Thank you for recommending this movie! We loved it! I didn't read the spoilers beforehand, but I read them now and I felt the exact same thing -- the movie turned decisively poly at the "Will you be the second father of my child?" I also liked especially that both parents turned out to be quite smart, and not at all as conservative as we thought. They're real people, not just there for comedy.
One remark: the sex that Wai Tung and Wei Wei had. Imagine the same story, with the genders reversed. Imagine a lesbian girl trying to hide it from the parents, marrying a guy who carries a torch for her, etc. etc. And then in their wedding bed, he begins to make love with her, despite her clearly voiced objections, saying "I'm liberating you". What would we call this guy?
I'm not saying that Wei Wei is a rapist. All I'm saying is that it's interesting to see the double standard in our perception of such things. When a woman does it, it's called seduction. When a man does the same, it's called sexual assault. Just wanted to point it out.
That is a very good point, and although I used the word seduction, my feelings about the scene were none too pleasant. I intensely disliked her for that, I thought she was completely in the wrong, and I felt bad for Wai_Tung.
So, you're right, assault could have been (and possibly should have been) used in that place. I certainly felt the same towards Wei-Wei as I would have had the genders been reversed, even though I used a much softer word.
I finally figured out why I have been bothered by your comment that seemed to imply a gender double-standard and why it kept sticking in my mind so long after you posted this
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Sorry it took me so long to respond, writing is difficult for me and you touched a very interesting subject -- the inherently non-consensual element of seduction. It's something I've been meaning to write about for a while. I apologize in advance that this is long!
Btw, I wonder why you link seduction to deceit -- for me, deceit does not come to mind at all when I think about seduction, I'm curious what you're talking about. For me, to seduce, in general, means to influence a person towards a (selfishly) desirable resolution of an internal conflict. Now, the internal conflict part is important! The person being seduced must want it (whatever it is -- sex, or some other thing), otherwise it's coercion, not seduction; but they also must have important reasons not to want it, thereby being conflicted. Usually the conflict results from either short-term gain vs. long-term detriment or from pleasure vs. moral wrongness (or both). Also, usually seduction implies influence without making the person change their mind about the involved
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It sounds as though we are more or less in agreement (or close enough, anyway). Basically, the original conflict (if that's the right word) was in the subtext or implications of a word, where my use of it implied *to me* this whole assault/non-consent/conflict problem making it an inherently bad thing, but the word did not have the same implications or subtext to you. My only problem, really, was that you (or anyone) would see the word I chose and assign a gender double-standard on my part because of the gender of the aggressor, when I would probably use the same word if the genders were reversed due to my negative implications of that word
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I also liked especially that both parents turned out to be quite smart, and not at all as conservative as we thought. They're real people, not just there for comedy.
One remark: the sex that Wai Tung and Wei Wei had. Imagine the same story, with the genders reversed. Imagine a lesbian girl trying to hide it from the parents, marrying a guy who carries a torch for her, etc. etc. And then in their wedding bed, he begins to make love with her, despite her clearly voiced objections, saying "I'm liberating you". What would we call this guy?
I'm not saying that Wei Wei is a rapist. All I'm saying is that it's interesting to see the double standard in our perception of such things. When a woman does it, it's called seduction. When a man does the same, it's called sexual assault. Just wanted to point it out.
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So, you're right, assault could have been (and possibly should have been) used in that place. I certainly felt the same towards Wei-Wei as I would have had the genders been reversed, even though I used a much softer word.
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Btw, I wonder why you link seduction to deceit -- for me, deceit does not come to mind at all when I think about seduction, I'm curious what you're talking about. For me, to seduce, in general, means to influence a person towards a (selfishly) desirable resolution of an internal conflict. Now, the internal conflict part is important! The person being seduced must want it (whatever it is -- sex, or some other thing), otherwise it's coercion, not seduction; but they also must have important reasons not to want it, thereby being conflicted. Usually the conflict results from either short-term gain vs. long-term detriment or from pleasure vs. moral wrongness (or both). Also, usually seduction implies influence without making the person change their mind about the involved ( ... )
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