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.
A big amen to that.
Oh, so YOU’RE okay with berating the decisions of raped women?
You mean that there is something wrong with the story of Potifer’s wife attempting to force herself on a boy likely young enough to be her grandson as being a depiction of a male resisting his base lust?
But I don’t know how many sermons I have heard over the decades depicting that.
Surely Joseph must have been the real instigator of the incident, and only repented as she grasped his coat. How could so many pastor’s teach a lie?
Next you will be insinuating that the text means exactly what it says.
Nice leap of illogic there. How do you get that from my response to your post moaning about your feminist guilt? Are you drinking?
That makes three liberal premises you crammed into one statement.
No.
She is insinuating that two adults engaging in drug use and sex does not somehow morph into rape years after their marriage ends, and that Joan Collins does not sound credible.
Rape is really really bad.
False accusations by fading celebrities merit scrutiny. You appear to be demanding that accusations must be accepted at face value.
You wouldn’t perhaps be a member of “Justice for Nifong” by any chance would you? Because there is not one post you have made on this particular thread that is not in lock step with them.
Are men stronger than women? Yes.
Are men less emotional than women? Yes
Those are not excuses. Facts are facts.
The truth is most women are physically weak and too emotional to handle the world on their own.
I find that statement to be categorically untrue.
saving on costuming one movie to the next.
Joan was one of the great movie babes
Well, you are right in line with current pop culture.
So was my late grandmother born in 1895 in a sod house in Nebraska. She didn’t believe that women were “too weak to handle the world on their own.” She wasn’t. Her daughter wasn’t. No woman in my family has been. Only a very small percentage of women I’ve ever known were. Some men I’ve known were too. Women are not inherently weak.
Women are physically weak. That’s what I said.
Weak compared to what - men, that’s all there is to compare to.
So stop trying to change the meaning of my words to appease your anger.
Calm down and move on.
Those are your words.
I agree. People vary, whether male or female. If we are careful and fortunate, we find someone who complements us and the result is a healthy and successful marriage. Joan Collins is not an example of that, and while I have some sympathy for her, this seems more like a bid for attention than anything else.
“False accusations by fading celebrities merit scrutiny.”
(I think you mean “accusations which could be false”.)
“You appear to be demanding that accusations must be accepted at face value.”
Many on this thread completely disbelieve the accusations. Why should they not be encouraged to think differently?
From various posts in this thread:
“Ohhhhh, these poooooor, naive young women.. Wake up, Joan..”
“was it Bill Clinton or Bill Cosby?”
There are many other such quotes.
The majority of people here are stating it could not be true, and it's proven it's not true because she married the guy. I have provided how an abused person can creep further into the abyss once assaulted.
Many here have stated that women have sexual urges too, and enjoy exhibitionist behaviors (see the Miley Cyrus photo and others). Some of this is true, but it seems inappropriate to lambaste someone who is offering advice to ladies on what paths one shouldn't or put up with.
I know women who have been raped in multiple ways. Several of these women haven't told others or held off telling their fiancées until I encouraged them otherwise. These were Christian women who were ashamed and frightened their experience would drive their "dream" away.
Every woman depends on good men to protect her from bad men because a woman is too weak to do it herself.
I agree with your general sentiment that women can be as mentally or emotionally strong as men, but facts prove differently when it comes to pure physical strength and size. World-wide, women are both shorter and have less muscle than men in every culture.
Let's get real, okay?
I don’t know about youse guys but I get the best perspective on rapes from :
Bill Clinton
Bill Cosby
Some Priests
Sandra Fluke
Lena Dunham
Gloria All red
Gerard Depardieu
Roman Polanski
Duke LaCrosse accuser
And now Joan Collins
Color me informed.
I don’t know about youse guys but I get the best perspective on rapes from :
Bill Clinton
Bill Cosby
Some Priests
Sandra Fluke
Lena Dunham
Gloria All red
Gerard Depardieu
Roman Polanski
Duke LaCrosse accuser
And now Joan Collins
Color me informed.
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