I’m in the Indy, writing about Savile

I wrote a thing about Savile for the Indy, and how there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the case. Unfortunately, the mainstream media are a bit jumpy about putting certain things in, so there’s a paragraph missing. It provides some examples of rape apologism, and goes above the one about how silencing doesn’t come from speaking ill of the dead:

It’s hardly surprising, then, that information about Savile only came to light after his death: experience of rape is something that society trains people out of talking about. Take, for example, senior BBC executives explaining why they spiked the Newsnight episode detailing allegations against Savile saying “it was not the worst kind of sexual offences” or it was based on evidence from “just the women”. The former falls into a similar vein as Congressman Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape”or Ken Clarke’s controversial “serious rape” comments.  It suggests that some cases of sexual violence are less important, less pressing, and less important to be dealt with. The latter suggests that the word of the survivor is not to be believed, and contributes strongly to a culture which silences people from speaking up.

Also taken out was a reference to police officer Ryan Coleman-Farrow, who was imprisoned for actively foiling rape investigations.