A question of Rape
Jan. 10th, 2009 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erastesI had an email from Remittance Girl today which posed the following:
"It's widely accepted that erotic writing that contains non-consensual scenes are, for the most part, very hard to get published. But what if this wasn't the case?
I'd be very interested in hearing from fellow erotica writers on this subject. Have you written erotica with non-consensual elements in it? Have you struggled with this topic intellectually, emotionally, pragmatically? What has informed your decision on whether to include it or not?
Any and all thinking on this subject would be most welcome and, with your permission, I would like to post your responses on my blog, as a sort of round-table discussion.
Hugs and thank-you in advance for your consideration of my request.
Remittance Girl
http://www.remittancegirl.com"
My answer was this:
I would never eroticise a rape scene, but I wont say I'll never include one - there's one definite scene in Standish, (although I only do the set up and the aftermath, which is probably worse as the reader can fill in their own details which are worse than the author can write) and there's a couple of almosts.
It would (specially in the gay historical genre) be stupid to ignore the fact that gay men aren't in danger of this.
What I dislike most is the trope of "raped woman (or man) falling in love with her rapist" or "stalked female/man ditto" it reinforces the idea that this is acceptable behaviour and that no doesn't mean no. Wooing, even aggressive wooing is another matter and there is a fine line.
I particularly loathe the slave-fics where the slave falls in love with the repeated rapist. However - these stories are hugely popular and for some reason the publishers don't even count it as rape. It seems to be that if the body reacts that's taken as consent which is so clearly not.
I've been lucky with my publishers, they've never said "remove this or that scene" PD Publishing didn't change a word of Standish's rape scene, there's a torture and rape in Transgressions with, laughingly realising I sound like a hypocrite the abused become attached to his abuser. However this is Stockholm Syndrome and is not at any time portrayed as anything other than a sick, nasty relationship and not erotic--or at least in my eyes. However Perseus accepted the MSS as is, and didn't change it. I think that - perhaps? - larger publishers are more likely to take risks. The smaller publishers (again, perhaps) are more anxious that their readers like their product and won't leave their brand if rape is allowed.
I'd be (and Remittance Girl would too!)interested on your thoughts if you'd like to give them, and if you don't want to have your comments posted on her blog, you'd better put a disclaimer or something.
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Date: 2009-01-10 12:01 pm (UTC)xxx
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Date: 2009-01-10 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-10 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-10 01:12 pm (UTC)I agree with 'certain scenes' being portrayed in the light of out of something devastating good can eventually prevail. Life is like that. You take a lot of shit and eventually some good can come out of it. Writers write about life, death and everything in between ...
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Date: 2009-01-10 03:49 pm (UTC)There are times and places where characters cannot give consent or have no right to consent, esp. in historical or fantasy situations.
I've written scenes where characters have shrugged and gone about sex they did not want because it never occurs to them to say no. Or if they say it, they know they will not be heeded. Or they say yes because the other person will force them and they'd rather do it willingly.
I've never had trouble selling any of these.
My most recent has two attempted rapes. These are presented as attacks and not eroticized. My editor didn't bat an eye. It develops three characters (attacker, victim and rescuer) and advances the story.
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Date: 2009-01-11 06:52 am (UTC)I'm not surprised those scenarios would sell. The line between aggressive seduction and actual rape is a blurry one, and a lot of people think anything short of life-threatening force is not rape.
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Date: 2009-01-10 04:38 pm (UTC)I've not written rape-- though I've written dubious-consensual stuff. And I don't eroticise it. I don't enjoy writing it, but it's a neccessary evil in some of the stuff I've written-- and it's quite distinctly NOT written to titilate the reader, whereas some of the otehr sex stuff... might be. Or at least it might be more enjoyable to read than dub-con.
What I dislike most is the trope of "raped woman (or man) falling in love with her rapist" or "stalked female/man ditto" it reinforces the idea that this is acceptable behaviour and that no doesn't mean no.
AGREED: this is a HUGE fanfic cliche, too, and it minimises and trivialises sexual assault and just leaves me feeling icky. Not to mention, it's generally unbelievable, and quite obviously used as a plot device. (I also hate seeing someone-gets-raped-and-the-only-way-to-heal-them-is-for-someone-else's-magical-touch-to-fix-it.) Just like I hate seeing mental illness/self-injury used as a big drama-trump which gets solved with True Love (expressed through stereotypically "romantic" gestures and sex. Because therapy and drugs don't work, one single person can alter someone's brain chemistry, give them a reason to live and fix their life... right?)
However this is Stockholm Syndrome and is not at any time portrayed as anything other than a sick, nasty relationship
See, I don't have ANY issue with that. But when writers confuse love with a mental illness-- that's entirely screwed up. (That's one of my primary issues with Twilight-- talk about romanticising control-freakish, overly jealous and downright creepy-- not to mention disgustingly sexist-- behaviour.)
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Date: 2009-01-10 05:13 pm (UTC)I agree with you about not eroticising rape. I've written a few rape scenes that took place 'off the page' so that you don't actually see the rape happen, just the build-up and aftermath - although if it's a female rapist and a male victim, I think technically it's sexual assault rather than rape.
The only rape I've ever written explicitly was exactly twelve words long. Like you, I think it's actually more effective to make the reader imagine what's happening.
What I dislike most is the trope of "raped woman (or man) falling in love with her rapist" or "stalked female/man ditto" it reinforces the idea that this is acceptable behaviour and that no doesn't mean no.
Agreed. I don't understand this trope at all.
One that's far more interesting, I think, is where one lover in an established relationship is is possessed by a demon/alien and rapes the other - and how the couple's relationship changes as a result (obviously after the demon/alien has been extracted). Can it survive? I think that would be an interesting question to explore.
So rape isn't a no-no for me, but it needs to be handled sensitively.
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Date: 2009-01-10 05:19 pm (UTC)I'm just reading an interesting book by Joanna Bourke: "Rape - A History from 1860 to the Present" and she makes a very convincing point that all sexual contact that doesn't have consent is rape. That includes women raping men, other women and children. "A man cannot be raped by a woman" is a myth - not unrelated to the myth bandied about in the 19th century that women's muscles are strong enough to ensure that rape cannot happen.
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Date: 2009-01-10 06:19 pm (UTC)Yes, personally I believe any sexual contact without consent should be considered rape, but in legal terms there's a distinction between rape and sexual assault.
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Date: 2009-01-10 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-10 06:38 pm (UTC)I read a book last year that had not one, not two, but eight rape/attempted rape scenes, and not between the same two characters. Some were told from the POV of the rapist - who was NOT the hero - and I was so utterly disgusted that I fired off an email to the publisher. At the very least, there should have been some warnings attached to that book, though in my opinion it never should have been published at all. Not surprisingly, I never received a response.
That being said, I'm not opposed to rape as a part of the plot so long as it's not glorified or eroticised. I have an attempted rape scene in Leading Her to Heaven. I never had any problems from either my first or second publisher over it, nor did I expect to. It's not a sexy scene. It's gritty, raw, and horrifying. It sets the stage for the conflict between villain and hero/heroine throughout the book.
I do think there is a difference between "true non-consensual sex" and the non-con sometimes used in BDSM stories or so-called "forced seduction." I've written some BDSM, too. In "A Scandalous Arrangement," for instance, the hero (though I view him more as an anti-hero than a hero) is a dominant, and the heroine his submissive, who at the start of the tale is none too certain she wants to participate in his games. By the time they actually have sex, though, she's a very willing player. I think there is quite a fine line in the context of BDSM fiction. My stories would certainly offend some. It's a subjective arena.
Kayleigh
(permission given to quote, repost, etc)
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Date: 2009-01-10 07:23 pm (UTC)"raped woman ... falling in love with her rapist"
I'm going to take my online rep into my hands and address this. First, a few caveats. Yes, this trope absolutely gives people -- male as well as female -- dangerously wrong ideas about what "no" means, and about whether rape should be considered a crime or just enthusiastic wooing. :/ And yes, I agree that romance and erotica are better off without it in any story which purports to be set in the real world, and nowadays I cringe when I see it. In the interests of YKIOK, I'm fine with stories which are pretty clearly fantasies about rape, but that's a different issue. (Although I'll point out that rape is the single most common sexual fantasy among women, or was last time I read about a survey or three.)
As a woman of a certain age (45) I started reading historical romances during the Rape Decade. Back in the 70s, it was tough to find a romance which had any sex at all which didn't have at least one rape, and usually it was the "hero" doing it, and the "heroine" (I hate those terms, but whatever) had a wonderful orgasm and fell in love with him. We look at this now and go, "WTF?? Ick!!" but you have to get where it was coming from.
At that time, the sexual revolution had barely taken hold. There was (and still is) a lot of surface rah-rah for sexual liberation and the right of the individual to do whatever they wanted with one or more other consenting adults, etc., but the core of the culture said (and still says today, if you pay attention) that Good Girls Don't. I got the talk from my mother about how, if my classmates were ever passing around dirty pictures or whatever, I should just pass them on and pretend I wasn't interested, because Good Girls weren't interested in sex and letting anyone know I was would be a bad idea.
Of course because we were teenagers, there was a lot of boundary-pushing -- how close could you go? Could you tell a dirty joke? Could you giggle when someone else did? How loudly? How far could you go showing "interest" in anything having to do with sex before people saw you differently, before you were labelled a slut?
And no, not everyone, or even every woman, accepted the traditional ideas, but even people who thought they were free of them were influenced by them to some extent. They're still present in our culture, so how much stronger were they thirty-five years ago? Even now, in the vast majority of our popular media -- TV, movies, books, commercials, print ads, jokes, whatever -- the female you're intended to admire is a Good Girl to one extent or another, and the female who knows what she wants sexually and goes after it without hesitation is a Bad Girl, and not in a good way. Even if the Bad Girl is played for some sexual interest in the middle of the story, she'll usually lose out to the Good Girl in the end. The Good Girl might be having sex nowadays, but it's with one man at a time, and she has to at least believe that she's In Love, if not actually engaged or married. If she ends up with more than one guy it's usually seen as a mistake, and she has to make up for it somehow before she's seen to deserve happiness, which still means a stable relationship with one guy. The still-strong linking of sex with love is a remnant of the older attitudes -- the idea that sexual enjoyment isn't a good enough reason to have sex. Only sluts do that. You have to be in love, have to be at least thinking about a long-term relationship and usually that'll include ponderings about marriage.
[Continued on Next Rock...]
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Date: 2009-01-10 07:27 pm (UTC)I have a friend, my age, who told me once when we were in our twenties that she had to tell her boyfriends that "When I say no, I really mean yes." :/ She's a smart, independent woman, has her act together and all that, but she literally Could Not force herself to have sex with a boyfriend without protesting; the guilt was just too strong. And yes, I realize this was just spreading the whole "No means yes" thing to every guy she got into a relationship with, but she was raised to be a Good Girl in a culture which defined sex as bad.
So now it's the seventies and we have sexy romance novels. Perverse as it may sound, an erotic rape is actually a work-around to the problem of wanting sex but feeling guilty about it. See, if he rapes her, if he forces her, then it's not her fault. And if he's Just So Good at sex [wry smile] that she has a wonderful experience and an explosive orgasm, then cool -- she gets to have her fun but doesn't have to shoulder the guilt, because it wasn't her fault. She said no, she tried to fight, but he was insistent and too strong for her. Bummer.
Those of you a generation younger than me are probably rolling your eyes and maybe even cussing, but this was significant at the time. Being able to (vicariously) enjoy great sex without the guilt was wonderfully freeing, like someone had removed a huge burden.
Yes, I know that wanting someone else to solve your problems for you by taking your choices away is a non-optimal solution, and in fact sets women's autonomy back however much. Women were still trying to work out how all this new sexual freedom stuff worked, how it could work, and how it fit in with what our mothers told us and what our peers thought, keeping in mind that one mistake could have you walking around with a SLUT label on your forehead for however long you were with your current peer group. No, it wasn't an optimal solution. But the TRS-80 wasn't a perfect computer, either; when new situations come up, the first few attempts to deal with them usually are less than brilliant.
It took a generation to really start internalizing the message that women should be able to have sex whenever they want. And even now, that message still hasn't fully penetrated. Even now, a lot of people -- a lot of women -- who, if asked, would agree that a woman's body is her own and she should have the freedom to make her own decisions and to use it as she pleases, would turn around and in another situation, see an attractive woman in sexy clothing flirting with several men and think, or whisper, or say right out loud, "What a slut!"
So which is it? Both ideas are still there. We claim to believe in sexual freedom, but the Good Girl and Bad Girl are still there nagging at us, and the slut label is still being pasted onto women who go too far in exercising their sexual freedom.
And all the, "Well you shouldn't...!" type lectures in the world aren't going to change someone who's caught up in this. I know there's nothing wrong with having sex with whomever I want. So did my friend. What your brain knows and what your gut twists at are two different things, though.
So, yes, I read and enjoyed hundreds of historical romances with eroticized rape scenes, and I fantasized about them later. I'm not going to apologize for being strongly influenced by the world in which I grew up. Nor am I going to feel like a weak failure or an idiot because of the existence of other women of my generation who did manage to crawl out of this particular pit. And if the trope still continues to be popular, I'll suggest that for some people it's still necessary. Maybe not among quite as many women (I certainly hope not -- I'd like to think we've made some progress in the last thirty-five years) but the Good Girls Don't message is still out there, just as strong even if more subtle.
Angie
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Date: 2009-01-10 09:14 pm (UTC)thank you for that post, I really enjoyed the insight.
Vash
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Date: 2009-01-10 10:33 pm (UTC)CC May
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Date: 2009-01-11 07:10 am (UTC)I can't imagine enjoying sex while in fear for my life. Never met anyone who'd been raped who enjoyed it, either -- but that fantasy of bearing no responsiblity is a powerful one. Totally unlike my RL attitudes; I don't even think much of "seduction," from either role. Then again, to me sex without love isn't worth the effort--I tried that, and it was sort of like making a whole meal of nacho chips--tasty but not nourishing.
But you're right; I can't think of any sexually oriented fiction I got my hands on in which women who had sex were not either sluts or victims. Heinlein was the first, and he was an eye-opener even if the books were more or less PG-rated and pretty chauvinist to boot. Odd as it seems, fan fiction and the endless variations of Lt Mary Sue were really a positive step in non-victim, non-slut sexual fantasies for women.
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Date: 2009-01-11 02:51 pm (UTC)I'm writing a novel now set in that time and place. And the hero cannot accept his gayness. He is swept off his feet at first, but when the religious guilt comes crashing in, his lover has to remove all agency from him for him to enjoy it.
And you are exactly right on so many levels.
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Date: 2009-01-10 09:09 pm (UTC)Nonconsensual scenes have their place in storytelling, if they advance the plot or character development. Rape or unwanted sexual advances of any kind aren't part of any healthy relationship, but if they're included in that awareness and to highlight that fact, then yes: include them. They're a real risk in a relationship, and since the romance genre is pretty much all about relationships, there's no reason not to include them.
When they're glorified, however, or translated from an act of violence into simply a preliminary for zomg twu wuv, however-- no. Just- no.
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Date: 2009-01-11 09:05 am (UTC)The sexually explicit noncon takes place offstage. I considered making it more explicit and decided against it--not so much for commercial reasons as ethical and esthetic ones. Rape is ugly. I didn't want to write the scenes from David's point of view (as Erastes says, the reader can fill in the blanks quite effectively) because it would be a dreary, unpleasant ordeal both to write and to read.
The alternative would have been to write it from the rapist's point of view. The character is a manipulative sociopath, and even if I'd wanted to spend time in the bastard's head, that would have made the book something I didn't want it to be--because while I could write it as a titillating sort of S&M scenario, I would not.
A few people have complained that I didn't, on the grounds that it would have been "powerful." Well, maybe so. But powerful in what way, and to what purpose? I've got the mixed-message programming Angelabenedetti spoke of above. Heavy-duty Catholic martyr stories, from childhood to adolescence, what my wife calls the "Little Golden Books of Death." Sex is bad, pain is good ... a perfect formula for rape-as-erotica. Very 'powerful' stuff.
But.
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Date: 2009-01-11 09:06 am (UTC)Why in hell would I want to contribute to that sick worldview? This wasn't a bondage scene, with consenting adults playing games; it wasn't a situation with lovers figuring out the active/passive balance of their relationship—it was psychological and physical violation, sex as a means of expressing control over an unwilling victim, one person hurting another solely for his own pleasure.
Call me a goodie two-shoes, but I just can't see that as worthwhile.
People don't always remember that stories were not created as mere entertainment. Stories began as a teaching tool-—fables and fairytales, creation stories, tribal histories… Erastes linked to an interview with writer Alan Moore a few days ago, where he speaks of writers as being shamans in the sense of altering reality with words. He's right. Words have power. Stories have power. Even fan stories—every story that touches a reader has the power to change that reader's reality. An example? Brokeback Mountain. A stereotype exploded.
Every writer has a choice to make: what will your story teach? Soap opera bad girl/boy, gratification at all costs, or the path of the hero? JR Ewing or Frodo Baggins? It doesn't have to be boring or preachy--but I think it's useful for a writer to have a notion of what she means to say... even if what she says is ZOMG, hot sex is wonderfully fun!
I'm in my fifties. I have not had children. What I write is what will be left behind when I'm gone.
I had the privilege of knowing a really wonderful woman, now deceased, who had been physically and sexually abused from childhood to her late teens. Many people in this situation grow up to become abusers themselves. A pattern, once established, tends to persist unless a deliberate effort is made to change it. This lady made the effort. With only two years of high school education for herself, she raised six of the most incredible people I know—teachers, artists, musicians, therapists—because she decided that her kids' lives would be different. The abuse stopped with her conscious decision. She broke the chain.
Choosing to write characters who have a code of honor, choosing to write love worth risking death for, rewriting the twisted nonsense society teaches… that simply makes more sense to me than playing variations on a theme that was impressed on my psyche before I was old enough to make any kind of yes-or-no decision about it. That unhealthy, death-affirming, sadistic and miserable story stops right here and now.
Which, when you think about it, goes back to the rape theme, doesn't it? Keep playing the tune because it hits the familiar chords – or write new music?
I am not saying that my choice is the right choice for everyone. I'm certainly not saying it's the only choice. Sometimes catharsis is what a writer needs, sometimes a reader needs to know that someone else has felt the same pain. Each of us has her own way of doing story magic. But for me, at this point in my life, it's a very deliberate decision not to write rape as erotic entertainment.
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Date: 2009-01-11 03:25 pm (UTC)I am approaching this from a purely literary point of view. To me, the most important thing is the point of view the reader is being shown the story from. What motivates the character. If the reader is seeing this through the rapists eyes, it will be a positive thing. If the reader is seeing this through the eyes of someone who mistakes rape for love, it will be a positive thing. If the reader is seeing this through the eyes of someone who is apathetic, that is how it will appear. If you have created a world in which this is normal, acceptable, or even encouraged, this is how it will appear. It is all contextual to me. I prefer for the scene to work for the character, than to suddenly have a maurading mysogenistic hero break down into tears because he raped a vestal virgin.
I have to say, that I don't have an opinion on whether it is right or wrong to write rape scenes. Sometimes I feel that they are required. Sometimes people stick them in gratuitiously, to my mind. I'd rather read a well written, well crafted, well integrated rape scene, that that bloody traversty of writing "The Da Vinci Code."
It is the authors decision, to rape or not to rape.As a reader, if you don't like the book, put it down. But I'd rather the book be written and it upset people enough to put it down, than not have the book written at all, because people are too afraid to tackle something so provocative.
If we start censoring other authors, or scaring other authors out of writing things because we believe they should not be published, we are no better than fools. Good books are written about both easy and hard subjects. And and as the definition of good is subjective, lets encourage people to write about whatever they want.
Sorry for the rant
tst
Please note: Was raped many years ago, over an extended period of time. Do not let it affect my life.
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Date: 2009-01-11 04:03 pm (UTC)I exclusively write M/M, and I am interested in how violence and sex interact. Sometimes, that's just very "vigorous mating", sometimes, it's rape, sometimes has mitigating factors. I just recently wrote a scene where a guy consented at the beginning, then entered a state where he couldn't consent (he took drugs, voluntarily, offered by the other guy), and then the sex turned into a threesome, where the main character never consented. Technically, he was raped by the third guy, and he struggles to come to terms with having been taken advantage of. The scene itself is fairly disturbing and relatively explicit, but also sexy.
That novel deals with how people take advantage of other people, how an ultra-capitalistic environment commoditizes (sp?) the body, and those topics are mildly disturbing.
I've co-written an explicit rape at the very beginning of "Special Forces" which is part in the mind of the rapist and part in the mind of the "victim" (I'm using quotemarks for victim because I don't want to make "victim" the identity/label of somebody who has been subjected to rape). Writing the rapist was hard work, because he definitely got off on the rape, and while he starts as a villain, both men aren't blameless and we get to see both in much deeper layers later on, where all "victim"/"perpetrator" categories are wiped out and negated. While the rapist got off on it, the victim's perspective ensures that the horror of rape is clearly there - so the scene is ambiguous. Some find it sexy, others abhorrent, most people get its sexy *and* wrong.
I think human sexuality is too complex to fit into neat categories. Do Harry Potter slashers write kiddie porn? Should they get their own children taken away for being in a circle of kiddie porn traders? Is writing a rape "wrong"? Do we degrade the "victim", whether male or female? Should a rape always be written in an abhorrent way? Should we always let the curtain fall once the shadow of the rapist falls across his incapacitated, struggling or just frozen "victim"?
I don't think there are hard and fast answer. Every book and every sex scene is different. I have written a man who's capable of rape and uses it as a vent and a weapon. He gets off on violence - eventually, that fades a bit, but he merely channels those dark urges. Facing him on his own terms was one of the harder things I've ever done, because I'd be disgusted by a RL rapist. But this is fiction, and I owe my characters and readers that much emotional honesty to stare the beast in the face and wear his skin while I write him. It can be an uncomfortable place.
I don't believe in making choices for my readers. I don't believe in "educating" my readers. I don't have a "moral" I want to "teach" anybody. Who am I to teach anybody anything?
If anything, I'm exploring people, and people are complex in their urges. Since violence and sex and identity are main topics I am dealing with in every book I write, so, yes, rapes can happen, they can be explicit, and I don't shy away from looking into the rapist, either.
Nobody said writing was easy.
(Note: My mother was raped by my father, and I have no pity or compassion for any RL rapist whatsoever)
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Date: 2009-01-11 04:11 pm (UTC)You know how to tread the thin line between tasteful and trash very well. Your characters have such interesting flaws.
And I still love Francis.
I see rape as a power play. But I guess that is how you would see it if the reasons you were put through that was because you'd managed to get the better of your rapist in the first place. And all they could do was assert physical dominance.
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Date: 2009-01-11 04:19 pm (UTC)Rape-as-power is actually a common explanation - apparently many rapists say they did it to "put the bitch into her place". My girlfriend of many, many years ago was date raped by a friend and I have a fair idea of the horror ... as a writer, I don't make my decisions lightly.
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Date: 2009-01-11 10:58 pm (UTC)I'm loving that Martin is more freaked out that his blowjob offer got refused than anything else so far. Oh *grin*. Francis seems to be playing him like a lute.
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Date: 2009-01-11 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-11 09:41 pm (UTC)Part 1
Date: 2009-01-11 09:48 pm (UTC)I could write a rape scene, but not a prettified one where rape equals rough sex and the rapist was simply overwhelmed with passion. Nor could I write a rape from the point of view of the rapist, because the rapist either would not believe it was rape or would believe he was completely justified in raping the victim. I would not write either scene in that way, because I find both notions repellent.
I believe
You see, I've known rape victims, both male and female. I had a friend who was gang-raped by four boys. She had been planning to be a nun. She could not accept what had happened to her, and her mind snapped. The last I heard, she was being taken to a mental hospital in Boston. That was thirty years ago. I do not know where she is now.
I had another friend--this one a boy--who was "taken on" by a mentor, one of the rich men at the country club near my high school. The man gave him a great deal of attention, pointed out scholarships the boy could apply for, encouraged him in his studies and boasted his confidence. Then one day there was a party at the country club. The kid got slipped a mickey. When he woke up, he was in bed with his erstwhile mentor...who smiled and proceeded to show him photographs. Photographs of the boy with women. With men. With other boys. With children. With dogs. The mentor informed him that from now on, the boy would be having sex with him and with anyone else he chose to share the boy with. If he failed to do that, or failed to perform any other favors that the mentor requested, copies of the photos would be mailed to his rabidly homophobic father and a set of the photos would be tacked up on the school bulletin board.
(The mentor wasn't kidding about the latter. I saw a set of those pictures tacked to the bulletin board in school once. That was easy to arrange. The photographer attended school there.)
I can remember being shoved up against a locker by a janitor when I was thirteen. I can remember screaming for help, and no one hearing.
I remember an attempted gang-rape when I was sixteen. I was the one who got in trouble for that--because I reduced one rapist to helplessness by squeezing his penis and digging in with sharp nails, and broke the arm of another. I was informed by the principal and the vice-principal that nice girls did NOT fight like that. They wept and begged and tried to touch the rapists with their tears and purity and devotion. They did NOT brawl in the streets.
Part 2
Date: 2009-01-11 09:49 pm (UTC)And yet, despite the fact that this was not our responsibility, all of us ended up feeling guilty and getting blamed. I was nearby when the school nurse told Damaris's parents what had happened, and I still recall her father's anguished reaction: "Why? Why did she DO it?"
For that matter, I remember my aunt's reaction when the janitor attacked me: "What were you doing? You must have been doing something, or you wouldn't have attracted his attention that way!"
And Jerry...Jerry had no hope of any help. He was gay--he didn't dare ask his father for help concerning blackmail and homosexual rape. "He'll kill me," he said. I had seen the scars on Jerry's back--large raised keloid scars. I knew that Jerry was not exaggerating.
It was not our fault...but somehow we got the guilt and the fear and the blame anyway.
Perhaps knowing that there is no such thing as a free lunch--or a guiltless rape--gets in the way of the rape fantasy for me. I cannot ignore the reality and suspend disbelief so that I can accept the fantasy. I cannot believe it.
And I do not want to contribute to an attitude that makes rapists feel that NO doesn't mean 'no' and that allows them to justify their actions ("I couldn't help it! I just lost control!"). I don't want people thinking, based on a book or a film, that a rape doesn't do any harm or damage trust.
Storytellers, in my view, shape the world. They tell the world not only what it is, but what it can be. Others have mentioned that they want to be honest with their characters. I understand that. At the same time, I would have a great many problems presenting a man or woman who had committed rape--in a sympathetic light. I would worry that the reader would come away from the story with the impression that rape was somehow less serious if it was done by a "nice guy." In a world that has fangirls and Mary Sues for the Joker, Freddy Krueger and Pyramid Head, I worry about telling readers that rape isn't that serious, that it can turn to love, that it is...respectable. Perhaps this seems obvious...and yet, I can remember when people started wondering if there was such a thing as marital rape. The idea was being debated when I was in law school, first came up for discussion when I was about twelve, and was utterly laughable when I was a child.
I simply do not want to sell the reader on an idea that I find abhorrent--that treating people like things to be overpowered and used has no consequences, save for positive ones.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2009-01-11 10:09 pm (UTC)Others have mentioned that they want to be honest with their characters. I understand that. At the same time, I would have a great many problems presenting a man or woman who had committed rape--in a sympathetic light. I would worry that the reader would come away from the story with the impression that rape was somehow less serious if it was done by a "nice guy."
In my case, I don't think any reader got the impression that the rapist I wrote about was a "nice guy". Over thirty years, he redeems himself, and he learns to feel guilty for what he did. He also gets punished from outside forces for "being an animal". In a way, it was very important that in the context of the story, his narcissist attitude that contributed to him being capable of rape was also a contributing factor in his eventual punishment. "Redemption" is probably too much, but he does regret and feel guilt eventually.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2009-01-11 10:51 pm (UTC)And just to make things really fun--the photographer of the blackmail photos? Those were taken by the mentor's son. He was one of four boys who ran the school. He was also one of the boys who raped Damaris, and who tried to rape me.
A friend of Jerry's told me a couple of years after this that Jerry had died when he was about 19 or 20. AIDS. Not fair. He deserved so much better than abuse and rape and blackmail and death.
In my case, I don't think any reader got the impression that the rapist I wrote about was a "nice guy". Over thirty years, he redeems himself, and he learns to feel guilty for what he did. He also gets punished from outside forces for "being an animal". In a way, it was very important that in the context of the story, his narcissist attitude that contributed to him being capable of rape was also a contributing factor in his eventual punishment. "Redemption" is probably too much, but he does regret and feel guilt eventually.
I'm glad your fictional rapist (that almost sounded very wrong!) was punished, both for his narcissism and for the rapes, and that he eventually does feel regret and guilt. How did he come to be caught?
Re: Part 2
Date: 2009-01-12 12:39 pm (UTC)Re: Part 2
Date: 2009-01-12 06:53 pm (UTC)Yes.