Lord of Flies author William Golding tried to rape teenager, new biography claims

[WriteDown]

Source: Daily Mail

....
He confessed to the attack in an unpublished memoir which he wrote for his wife in an effort to explain how his own 'monstrous' character had developed.
....
He had met Dora when both were taking music lessons in Marlborough, Wiltshire, when he was about 16 and she was 13, but he tried to rape her two years later when he was home during his first year at Oxford.

Golding writes that they went for a walk to the common and he 'felt sure she wanted heavy sex, as this was visibly written on her pert, ripe and desirable mouth'.

Soon they were 'wrestling like enemies' as he 'tried unhandily to rape her'.

But she resisted and Golding, all those years later, wrote that 'he had made such a bad hand at rape' before shaking her and shouting 'I’m not going to hurt you'.....



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206889/Lord-Flies-author-William-Golding-tried-rape-teenager-new-biography-claims.html

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Disgusting.

[LeftishBrit]

1. I'd need a more reliable source than the Daily Mail for this

If true, then yes, disgusting.

[WriteDown]

2. Its from his own memoirs...

otherwise I wouldn't have posted it. Like the guy who directed Jeepers Creepers, I'm done with him.

[pitohui]

3. well you'd be done with half the men in the world who were teens prior to 1980

i'm afraid this was just standard behavior back in the day

i remember when the survey came out in the early 90s (?), suggesting that 25 percent of american women had been raped, and all the young college women laughed and said no way, "i'd know if 25 percent of my friends had been raped," but really, virtually all women of my generation or older, than i know well enough to talk to about it, "date rape" happened to every-fucking-body, one hundred percent without exception as far as i know

the world has changed at least something for the better, in that this now strikes people as something unusual or newsworthy

in the 70s, the soap opera story of luke and laura, the romance of the date rapist and his victim, was actually considered romantic and an experience that a great many young women went thru in their sexual educations -- it was a story that young women actually identified with -- hard as it is to believe now, when it just seems ridiculous (i'm forgetting which soap opera the storyline played on but it was way famous in its day and was actually created to DRAW younger women back to the soap opera)

[abumbyanyothername]

6. General Hospital

And I actually sort of know Genie Francis. (She's not going to invite me to her birthday party or anything, but she would recognize me if we were at a party.)

[pitohui]

9. thanks i knew someone else would remember this! NT

,

[mitchum]

15. Mrs mitchum and I were talking just last week about the utter strangeness...

of the Luke and Laura romance storyline. Incredible.
And then Anthony Geary became a soap sex symbol???!!!

[Laelth]

10. Thanks for that post, pitohui.

I love DU for this very reason. Many people are not afraid to speak the truth here.

:dem:

-Laelth

[WriteDown]

11. Uh...

I WAS a teen prior to the 80's and I must just be the most amazing person because I never attempted to rape anyone. I love the excuses that are offered though. Like Victor Salva. Child molester, but now millionaire.

[pitohui]

12. what part of "half" don't you grok? "half" doesn't mean "all"

sure, there were always quiet, shy, and/or respectful young men

however, there was the same proportion of loud, aggressive, and disrespectful young men PLUS there was intense social pressure for regular boys to "score" plus social brainwashing/cultural horseshit along the lines of "if she says no, it is just to preserve her self image as a good girl, she really wants it but she wants to be overwhelmed" -- by regular i mean just normal males, not unusually quiet nor unusually aggressive -- the kind who will go along with whatever society tells them is good and right to do

these regular boys who would never dream of forcing sex on a girl today, BUT when raised in a different cultural where it was considered perfectly normal and healthy to do this, acted differently because it was a different time

if you didn't see this going on around you, well, nice for you, but i'm from america not from tahiti

also as a female i prob. have a better idea of just how often guys tried to force sex on me than you do

[WriteDown]

13. Hahaha...

I was more the loud, boisterous, drinking kind. Played football, wrestled, etc. I'm sure it went on, but I offer zero excuses for it. And if I found out one of my old friends had done it, they'd be out of my life in a moment.

[Berry Cool]

14. Actually, the idea of rape as romantic offended me even in the '70s.

I thought it was sexist then and it's still sexist now.

[Odin2005]

4. Monster!

:puke:

[timeforpeace]

5. Was she hot?

[HamdenRice]

8. In the article that summarizes the book, he called her "sexy as an ape"

whatever the fuck that means???

"After a gap of two years, they met again and consummated their relationship.

Prof Carey is convinced that Golding was ashamed about his relationship with Dora, even though in Men, Women & Now he wrote that she was 'depraved by nature' and he imagines her at 13 'beginning to burn' and says that at 14 she was 'already sexy as an ape'. "

[HamdenRice]

7. Three interesting aspects of the story

1. It was an attempt. He did not succeed. Bizarrely, the girl he tried to rape eventually became his lover.

2. He had a high degree of self-awareness that it was wrong and remorse. That's why he wrote the memoir -- as an apologia to his wife.

3. He channeled his self-awareness into great literature that warned people of the evil he saw in himself.

[Starry Messenger]

16. I thought that said William Goldman and freaked out.

Why is this news now? Sure, it's appalling but several authors people hail as masters were also sometimes horrible human beings. I guess it will be interesting to revisit his work with new information though.

[BlueIris]

18. Same here. I still think it's freaky, (read: disturbing and wrong) but I'm

a little less freaked out now that I've got the right author.

[bemildred]

17. This sounds like horseshit.

Not sure what kind, but some kind.