So Germaine Greer claims that it’s women themselves who are fuelling the appetite for violence against women on TV. Commenting on the first episode in the new series of Scandi-noir drama The Bridge, which shows a woman being stoned to death, Greer suggests that women are driving these sorts of depictions of violence against women as part of a broader fantasy world they inhabit, rather than it being caused by male objectification. In other words, women want to watch graphic images of violence against other women, including scenes of rape and abuse, as they find it somehow fulfilling. It fuels and satisfies their fantasies.

This is not only nonsense, but a misguided and dangerous supposition. If a feminist of Greer’s standing perpetuates this view, isn’t she herself fuelling the “she was asking for it” or “she wanted it even though she said no” attitude in men? What kind of feminist would encourage the kind of misogynist values we have fought long and hard to change and banish?

Yes, women have sexual fantasies about being tied up, whipped, spanked or taken forcefully. Fifty Shades of Grey caused huge controversy when it was first published, with some women thinking it was exciting and liberating while others saw it as abuse. However, what is incontrovertible – and is an essential part of these fantasies, and in some cases practice – is that it is done with and by someone we know and trust. And it should always be done with a safe word.

There is a big difference between exploring our imaginations and finding our own acceptable boundaries, and the term “fantasy”, which implies that we have a strong desire to turn our desires into an actual reality. Yet women don’t, as a rule, fantasise about being beaten up, murdered, stoned to death, shot or buried alive; or being sexually abused. These are fears for almost all women. And with fear comes a need to confront our worries and concerns, to put them in perspective and to take control over them.

Seeing violence against women, provided it is not gratuitous but in a context that makes sense, and which may be instrumental to a drama, film or TV series, allows us to allay, control or make sense of our fears. To show it sensitively and in perspective, however brutal it might be, is an important way of acknowledging and understanding that these acts do happen in the world.

Seeing how individuals and their friends and family cope with these situations and the after-effects is key in making sense of our troubled world, and to ignore them or pretend they don’t happen is just complicit in denying that they do occur. But to sensationalise violence or rape, or to throw it into a TV series without any context, is sickening.

Every female viewer will have her own interpretation of whether the violence that they see against women on TV is gratuitous or not. It depends on our level of engagement with the characters, the quality of the script and acting, the context in which it happens and the treatment of the perpetrators in the storyline.

And while it’s easy to condemn a lot of TV as still being men imposing their views – or possibly their fantasies – on the viewing public, we should also remember that many of our excellent drama series that included scenes of violence against women, such as Happy Valley and Apple Tree Yard, were actually written by women. Many TV series are dramatisations of psychological thrillers, a genre dominated by women, writing for women.

Appalling acts of violence against women very rarely form part of female fantasy, and to suggest that they are is both totally anti-feminist and a dangerous message to send out in these thankfully more enlightened times.

• Jo Hemmings is the consultant psychologist on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and a dating and relationship coach