Punishment rape: Violence towards lesbians

We need feminism to challenge the misogyny inherent to anti-lesbian violence

Lesbian couple in Cape Town, South Africa, where violence against lesbians is off-the-scale

Another day, more violent threats by men against lesbians. I had word from a feminist contact in southeastern Brazil about a parliamentarian (I will call her Lorena, a pseudonym) receiving threats of punishment rape (sometimes described inappropriately, as ‘corrective rape’).

A man, who claimed to have Lorena’s address sent her a message via social media with the subject, “Rape cures lesbians and I can prove it”.

The man claimed that "Corrective Rape" therapy can "cure lesbianism" and that “it's not about violence”.

Lorena is the first female to be elected in the area, and a feminist. Therefore, all hell is about to break loose when she finally identifies the perpetrator.

Threats of punishment rape are commonplace, as is the crime itself.

In 2009, Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's acclaimed national female football squad was raped and murdered in her hometown of KwaThema, Gauteng. An out and proud lesbian in life, in death she was reduced to a bloodied and brutalised corpse, dumped in a creek in a park on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Simelane had been raped repeatedly by a number of men, viciously beaten, and repeatedly stabbed. Simelane was a victim of “corrective rape” committed by men who use the excuse that they are trying to “cure” lesbians into heterosexuality. Lesbian activists in South Africa tell me that such crimes remain largely undocumented and wholly unpunished, and continue to call for police to take action and for the victims, if they survive, to be supported.

Sounds familiar? Whilst the UK is far ahead of other countries in terms of how we deal with rape and sexual assault, there are many parallels between here and SA. For example, in England and Wales currently, the conviction rate for rape is around 1% per cent of all those reported to police, the lowest in decades. Punishment rapes happen in the UK, the US, and elsewhere. Wherever violent men resent women that reject them.

Punishment rape, as I prefer to call the phenomenon, happens everywhere and to all categories of women. Twenty years ago this month, Sakia Gunn, a 15-year old lesbian was raped and murdered in the US after telling her assailants that she did not want to have sex with them because she was a lesbian.  A spokeswoman for a feminist anti-violence programme in NYC said at the time that, “He killed her in part because she was a lesbian, but he also killed her because she was rejecting his sexual advances.”  

Gunn is only one of many young women who have been raped by men as a punishment for transgressing a submissive model of womanhood.  It is what men do to women to keep us in our place, whether we are lesbians or behave in a way  which disturbs men and upsets the status quo. When I was 17 years old, and newly out as a lesbian, the father and son who owned the pub I worked in tried to rape me, shouting about how they would ‘show me what real men are’. In my women’s liberation group we studied the misogyny inherent in pornography and discovered an entire genre dedicated to punishing lesbians. When men tell us we need a ‘good fuck’ – an oxymoron if ever I have heard one – they are making it clear that however we transgress their control, they will use sexual violence to reign us back in.

Rape as punishment happens in all cultures, but it happens to us because we are women, whatever our sexuality. This is why the international feminist movement is the answer, and yet fewer and fewer lesbians in the UK are involved in feminist campaigning.  

Human rights professionals call it corrective rape; I call it misogyny. Whether women and girls challenge male authority by becoming lesbians; marrying outside of her culture; sleeping around; being celibate; resisting male violence; not dressing for men; dressing like ‘slags’; ending a relationship; or simply refusing to capitulate to the bullying misogyny characteristic in so many heterosexual relationships is beside the point. Rape is rape is rape.

Men will always use rape as a punishment so long as they know they can get away with it. Feminism is the only effective way to challenge male violence. Young women who are able to live relatively safely and happily as out and proud lesbians have six decades of the women’s liberation movement to thank. Let's get back to a robust feminism that challenges misogyny and seeks to end male violence in all its forms. Lesbians are a threat to the patriarchal order. Let's show the boys we really mean it.