A controversial Belgian radio presenter quit his popular talk show live on air on Monday after causing an outcry by hosting a phone-in debate about whether women can have orgasms when they are raped.
Benjamin Marechal, whose daily show on the French-language RTBF broadcaster is known for its contentious style, resigned after the station received a number of complaints.
Marechal had asked listeners to comment on controversial remarks made last week by French porn star-turned-agony aunt Brigitte Lahaie about some women being able to enjoy rape.
Belgian Benjamin Marechal, whose show on French-language RTBF broadcaster is known for its contentious style, resigned after hosting a debate on whether women enjoy rape
‘You can have an orgasm from rape, I’ll let you know, Brigitte Lahaie said it yesterday. What do you say to her?’ he said in the show last week.
Belgian local government officials reacted furiously and RTBF was forced to apologise.
The country’s broadcast watchdog received 12 complaints.
On Monday morning Marechal said during a live broadcast that he was stepping down from his show after 10 years to pursue other projects with the station.
‘Today, I decide to stop. The RTBF offered me a new project, a great thing,’ he said.
‘I thought about it. But with the arrival of a child in my life and with the work overload that it induced, I decided to say stop. Stop to the constraints of daily life.
‘This morning I am happier than I have ever been and am finally in charge of events,’ he added, saying that he had already asked twice in the last six months to quit the show, which has thousands of listeners.
Marechal claimed he had made this decision to quit ‘long before the storms’ caused by his controversial debate.
He continued: ‘Am I tired? Have I been abused? Often.
‘But it’s part of the game. These 10 years have allowed me to understand Belgian society as a person.’
Belgian local government officials reacted furiously and RTBF was forced to apologise
He thanked his listeners, saying: ‘You have given me an understanding of this country of which few can boast.’
However, he refrained from offering any apology for the rape remarks.
His resignation came as French film star Catherine Deneuve apologised to victims of sexual assault, after setting off a worldwide feminist backlash for bashing the #MeToo movement in an open letter.
Deneuve’s statement was seen as an attempt to distance herself from Lahaie, who was one of the 100 prominent French women to sign the letter.
Ms Lahaie, who gave relationship advice in a popular call-in programme for more than a decade, also claimed she had been ‘lynched’ on social media adding: ‘If that’s the way the world works, then I apologise.’
Her comments came in a television debate with Caroline de Haas, one of a group of 30 feminists led who have themselves written a letter, condemning the ‘100 women’.
In her their exchanges, de Haas said: ‘How do you give back to women the power of their bodies? It’s simple — you stop the violence. After you have been the victim of rape you no longer have so much pleasure.’
Brigitte Lahaie (left), a porn star-turned-agony aunt, caused an outcry with her comments that some women can enjoy rape. Along with actress Catherine Deneuve (right), Lahaie is a signatory to an open letter, condemning the #MeToo movement
Oscar-nominated Deneuve, 74, is best known internationally for playing a bored housewife who spends her afternoons as a prostitute in Luis Bunuel’s classic 1967 film, ‘Belle du Jour’.
She has made no secret of her annoyance at social media campaigns to shame men accused of harassing women.
‘I don’t think it is the right method to change things, it is excessive,’ she said last year, referring to the #MeToo hashtag.
The letter, which was published in Le Monde, set off an international furore, with feminists in France and elsewhere attacking the signatories for defending men’s freedom to pester and ‘hit on’ women.