Summer’s here, with all its mosquitoes, sunburns, Vitamin D, sexual energy and consequent increase in rapes. That’s right, you read it correctly: that statement was part of the comprehensive and scientific account of the situation recently offered by “life coach” Adamantia Kazakou on the TV channel ANT1.
by Alexandra Tanka
In ANT1’s attempts to make a study of rape in Greece, they thought their news segment wouldn’t be complete without a few words from an “expert”.
So what did Kazakou say to ANT1? “The sun, as is well known, activates Vitamin D, which increases our sexual energy during the summer. And that’s when clothing plays a large role [sic].” (You can confirm that this is what she says in the video below, from the ANT1 website, at minute 34:27).
In addition to the other information that it provides (the segment mentions that there are 4,500 rapes every year in Greece), ANT1 also seeks to explain the reason for all these rapes.
Before now, we’d already heard a number of explanations—women’s provocative clothing and behavior; even the notion that a woman’s rejection can increase a man’s sexual arousal.
Now we have new data to add to the list of scientific factors: Vitamin D—along with summer clothing’s “large role”—is now yet another reason that women fall victim to rape.
Victim shaming 101
On TV screens in Greece, we’ve seen countless instances—on television shows and even the new—of sexist behavior and insufferable comments directed at young women who appear on screen in bathing suits or workout clothes.
And yet, these attempts to justify a culture of rape or—perhaps even worse—return once again to that old chestnut about “provocative clothing”—can’t simply be attributed to ignorance or semi-ignorance.