Brand trial puts the spotlight on porn and abusive male behaviour - Susan Dalgety
It is not the most relaxing bedtime listening, but the podcast The Trial of Russell Brand is compulsive.
The testimony of the six women who allege he raped or sexually assaulted them between 1999 and 2009 is harrowing in its exposure of the misogyny that dominated society at the time. Brand was named ‘Shagger of the Year’ three times by a national newspaper, a title that seemed to enhance, not damage, his reputation.
During last week’s evidence for the prosecution, it was revealed that the youngest complainant had told the police that the actor and comedian, now turned God-fearing online preacher, had treated her “like an animal” and she felt “completely degraded” after the alleged attack at his home. She said that Brand told her “to clear up the mess” after attacking her. Shagger of the Year indeed.
And another woman, who claims Brand raped her in the toilet of a Soho bar, said the prevailing culture at the time stopped her from reporting the incident straight away. “In those days you just weren’t believed as a woman…it was a lad culture” she told the court.
But has anything changed? Latest Police Scotland figures reveal that there were 3229 rapes and attempted rapes reported last year – around nine a day. But the most recent figures for prosecutions, from 2023-24, show that only a few hundred of the rapes reported that year were prosecuted.
And in the two decades since Brand was crowned ‘Shagger of the Year’, hardcore pornography has infested everyday life, with the most extreme sexual violence and deviant behaviour freely available on teenagers’ smartphones, making the lad culture of the early noughties seem almost benign in comparison.
A survey last year showed that more than half of 16-34 year olds had been strangled or had strangled someone during sex. Young women are pressurised into accepting “choking” – non-fatal strangulation (NFS) – during sex, even though it can cause brain injury, stroke or even death.
NHS Scotland stresses there is no safe way to strangle someone, yet it has become an accepted part of many young people’s love life. And strangulation during sex is now prevalent in half of domestic abuse cases, with victims of NFS eight times more likely to be murdered by their partner.
The “Me Too” movement of ten years ago that exposed celebrities here and in the USA for their sexual exploitation of young women seems but a distant memory, as incidents of sexual violence continue to rise and contemporary culture celebrates the abuse of women as entertainment.
I fear for girls growing up in an atmosphere where, despite the many advances made by feminists since the 1970s, young women are all too often viewed as nothing more than sexual objects to be used and abused, rather than as equal to their male peers. Even the fashion for pouting lips and long blonde hair among women mimics porn ‘stars’.
If the testimony emerging from the Brand trial tells us anything about contemporary society, it is that we have a responsibility to “clear up the mess” created by the prevalence of hardcore pornography and tolerance of abusive male behaviour.