Rape discourses
28 Oct 2008 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kangeikoThis is going to be a complete non-sequiter to some. Where, why, how did I come up with this topic, it's not precisely pleasant, is it, and don't I have better things to spend my time on these days that have periodic feminist rant-y urges? Last week, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
queenspanky, wingsmith, friend J and I went out to dinner, and ended up talking about BSG, as is more or less inevitable. As usual, I couldn't really contribute much because I stopped watching during the middle of S2, during Pegasus. This makes queenspanky frustrated beyond belief, because she loves this show and I categorically... don't.
I have no issues with Ron Moore - well, no more so than I have with other writers, anyway. But something struck me while watching the Pegasus two-parter that made me turn the TV off, and it was this: I am fed up of watching rape.
I felt the almost-rape of Sharon was gratuitous.queenspanky argued that it was necessary in making us accept Sharon as a 'good' character again, for feeling empathy with her - and for generating the necessary empathy with Gina, as well. I disagree. I don't think that it is empathy that is generated. We are not 'connecting' with either Sharon or Gina in those scenes. Empathy requires some form of common ground, and I refuse to believe that those scenes were written specifically for women who have been sexually assaulted (in which case they would be unbelievably thoughtless).
Instead, the rape scenes are there to remove the threat that Sharon and Six pose, by removing all of their power, and turning them into victims. It is not possible to view Six or Sharon afterwards as pure villains, and not to dote on them and want the writers to protect them. But that emotion is not really about them at all, is it? The focus isn't on Sharon, it's on Helo and the Chief, who attempt to protect her. Sharon is merely the impetus for the confrontation between the Galactica and the Pegasus. We have one, maybe two scenes dealing the aftermath of the attempted rape for Sharon, but how many scenes for Helo and the Chief? Sharon doesn't say much, merely sits on the medical bed and allows herself to be examined. She is mostly silent, mostly unmoving, and wholly passive. The Chief and Helo, on the other hand, are full of energy and righteous rage. And why not? They are grade-A heroes.
Here's the thing: the rape of Gina and the attempted rape of Sharon isn't actually about them. It's about what they represent: Cylon power. Cylon power in BSG is female in nature, presented almost entirely by female Cylons in their various guises. How many male Cylons have we seen at that point? Any that we see are swiftly dispatched. The female Cylons - Six, Sharon, the report (whose name escapes me) - are constant and are powerful. They are strong. And they cannot be killed. Violence against them doesn't seem to bother the Cylons much, as part of it is transitory. Either the marks will fade, or they will die and be reborn.
Rape, on the other hand, drives Gina to want to commit suicide. True suicide, with no possibility of rebirth. It is not the act of sex that distresses her - she had no problems seducing Gaius as Six. It is not violence that distresses her - she didn't want to obliterate herself after fighting Starbuck. It is the peculiarities of rape, the feminising* from soldier to victim that is the breaking point for her. While the Cylon power may be a female power, represented by women, it is not an acceptable power. These women are wrong, incapable of reproduction. They are not truly women. This wrongness is addressed in two ways:
- the rape of Gina, instantly turning her from 'soldier' to 'woman and victim'
- the almost rape of Sharon, and the image of her sitting on the medical bed, stroking her wrists and looking down at her swollen belly. Not only was Sharon almost raped - thereby fulfilling one part of the criteria - but she's also pregnant. The only missing piece would be to have her be barefoot.
It's not just in BSG, so I'm going to leave that alone for the moment. Ron Moore introduces Sophie to us in Carnivale by having her almost raped, and saved by Ben - what a guaranteed way to make Ben look like a hero! At that point, Brother Justin was still looking sufficiently heroic for that act on Ben's part to muddy the waters as to just who is the good guy in that show.
Away from the canon itself and into the fanfic, slash fic for shows such as Voyager seems especially keen to perpetuate gender norms. The number of fics I've read where Tom Paris is raped, or trades sex for safety, or some other variant on sexual exploitation, is disturbing. It makes it difficult to read any fic, because even writers that seem to start out writing a gen fic will somehow work a tragic childhood of sexual abuse into the fic sooner or later. Interestingly, it is not Seven, or B'Elanna, or Kathryn, or even Kes who get subjected to all of this abuse, but Tom Paris, a male crewmember. Why, then?
I'm going to argue that it is because these fics want to write about two men, but using the standard gender norms of a heterosexual relationship. And by that I mean that they have to have 'the man' and 'the woman', even in a slash fic. I've ranted before on the emasculation of blondes in fandom, so I'm not going to repeat that here. I will say, however, that rape is one of the primary tropes, if not the primary trope, of signifying that Paris is the female, and is available for 'comforting'. This feminisation*, the un-manning by the act of rape, removes the power of wisecracks and insight and a sharp right hook that Paris would normally possess. It makes him vulnerable, and helpless and in need of protection. Chakotay, acting as the strong alpha male, is then compelled to protect him. Even more insidiously, the relationship seems to be precipitated by the rape - as someone once pointed out, all wounds healed by the 'magic cock' that makes Paris like sex again. Lovely.
Two things:
1. Using rape to feminise* implicitly supports the argument that the female is submissive, passive and helpless, and the male is dominant, active and powerful. By male and female I am not referring to man and woman, but to the gender roles cast. So we can have Paris cast in the female role in these fics. And we can have Six and Sharon reset in those roles, and only allowed to grow into 'acceptably' strong women, having become emotionally involved with a strong man. It's still using binary rhetoric, which I'm historically not a big fan of, and it's incredibly damaging. There is no coming back from that, once you have been feminised*, that's it. You are looked at differently: as a victim. Victims have no voice^, as the definition of victim is someone who cannot defend themselves, who articulate the crime against them. Someone must speak on their behalf - a father, a brother, or other authority figure, someone who was charged with protecting them. It is a retroactive act, this victimisation. It not only creates a victim, but it writes them as always having been a victim. Anything we see after the rape is coloured by it, and all reminiscences are tainted by it. Sharon is imprisoned (before the attempted rape) becomes Sharon is imprisoned in an unsafe environment (after the attempted rape): somehow, the assault makes Sharon always-having-been someone deserving, needing protection. She does little speaking in the medical scene, and is not asked, but is told. She has become chattel.
Similarly, the rape(s) of Tom Paris turn him from a strong, charismatic individual into someone who is actually a bit of a woobie and needs snuggles. The strong, charismatic individual is revealed to be a front, because no one can be both raped and strong - that doesn't make narrative sense in these discourses. Is it any wonder that, while violence of every kind is used on our heroes, rape is not? Buffy is the only one who comes close, and she asserts her 'hero' status by fighting off her attacker. If she had been raped, how could the show have continued, with a hero who was no longer heroic but in need of protection?
So, if the use of rape in narrative is so destructive, wiping away any strength on the characters, why is it so prevalent in fandom, particularly in slash h/c fics?
2. Because of the healing power of Chakotay's cock, of course! When both Paris and Chakotay are strong, dominant characters, they are both in the 'male' role. One must take the 'female' role, be feminised* in order to allow a slash fic to take place within the prescribed gender roles. But there is a problem. Paris is too strong a personality, on screen. It is difficult to get him in bed with Chakotay, and get him to relinquish control to a sufficient extent, and keep him in character. So what better way to accomplish that than to do away with the need for characterisation by introducing a traumatic, role-changing event? All that needs to happen is for Paris to be raped, and he will then be in the 'female' role.
Couldn't this be accomplished by a thorough bout of non-sexual torture? Well, yes. Always possible to break someone that way (see TNG, "Chain of Command"). This, however, can mean that they recover and come back stronger and more determined than ever. Obviously not the goal here. Also, having the comforter assume a sexual role following brutal torture makes the whole thing seem exploitative (as if it wouldn't be, otherwise! But I digress). We need to be happy for the characters, of course. So, rape. I can't think of any other way to phrase it other than 'easing the way'.
In City of Vice, a girl is raped. She starts raving about having been ruined, and being turned into a whore. Her father asks her about any urges - and, not specifying which kind, he leaves the viewer to ponder whether he's talking about self-harm, or about sex. Because having sex, you see, makes a woman want more. Insert the Pringles ad here. Hence the importance of bringing virginity to the wedding bed - otherwise who knows how many men might have had her? A girl who loses her virginity early these days is still looked upon as someone rather loose, someone who is more likely to have sex than those girls who waited. Clearly, she couldn't wait.
A lot of the early erotic literature, and also quite a bit of pornography these days, is based on the assumption that the lady doth protest too much. She will struggle a little, and she will protest, but once things are on the swing of it, she'll like it, really.
We've tried to move on a little from this, but have not gone so very far. We don't have a lot of fics where the rape turns enjoyable mid-way through - thank god - but the underlying basis remains the same: that the female role is wanton, that female desires are insidious and must be kept in check. That, once a female starts having sex, she turns into a nymphomaniac.
Now let us bring in the roles of the attacker and of the comforter. The role of the attacker is to take away the masculinity of Paris, to feminise* him through rape. In this way, he will place Paris firmly in the female role. Furthermore, he will force m/m sex into Paris's life, which is not necessarily something that Paris would have experienced (and any prior experiences are necessarily wiped out by the rape). In this way, we have a blank slate for Chakotay to come rescue: someone newly feminised, with all past sexual history erased or overshadowed by this one act.
Chakotay, as the comforter, claims Paris legitimately, through 'relationship sex'. He is tender with Paris, as if Paris was a virgin, because he 'heals' Paris with this new, 'legitimate' sex. The new Paris is docile and loving, and not the least bit like the old, cocky Paris. It's the same principle behind pimps raping new prostitutes into submission - rape them until they voluntarily yield, and then they 'know their place'. C/P fanfic writers are certainly keen on showing Paris his.
***
I haven't covered a lot of ground here. There is a wealth of literature on rape out there, and it is difficult to separate out the different facets of rape - the act itself, its role within our discourses, the treatment in the courts, the treatment of victims, the treatment of perpetrators, the history of it and its symbolism. The above is merely a short rant on the mis-uses of the rape trope in narrative fiction, and does not reflect on the act itself or on the perceptions thereof in society.
I'd also like to stress that I have only seen one and a half seasons of BSG, as I stopped watching shortly after the afore-mentioned scenes. I'm sure that it's lovely, and my flist seem to enjoy it a great deal. But it's not for me.
* the use of the term here is linked to theories on rape in wartime, particularly around the use of rape as a war tactic against fellow soldiers. I can provide more data or clarifications if needed.
^ I'm using theories on the sub-altern here, as well as some Lyotard. Again, happy to provide sources and further reading if people are interested.
queenspanky, wingsmith, friend J and I went out to dinner, and ended up talking about BSG, as is more or less inevitable. As usual, I couldn't really contribute much because I stopped watching during the middle of S2, during Pegasus. This makes queenspanky frustrated beyond belief, because she loves this show and I categorically... don't.I have no issues with Ron Moore - well, no more so than I have with other writers, anyway. But something struck me while watching the Pegasus two-parter that made me turn the TV off, and it was this: I am fed up of watching rape.
I felt the almost-rape of Sharon was gratuitous.
queenspanky argued that it was necessary in making us accept Sharon as a 'good' character again, for feeling empathy with her - and for generating the necessary empathy with Gina, as well. I disagree. I don't think that it is empathy that is generated. We are not 'connecting' with either Sharon or Gina in those scenes. Empathy requires some form of common ground, and I refuse to believe that those scenes were written specifically for women who have been sexually assaulted (in which case they would be unbelievably thoughtless).Instead, the rape scenes are there to remove the threat that Sharon and Six pose, by removing all of their power, and turning them into victims. It is not possible to view Six or Sharon afterwards as pure villains, and not to dote on them and want the writers to protect them. But that emotion is not really about them at all, is it? The focus isn't on Sharon, it's on Helo and the Chief, who attempt to protect her. Sharon is merely the impetus for the confrontation between the Galactica and the Pegasus. We have one, maybe two scenes dealing the aftermath of the attempted rape for Sharon, but how many scenes for Helo and the Chief? Sharon doesn't say much, merely sits on the medical bed and allows herself to be examined. She is mostly silent, mostly unmoving, and wholly passive. The Chief and Helo, on the other hand, are full of energy and righteous rage. And why not? They are grade-A heroes.
Here's the thing: the rape of Gina and the attempted rape of Sharon isn't actually about them. It's about what they represent: Cylon power. Cylon power in BSG is female in nature, presented almost entirely by female Cylons in their various guises. How many male Cylons have we seen at that point? Any that we see are swiftly dispatched. The female Cylons - Six, Sharon, the report (whose name escapes me) - are constant and are powerful. They are strong. And they cannot be killed. Violence against them doesn't seem to bother the Cylons much, as part of it is transitory. Either the marks will fade, or they will die and be reborn.
Rape, on the other hand, drives Gina to want to commit suicide. True suicide, with no possibility of rebirth. It is not the act of sex that distresses her - she had no problems seducing Gaius as Six. It is not violence that distresses her - she didn't want to obliterate herself after fighting Starbuck. It is the peculiarities of rape, the feminising* from soldier to victim that is the breaking point for her. While the Cylon power may be a female power, represented by women, it is not an acceptable power. These women are wrong, incapable of reproduction. They are not truly women. This wrongness is addressed in two ways:
- the rape of Gina, instantly turning her from 'soldier' to 'woman and victim'
- the almost rape of Sharon, and the image of her sitting on the medical bed, stroking her wrists and looking down at her swollen belly. Not only was Sharon almost raped - thereby fulfilling one part of the criteria - but she's also pregnant. The only missing piece would be to have her be barefoot.
It's not just in BSG, so I'm going to leave that alone for the moment. Ron Moore introduces Sophie to us in Carnivale by having her almost raped, and saved by Ben - what a guaranteed way to make Ben look like a hero! At that point, Brother Justin was still looking sufficiently heroic for that act on Ben's part to muddy the waters as to just who is the good guy in that show.
Away from the canon itself and into the fanfic, slash fic for shows such as Voyager seems especially keen to perpetuate gender norms. The number of fics I've read where Tom Paris is raped, or trades sex for safety, or some other variant on sexual exploitation, is disturbing. It makes it difficult to read any fic, because even writers that seem to start out writing a gen fic will somehow work a tragic childhood of sexual abuse into the fic sooner or later. Interestingly, it is not Seven, or B'Elanna, or Kathryn, or even Kes who get subjected to all of this abuse, but Tom Paris, a male crewmember. Why, then?
I'm going to argue that it is because these fics want to write about two men, but using the standard gender norms of a heterosexual relationship. And by that I mean that they have to have 'the man' and 'the woman', even in a slash fic. I've ranted before on the emasculation of blondes in fandom, so I'm not going to repeat that here. I will say, however, that rape is one of the primary tropes, if not the primary trope, of signifying that Paris is the female, and is available for 'comforting'. This feminisation*, the un-manning by the act of rape, removes the power of wisecracks and insight and a sharp right hook that Paris would normally possess. It makes him vulnerable, and helpless and in need of protection. Chakotay, acting as the strong alpha male, is then compelled to protect him. Even more insidiously, the relationship seems to be precipitated by the rape - as someone once pointed out, all wounds healed by the 'magic cock' that makes Paris like sex again. Lovely.
Two things:
1. Using rape to feminise* implicitly supports the argument that the female is submissive, passive and helpless, and the male is dominant, active and powerful. By male and female I am not referring to man and woman, but to the gender roles cast. So we can have Paris cast in the female role in these fics. And we can have Six and Sharon reset in those roles, and only allowed to grow into 'acceptably' strong women, having become emotionally involved with a strong man. It's still using binary rhetoric, which I'm historically not a big fan of, and it's incredibly damaging. There is no coming back from that, once you have been feminised*, that's it. You are looked at differently: as a victim. Victims have no voice^, as the definition of victim is someone who cannot defend themselves, who articulate the crime against them. Someone must speak on their behalf - a father, a brother, or other authority figure, someone who was charged with protecting them. It is a retroactive act, this victimisation. It not only creates a victim, but it writes them as always having been a victim. Anything we see after the rape is coloured by it, and all reminiscences are tainted by it. Sharon is imprisoned (before the attempted rape) becomes Sharon is imprisoned in an unsafe environment (after the attempted rape): somehow, the assault makes Sharon always-having-been someone deserving, needing protection. She does little speaking in the medical scene, and is not asked, but is told. She has become chattel.
Similarly, the rape(s) of Tom Paris turn him from a strong, charismatic individual into someone who is actually a bit of a woobie and needs snuggles. The strong, charismatic individual is revealed to be a front, because no one can be both raped and strong - that doesn't make narrative sense in these discourses. Is it any wonder that, while violence of every kind is used on our heroes, rape is not? Buffy is the only one who comes close, and she asserts her 'hero' status by fighting off her attacker. If she had been raped, how could the show have continued, with a hero who was no longer heroic but in need of protection?
So, if the use of rape in narrative is so destructive, wiping away any strength on the characters, why is it so prevalent in fandom, particularly in slash h/c fics?
2. Because of the healing power of Chakotay's cock, of course! When both Paris and Chakotay are strong, dominant characters, they are both in the 'male' role. One must take the 'female' role, be feminised* in order to allow a slash fic to take place within the prescribed gender roles. But there is a problem. Paris is too strong a personality, on screen. It is difficult to get him in bed with Chakotay, and get him to relinquish control to a sufficient extent, and keep him in character. So what better way to accomplish that than to do away with the need for characterisation by introducing a traumatic, role-changing event? All that needs to happen is for Paris to be raped, and he will then be in the 'female' role.
Couldn't this be accomplished by a thorough bout of non-sexual torture? Well, yes. Always possible to break someone that way (see TNG, "Chain of Command"). This, however, can mean that they recover and come back stronger and more determined than ever. Obviously not the goal here. Also, having the comforter assume a sexual role following brutal torture makes the whole thing seem exploitative (as if it wouldn't be, otherwise! But I digress). We need to be happy for the characters, of course. So, rape. I can't think of any other way to phrase it other than 'easing the way'.
In City of Vice, a girl is raped. She starts raving about having been ruined, and being turned into a whore. Her father asks her about any urges - and, not specifying which kind, he leaves the viewer to ponder whether he's talking about self-harm, or about sex. Because having sex, you see, makes a woman want more. Insert the Pringles ad here. Hence the importance of bringing virginity to the wedding bed - otherwise who knows how many men might have had her? A girl who loses her virginity early these days is still looked upon as someone rather loose, someone who is more likely to have sex than those girls who waited. Clearly, she couldn't wait.
A lot of the early erotic literature, and also quite a bit of pornography these days, is based on the assumption that the lady doth protest too much. She will struggle a little, and she will protest, but once things are on the swing of it, she'll like it, really.
We've tried to move on a little from this, but have not gone so very far. We don't have a lot of fics where the rape turns enjoyable mid-way through - thank god - but the underlying basis remains the same: that the female role is wanton, that female desires are insidious and must be kept in check. That, once a female starts having sex, she turns into a nymphomaniac.
Now let us bring in the roles of the attacker and of the comforter. The role of the attacker is to take away the masculinity of Paris, to feminise* him through rape. In this way, he will place Paris firmly in the female role. Furthermore, he will force m/m sex into Paris's life, which is not necessarily something that Paris would have experienced (and any prior experiences are necessarily wiped out by the rape). In this way, we have a blank slate for Chakotay to come rescue: someone newly feminised, with all past sexual history erased or overshadowed by this one act.
Chakotay, as the comforter, claims Paris legitimately, through 'relationship sex'. He is tender with Paris, as if Paris was a virgin, because he 'heals' Paris with this new, 'legitimate' sex. The new Paris is docile and loving, and not the least bit like the old, cocky Paris. It's the same principle behind pimps raping new prostitutes into submission - rape them until they voluntarily yield, and then they 'know their place'. C/P fanfic writers are certainly keen on showing Paris his.
***
I haven't covered a lot of ground here. There is a wealth of literature on rape out there, and it is difficult to separate out the different facets of rape - the act itself, its role within our discourses, the treatment in the courts, the treatment of victims, the treatment of perpetrators, the history of it and its symbolism. The above is merely a short rant on the mis-uses of the rape trope in narrative fiction, and does not reflect on the act itself or on the perceptions thereof in society.
I'd also like to stress that I have only seen one and a half seasons of BSG, as I stopped watching shortly after the afore-mentioned scenes. I'm sure that it's lovely, and my flist seem to enjoy it a great deal. But it's not for me.
* the use of the term here is linked to theories on rape in wartime, particularly around the use of rape as a war tactic against fellow soldiers. I can provide more data or clarifications if needed.
^ I'm using theories on the sub-altern here, as well as some Lyotard. Again, happy to provide sources and further reading if people are interested.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 10:50 pm (UTC)I've never watched "BSG" personally, but I've never had any desire to. I've heard that they play with the rape trope quite often, and I have no interest whatsoever in a show that does that. I've known several survivors of sexual abuse, so it becomes very personal for me, which can make it very insulting. I feel that many writers who bring on the rape trope often go into it not thinking it through, and unprepared to deal with the consequences. I feel like it cheapens a real-life atrocity to tug at their female audience members' fears and heartstrings. After all, what woman wouldn't feel sorry for a woman who had been sexually assaulted? It's cheap and it's slightly degrading. I find it degrading because it seems to me that they thought their audience couldn't identify with a woman who was strong and powerful on her own terms.
I disagree slightly with your point that Buffy asserted herself in fighting Spike off, because the seventh season seemed to deal with the aftermath poorly. Buffy spends a lot of time cosseting and pitying Spike in season seven, and I found that revolting. She gives him snuggles after the hugest betrayal of trust a person's sexual partner can visit upon her? Count me right the fuck out.
I've never read a "Voyager" fic (unless one counts a, IIRC, Paris/Chakotay mpreg written on Bad Fanfic, No Biscuit! to discredit mpreg almost entirely), so I can comment less on that specifically. But I have seen the rape-as-a-precipitator device for hurt/comfort slash fic in other fandoms, and I've never liked it. Again, I find it cheapening, and it also seems, paradoxically, like the writer in question was taking the easy way out. With all the crap that happens to your average hour-long drama characters, you don't have to go far at all to find something in canon for one character to comfort the other one over. Why, then, would you choose rape as the device to bring them together?
no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 11:19 pm (UTC)Exactly. And the thing is, even when it's done well, when it is over-used, it becomes something different. Even if the rape scenes in BSG and Carnivale were perfect in every way, watching two shows feature sexual violence so heavily - and have them be written by the same writer - makes me pause and wonder. Additionally, I think that the scene in BSG were needlessly graphic, and that if empathy was truly the goal, the viewer could have generated that simply by seeing Gina, who was an abuse survivor. Instead, we had a long, protracted, difficult scene of the attempted rape of Sharon happening more or less at the same time, and the climax of that was Sharon's attempted rescue by Helo and the Chief. It felt like the real point of the scene was to put Helo and the Chief in danger, and thus turn the crew of the Galatica against the crew of the Pegasus - which makes the rape scene needlessly exploitative in my eyes. And hideously triggering as well, I might add.
I find it degrading because it seems to me that they thought their audience couldn't identify with a woman who was strong and powerful on her own terms.
Exactly. If she can't be threatened, there is the worry that men will dismiss her as an 'ice maiden' - which all too often they do. Which then leads into the sort of ugliness where 'a good fucking with thaw her', and other remarks of that nature.
I disagree slightly with your point that Buffy asserted herself in fighting Spike off, because the seventh season seemed to deal with the aftermath poorly.
During S6, I mean - she fought him off during the attack itself, and did not need someone else to come rescue her. If Giles or Xander or even Dawn had helped her, I think she would have lost all credibility as a hero.
Buffy spends a lot of time cosseting and pitying Spike in season seven, and I found that revolting. She gives him snuggles after the hugest betrayal of trust a person's sexual partner can visit upon her? Count me right the fuck out.
I agree with you there, which is why I find post-S6 (or even S6) Buffy/Spike slightly disturbing. Even more so are the Spike apologists, that try to rationalise his behaviour as actually being Buffy's fault, and that therefore she is obligated to coddle him in S7 because he did such a wonderful thing for her in looking for a soul.
I've never read a "Voyager" fic (unless one counts a, IIRC, Paris/Chakotay mpreg written on Bad Fanfic, No Biscuit! to discredit mpreg almost entirely),
LOL, that sounds like a corker!
C/P fic tends to follow similar lines - either they have hate!sex, or one (99% of the time Paris) is raped or abused in some way, and Chatokay finds out and comforts him. I really like Paris as a character, and was searching out fic on him. Knowing the likelihood of rape cropping up in slash, I stuck to gen... but a significant portion of gen fics also tended to include some sort of child abuse in there. Which pissed me off enough to write the above.
paradoxically, like the writer in question was taking the easy way out.
EXACTLY. They can't be bothered to get their characters from point A to point B, so they use rape as the short-cut to intimacy for two characters who previously had trouble staying in the same room together.
Why, then, would you choose rape as the device to bring them together?
Laziness? Social conservatism? A firm belief that all anyone needs to enjoy cock is to have it introduced into their lives, whether they like it or not? Take your pick.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-29 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-30 01:40 pm (UTC)It is, and it's one of my pet hates, it really does drive me absolutely nuts.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-29 02:55 am (UTC)First, I need to point out that Ron Moore was not the writer of "Milfay", the pilot of Carnivale where Sofie is almost raped. Dan Knauf wrote the pilot for the show in the mid-90's, and while it did get changed when it was picked up, that plotline stayed. So if you want to blame someone for the rape issues in Carnivale, blame DK.
Secondly, I don't see Sofie's rape as just a device for making Ben look more like the hero. Yes, he saves her, but with Jonesy's reaction (of saying she was probably asking for it), combined with Justin's rape of Apollonia, I feel that it more serves as a plot device to link her to her mother. Sofie is never defined by the rape - if anything, she's defined by her strength in both overcoming it and reclaiming her sexuality (by seducing the barman in "Black Blizzard").
Now, getting back to BSG a little, I wonder, given your strong reaction to "Pegasus", what you'd think of "Maelstrom", where Starbuck has an encounter with Leoben (the male Cylon who held her prisoner for a year on New Caprica). While dreaming, Starbuck either - depending on your view of the episode, because it's honestly hard to tell - has sex with or is raped by Leoben, as a prelude to Kara's breakdown and eventual disappearance. While I see it as the jumping-off point for Kara's realization that her death wish is connected to the Eye of Jupiter (this pattern that she painted on her wall in Caprica, keeps seeing in her dreams, and is the gateway to Earth), I wonder if it could be argued that this is another way of removing Kara's feminine power. Which, given that she comes back at the end of the season, more powerful and more enlightened than before, brings up even more skeevy gender/sexuality issues.
I'm not sure what, if any, conclusion I come to. I just really, really enjoy BSG, despite the skeevy gender issues, just like I really, really enjoy Buffy despite Joss's skeevy race issues.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-30 01:53 pm (UTC)with Jonesy's reaction (of saying she was probably asking for it), combined with Justin's rape of Apollonia, I feel that it more serves as a plot device to link her to her mother.
That's not something that ever came across to me, I have to say. Jonesy's comment really confused me, as all I could think of was that she had some bizarre power, much like Ben, and was a honey trap or something - so that she knew how men would be affected by her, and had been deliberately reckless in leaving the safety of the Carnival. I spent several episodes waiting expectantly to see more of Sophie's power, and when it never materialised, I had to have a serious re-think about Jonesy's initial comment. I don't know, maybe it was naive of me, but what he said sounded so alien in concept to my understanding that it just didn't register. So without that rape releaving something important about Sofie, what was the point of it? If he wanted to demonstrate Sofie's vulnerability, one of the men taking a threatening step forwards would have sufficed. For that matter, why did it have to be Sofie? It seemed that the prettiest girl was picked for an assault early on it show that wasn't required. So what was the purpose?
Sofie is never defined by the rape - if anything, she's defined by her strength in both overcoming it
I have to disagree here. The focus of the scene shifts from Sofie to Ben almost as soon as he enters the picture. Afterwards, the focus remains on Ben. Sofie doesn't overcome the rape (at least not what I've seen of S1 and part of S2), it is merely not mentioned again. That, to me, does not necessarily indicate that she overcomes it - indeed, judging by Jonesy's comment, it merely indicates that sexual assault is something that must be taken as part and parcel of life on the road. It normalises it, making it less of a transgression.
I wonder if it could be argued that this is another way of removing Kara's feminine power. Which, given that she comes back at the end of the season, more powerful and more enlightened than before, brings up even more skeevy gender/sexuality issues.
I haven't seen it so I can't comment, but it certainly sounds plausible.
I'm not sure what, if any, conclusion I come to. I just really, really enjoy BSG, despite the skeevy gender issues, just like I really, really enjoy Buffy despite Joss's skeevy race issues.
LOL yeah. I just - it's not for me. So everyone insisting that it's awesome and that if I don't like it's due to a major character flaw in me rather than a legitimate grievevance with the show - well. Rantiness ahoy.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-29 12:17 pm (UTC)I've seen no BSG, so I can't comment on that. I've also(obviously)read far less fic than you, Paris/Chakotay slash or otherwise. So not V.Well informed there. Final disclaimer, I don't have a master's degree in this, so I'm just working on what I've read and what I think.
3 points.
Point the first, I've read alot of stories which have rape in them. Predominantly the narrative purpose of the rape seems twofold:
1) As an emotionally maniupalative shorthand to obtain sympathy for the victim. This too often makes the character into a pitiable and fairly dull generic 'victim', but only in so far as they are a victim of a generic rape. Generic trauma is bad writing, but if the specificity of the rape (or bereavement, or child abuse or whatever) and the situation it occurs in, is respected. Then you can get genuinely interesting and sympathetic characters, especially if the character's reaction to the trauma makes sense of those specifics.
2)As a way of damning rapist without possibility of reprieve. I'm thinking in particular of China Mieville, who, much as I love him has a bad habit of doing this. Again, its lazy writing. Thievery's sexy, murder can be too, so ets make him a rapist, that way everyone will despise him. As a reaction its fair, but fairly dull.
Point the second - I'm not sure I agree that the rape of a character is neccesarily retroactive, or neccessarily impossible to come back from. I think it *can* be, but I think that's fair, as that kind of experience may well affect a character's suturing function (how they sew together their memories to construct their sense of self), and they may well not recover. That's sad, but realistic for some personality type
That said, some characters do recover. Andy Dufrasne in Shawshank is a good example. Sometimes he succeeds in fighting the gang rapists off, sometimes not. But he keeps trying, and remains a dynamic hero in spite of it.
Point the third - and most controversially (don't throw things, I might not have the theory background to catch them). I've not read anything in your argument above to demonstrate that rape is neccessarily *feminising*. Passive-making, sure. Victimising, fine. But your point that using rape as a feminising weapon reinforces perceptions of the female as victim and passive, relies upon an assumption that the fact of being raped places the victim in a feminine role. To the extent that this assumption rests upon the fact that it renders the victim passive and victimised, the reasoning *appears* and I stress appears because I might have missed your meaning, *appears* circular.
Interesting post though. I wonder to what extent the same arguments could be extended to the other "platonic forms of victimhood" like being abused as a child, and torture.*
*Although torture's usually seems less generic, and so generally turns the subject into less generic a victim.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-29 04:00 pm (UTC)The 'feminising' concept comes from theories on the use of rape in wartime, primarily centred around male-on-male rape. It also picks up a lot on the idea of someone 'having to be the girl', or on 'making him the woman', which again comes from studies of rape in wartime and also in prisons. It doesn't rest on the assumption of passivity creating femininity, and feminity creating passivity, although I can see how you'd get that impression from my lack of explanation above. The idea is actually from the act of rape itself being a display of power, and the link between power and masculinity. It also uses the humiliation of rape, and social stigma attached to it, to indicate that rape in wartime isn't simply a way of displaying power against one person, but of using that against the very concept of that person - using rape to negate the power of their ethnic background, or their allegiance, or their army. More simply, in Bosnia and the like, it was also used systematially against women as a determined effort to dilute the gene pool. There are also a bunch of theories on women as the keepers of nationhood that feed into this - if women are the keepers of nationhood, in raising and educating the children (a lot of this comes from post-colonial rhetoric, primarily centred around woman as the bastions of the British Empire, and I am grossly over-simplifying, so if you disagree with any of it let me link you to the sources instead so you can read the whole argument), then the way to detroy the nation is to target the women. This has bene played out in warfare in the India/Pakistan split, in Bosnia and Serbia, and in Rwanda. I can link you to further studies on it if you're interested.
The final bits and pieces feeding into these theories comes from rape studies, which focus on the motivation and concept of rape and, bizarrely, on ethnic strife as stemming from the same root cause - the need to vilify, humiliate and make dirty. The primary argument here is that rape is not about sex at all, but is instead about displaying power through abuse and denigration. It would be the ultimate denigration of womanhood if society saw it as taking away the pinnacle of womanhood - virginity. So, just as cutting off the hair of a Sikh man would be unbearable to him as he could be cast asunder from his religion, deflowering a woman out of wedlock would also cast her outside of society. Some very interesting stuff has been done on the stuff in Abu Ghraib, and how it uses the same principles.
I'm careful not to conflate 'femininity' and 'victimhood', but they do have several overlapping facets, and it is through this overlap that the feminising action can force someone into victimhood. I want to carry on but I have to run to my meeting, so I'll pause here. If you're interested, I will dig out the stuff I did on this and can do a proper review of it for you.
part 1
Date: 2008-10-30 02:22 pm (UTC)As an emotionally maniupalative shorthand to obtain sympathy for the victim. This too often makes the character into a pitiable and fairly dull generic 'victim', but only in so far as they are a victim of a generic rape.
Not sure what you mean by 'generic rape' in this instance. I would argue that something like rape - which requires focus on the victim, rather than murder by shooting or even certain types of violence - is by definition always specific. Like up-close murders, it requires knowledge of the victim - it is difficult to distance yourself away from the act, which is why rapists tend to distance themselves away from the victim, viewing them as inferior (and, in cases of war-rape, as inhuman).
I do understand the 'generic rape scene' in narrative, however, especially if it's 'rape by numbers' (the less popular version of 'paint by numbers', one presumes) and the scene could fit in any fic/book/tv show without any required changes. And I have major problems with this, as it misrepresents the intent of rape, presenting it as something that you can distance yourself from.
As a way of damning rapist without possibility of reprieve. I'm thinking in particular of China Mieville, who, much as I love him has a bad habit of doing this.
Yes. It's a guaranteed way to make me lose all sympathy. Again, this was used in BSG - we needed to hate the Pegasus crew, and having them kill civilians might not do it (some might see it as necessary, given the circumstances), and torture of inmates might also not do it (see current American perspectives on the necessities of torture) - so let's have rape. Lots of rape. Repeated rape. In fact, let's have sex slaves.
As a reaction its fair, but fairly dull.
YES.
That said, some characters do recover. Andy Dufrasne in Shawshank is a good example. Sometimes he succeeds in fighting the gang rapists off, sometimes not. But he keeps trying, and remains a dynamic hero in spite of it.
That's a very interesting example. I might actually hold that up as a case of rape used well in narrative, as it displays several facets of the character, rather than reducing him to a victim. I would argue that it is a more realistic portrayal - and that the above examples are not particularly realistic (despite their 'grittiness') as they reduce motivations down to one or two impulses. I was most puzzled by the motivation of, er, forgot his name, the bird-man in PSS - given the culture, and how unthinkable his actions are, having a paragraph on how he wanted her and she wouldn't yield just wasn't enough. Quite frankly, it didn't ring true. Unless he'd been drugged and wasn't thinking clearly? I don't recall this being the case.
part 2
Date: 2008-10-30 02:24 pm (UTC)OK. Trying to build on what I said previously and not repeat myself -
Using Cixous re: binary oppositions of male/female, masculine/feminine, light/dark, active/passive etc. These have been pretty well documented as two groupings, with the female side being dark, irrational and passive.
In the vernacular, the male 'fucks', the female 'is fucked'. The act of fucking can only be done by the male. So, by definition, the person doing the act of fucking, being active, is male, strong, and primary. The person being fucked is passive, female, weak and secondary. This is even more plain in rape, where the act requires a method of overpowering someone. Power and primacy is displayed through it. The act of rape therefore places the victim in the feminine role, i.e. this is being done to them, they cannot prevent it.
This links in to why some women feel threatened by aggressive language such as 'I'm going to fuck her', as the implicit inference is, 'whether she likes it or not'. Link that in to 'the lady doth protest too much' and 'she just needs a good fucking' - both implications that women enjoy being 'done to', as their natural place is beneath a man.
So. My point is that rape is a feminising weapon because it places the victim in a feminine position, i.e. they are being done to. Its purpose is therefore to feminise the victim, i.e. to remove their 'active' facets and make them 'passive', to make them powerless.
I know that it might seem circular, but it rests on these assumptions/theories/observations:
- the link between masculinity and active and power
- the link between femininity and passive and powerless
These aren't something I've come up with, but are observations of societal norms. Girls don't go out and seek their fortune, they sit at home and wait to be rescued. Boys go off to fight dragons, or enemies, and bring home the treasure, or salary. Girls acquiesce to their husbands' demands, and the best woman has no opinion at all. Even the wedding ceremony transfers a woman from the care of her father to the care of her husband - she is not expected to fend for herself. Even now, some girls will expect the guy to pay for their food on dates - because he is 'taking her out' and she 'is being taken out'. Any other arrangements is also referred to as a role reversal - because the above are the expected roles.
Interesting post though. I wonder to what extent the same arguments could be extended to the other "platonic forms of victimhood" like being abused as a child, and torture.*
Ack. That's a whole other post. :)
*Although torture's usually seems less generic, and so generally turns the subject into less generic a victim.
Do you mean the portrayal of torture? I'd argue that both torture and rape have similar goals in reality, but are treated very differently in narratives...
Re: part 2
Date: 2008-11-08 11:23 am (UTC)By generic rape, I mean the rape as presented in narrative. The whole point is that there won't be a generic rape in real life, but we are presented with a picture in fiction whereby all rapes are the same, leaving the victims feeling exactly the same way regardless of the kind of personalities they had beforehand. Its lazy writing, another facet of the tell-not-show flaw. It has all the insight of saying: "S/He was raped and had bad rapey feelings about it" but more angst.
I think that Mieville made a mistake with Yagharek. He made his rape about his desire for the victim. It would have rung truer for me if the motivation for the crime had been Yag's terrible, unacknowledgable desire to transgress the most potent rule in his society: that of freedom of the individual. Yag's a very transgressive character (he literally crosses continents). Also, having him totally instrumentalise his victim would chime with the way I understand the psychology of rape. It would also fit with the very abstract mindset he gives the Garuda. She should have been his means, not his end, for it to ring true for me.
"So. My point is that rape is a feminising weapon because it places the victim in a feminine position, i.e. they are being done to. Its purpose is therefore to feminise the victim, i.e. to remove their 'active' facets and make them 'passive', to make them powerless.
I know that it might seem circular, but it rests on these assumptions/theories/observations:
- the link between masculinity and active and power
- the link between femininity and passive and powerless."
I get that you haven't just made it up, but TBH it still does seem circular to me. Let me have a stab at explaining why.
The man/power/active-woman/impotent/passive binary seems to have come from one of two places: Either its been arbitrarily assigned by Cixous et al as a superimposition on the penetration-penetrated dynamic, or else its come from social research. In other words, people have *told* researchers that this is how they view men and women.
Either way, the dialectic between rape victim and perpetrator maps as a more extreme version of this relationship. With you so far.
I understood your initial argument that, "Using rape to feminise* implicitly supports the argument that the female is submissive, passive and helpless, and the male is dominant, active and powerful," as a critique of certain portrayals of rape as harmful and reinforcing of social prejudice. Problem is the characterisation of rape set out above makes it difficult to see *any* way rape could be portrayed that wouldn't reinforce this view.
A little clearer: the implicit femininity and explicit powerlessness of the victim, according to the theories you've cited, seem to be part of the concept of rape itself rather than any particular portrayal of rape. Thus your argument seems to run very close to an one that says that we shouldn't write about rape at all.
Worse, because the dialectic between rapist and victim above is just a more extreme version of the sexual dialectic between man and woman anyway (at least in the theory) it looks like your argument could be extended to saying that we shouldn't write about sex. Not even just sex between men and women, but any sex in which one partner adopts a more passive role that the other one. Because this will be seen as implicitly feminine, and so reinforce the link bewtween female and passive.
Now I know that this isn't what you're saying. I'm just pointing out that the theory you've cited seems support the position above. Which I would both have massive free speech issues with, and also think would be harmful because it would reinforce a culture which is already too geared towards rape being a taboo topic.
We need to make it more okay to talk about rape, not less. Because as long as its going to keep happening (and as long as people are shits, it will) that's the only way we can start to help people come to terms with an get past it.
TBH, I think what we can learn from the above is that I don't really understand the theory you've cited, and that I need to read it. But given that I haven't this is the best I can do.
X