This is a fantastic article debunking the idea that interesting female characters in historical settings are unrealistic.
And this is an author's response when one of her readers asked her "when" one of her kick-ass, superheroine protagonists were going to raped, because it would be "unrealistic" for it not to happen eventually.
I've had rape in my stories. After reading the second link above, I feel kind of bad about that. Most notably, Claire was molested, assaulted, or raped by Samson, off-screen, after he took her power and recovered his health. The next most problematic were a couple complicated rape scenes between Peter and Gabriel in Shattered Salvation. Or maybe the rape of Peter by Sylar in The Prisoner. Or of Adam by Eric Thompson in Best Victim.
I don't have many female protagonists to have assaulted, since somewhere around 95% of my writing is about males. Emma and Heidi had a big presence in Shattered Salvation, but neither of them ever have unwilling sex. I use that wording because Heidi had sex with Gabriel for many months under the misconception that he was actually Nathan. I don't know if that's rape by most definitions, but it's most definitely not the sex she thought she was consenting to and I'm very aware of that. Emma's sex life has been entirely non-traumatic.
I'm glad at least someone's is.
And this is an author's response when one of her readers asked her "when" one of her kick-ass, superheroine protagonists were going to raped, because it would be "unrealistic" for it not to happen eventually.
I've had rape in my stories. After reading the second link above, I feel kind of bad about that. Most notably, Claire was molested, assaulted, or raped by Samson, off-screen, after he took her power and recovered his health. The next most problematic were a couple complicated rape scenes between Peter and Gabriel in Shattered Salvation. Or maybe the rape of Peter by Sylar in The Prisoner. Or of Adam by Eric Thompson in Best Victim.
I don't have many female protagonists to have assaulted, since somewhere around 95% of my writing is about males. Emma and Heidi had a big presence in Shattered Salvation, but neither of them ever have unwilling sex. I use that wording because Heidi had sex with Gabriel for many months under the misconception that he was actually Nathan. I don't know if that's rape by most definitions, but it's most definitely not the sex she thought she was consenting to and I'm very aware of that. Emma's sex life has been entirely non-traumatic.
I'm glad at least someone's is.
Comments
To think that it's necessary just because the characters involved are female is just... Well, really the only thing I can manage is to ask just what the fuck is wrong with some people.
The closest I've come to writing rape is a scene in an original story in which the male protagonist is under the effects of a mind-altering rage/id curse, and gets too forceful with the girl he's seeing but hasn't slept with (because the curse has turned his internalized homophobia in on itself and he feels the need to respond to taunts by "proving" he's straight). She promptly kicks him in the nuts and walks out on him.
And once, in a fic, I had a character freak out believing he had accidentally date raped a friend not realizing they weren't able to consent. (He didn't.)
I have done the sort of grey area dub-con you're talking about with Gabriel, though. One instance is in an attempted fic inspired by the A/B/O 'verse (so it's a sex pollen type situation).
The other... What exactly do you call it when it begins consensually, but one of the participants turns into a non-sentient alien mollusc halfway through it?
Edited at 2013-01-12 08:06 pm (UTC)
I call it rape. Like I had sex that started between Peter and Sythan (aka Gabriel, in SS) very consensually, then Sythan started freaking out under the influence of the Hunger and wanted/tried to take Peter's ability. Peter was really into the sex until that happened and in my view it became rape as soon as Peter's lack of continuing consent became clear. That Peter continued participating doesn't make it not-rape; he was trying to end the encounter as quickly as possible and minimize his own pain.
As for the mollusc, I guess that would depend on whether the mollusc had any awareness. To me, rape requires ... well, violation and/or betrayal. I don't believe the dead can be raped, even if it happens to be a dead human. Necrophilia, yes. Rape? No (unless the person in question comes back to life, in which case yes, it was rape because then the death is more similar to being unconscious than dead). I believe animals can be raped, but on the other hand, I believe humans can have consensual sex with them as well. Frankly, I don't think most animals care all that much as long as you're not inflicting injury or scaring them. A staple of veterinarian books is the picture of a person with their arm past the elbow inside a cow or horse's back end, and the animal looking uncomfortable but otherwise unconcerned.
But back to the mollusc. If it isn't aware and isn't uncomfortable ... then I think I'll reverse my assessment of rape and say that ... well, really, it's just unusual stimulation as far as the mollusc cares.
I love that we can have discussions like this!
This was my very strange Castle fic (as if I write anything else), in which Javier is an alien mimic, similar to the one in John Carpenter's The Thing. In its natural form, it has an animal-like intelligence. The aliens are able to link themselves together in order to pass information within a hive that exists as basically a single organism split into pieces.
In a previous fic in the series, Kevin drunkenly consented to allowing an equally drunk Javier um...introduce alien tissues into his system. So Javier and Kevin now share that ability to link and share eachother's senses. Kevin freaks the fuck out.
In this fic, Kevin finally decides to get over his fears and their first attempt to link promptly leads to magnificent psychic sex. Halfway through the sex, though, Kevin accidentally triggers Javier's transformation into his natural form (which doesn't have Javier's mind or memories). Sex stops, but the alien feels everything that Kevin feels, including his arousal and...
Well, from there, it's pretty basic tentacle porn. But it's really the fact that, at the point sex resumes, one party has been reduced to a mostly-mindless extension of the other's body just doing what feels good makes it difficult for me to decide whether it's truly non-con.
Looked at in a certain way, it's almost masturbation.
(So...that.)
I have read where some people have asserted that they enjoy having drunken sex, drunk to the point that consent is probably not legally giveable. And I know that within established relationships, sometimes it is given that sex is available without explicit consent at that moment, such as initiating sex with someone who is asleep. I don't regard either of those circumstances rape unless one party changes their mind. In a way, judging whether something is rape is like judging whether something was insulting. You have to ask the target/receiving partner and you don't get to veto their perception.
To which I guess I'd have to say the 'rape/not-rape' all depends on Javier's mentality when he came out of it. Well, it might also depend on Kevin's, if he tried to stop it after the transformation and got tentacle-sexed instead.
It's been my experience that the line between want and not-want can be pretty damn blurry and change back and forth in a single encounter, as your partner does different things or different ideas occur to you. Makes it hard to apply a yes/no criteria to it.