also showed just how much these cases affect the SANE nurses. This was an adult woman. Imagine these nurses having to do this with a child.
I can not imagine how anyone can see this as “feminist propaganda”.
Dang, the comments on Bettina’s article show exactly what kind of people agree with her take (hint: i would not want to hang out with any of them). When i was growing up, it was commonly seen as very romantic for a man to persistently ignore the woman’s lack of interest and pursue her relentlessly until she gave in. This was all part and parcel of the societal moral code that men want it and “good” women don’t. Women were supposed to act like they did not want the man, because wanting the man would make her a slut. The only way a “good” woman could have sex is if the man pressured her into it. So many movies were built around this premise, with the woman all dewy eyed afterwards, like, oh thank you for making me see the light, you gorgeous hunk o’ man!
"Because apparently, some people like Bettina Arndt are still clinging to the idea that rape only really counts when it happens in an alley, committed by a stranger, preferably with ominous lighting and no prior social context. Anything else becomes murky. Complicated. Debatable. Regrettable. A misunderstanding. A private matter. A “bad experience.”"
I wonder if Bettina had this happen to her and has not yet had the framework to understand that it's okay to call a spade a spade. It took me 5 (yes. FUCKING FIVE) rapes at the hands of my "friends" and a lot of reading before my own experience slapped me upside the head. College and my 20s did a number on me.
Either way, I'd watched this exact episode with my now ex partner and applauded Dana for handling this beautifully and how she gave that patient dignity, time, and space- something that unfortunately a crowded emergency room in real life doesn't always provide.
That same ex partner then raped me a few weeks later. I could tell that either he didn't pay attention to the episode of the Pitt, didn't listen to me or simply was like Bettina and shrugged off that non consent and rape are the same thing.
At least that's part of the monolouge I had with him as I tore objects off of his bookshelves like picture frames of the 2 of us together and chucked them at the wall.
Beautifully written piece as always dear 🫶
Me about your ex:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120484/mediaviewer/rm1354152961/
😂 I love you, you're the kind of friend I am 🫶
I won't do shit to people that hurt me, if someone messes with my friends or family though, oof.
As an Australian woman over fifty, I grew up in a world where Bettina Arendt was in every magazine and on every talk show. She was promoted as “the guru” of the female perspective in her career as a sex therapist, and considered to be radically feminist at that time. However, that didn’t last long.
In her midlife her opinions changed dramatically, and in my personal experience of reading things she has said, and seeing her on tv, it became apparent that even in her early career, when she was ostensibly promoting women’s sexual health and freedom, the truth is that at heart, she has always been far more interested in upholding traditional patterns than in forging better ones.
Some might call her a crumb maiden? I would use a much harsher term.
I remember reading something she wrote decades ago, when I was fairly newly married. This was before she began being so overtly outwardly patriarchal. It was about the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire. In today’s light her writing was the same old trope, but at the time I just remember being angry about it. She said that most women are responsive rather than spontaneous and would probably never WANT sex until AFTER they started having it. Which is a disingenuous description of how desire works. Even if you don’t “want” it in the moment, you still have to WANT to “want” it, in order to be prepared to relax and allow your body to develop the desire in its own time.
That’s the fundamental basis of consent, after all!!
Bettina in her position as newspaper agony aunt/relationship counsellor replied to a woman who was struggling to find any desire in her relationship ship, with something along the lines of (I’m paraphrasing) “some women don’t want to so they have to ‘push the boat out’ first, and then they go, oh, this is actually fun after all! So if you never experience spontaneous desire but your husband does then you just have to push the boat out anyway and just wait till the desire happens.”
In other words- it doesn’t matter if YOU don’t want sex, just do it anyway and cross your fingers that you might not hate it.
I remember at the time thinking that was so, so, wrong, when women are already told to put up and shut up and that their pleasure isn’t important as long as the men are satisfied.
Since that time she has become a very public rape and abuse apologist and attracted much controversy from the Australian public for it.
Two days ago a post of hers popped up in my feed and I got so mad I blocked her. It was about how the poor men are doing all the “right things” to prepare for marriage but the majority of young women are making themselves “undesirable” by being, you know, independent, and having firm boundaries, and healthy self esteem!
I just had a quick glance at the Wikipedia page for her and TBH it pretty much sums up exactly what I was going to write here:
“Bettina Mary Arndt AM (born 1 August 1949) is an Australian writer and commentator who specialises in sex and gender issues. Starting as a sex therapist, she established her career in the 1970s publishing and broadcasting as well as writing several books. In the last two decades she has abandoned feminism and attracted controversy with her social commentary and her views on sexual abuse, domestic violence and men's rights advocacy.”
Actually, if you feel like getting angry yourself, go check out the entire Wikipedia entry. It is very accurate and also a very depressing description of someone who absolutely drank the Kool Aid.
So her entire world view is that women have to be married, and since every woman is required to be married then every woman must accept having sex they don't enjoy as part of the job of being married. Since she grew up and became an adult in a world where ever woman was required to be married to survive she sees having sex in exchange for oom and board aka prostitution, as normal, and part of being a meme we of the slave class who must accept our humiliation and harm and soldier on. It's revolting but understandable that she didn't peel back the layers of the onion to the degree that would dismantle the basic premise that the world functions in that way unchangeably. Many women of their time focused on bailing water out of the boat rather than patching the hole, and some patched the hole but didn't get out and swim for shore, or row harder to get off the water.
The comment section on Bettina's article is really something...just wow.
I worked as an RN in the Emergency Department of a US hospital for over 7 years. I have avoided watching The Pitt because so many medical shows are just soap operas with stethoscopes… ugh! But now I feel the need to tune in because it sounds not only realistic but also honest.
You stated “It is a show where jokes exist because the room is often unbearable without them.” That is the true vibe in an ER… we joke when we can because without that release valve called humor, most of us would spend every break crying in the corner. As it is, we still spend some weeping, just not all.
The system is broken but there are still caregivers who give their all everyday. The society is also broken when someone like Bettina spouts her garbage and a single person considers her perspective viable in the slightest. Thank you for pushing back!!!
Thank you! And everyone I know who works in healthcare says how realistic the show is, which depending on your level of burnt out might not be fun to watch, but it’s definitely not your standard medical drama.
Somehow I'm always surprised at the lengths some women will go to trying to protect even a fictional rapist.
I shouldn't be, but I am.
Brilliant, Thank you.
Wow! This is so well done. Thank you for sharing your voice.
Thank you! That was a great forensic examination of the idiocy that seems to surround rape. I don’t think I’ve read a better explanation of the monstrous condemnation both men and women uses to excuse rape and victim blame.
The thing that this makes me wonder if she's just lashing out because she *didn't* get that. It's (potentially) the same mentality as those who are against student debt relief because 'I had to pay mine back,' never mind that the economics of the time were completely different.
"I had to suffer, so instead of making things better, I just want to make sure everyone else suffers too."
Whatever her actual reasons, it's a very poor take, imo.
I wish people who adhere to the "regret sex" narrative would stop and think about the last thing they did that they regretted and how they handled it, cause I doubt they felt an urge to do anything like what a SA report and exam entails. Let alone the facet of accusing somebody of crime when you know they didn't do it.
What weird motivations they ascribe to women.
I loved this storyline of The Pitt. So perfectly acted by the great Katherine LaNasa, and it's a fantastic example of TV taking a moral stance and acting like the teaching tool and moral leader it is at its best. If you want more of this excellence, I highly recommend the TV series UNBELIEVABLE, based on the equally gripping true-crime book by two Pulitzer prizewinning journalists.https://amzn.to/4nDFeFP Two outstanding female detectives are played by two outstanding actors: Merritt Wever and Toni Colette, crackling with chemistry as they show their misogynist male colleagues how a serial rape investigation is supposed to be handled. First episode, before the female cops take over, is very hard to watch - but it's a chilling indictment of the US "justice" system as is - and as it COULD and should be.
Arndt has been an apologist for rape and for men’s atrocious behaviour since forever. She’s built her entire career feeding into and supporting misogyny. Incels love her.
Sexual assault is still so stigmatised I’m not surprised some people couldn’t handle watching the actual process and steps of a rape kit. Of course they are quiet. It’s called respect, not fragility. The idea that a woman would go through not only - possibly - the most invasive exam known to woman, but the social consequences of saying out loud “I was raped and I’m not staying quiet about it”. Look at how women with mountains of evidence are treated, why the hell would a woman put herself in a position to go through that simply because.. what? The sex was unenjoyable or the guy was uglier than she thought on the night??? It’s inconceivable. The internalised misogyny it takes for a woman to hold that pov is wild.
Of course this is not discounting rape victims who have been shamed into silence or who are afraid or truly don’t realise that what happened was rape because society likes to gaslight women about what constitutes “real rape”. I have nothing but love for my fellow survivors and I know a support system is an important part of healing and coming to terms with everything. However, women shaming other women as seen in the article is just not the answer to anything.