Ack. I can’t even write about this. Coverage from others:
Helen Mirren tells men’s magazine date rape shouldn’t be illegal – why, oh why?!
from The F-Word Blog by Jess McCabe
Helen Mirren thinks date rape shouldn’t be illegal?
from Feministing by Jessica
Helen Mirren unleashes the bulldozers
from Shakesville by William K Wolfrum
Categories: gender & feminism, media, violence
Grabbing somebody is Assault, and sexual touch makes it Sexual Assault. Stop minimising this. #rapeculture101 
Friday Hoyden: Gillian Triggs 
Hands up anybody now who’d trust Rolling Stone to tell their story? 
DUFC #69 
Hoyden About Town 
I’m so disappointed. I loved her so much. 😦
I saw that and it just broke my brain. In the bad way. What the hell.
😦
Yeah – all of the above!
Hm.
I think what she is quoted as having actually said is being over-spun; the wording is quite ambiguous. For example, she didn’t say ‘shouldn’t’, she said ‘couldn’t’, although her other remarks do clear it up a bit and yes it is unfortunate.
Also, admirer as I am of Shakesville, I think WKW’s (apparently quite unwitting) description of Mirren’s words as an “admission” that she’d been date-raped — and this while he was taking the moral high ground about it — is every bit as damaging as anything Mirren said herself. The word “admission” has very clear connotations of having done something wrong or shameful oneself. Can you imagine any enlightened woman you know using such a word for such a thing?
Have you left a comment to that effect at Shakesville, Pavlov’s Cat? I’m pretty sure WKW would respond positively to being called out on that.