Candy’s column on forced sex between heroes and heroines made me think of two males in romances I’ve read, and why the unwilling sex depicted within didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.
My secret love of Coulter’s Midsummer Magic
The hero, Hawk, has to marry Frances or one of her sisters, and because she disguises her fiery personality (because you can’t be Scottish if you don’t have (a) red hair and (b) a fiery personality to match, och och och) behind a wonderfully awful dowdy costume, he marries her. His life won’t have to change much – he’ll dump her dumpy ass in the country, head on back to London, boink his mistress, go to parties, and head north every so often so that he can head north up her passage and beget an heir.
This is where the oft-discussed “cream” to ease that passage north comes in. He forces Frances several times despite her clear refusal, and has to use cream to smooth his way. And, you know, it’s a tough call for me to declare that he’s 100% wrong because they’re married, and in historical context, sex was part of the marital deal. While spousal rape is a crime in a lot of countries now, it sure as shit wasn’t then.
Yes, no means no and it sucks that she’s in that position, but hey, he doesn’t want to be married to her any more than she wants to be wedded to him. And yeah, yeah, he couldn’t see through her disguise to see the hawt sexy fiery redheaded Scottish vixen of awesomeness that she is, and eventually Frances wins him over with her true self. Likewise Frances rested purely on her initial reaction to Hawk and discovered later that they have a great deal in common, not the least of which is a big stormcloud of sexual attraction. But is he wrong to expect sexual intercourse now that they’re married? Is he absolutely in the wrong because she said no and he went ahead anyway?
Consider Sophia Nash’s A Dangerous Beauty
When Rosamunde finally reveals how horrible her husband was – and he was a right slimeball, no mistake about it – I was with her in deepest empathy all through the parts where he controlled her, punished her, emotionally abused her and made her feel like crap every day of her life with him. But when Rosamunde related the details of his footsteps pausing outside his door, knowing that he was going to come into her room for conjugal relations, I had to say, “Ok, but….”
In historical romance, somehow in my brain there’s a forced sex loophole within the marriage of the characters. Yes, it sucks when your slimeball of a husband wants to boink you, and it’s even worse that he takes enjoyment out of the fact that you clearly, clearly hate it, but those are the historical facts of the time – there was an understood expectation of conjugal rights. Even now, spousal rape isn’t a crime in a whole list of countries. Even in the US, 33 of 50 states regard spousal rape as a lesser crime. So yeah, it sucks, and I’m horribly sorry for the heroine and I appreciate the trauma that results from having a wanking bastard of a husband force sex purely because he knows she hates it. But that’s unfortunately the deal. Rosamunde had a lot more ground to stand on when listing the details of her awful first husband when she related his emotional abuse.
A lot of the defining moments of creating the alpha hero, particularly in historical romances, rest on his attitude and approach to sex, most certainly with the heroine. Alpha heroes most frequently think with their little alphas, and the degree to which they do so often determines how redeemable they are by the ending – if there is a fully happy ending. As Candy pointed out, sometimes these alphas are such complete idiots that they really don’t reach restoration by the end.
But when the alpha hero – or even the abusive villain, in the case of Nash’s book – is demanding or forcing sex within a marriage to a heroine, I have a harder time categorically dismissing him as Teh Most Ebil Alpha Ever. It’s not entirely historically inaccurate, and because of that fact I have room to empathize with the hero in that situation, even if only a little bit. And for me, that tiny bit of empathy keeps that particular alpha from being unredeemable.
I have never bought the “rape is historically accurate” argument as a justification for the raping alpha “hero”. Sure, rape happened in the past (and it happens today), but just because the misty veil of time separates us from the act doesn’t transform rape into morally acceptable behavior. And I simply can’t accept as fact the idea that this was normal behavior. I just don’t buy it. Furthermore, just because something was legal doesn’t make it right or heroic. In fact, just the opposite. Often what makes a man heroic, IMO, is that he behaves better than his peers. If he’s such an alpha-stud, I’d like to see him put in the work to actually seduce his wife (or mistress, or whatever) into wanting him.
I agree with the person who brought up the equivalence to men having the ‘legal right’ to rape Slave women. I don’t care what the legal rights are.
In Victorian times, men could force maids to have sex with them too, and if the girl got pregnant, she was ‘turned off without a character’, presumably to take up prostitution.
If a man has sex with a woman, knowing she actively doesn’t want it, then it’s rape, and he’s a scumbag.
I share some similar thoughts on historical accuracy issue. I think that’s all well and good, but I don’t read the novels for historical accuracy.
When I read fiction, I’m not necessarily looking for a history lesson. But often I am looking for something different from my everyday experience and attitudes. I wouldn’t want a steady diet of rape scenes, but I do want to read about a variety of interactions. When I read too many similar books, I miss being stimulated to think about these issues.
Various thoughts:
Rape and rape fantasies are two very different things. But they often get confused and conflated in romances.
Our standards have changed since Charlotte Lamb wrote Dark Dominion. The violence level against women in romances has dropped quite dramatically since the 1970s, when marital rapes were a common outcome of marital fights. Even then, though, they were considered outre behavior and both parties knew it. The “I’ll drag us through the mud rather than admit an honest emotion” approach to romance is out of fashion.
Sheila Bishop did a book about outright wife abuse years ago, and the wife was eventually told to go back and take it, that she was wrong to flee the situation, wrong to seek another man, and wrong to think that her husband should change his behavior. That book would not fly today.
The tolerable part of “close your eyes and think of England” conjugal sex was that the wife was neither expected nor encouraged to be enthusiastic. That took some of the burden off the encounter for the woman, who listened to an animal grunting on top of her, perhaps with disgust but perhaps with sympathy, but was herself sexually unmoved by the experience. That is very different from a rape in which the rapist is paying pleased attention to every flinch of his victim. Yuck. No to sadism. No to rape.
The average historical man from these eras wasn’t rich, or extraordinarily witty/intelligent, didn’t have thighs of steel, or a gorgeous face, or even a mouth full of good teeth. He probably didn’t even have very many baths a year. And, yeah, he also held some nasty freaking ideas about what he had the right to do to women.
I don’t want to read about that guy.
I don’t understand why it’s okay to break with historical accuracy by making the guy rich, hot, hygienic, and minty fresh tasting, but damn, ladies, we gotta keep teh historically accurate rape! ‘Cause it’s the TRUFAX!
If that’s a kink, okay. Cool. Enjoy. But enjoy it ‘cause it’s a kink, not ‘cause historical accuracy is dah bomb.
If it’s were all about the historical accuracy, we’d better have our martial rapes with a side of stinky underarms, unwashed cock, rank, fetid mouth, poverty, a potato-like face and a doughy body that, despite its unattractiveness, can still hold down and hurt.
I have never bought the “rape is historically accurate†argument as a justification for the raping alpha “heroâ€. Sure, rape happened in the past (and it happens today), but just because the misty veil of time separates us from the act doesn’t transform rape into morally acceptable behavior.
*nods* Yeah. As mentioned in the post, spousal rape is still considered a lesser crime, but that doesn’t *actually* make it less rape.
I’d agree that someone refusing sex in a marriage entirely is unreasonable, and grounds for separation. At the same time, that doesn’t make it right for the other person to force sex upon them, you know? And while it may be historically accurate (hell, history has nothing to do with it, it happens *today*) for a man to force sex on a reluctant wife, I’m sure as hell not going to like him for it. It doesn’t mean I’m going to think of him as evil incarnate, either (depending on how it’s portrayed- enjoying that she hates it? Yeah, no sympathy here.) but… I don’t know, I feel like you can sympathize with the hero’s situation to a point without turning around and saying “well, *she* should have known better.” It sucks for everyone involved, but placing the majority of the blame on the person with the least amount of power in the situation makes me deeply uncomfortable.
~The tolerable part of “close your eyes and think of England†conjugal sex was that the wife was neither expected nor encouraged to be enthusiastic.~
I agree with that and to add my two cents’ worth, wondered whether there is any historical romance in which the heroine ever thinks something like ‘I’m really not up for it tonight, but I’ll do it anyway so he’ll stop bugging me about not getting any, and let me go to sleep’? Or would that (perhaps) add too much realism to a historical fantasy?
I do agree that sex was considered to be a conjugal right, but there are other influences on the way sex regarded was even within marriage depending on which period and culture we’re talking about. A court-case springs to mind in the Early Modern period in France, in which a woman sued her husband for witholding sex and it was held that it was his duty. I’m afraid I don’t know whether she assaulted him in any way to get her ‘right’ or what happened afterwards.
Then there’s also the Western folk myth that was quite popular till not too recently that a woman can only conceive if she’s had an orgasm. Unfortunately this works both ways and in cases of rape always to the woman’s detriment, but since one of the reasons for marriage was procreation it leads me to assume that men were trying to make it good.
Again in the Early Modern period, this time in England, a book called ‘Aristotle’s Masterpiece’ was a bestseller. Basically it can be read as a sex education book, giving helpful hints for increased pleasure and also dealing with birth control. I’m afraid that I don’t know what the illiterate did.
What I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is that I find it difficult to read a historical romance which makes the equation ‘marriage=conjugal rights=marital rape is okay’ without taking into account the sexual mores of the time and the rather more complicated culturally or religiously determined frameworks of belief around it.
Apologies for ranting and thanks to anyone who’s read this far… 😉
And another reason women consented to sex with their husbands is they wanted children.
Can’t say my thoughts are very organized about this topic, but a few things strike me after reading through the post and comments:
I have the impression that eras and cultures in which arranged marriages are/were common are also known for restricting unmarried women’s access to sexual knowledge and for segregating the sexes, so young women in these cases may have only a rudimentary understanding of what sex/marriage would be like for them. Someone with a broader knowledge of world history can feel free to set me straight on this, but arranged marriage is only part of a larger societal context in which certain women (for example, upper-class women in 19th c.) are seen as a sort of privileged class of assets which need to be protected to preserve their value. Consent might not exactly be informed consent for these girls. Not only are they likely to be sexually ignorant, but they rarely interact with men outside of their immediate families. Okay, Gwendolyn. You’ve been kept cloistered for 17 years, now choose whom you want to love, honor and obey for the rest of your life.
If women were aware of the vicissitudes of the marital practices, so too were the men. If a man married a woman who then refused to perform her conjugal duties, he was legally able to either annul or divorce her ass. Both women and men with any choice in the matter surely sought spouses with whom they thought they’d be sexually compatible, no? When I read something like “I fear we should not suit” in a 19th c. novel, I assume it was that era’s dating code for “I don’t think I could face sex with you without some risk of projectile vomiting.”
In most cases, you guys are talking about historical settings written by contemporary authors. When they write a scene where a husband forces the issue with his wife, they are fully aware of how that will read to a contemporary audience. If the hero can claim cultural context, the author surely can not. So, my conclusion when I read one of these scenes is that the author intends the scene to do one of three things: 1) remind us we’re reading a historical 2) introduce some bad behavior which can then be quickly excused by historical context 3) introduce some BDSM fantasy elements in a way which is acceptable in a historical romance setting. The first seems a rather cheap way of establishing cultural context; the second I don’t really buy, because rape has always been rape, even when it was legal; the third again seems like a lazy writer’s crutch. I rarely see a marital rape scene in Romance that I don’t think could have been either omitted or better handled through another plot device. If you want to feed BDSM fantasies, use a forced seduction if you must, rather than a rape. But there are much better ways to do it, even in a historical.
BDSM is not about rape. That is like saying Movies are about rape. Some, maybe, occasionally are, but most are not. BDSM is mostly about a lot of other things, consent being one of them.
Actually, forced sex in any circumstance whatsoever is to me completely unacceptable. A hero who does it once, no matter the circumstances, is not a hero to me, and I stop reading the book. No exceptions.
I don’t care if they’re married. I don’t care what year it is. I’d be more comfortable if he killed her.
Again, this is my personal bias and I don’t expect others to feel the same way.
I find it interesting in talk about fiction that people are so strongly opposed to even acknowledging a well written rape scene.
Believe me, as someone who has lived through child abuse I find it interesting because this is about fiction not reality.
I know that in reality the ages we consider children now were considered adult then. I honestly have no problem reading stories that do not hide that fact.
Ah, historical accuracy – bleah!
Centuries ago, it was legal to torture ‘infidels’ and burn them at the stake. But I don’t want to read about a man who does such things getting a happy ending!
That said, I do agree it’s ridiculous how many heroines marry an orphaned aristocrat hero whose only heir is an idiot cousin – and think that they’re not gonna have to do the mattress mambo with the guy.
To me, it’s a PC thing the authors do – “We can’t have a heroine who actually thinks about going to bed with a man she’s not in love with!”
Do you want TRUE historical accuracy? Have the heroine marry the dude, pop out a heir or two, and then go party with her own lover. THAT’S how the nobility often managed their lives back then.
Would a Romance containing “forced sex” that happens within a marriage in a modern country where a woman has no right to say “no” as a wife and very little choice in whom she marries in the first place not actually be rape? Sure, there’s blood, pain and humiliation, but the culture says “no!” so it’s okay?
And does this argument excuse the violation done to actual women who lived in historical periods where their husbands could legally rape them, and hated it? If she married him—even if she didn’t have another choice besides starvation, or even if she had no way of knowing he was a rapist—she asked for it? Even if she didn’t agree with her culture, and thought it was wrong?
Would a Romance containing “forced sex†that happens within a marriage in a modern country where a woman has no right to say “no†as a wife and very little choice in whom she marries in the first place not actually be rape? Sure, there’s blood, pain and humiliation, but the culture says “no!†so it’s okay?
Yes, it’s called OZ. I own all the seasons.
It was great!
Oops were they married?
God, I still remember when they were rehearsing the Shakespeare play and Keller ties Beecher up at knife point.
That was weird fucked up love there man.
Teddy, I didn’t mean to sound like I was equating BDSM and rape. I do think that some authors write scenes that read to me like rape but are obviously meant as “hot” sex that plays to those readers who have fantasies involving control/domination/pain/humiliation—what some here have called “rape fantasies” which I think is a misnomer—which I’m referring to as BDSM fantasies. The failure by these authors to distinguish clearly between rape and sexual power games is part of what I am objecting to. If it reads to me like the woman is being raped, it doesn’t really matter to me what the hell the historical context is, yadayada. There is still something about the scene that is not reading as consensual sex. Whether that’s in how I’m interpreting the writing is another story.
😀 Oz? I’ve heard of this rapacious wonderland of dirtybadwrong non-con, though I haven’t visited there myself!
Personally, male rape in literature doesn’t bother me in the same ways that female rape does because (a)it’s not something that weighs over the majority of grown men the way it does grown women (myself included) because it’s just highly freaking unlikely that it will happen to them outside of prison, and (b) it hasn’t been socially and legally encouraged the same way female rape has. Heck, the failures of the American justice system to address rape justly means that there’s an ongoing almost-sanction, despite laws against it.
Well megalith,
You will not ever make me feel bad about my Christopher Meloni naked in the shower prison rape fantasies. If that is wrong I do not want to be right
Hey, Teddy, I’m not about making anybody feel bad! I’m just saying, you and I are in the driver’s seat for our fantasies, right? When an author takes the wheel, sometimes bad bad mojo happens…
Right but OZ had a writer involved somewhere. Beechum and Keller had a love that dare not scream it’s name.
Keller betrayed Beechum
Beechum betrayed Keller
Their love was whack
Their love had a violent head wound
Their love had a body count
But you can’t tell me after even after all the rape scenes and the betrayals and the murders… watching Keller tie Beechum up bleeding and hold a knife at his throat just to give him a big old sloppy kiss… well, right then and there secretly you have to admit you are hoping they get an HEA.
It’s wrong, you know it’s wrong, but you do.
Sorry, I’m one of those terminally uncool people who have never had cable, so I haven’t actually seen the show. But clearly that storyline worked for you. Which begs the question: Do people really get off on watching/reading about it when they see it as rape, or only when they read into the situation some tenderness, however twisted, like that sloppy kiss?
I do not think it’s any wholesale sure fire way to sell a violent love story which is what I think we are talking about.
This conversation proves it, I am not saying there are not bad examples all over the place. Just from experience I am saying that rape is not an absolute deal killer, nor is betrayal, nor is forced sex.
The only thing that seems true is making the characters and the relationship so intense, so epic, so positively life changing, that even with every nasty thing they do sorta pales in comparison.
Teddy,
Do you suppose you’d relate differently to your rape fantasies if you knew that in reality you couldn’t go around half of the human race (at work, at school, at the grocery store) without knowing that a significant number of them have—through mass media, genres of music, conversations they’ve had all their life, pornography—internalized the idea of you as a object for sexual domination by virtue of your body’s appearance alone?
You’ve suffered abuse; as a gay man, I understand that you’re also vulnerable to violence, murder, rape in ways that straight men aren’t, but you can pass for the class of people who don’t have to worry so much about having the boundaries of their bodies violated in ways that the women who post here can’t. When I read a story about these things, or interact with my own fantasies, it’s never just a fantasy; I’m relating to the historical present of mass violation, murder, rape and domination against women, and to the current social and legal realities of my world.
I don’t approve or disapprove of fantasies; I disapprove of arguing that “forced sex” is or ever was okay, or not really rape, because of what a culture that spoke with the mouth of the dominating class said. Women were not the creators of these cultural mores; they were the objects of them. If we accept them, we’d have to retroactively accept the righteousness of the abuses committed against women under them. That’s as unappealing as prospect to me as excusing a man who commits an “honor killing” because that’s part of the power his culture has given to him over the women of his family.
~~Women were not the creators of these cultural mores; they were the objects of them. If we accept them, we’d have to retroactively accept the righteousness of the abuses committed against women under them. That’s as unappealing as prospect to me as excusing a man who commits an “honor killing†because that’s part of the power his culture has given to him over the women of his family.~
Uh-oh, somehow I have the feeling that my argument about taking into account culture and historical mores didn’t cut it there.
Rape is rape, no matter what period or culture, in my opinion. What annoys me about historical romance is that it seems to be considered a given that heroes or otherwise would come up with the idea to rape their wife because it’s their conjugal right. No doubt about it then and now it does happen, and there’s no excuse for it.
But what I always find difficult to buy is that considering cultural values e.g. a woman has to have an orgasm to conceive etc, a hero’s first idea would be to rape his wife. If his idea is to have an heir that would be counter-productive and if that’s the extent of biological knowledge too, then it must seem like a means of birth control. Samuel Pepys incidentally thought precisely the latter after a consensual quickie in a carriage, noting in his diary that there wouldn’t be any consequences since she hadn’t had an orgasm.
Equally, I get irritated with a historical heroine who marries and expects not to have sex. Hello? Go forth and multiply?
My disbelief at the whole scenario stems from the assumption that is made in historical romances that a) just because some law says they can, all husbands would think it’s a good idea to rape their wives, b) even though sex in marriage is expected heroines would expect not to have any and c) – personal pet peeve…
c) Regardless of time, culture etc, I cannot imagine, regardless of what my environment tells me about conjugal rights etc to fall in love with some hero after he’s raped me. If I could – in the mindset of a heroine- convince myself that yeah, it was his right and actually manage to lie back and think of England from then on, maybe there’d be some sort of living in icy civility together. But it’s supposed to be a story about two people falling in love, right?
It fails me how a heroine can fall in love with her rapist after he’s hurt and humiliated her. For me that defies belief. Culture, morals etc aside, I just don’t buy it.
Sorry for ranting again, just got the feeling that I hadn’t made myself very clear in my earlier post. 😉
I think I’m just going to be repeating some other people now, but I did want to say to Sarah that I didn’t mean to imply that you said marital rape was okay or permissible, even in the historical context.
However, I don’t know that I could read a book where the hero rapes the heroine—in ANY context—and be able to stomach the HEA.
In part, this is b/c, as everyone has already said, romance novels are fantasy. I also do not want to see an unfaithful hero or a slave-owning hero. I can imagine a book in which the unfaithful, slave-owning hero might not be a total unredeemable dick, but I don’t necessarily want to read it. If I want historical accuracy, I’ll read something really depressing.
That said…has anyone else read Jude the Obscure? What do you do with Sue Bridehead’s relationships? She’s never gotten over her horror of sex, but she slept with Jude and, in the end, forces herself to sleep with her husband, despite her terror. Her ending is nauseating to me. Her husband (whose name I am blanking on) isn’t necessarily a rapist, but it’s not exactly consent, either. Ugh.
Speaking of sex and marriage. I have hens that I raised from chicks because I want fresh eggs.
I have a Chinese Silky Rooster (Puff Daddy) who’ve I’ve had for a while that has ignored these silly babies from day one.
Until a week ago, when I hear blood curdling squawks in the back. I’m thinking “There’s a stray dog in the yard! OH NO!”
So I run out to rescue my girls and there is Puff in a dead run behind Abigail Araucana—- she’s the one screaming bloody murder.
In the process of all this, Puff also manages to peck one of the cats on the back of the head, turn on a dime and take off after Della Dominique.
I email a chicken raising buddy asking why Puff was chasing everyone…….
Uh, yeah, seems that’s chicken courtship, AKA Rooster Rape. I thought there’d be a little more romance involved. Silly me.
Do you suppose you’d relate differently to your rape fantasies if you knew that in reality you couldn’t go around half of the human race (at work, at school, at the grocery store) without knowing that a significant number of them have—through mass media, genres of music, conversations they’ve had all their life, pornography—internalized the idea of you as a object for sexual domination by virtue of your body’s appearance alone?
Angel, why do you think that men do not get raped in real life? They do you know. That scene in Deliverance *Squeal like a pig!* did not come out of no where. In fact male rape is still not addressed very well in our society.
You are making your statement in regards to fiction writing. My point is that there is very good writing out there even in regards to gay romance that includes rape and all sorts of violent acts that is damn good.
It does not mean in real life I condone those acts or the people who would actually act out such things. I am saying that it’s OK to like that writing and even those particular scenes and think they are hot.
They were written to be hot and if the writer is good and makes it work then I refuse to feel bad for admiring them.
I disapprove of arguing that “forced sex†is or ever was okay
Well then, you are gonna have an issue with most of history then. Your view point is not viable outside of this day and age. What you see as abuse in other times would be seen as just life and part of a lesson someone had to learn. That is just the way things were.
I bought that silly 300 dvd yesterday and was amazed that they never up front addressed the fact that entire culture was totally about the gay male relationship. In fact they were big on the man/boy love. The creators totally ignored what was really going on there and the why that they are well remembered in history.
It’s fine they did that, obviously people would have had an issue with a real depiction of that culture but in my opinion it made the whole work suspect and unrealistic.
Teddy, Angel never said that men were not subject to rape. What she said was that men, as a whole, do not have to be constantly aware of the possibility of rape in every situation. Men get raped. MEN GET RAPED. I do not want to diminish that, or the horror of it.
However, the fact is that, statistically (in the US alone—I just looked at US statistics), 1 in 33 men are likely to be raped or assaulted, where as 1 in 6 women face the same fate.
That doesn’t make rape or domination fantasies wrong. I think, however, that Angel was trying to say that SOME women MIGHT have different reactions to rape fantasies than men simply because rape is something most of us think about every day. Every time I walk to my car at night alone; every time I am alone in the huge university library; if I’m out on a date—rape is always a possibility. So rape fantasies? Do not do it for me.
But that’s me. Another woman might have an entirely different feeling about this, and that’s her perogative. No judgment from me. 🙂
What you see as abuse in other times would be seen as just life and part of a lesson someone had to learn. That is just the way things were.
Oooookay…so…burning heretics alive is not something I should look back and judge? I should be okay with it, b/c it was just “part of life”? What about apartheid? Female genital mutilation? Why is it that we can look to these horrific historical or contemporary events—events and customs that were and are justified at the time because they are considered to be not morally right, but important for the well-being of society and even foundational FOR that society, and say that they’re bad, but we can’t look back on forced sex and say the same thing? Why is it naive to say that rape at any period of time is bad, even if the people involved didn’t always think so, if it’s not also naive to say that burning heretics is bad?
In other words, just b/c rape is and has been a fundamental part of society for longer than history has been written, that does not make it RIGHT, and I, for one, refuse to accept it as such, just b/c my ancestors might have done. I accept that it happened. I do not accept that everyone liked it or that it was ever right.
In other words, just b/c rape is and has been a fundamental part of society for longer than history has been written, that does not make it RIGHT, and I, for one, refuse to accept it as such, just b/c my ancestors might have done. I accept that it happened. I do not accept that everyone liked it or that it was ever right.
I am saying that you should be careful in defining moral absolutes in regards to someone who struggled in context to survive in an earlier age.
If someone is struggling with starvation they most likely do not place a high priority on sexual child abuse they lived through, in fact they or their parents may have used that for them to have survived.
George Washington owned slaves and in fact took actions to maintain ownership of slaves during his lifetime. Despite all that we still consider him a great man. He is fascinating because there is evidence he struggled with this.
Why is it naive to say that rape at any period of time is bad, even if the people involved didn’t always think so
Because you are attributing a moral absolute, a universal truth to be used in all circumstances and judging based on current values not on the ones the people involved had in context to the culture in which they were raised and what was done to them.
I think bringing up the burning of heretics is interesting because they were also judged using the same reasoning of moral absolutes. Religion is like that.
Despite all that we still consider him a great man.
We do? That generally gets whitewashed along with the deaths of all the Native Americans he was ultimately responsible for.
It’s quite true that even today’s society tends to think that the rape of women is no big deal and is something she lied about or invited in some way. Since current rape isn’t all that much of a shock, it’s no real surprise that historical rape isn’t either.
Well Miranda,
That is like holding JunÃpero Serra in contempt for the loss of the Native Americans of California.
These people felt they were doing the right thing and just like most of us now whitewashing how we are polluting the environment faster than anyone in history thus bankrupting our future. It’s just easier that way.
Honestly, Teddy, I think you’re conflating arguments about historical reality with arguments about romance novels. Do I think less of Thomas Jefferson because he owned slaves and had children with at least one of them? Yes, I do, somewhat. But it does not diminish the good things he did, and I still regard him as a great figure in American history. (Don’t get me started on Andrew Jackson, however, unless you’ve got a year or so to listen to me rant.)
Just b/c I can respect Jefferson, though, does not mean that I want to read a romance novel about him and Sally Hemans. I do not go to romance for an accurate and morally relative view of history. I go to it for fun and romance and a bit of erotic fantasy.
I am saying that you should be careful in defining moral absolutes in regards to someone who struggled in context to survive in an earlier age.
True. But not everyone struggled to survive. Do we only excuse the lower classes, then? Is it okay to lynch African-Americans if you’re a poor white person who barely scrapes by and who is on the verge of starvation? Or is it only okay to rape if you’re in that situation, while the wealthier classes should not be excused from this?
I have never thought of myself as a moral absolutist. Nor do I think of myself as a moral relativist. Maybe I’m a bad liberal, but I do believe in right and wrong across time and culture—it’s just that the way those rights and wrongs were expressed may be different.
That does not mean, however, that the rape of the Sabine women isn’t going to make me ill. Or the rape of Nanking, for that matter, which may be justified from a certain (sick) point of view—it’s what happens in war, right? The problem with true relativism is that it doesn’t just span time—it spans cultures, too.
Is cutting off a little girl’s clitoris with a sharp rock okay just b/c it’s accepted in her culture? I don’t believe that. Maybe I can’t change it, but I refuse to accept that it’s right. Ever. Just like I refuse to accept discrimination is ever right, just because it was right at some point in time, or because some people in my own culture believe that it’s right and morally imperative to treat others like second-class citizens.
By that same argument, slavery was acceptable and necessary—because people really believed that it was. You still haven’t answered my question, either. Why is rape okay, if slavery and all of these other horrific events aren’t? Or do you believe all of those things were okay, too? You can’t have it both ways.
Why Snarkhunter,
When people use the appeal to emotion arguments and straw man arguments I just lob them back over the fence the same way they were thrown at me.
Snarkhunter,
You rant about Andrew Jackson and I’ll see you one Thomas Paine, whom I consider a putz.
The Rape of the Sabine Women always makes me think of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers but I did like the Axe Dance choreography.
Is cutting off a little girl’s clitoris with a sharp rock okay just b/c it’s accepted in her culture?
They have been cutting parts off boys for years first for religious reasons and then public health so try to include everyone in those arguments there.
Why is rape okay, if slavery and all of these other horrific events aren’t? Or do you believe all of those things were okay, too? You can’t have it both ways.
We were talking about writing and inappropriate actions in books not reality, I actually said this…
It does not mean in real life I condone those acts or the people who would actually act out such things.
Angel, why do you think that men do not get raped in real life? They do you know. That scene in Deliverance *Squeal like a pig!* did not come out of no where. In fact male rape is still not addressed very well in our society.
I put careful thought into wording my comment so that nobody could think that I was denying the existence of male rape. When you ask me “why I think men don’t get raped” after I just worked my butt of making sure that nothing I said would communicate that, I feel offended. This is an issue close to my heart, and I feel like you’re not even bothering to listen to the words I’m trying so hard and so earnestly to say.
Please, read what I said:
“You’ve suffered abuse; as a gay man, I understand that you’re also vulnerable to violence, murder, rape in ways that straight men aren’t, but you can pass for the class of people who don’t have to worry so much about having the boundaries of their bodies violated in ways that the women who post here can’t.”
I recognized that your position of privilege isn’t absolute; I acknowledged what you have to endure. I didn’t say “the class of people who don’t have to worry about [rape]” I said “the class of people who don’t have to worry so much” about it. I chose those words deliberately, because I didn’t want to say that men don’t have to worry about it, just that their worry isn’t as pervasive and continual as the worry women have.
Example: it’s normal for the female teachers I have who teach night classes to ask one of the night security guards to walk them out to their cars. They have to be conscious of their vulnerability in ways that male teachers never would, and then they have to expend time and energy protecting themselves, not to mention that they have to live with fear.
The male teachers have the significant privilege of moving through their days without being afraid like this, without having to plan their freaking schedules around the cultural reality of themselves as a victim class.
You are making your statement in regards to fiction writing. My point is that there is very good writing out there even in regards to gay romance that includes rape and all sorts of violent acts that is damn good.
My point is that a fully grown man who isn’t in prison or going to prison can enjoy a rape fantasy more freely than a woman can, because rape isn’t such a big part of his consciousness every single day. When another poster expressed discomfort with rape fantasy, you acted as if she was condemning your fantasies, without apparently realizing that the fantasy could cause her discomfort in ways it doesn’t cause you.
Example: two American men who both enjoy playing the slave in BDSM scenes. One of these men is white, and the other is black. The white man can enjoy acting out his slavery fantasy much more freely than the black man, because the reality of actually being made someone’s slave isn’t part of his consciousness; he doesn’t have to think about his ancestors who really were enslaved, or about the fact that by accepting this role, he’s putting himself in a degraded position that many people in the past, and some people in the present, think is his natural place.
My point: a man can enjoy a rape fantasy more freely than a woman because he doesn’t have to engage with (a) the fact that sexual assault is part of his daily consciousness (b) the historical reality that violence against women has been unending (b) the fact that there are a lot of people who think that rape is what a woman deserves.
Women have to endure these things. It makes our fantasies in these areas more problematic.
If you can’t listen and empathize with this, you’re exercising your male privilege to ignore and dismiss the sufferings of people who have less privilege than you.
And, damnit, that’s a nasty thing to do. I haven’t done it to you—I’ve tried to take into account your relative privilege as a person who is both male and homosexual—please extend me the same courtesy. Please listen to my heart felt attempt to share what it’s like to live and be sexual as a woman in this society. Please.
male privilege?
victim class?
Oh lordy, sorry you lost me there. I totally disagree with you even implying that all women are victims.
That is insulting.
Second, you really are ignoring the fact that I am a gay man who has been bashed. I am a gay man who watched his lover die because the Washington DC Medicare let him die from lack of proper medical treatment.
But… I am also not a victim.
Oh lordy, sorry you lost me there. I totally disagree with you even implying that all women are victims.
That is insulting.
By “victim class” I mean that women are socially constructed (by the media, by word of mouth, by the realities of assault statistics) as a group of people who are seen as open to having the boundaries of their bodies violated.
I’m not talking about particular people. I’m saying that anyone with a female identity in our culture is seen as a possible victim. Watch the nightly news, watch TV programs.
TV can and does represent women as people who exist to be victimized, not just matter of factly, but in ways that are eroticized. And that’s OUTSIDE of mainstream pornography, which is entirely about how women are made to be hurt and humiliated, how their hurt and humiliation is natural and inseparable from their physical and sexual identity.
I totally disagree with you even implying that all women are victims.
That wasn’t what I said, full stop. It wasn’t what I implied, either.
If you bothered to the experiences of women around you enough to read a Feminism 101 page, you wouldn’t be confused.
Obviously, you don’t feel you have to educate yourself. You don’t feel you have to be responsible for knowing and taking steps to work against your own privilege.
Since that’s the case, I don’t think we can have a productive conversation.
that sentence should read: “bothered to respect the life experiences of the women around you”
Also, I took the trouble to give you a glaring example of “male privilege” when I described the experience of male teachers vs. female teachers.
There’s a lot more to it, of course. But you have an internet connection and the power to Google, don’t you? But you can’t be troubled to read a Wikipedia article, apparently.
Obviously I was right when I felt like you weren’t brothering you read what I was saying at all, just skimming.