Rape is rarely violent and is mostly 'just lazy, careless and insensitive' says Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer has sparked controversy after suggesting that rape is not a violent crime, likening the offence to ‘bad sex’.

The feminist icon has called for huge reforms in the way that rapes are treated in the eyes of the law, and joked that tattooing rapists with an ‘R’ could prove to be the most suitable punishment.

Appearing at the Hay Festival, Greer said: ‘Most rapes don’t involve any injury whatsoever.

‘We are told it’s one of the most violent crimes in the world – bull—-. Most rape is just lazy, just careless, just insensitive.

‘Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal right, he is raping her. It will never end up in a court of law.’

She added: ‘Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime – and some rapes are – think about it as non-consensual, that is, bad sex.

‘Sex where there is no communication, no tenderness, no mention of love. We used to talk about lovemaking.’

Greer later poured scorn on the idea that ’70 per cent of rape victims suffer PTSD and only 20 per cent of veterans’.

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‘At this point you think, what the hell are you saying? That something that leaves no sign, no injury, nothing, is more damaging to women than seeing your best friend blown up by an IED is to a veteran?’, she explained.

Describing her own ordeal as a teenager, she said: ‘In case you’re wondering whether with my apparently flippant attitude I actually have any understanding of the gravity of the crime of rape, I was violently raped days before my 19th birthday. I was beaten half-unconscious.

‘I was found wandering in the street very confused and rescued, thank God, because the people in the car were a man and a woman. If there had been four men in that car I don’t think you would have heard of me again.’