More thoughts on Jack, sexuality, and power
I spent a lot of time this weekend browsing Delicious for bookmarked meta on gender and sexuality. I encountered a meta by 
pocochina which put forth a thought-provoking argument about Jack's sexuality. I've thought about it a lot and wanted to present a response.
First, let me summarize the argument, for those too lazy to click through. Ze argues that there is a shift in Jack's attitude about consent between DW S1 and TW S1, which is no accident because it is at the end of DW S1 that Jack is redeemed as a hero. in DW S1, he is less respectful of sexual boundaries. There is an element of coercion to the seduction scene in "The Empty Child" because Jack has all the power: she's on his spaceship, he just saved her life, she's disoriented by an unfamiliar environment, and he doesn't respect her attempts to extricate herself from the situation. He fondly reminisces about a dubious-consent situation in the moments before his death on the Chula ship (Jack and his erstwhile executioners were very drunk when they had sex, to the point that Jack can't really remember the sexual encounter itself). Then he gropes one of the "What Not to Wear" robots in "Bad Wolf". In Torchwood, though, he never does anything of the kind again.
I think there is some validity to this argument. To use Kantian terminology, I think that in "The Empty Child" Jack views the people around him as means to various ends, not as ends in themselves. That's what his life has been like as a con man. That attitude - of people as means rather than ends - is conducive to sexual violence. Yet Jack's power over Rose doesn't negate consent, no more than Jack's power over Ianto as his employer negates consent in Torchwood. Jack appears to have a fully consensual and respectful relationship with Algy in TEC/TDD, which throws a wrench into the trope. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because i want to address this argument point by point in more depth.
Before I continue, I want to point out some invalid counterarguments to the idea that Jack is sexually coercing Rose in this scene. Just because Rose is attracted to Jack doesn't mean he can't be coercing her. Just because she never tells the Doctor or anyone else that Jack made her feel uncomfortable doesn't mean he didn't.
That said, there are some valid counterarguments. Rose does, as
pocochina pointed out, express some doubts throughout the scene, because she knows the Doctor's still out there somewhere and might need her help. Let's look at Rose's last attempt to extricate herself from the conversation:
ROSE
Do you really think now's a good time to be coming on to me...?
JACK (lets go of her and walks away)
Perhaps not.
ROSE (quickly)
Well, it was just a suggestion.
At Rose's request, Jack respects her boundaries and backs away. Rose's reaction to this is to take back her request. She is conflicted, because she's being wined and dined on a fancy spaceship by a handsome man while the Doctor is off doing who-knows-what. Yet she does enjoy Jack's attentions, and asks him to touch her again after he withdraws contact. Jack is taking advantage of Rose in that he is trying to use her attraction to him to pull a con on her. But I don't think he's taking advantage of her in that he's coercing her into greater intimacy than she wants. That doesn't necessarily make Jack less sleazy here, but the nature of his sleaziness isn't sexually coercive.
Another point that may (but also may not) indicate that Rose didn't feel coerced by Jack. In the next episode, we get this line from Rose:
ROSE
I trust Jack because he's like you. Except with dating and dancing.
The Doctor doesn't want to trust Jack, but Rose does. She thinks Jack is a good person, like the Doctor, but with an open and freewheeling sexuality. It can be argued that Rose has internalized rape culture such that she thinks Jack's lack of respect for sexual boundaries shouldn't detract from her other perceptions of him as a good man. I could see that happening, maybe, if the Doctor wanted to like someone and Rose had been sexually coerced by that person; she might put her own misgivings aside, thinking them to be less important than the Doctor's opinion. But the Doctor isn't putting any pressure on Rose to trust Jack; quite the opposite, in fact. Rose wouldn't incur any loss of status or affection with the Doctor if she said, "Jack made me feel uncomfortable when I was in his spaceship, we should be careful of him."
I don't really have much to say on the subjects of Jack's fondly remembered encounter with his executioners or his grope of the reality show robot. There's so little material to work with in each case that I'm not sure how to render judgment. If you have any thoughts, feel free to express them in the comments. If you disagree with me, please express that too. I don't think Jack is a saint and I'm not trying to defend him from all accusations of wrongdoing.
On the other side of the equation, I'd like to address the claim that after Jack's redemption in DW S1, he never allows a dub-con situation to happen again. I have two bones to pick with this claim. First, I don't think Jack's redemption is a binary event that can be marked as having happened at one definite moment in DW S1. I'd argue that his redemption begins in "The Doctor Dances", when Jack takes the bomb into his ship, fully expecting that it will kill him, because he's accepted responsibility for his reckless actions. It continues through the rest of the season. In this light, I don't think you can unreservedly claim the moments with the executioners and the robot to be "pre-redemption." Second, what about the famous Jack/John scene in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"? I have no doubt that Jack and John's fight was meant, at least in part, to be some kind of sexual play. Yet they don't negotiate this potentially dangerous sexual activity beforehand, each assuming that the other consents. It's not a stretch to read some dubious consent into this scene. (My interpretation of this is that reencountering John awakens Jack's old impulses, recklessness, and foolishness from his Time Agency days.)
All of this said, I really liked the way
pocochina examined representations of male sexuality, and I welcome more meta about how consent is portrayed in the Whoverse. I've only really scratched the surface, here, because as her meta states, RTD uses Torchwood as an arena to explore what healthy, unrestricted, uncoercive sexuality looks like. The fandom could use a lot more meta that talks about that.
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/92929.html.
pocochina which put forth a thought-provoking argument about Jack's sexuality. I've thought about it a lot and wanted to present a response.
First, let me summarize the argument, for those too lazy to click through. Ze argues that there is a shift in Jack's attitude about consent between DW S1 and TW S1, which is no accident because it is at the end of DW S1 that Jack is redeemed as a hero. in DW S1, he is less respectful of sexual boundaries. There is an element of coercion to the seduction scene in "The Empty Child" because Jack has all the power: she's on his spaceship, he just saved her life, she's disoriented by an unfamiliar environment, and he doesn't respect her attempts to extricate herself from the situation. He fondly reminisces about a dubious-consent situation in the moments before his death on the Chula ship (Jack and his erstwhile executioners were very drunk when they had sex, to the point that Jack can't really remember the sexual encounter itself). Then he gropes one of the "What Not to Wear" robots in "Bad Wolf". In Torchwood, though, he never does anything of the kind again.
I think there is some validity to this argument. To use Kantian terminology, I think that in "The Empty Child" Jack views the people around him as means to various ends, not as ends in themselves. That's what his life has been like as a con man. That attitude - of people as means rather than ends - is conducive to sexual violence. Yet Jack's power over Rose doesn't negate consent, no more than Jack's power over Ianto as his employer negates consent in Torchwood. Jack appears to have a fully consensual and respectful relationship with Algy in TEC/TDD, which throws a wrench into the trope. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because i want to address this argument point by point in more depth.
Before I continue, I want to point out some invalid counterarguments to the idea that Jack is sexually coercing Rose in this scene. Just because Rose is attracted to Jack doesn't mean he can't be coercing her. Just because she never tells the Doctor or anyone else that Jack made her feel uncomfortable doesn't mean he didn't.
That said, there are some valid counterarguments. Rose does, as
pocochina pointed out, express some doubts throughout the scene, because she knows the Doctor's still out there somewhere and might need her help. Let's look at Rose's last attempt to extricate herself from the conversation:
ROSE
Do you really think now's a good time to be coming on to me...?
JACK (lets go of her and walks away)
Perhaps not.
ROSE (quickly)
Well, it was just a suggestion.
At Rose's request, Jack respects her boundaries and backs away. Rose's reaction to this is to take back her request. She is conflicted, because she's being wined and dined on a fancy spaceship by a handsome man while the Doctor is off doing who-knows-what. Yet she does enjoy Jack's attentions, and asks him to touch her again after he withdraws contact. Jack is taking advantage of Rose in that he is trying to use her attraction to him to pull a con on her. But I don't think he's taking advantage of her in that he's coercing her into greater intimacy than she wants. That doesn't necessarily make Jack less sleazy here, but the nature of his sleaziness isn't sexually coercive.
Another point that may (but also may not) indicate that Rose didn't feel coerced by Jack. In the next episode, we get this line from Rose:
ROSE
I trust Jack because he's like you. Except with dating and dancing.
The Doctor doesn't want to trust Jack, but Rose does. She thinks Jack is a good person, like the Doctor, but with an open and freewheeling sexuality. It can be argued that Rose has internalized rape culture such that she thinks Jack's lack of respect for sexual boundaries shouldn't detract from her other perceptions of him as a good man. I could see that happening, maybe, if the Doctor wanted to like someone and Rose had been sexually coerced by that person; she might put her own misgivings aside, thinking them to be less important than the Doctor's opinion. But the Doctor isn't putting any pressure on Rose to trust Jack; quite the opposite, in fact. Rose wouldn't incur any loss of status or affection with the Doctor if she said, "Jack made me feel uncomfortable when I was in his spaceship, we should be careful of him."
I don't really have much to say on the subjects of Jack's fondly remembered encounter with his executioners or his grope of the reality show robot. There's so little material to work with in each case that I'm not sure how to render judgment. If you have any thoughts, feel free to express them in the comments. If you disagree with me, please express that too. I don't think Jack is a saint and I'm not trying to defend him from all accusations of wrongdoing.
On the other side of the equation, I'd like to address the claim that after Jack's redemption in DW S1, he never allows a dub-con situation to happen again. I have two bones to pick with this claim. First, I don't think Jack's redemption is a binary event that can be marked as having happened at one definite moment in DW S1. I'd argue that his redemption begins in "The Doctor Dances", when Jack takes the bomb into his ship, fully expecting that it will kill him, because he's accepted responsibility for his reckless actions. It continues through the rest of the season. In this light, I don't think you can unreservedly claim the moments with the executioners and the robot to be "pre-redemption." Second, what about the famous Jack/John scene in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"? I have no doubt that Jack and John's fight was meant, at least in part, to be some kind of sexual play. Yet they don't negotiate this potentially dangerous sexual activity beforehand, each assuming that the other consents. It's not a stretch to read some dubious consent into this scene. (My interpretation of this is that reencountering John awakens Jack's old impulses, recklessness, and foolishness from his Time Agency days.)
All of this said, I really liked the way
pocochina examined representations of male sexuality, and I welcome more meta about how consent is portrayed in the Whoverse. I've only really scratched the surface, here, because as her meta states, RTD uses Torchwood as an arena to explore what healthy, unrestricted, uncoercive sexuality looks like. The fandom could use a lot more meta that talks about that.
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/92929.html.