Before we get to what the broadcaster George Hook said on his daily Newstalk radio show, lets look at how one Irish victim of rape responded.
"Victim blaming is all too familiar to women in Ireland. George is giving the message that men can do what they want and it is the drunken woman who is to blame," she said.
"Women have the right to be drunk. They have the right to say no. They have the right to walk naked down the street if they wish.
"Men have no right to rape a woman and people like George Hook need to stop circulating the message that women are to blame.
"What George said is that a man can’t help himself if he comes across a drunk woman. It takes the responsibility off men.’
Now that is a pretty eloquent condemnation by any standards.
Indeed the words of this woman, who herself suffered horrendous abuse, contrasts sharply with the words of Hook himself.
In response to a rape case before the courts in the UK George Hook said this: "When you look deeper in to the story you have to ask certain questions. Why does a girl who just meets a fella in a bar go back to a hotel room?
"She’s only just barely met him. She has no idea of his health conditions, she has no idea who he is, no idea what dangers he might pose. But modern day social activity means that she goes back with him. Then is surprised when somebody else comes in to the room and rapes her."
What George Hook is quite clearly suggesting, as he later goes on to add, is that there is blame attached to "the person who puts themselves in danger".
Now if you don’t know who George Hook is he is a rugby pundit and radio show host who currently hosts a show called High Noon and previously hosted a show called The Right Hook.
The show at any given time consists of the usual round up of right-wing opinions and prejudices and Hook revels in his role as a ‘controversialist’.
To be fair to him he can be quite entertaining, but in essence he is in the role of the put upon wealthy man of privilege who seems to think the whole world is ruled by political correctness.
It is not really surprising then that George Hook should suggest a woman who’d been raped was in some way to blame because she was drunk or dressed in a certain way or behaved in a certain way.
Strange how these men never seem to suggest anything similar about a man.
If I came out of the pub after a pint too many and wandered off down a dark street to go home would George Hook suggest it was my own fault if someone then jumped out and beat me to a pulp?
I might not have been wise, after all, to have had all of those pints but would that make someone else’s actions my fault?
We shouldn’t make this too much about George Hook however, because this Ireland of ours has long had something of a peculiar relationship with sex.
The Catholic Church that ruled us for so long ensured that this country has had difficulties in talking about or thinking coherently about sexual relationships.
The reality is that the Church’s hangover of condemnatory thinking and prudish disapproval probably means that Hook’s thinking is not confined to him.
We can not possibly forget that, within living generations, Irish women who committed the eternal sin of having sexual relationships outside of marriage were essentially imprisoned.
Hook’s equating then of a terrible crime with the victim of that crime’s behaviour probably has a long Irish echo.
George Hook has apologised for his comments, but has in effect merely apologised for saying what he believed.
One of his station’s major sponsors has withdrawn in protest at what he said.
As a man I am simply offended by Hook’s comments and the hidden suggestion that a drunk woman unable to defend herself would be irresistible to me because of my gender and that it would be her fault.
George Hook is fundamentally wrong. Rape is not committed because of drunk women or the sort of clothes worn or by unwisely going to a room with someone you don’t know.
Rape is committed by rapists.
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