Posted on 12/18/2014 11:48:14 AM PST by Morgana
Joan Collins, who became one of the most glamorous actresses of the 1980s in her steamy role as Alexis Carrington in Dynasty, is revealing that beneath the Hollywood glitz she was repressing a secret: She had been raped. And she's concerned that the misogyny of porn five decades later will victimize another generation of naive young women.
The British-born star is speaking out about being raped after her attacker showed her hardcore pornography and drugged her at the tender age of 17. She went on to marry him.
Collins says that her favorite actor, Maxwell Reed, invited the teen to his apartment, where he gave her a drink and some reading material while he went into the other room. “The books were porn, which I’d never seen before,” Collins said. “Hardcore porn.”
As her head began to swim, she realized “he had drugged my drink.”
“The next thing I knew, I was out flat on the sofa in that living room and he was raping me,” she said. “It felt so horrible.”
Reed, a matinee idol of his day, continued to ask her out. “It wasn’t my fault but I didn’t know, [so] I went out with him,” she said. In a short time, he asked her to marry him. “I really hated him, but I was so filled with guilt.”
She claimed over the years that Reed became violent with her and tried to traffic her. “ I found out how really abusive he was - I used to be physically abused and physically assaulted, and the final straw was when he tried to sell me for £10,000,” she says.
Collins is speaking out as part of a new documentary, Brave Miss World, filmed by 1998 Miss World Linor Abargil, who was raped at knifepoint six weeks before being crowned Miss World.
Joan Collins warns that today's ubiquitous culture of degrading and violent pornography is preparing another generation for similar exploitation.
“I think a lot of what we see today in terms of exploitation of women in porn, for example - they are portrayed just as objects and objects that are unobtainable for most women to look like,” she said. “There’s a lot of brutality in porn apparently, and it’s very hardcore, and I think that a lot of men feel that's acceptable.”
Collins' anecdotal observations would be supported by experts, who study smut's effects on human behavior. Mary Anne Layden, the director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology program in the University of Pennsylvania's psychiatry department, found that males who consume pornography were more likely to view rape as more acceptable than men who do not. “Males who viewed sexual violence obtained higher scores both on scales measuring acceptance of interpersonal violence and the rape myth [the belief that women actually enjoy rape and suffer few negative consequences], when compare to males who viewed either a physically violent or neutral film,” she wrote in a paper. “The increase in attitudes supporting sexual violence following exposure to pornography is greater if the pornography is violent than if it is non-violent.”
She added, “A similar effect is seen even when the pornography is not violent. Males who are shown non-violent scenes that sexually objectified and degraded women and were then exposed to material that depicted rape indicated that the rape victim experienced pleasure and ‘got what she wanted.'”
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children blames porn for more than 4,500 British children becoming sex offenders in just three years.
The sentiments expressed in Brave Miss World represent a sea-change for Collins, who appeared in a number of softcore pornographic films in the late '70s – including two based on the books of her younger sister, Jackie Collins. In 1983, at the age of 50, the Emmy-nominated actress posed nude for Playboy.
Now she offers advice to young girls on how to avoid a fate like hers.
“I just want to say to any other girls who are out there - don’t let it happen, don’t go to somebody’s house, don’t let them give you a drink which could possibly be spiked, and get these animals behind bars so they don’t do it again,” she said.
Feminists have derided similar advice as “slut-shaming,” claiming that telling women to avoid being rendered unconscious blames the victim.
I mean all the guys stuffing dollar bills down skanks’ bras - they’re there for only one thing.
And no decent man takes his woman to a strip club, if he truly cares about her.
Those naked fireman calendars are all about relationships. Women don’t lust, they have innate purity.
And all those nasty “Fifty Shades of Gray” and “Sleeping Beauty” novels? Clearly the poor women who author or read them are forced to do so by some evil college republican man.
We’re all responsible for our own choices.
If we feel someone is taking advantage of us, the way that person is treating us isn’t love. No one wants to be valued only for their looks or for their money.
If it doesn’t feel right, break it off and spare yourself the guilt. Its not your fault.
Yes, I am sorry, but either the story is not true, or she is so stupid that she is in no position to give anyone else advice.
I’ve known a number of guys who spent a significant percentage of their income at strip clubs. Without exception they were guys who for appearance of demeanour reasons were unable to otherwise get a women to pay them any attention.
I’m sure there are guys at these places who are just jerks and users, and women who are the female equivalent.
But it’s always seemed to me likely there’s a high percentage of damaged and sad people among both the performers and audience.
But (believe it or not) I really don’t hang out in such places.
No, but the sheer numbers of fellow men on the very thread minimizing what sort of things are at the root of these dysfunctions is more than a bit disconcerting.
Kids don’t think about things the same way as adults, due to maturity and life differences. When you find someone given birth to her dad’s kid, but only got pregnant when she was 15, would you lambaste her for not having the sanity to run away or tell the police earlier?
We have some screwed up men on this thread.
Pamela Hensley wasn’t available?
Women like porn as much as men do. That’s the dirty secret.
Both sexes imagine doing it with the other.
Women don’t have a monopoly on sexual modesty or good manners.
Your straw man arguments have nothing to do with Joan Collins’ pathetic story or your contention that men in general put women through whatever it is you think they put them through. Speak for yourself.
What a dingbat!
I think you both must believe the Feminist propaganda that women can do all things including controlling a man.
The truth is most women are physically weak and too emotional to handle the world on their own. Men and women must join together to survive the evil of this world. That's why a father and real marriage is so necessary.
If you are a porn user, be warned that it will harden your heart.
Once again, folks, we have proof of the fact that some are pretty, some aren’t, but pretty much all of ‘em are quite stupid.
Charlatans get limited sympathy.
The politics of low expectations.
Isn’t Madonna still doing it though
Are we going to ever hear the end of this “I’ve been raped” fad? Who’s the next airhead bimbo celebutard to come out of the woodwork? Karla Kleevage?
What you say is true; however, younger people don’t really have the capacity to think that way until they are older. Peer pressure and expectations from parents and relatives, coupled with the reality that you have no means to support yourself outside of your current reality, all factor into why kids take paths that, to an independent adult, may seem hard, but appropriate and doable.
They can lock themselves into a future they never intended and it can seem like there’s no option to change it. The knowable is better than the unknown.
It has no redeeming qualities, it corrupts the souls of those involved, those who watch it and even the entire culture itself
Well said.
“I would say what - porn is a romantic fantasy for men - the male equivalent of the Harlequin romances for women.”
Yes, but I’ve yet to see any moral busybodies around here campaigning against those female lust-fulfillment fantasies. Males are more visual, so the ones with pictures appeal to us, while the ladies are happy to read the stories and just imagine what the hunk looks like. Still, it’s a distinction without a difference.
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