@Joe: Every time someone writes something about the violence that women face at the hands of men, someone like you shows up to whinge 'but men are victims too! What about the MEN? Waaah!'

Most men who are victims of violence, have suffered at the hands of OTHER men. And these perpetrators frequently practise their violence on women.

You said: "The exceptional awfulness of rape is valorised beyond even murder."
Nobody is 'valorising' anything here -- if anything, the blogger is talking about the tendency of films to valorise violence against women. Also, rape IS exceptionally awful. There is no other crime in which the victim is blamed and shamed so much, and few other crimes where the perpetrator has such a great chance of going scot-free.

I'm totally with you on the principle of this article, Laurie, but as someone else said above you do yourself a disservice by criticising a film that you haven't seen. It's no different to thousands of outraged Christians phoning the BBC to say they were offended by Jerry Springer The Opera BEFORE it was broadcast.

Also, you say: "The press has taken pains to describe Waddell, Susan Armitage and other recent victims of sexual violence as "prostitutes", implying that the fact these women sold sex legitimises or explains the attacks."

I wouldn't in a million years say these women's jobs legitimised their murders, but it is almost certainly a factor in explaining them. Again, you've drifted into Mail-esque territory where trying to explain something is seen as being synonymous with trying to excuse it.

When I was raped 19 years ago at the age of 13 he was 15. I thought I'd never get over it.. He admitted it but was let off with a caution when I dropped the charges when the CPS told me I wasn't strong enough to take his defence lawyer calling me a liar etc. I agreed I just wanted to forget it... Later on I realised there was a law that protected me "Statutory rape" that wasn't and isn't enforced. There's no repercussions for taking advantage of young girls like this so how do young boys learn? No deterrent...
Anyway my whole point was actually that I thought I was over it but now I find I can't escape it anywhere, films even comedy bring it up "Harold and Kumar" "Wedding crashers" "The boat that rocked" to name a few plus T.V shows such as "Mock the week" "My name is Earl" It's become a joke... That f*cking thing I've lived with is now a laugh to some people what hope do we have if this is what entertainment is throwing at us? I wish they'd stop... I just want to get on with my life...
No deterrent and made entertaining are an obnoxious combination.

As a victim of female-on-male violence, I just want to have the discussion about whether equality in prosecutions would help reduce violence against both men and women, even if prosecutors know that there won't be equality for convictions in the jury box.

I am tempted to say, "There is only one way to find out."

I know prosecutors have limited resources, so I understand that prosecuting a woman who beats up her boyfriend can detract from the obviously important task of prosecuting men who beat up their girlfriends worse. The experts I've talked to say women are more likely to hit first, but men hit harder when they get to the breaking point.

So I don't know. But I sure wish my eight year-old daughter's mom would stop kicking and hitting me in front of her.

Having been in an abusive relationship, I have to say that gender stereotypes for either sex cetainly do not help. Being a "real man" means never admitting the need for help.
But I wonder if we look over the last 20 years or so, since the age of home cinema and PCs started, how has our culture grown so depraved and anti women?
Winterbottom is one of our finest Film Directors, and not one with a record of mysogyny, so maybe we are missing something?
But the growth of "Torture Porn" hardcore images and certain types of pornography are all scaring me witless...

I think 'Killer Inside Me' was a wasted opportunity for Winterbottom which could have said so much about the small town mentality, corruption, deceit, secrets and violence but instead it doesn't. Instead we have two graphic and violent scenes where the camera lingers voyeuristically on the two women experiencing horrific violence the rest of the film pales into insignificance as the question begs, why?

Why does the violence against the men quick and sometimes off screen while the violence towards the women is protracted and long?

This is my review which I saw yesterday http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/review-the-killer-inside-me/

As real as it is, I fail to see the relevance to this particular article of domestic violence against men, by women. As far as I'm aware we don't have a trend for films and other media routinely showing graphic portrayals of sexual and domestic female violence against men, let alone in a way that could be said to glorify or fethisise it.

I'm reminded of this quote:
'I name an abuse and I hear: "Oh, it happens to men too." That is not the equality we are struggling for. We could change our strategy and say: well, okay, we want equality; we'll stick something up the ass of a man every three minutes.
You've never heard that from the feminist movement, because for us equality has real dignity and importance--it's not some dumb word that can be twisted and made to look stupid as if it had no real meaning.'

I think it's likely that if women were prosecuted for violence against men as often as men are prosecuted for violence against women, then violence against women would decrease. Because these sorts of situations escalate. There are a lot of men, I am told, who were never violent until they suffered repeated physical abuse.

Shouldn't we at least be trying to figure out whether the preventative effects of equal treatment under the law is a better use of resources than trying to protect women from men while ignoring men who get beat up by women?

And Lucy, do you really think that a quote advocating violence of any kind is more on topic?

What we're saying is, depicting graphic violence against women is not by itself new, challenging, or 'edgy'.

If people feel that showing violence against women in a way that portrays it as wrong IS new and challenging, then we have a problem, a very big problem. One that can't be fixed (or meaningfully engaged with) by making a film about the 'interesting' psychology of a man who kills women for his own pleasure. However wrong those actions are shown to be.

I'm not saying that portrayals of violence aginst women are always wrong. I'm saying (optimistically) that just portraying it as morally wrong isn't enough to make it challenging or new or novel or necessary.

Maybe for example if there was a film where the central character was the woman who became a victim, maybe if her narrative was the central one, her life was the important one, and the violence wasn't eroticised, that would be actually new and challenging. Not in real terms, not in terms of actual women's experience, but in terms of allowing that voice to be central and important in male-oriented popular culture.

No one's suggesting that violence against women is worse than violence against men. A lot of people suggest, implicitly, that violence aginst women is unimportant (eg the makers and consumers of Pimp). What we are suggesting here is that sexual and domestic violence against women is a social trend. What we are trying to suggest is that portrayals of that trend within media and popular culture are not by themselves rare or challenging and are not new.

This is brilliant. A perfectly put essay on exactly why this current trend is both so disgusting and so *dull*.

At the risk of sounding mildly pompous, if you're reinforcing the patriarchy (and especially if you're doing so with sexual violence), you are not being "edgy" or rebellious or revolutionary or in any way mould-breaking. Kind of by definition.

This is all a deeply worrying trend. Thank you for highlighting it.

"violence committed against men by intimates is even less likely to be criminally prosecuted than violence committed against women" -- http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/181867.pdf

"Female Prostitutes are the main victims in violent sexually motivated crimes like the one in Bradford because they are easy to get at. They are easy to lure into unsafe situations. The fact that they are sex workers is incidental."

No, the they are easy to get at and easy to lure into unsafe situations BECAUSE their job puts them in such situations. It's like saying a fire figher's occupation is merely "incidental" in their death when a burning building collapses on top of them.

""I wouldn't in a million years say these women's jobs legitimised their murders, but it is almost certainly a factor in explaining them"""

No Alex. Female Prostitutes are the main victims in violent sexually motivated crimes like the one in Bradford because they are easy to get at. They are easy to lure into unsafe situations. The fact that they are sex workers is incidental.

The targets of these violent-sexually motivated crimes are WOMEN.

Films like the one above are designed to appeal to a large demographic with fairly substantial disposable income.

It is cynical advertising.

I am suprised anyone who takes part it in can sleep at night.

A fine piece and brill that NS have you on board, Laurie. I'm in my 50's and feel sick and angry that this sort of crap is still so much part of our so-called "modern society". Why are women so complicit in their own oppression? It further saddens me that feminism is not taken seriously by the generation coming up and women still appear more than happy to be their own worst enemies. Some of the most sincere "feminists" I know are men! Christ, what a sad state of affairs this is.

Iconoclastic sounds pretentious, Laura Penny's photo makes her look dull. Pretentious or dull? There's only one way to find out - Fight!

There are some valid points here, but I think you do yourself and The Killer Inside Me a disservice by disparaging the film before you've seen it. None of the words in your phrase "murder-porn epic" pertain to the film. (Also, the violent scene you describe is not in fact the dénouement.) The picture has flaws, for sure, but they're not the ones for which you have indicted it, sight unseen.

Don't know if you've seen this, it's mostly relevant: http://snurl.com/fightfightfight (plus it's just a very satisfying, righteous rant). Kermode also has a good go at Sex And The City 2, easy enough to find on YouTube, where he raises all the relevant points of cultural sensitivity, feminism, class issues etc.

No, but Hey Baby is brilliant. Laurie you hypocrite.