Rape discourses
This is going to be a complete non-sequiter to some. Where, why, how did I come up with this topic, it's not precisely pleasant, is it, and don't I have better things to spend my time on these days that have periodic feminist rant-y urges? Last week, queenspanky, wingsmith, friend J and I went out to dinner, and ended up talking about BSG, as is more or less inevitable. As usual, I couldn't really contribute much because I stopped watching during the middle of S2, during Pegasus. This makes queenspanky frustrated beyond belief, because she loves this show and I categorically... don't.
I have no issues with Ron Moore - well, no more so than I have with other writers, anyway. But something struck me while watching the Pegasus two-parter that made me turn the TV off, and it was this: I am fed up of watching rape.
I felt the almost-rape of Sharon was gratuitous. queenspanky argued that it was necessary in making us accept Sharon as a 'good' character again, for feeling empathy with her - and for generating the necessary empathy with Gina, as well. I disagree. I don't think that it is empathy that is generated. We are not 'connecting' with either Sharon or Gina in those scenes. Empathy requires some form of common ground, and I refuse to believe that those scenes were written specifically for women who have been sexually assaulted (in which case they would be unbelievably thoughtless).
Instead, the rape scenes are there to remove the threat that Sharon and Six pose, by removing all of their power, and turning them into victims. It is not possible to view Six or Sharon afterwards as pure villains, and not to dote on them and want the writers to protect them. But that emotion is not really about them at all, is it? The focus isn't on Sharon, it's on Helo and the Chief, who attempt to protect her. Sharon is merely the impetus for the confrontation between the Galactica and the Pegasus. We have one, maybe two scenes dealing the aftermath of the attempted rape for Sharon, but how many scenes for Helo and the Chief? Sharon doesn't say much, merely sits on the medical bed and allows herself to be examined. She is mostly silent, mostly unmoving, and wholly passive. The Chief and Helo, on the other hand, are full of energy and righteous rage. And why not? They are grade-A heroes.
Here's the thing: the rape of Gina and the attempted rape of Sharon isn't actually about them. It's about what they represent: Cylon power. Cylon power in BSG is female in nature, presented almost entirely by female Cylons in their various guises. How many male Cylons have we seen at that point? Any that we see are swiftly dispatched. The female Cylons - Six, Sharon, the report (whose name escapes me) - are constant and are powerful. They are strong. And they cannot be killed. Violence against them doesn't seem to bother the Cylons much, as part of it is transitory. Either the marks will fade, or they will die and be reborn.
Rape, on the other hand, drives Gina to want to commit suicide. True suicide, with no possibility of rebirth. It is not the act of sex that distresses her - she had no problems seducing Gaius as Six. It is not violence that distresses her - she didn't want to obliterate herself after fighting Starbuck. It is the peculiarities of rape, the feminising* from soldier to victim that is the breaking point for her. While the Cylon power may be a female power, represented by women, it is not an acceptable power. These women are wrong, incapable of reproduction. They are not truly women. This wrongness is addressed in two ways:
- the rape of Gina, instantly turning her from 'soldier' to 'woman and victim'
- the almost rape of Sharon, and the image of her sitting on the medical bed, stroking her wrists and looking down at her swollen belly. Not only was Sharon almost raped - thereby fulfilling one part of the criteria - but she's also pregnant. The only missing piece would be to have her be barefoot.
It's not just in BSG, so I'm going to leave that alone for the moment. Ron Moore introduces Sophie to us in Carnivale by having her almost raped, and saved by Ben - what a guaranteed way to make Ben look like a hero! At that point, Brother Justin was still looking sufficiently heroic for that act on Ben's part to muddy the waters as to just who is the good guy in that show.
Away from the canon itself and into the fanfic, slash fic for shows such as Voyager seems especially keen to perpetuate gender norms. The number of fics I've read where Tom Paris is raped, or trades sex for safety, or some other variant on sexual exploitation, is disturbing. It makes it difficult to read any fic, because even writers that seem to start out writing a gen fic will somehow work a tragic childhood of sexual abuse into the fic sooner or later. Interestingly, it is not Seven, or B'Elanna, or Kathryn, or even Kes who get subjected to all of this abuse, but Tom Paris, a male crewmember. Why, then?
I'm going to argue that it is because these fics want to write about two men, but using the standard gender norms of a heterosexual relationship. And by that I mean that they have to have 'the man' and 'the woman', even in a slash fic. I've ranted before on the emasculation of blondes in fandom, so I'm not going to repeat that here. I will say, however, that rape is one of the primary tropes, if not the primary trope, of signifying that Paris is the female, and is available for 'comforting'. This feminisation*, the un-manning by the act of rape, removes the power of wisecracks and insight and a sharp right hook that Paris would normally possess. It makes him vulnerable, and helpless and in need of protection. Chakotay, acting as the strong alpha male, is then compelled to protect him. Even more insidiously, the relationship seems to be precipitated by the rape - as someone once pointed out, all wounds healed by the 'magic cock' that makes Paris like sex again. Lovely.
Two things:
1. Using rape to feminise* implicitly supports the argument that the female is submissive, passive and helpless, and the male is dominant, active and powerful. By male and female I am not referring to man and woman, but to the gender roles cast. So we can have Paris cast in the female role in these fics. And we can have Six and Sharon reset in those roles, and only allowed to grow into 'acceptably' strong women, having become emotionally involved with a strong man. It's still using binary rhetoric, which I'm historically not a big fan of, and it's incredibly damaging. There is no coming back from that, once you have been feminised*, that's it. You are looked at differently: as a victim. Victims have no voice^, as the definition of victim is someone who cannot defend themselves, who articulate the crime against them. Someone must speak on their behalf - a father, a brother, or other authority figure, someone who was charged with protecting them. It is a retroactive act, this victimisation. It not only creates a victim, but it writes them as always having been a victim. Anything we see after the rape is coloured by it, and all reminiscences are tainted by it. Sharon is imprisoned (before the attempted rape) becomes Sharon is imprisoned in an unsafe environment (after the attempted rape): somehow, the assault makes Sharon always-having-been someone deserving, needing protection. She does little speaking in the medical scene, and is not asked, but is told. She has become chattel.
Similarly, the rape(s) of Tom Paris turn him from a strong, charismatic individual into someone who is actually a bit of a woobie and needs snuggles. The strong, charismatic individual is revealed to be a front, because no one can be both raped and strong - that doesn't make narrative sense in these discourses. Is it any wonder that, while violence of every kind is used on our heroes, rape is not? Buffy is the only one who comes close, and she asserts her 'hero' status by fighting off her attacker. If she had been raped, how could the show have continued, with a hero who was no longer heroic but in need of protection?
So, if the use of rape in narrative is so destructive, wiping away any strength on the characters, why is it so prevalent in fandom, particularly in slash h/c fics?
2. Because of the healing power of Chakotay's cock, of course! When both Paris and Chakotay are strong, dominant characters, they are both in the 'male' role. One must take the 'female' role, be feminised* in order to allow a slash fic to take place within the prescribed gender roles. But there is a problem. Paris is too strong a personality, on screen. It is difficult to get him in bed with Chakotay, and get him to relinquish control to a sufficient extent, and keep him in character. So what better way to accomplish that than to do away with the need for characterisation by introducing a traumatic, role-changing event? All that needs to happen is for Paris to be raped, and he will then be in the 'female' role.
Couldn't this be accomplished by a thorough bout of non-sexual torture? Well, yes. Always possible to break someone that way (see TNG, "Chain of Command"). This, however, can mean that they recover and come back stronger and more determined than ever. Obviously not the goal here. Also, having the comforter assume a sexual role following brutal torture makes the whole thing seem exploitative (as if it wouldn't be, otherwise! But I digress). We need to be happy for the characters, of course. So, rape. I can't think of any other way to phrase it other than 'easing the way'.
In City of Vice, a girl is raped. She starts raving about having been ruined, and being turned into a whore. Her father asks her about any urges - and, not specifying which kind, he leaves the viewer to ponder whether he's talking about self-harm, or about sex. Because having sex, you see, makes a woman want more. Insert the Pringles ad here. Hence the importance of bringing virginity to the wedding bed - otherwise who knows how many men might have had her? A girl who loses her virginity early these days is still looked upon as someone rather loose, someone who is more likely to have sex than those girls who waited. Clearly, she couldn't wait.
A lot of the early erotic literature, and also quite a bit of pornography these days, is based on the assumption that the lady doth protest too much. She will struggle a little, and she will protest, but once things are on the swing of it, she'll like it, really.
We've tried to move on a little from this, but have not gone so very far. We don't have a lot of fics where the rape turns enjoyable mid-way through - thank god - but the underlying basis remains the same: that the female role is wanton, that female desires are insidious and must be kept in check. That, once a female starts having sex, she turns into a nymphomaniac.
Now let us bring in the roles of the attacker and of the comforter. The role of the attacker is to take away the masculinity of Paris, to feminise* him through rape. In this way, he will place Paris firmly in the female role. Furthermore, he will force m/m sex into Paris's life, which is not necessarily something that Paris would have experienced (and any prior experiences are necessarily wiped out by the rape). In this way, we have a blank slate for Chakotay to come rescue: someone newly feminised, with all past sexual history erased or overshadowed by this one act.
Chakotay, as the comforter, claims Paris legitimately, through 'relationship sex'. He is tender with Paris, as if Paris was a virgin, because he 'heals' Paris with this new, 'legitimate' sex. The new Paris is docile and loving, and not the least bit like the old, cocky Paris. It's the same principle behind pimps raping new prostitutes into submission - rape them until they voluntarily yield, and then they 'know their place'. C/P fanfic writers are certainly keen on showing Paris his.
***
I haven't covered a lot of ground here. There is a wealth of literature on rape out there, and it is difficult to separate out the different facets of rape - the act itself, its role within our discourses, the treatment in the courts, the treatment of victims, the treatment of perpetrators, the history of it and its symbolism. The above is merely a short rant on the mis-uses of the rape trope in narrative fiction, and does not reflect on the act itself or on the perceptions thereof in society.
I'd also like to stress that I have only seen one and a half seasons of BSG, as I stopped watching shortly after the afore-mentioned scenes. I'm sure that it's lovely, and my flist seem to enjoy it a great deal. But it's not for me.
* the use of the term here is linked to theories on rape in wartime, particularly around the use of rape as a war tactic against fellow soldiers. I can provide more data or clarifications if needed.
^ I'm using theories on the sub-altern here, as well as some Lyotard. Again, happy to provide sources and further reading if people are interested.
I have no issues with Ron Moore - well, no more so than I have with other writers, anyway. But something struck me while watching the Pegasus two-parter that made me turn the TV off, and it was this: I am fed up of watching rape.
I felt the almost-rape of Sharon was gratuitous. queenspanky argued that it was necessary in making us accept Sharon as a 'good' character again, for feeling empathy with her - and for generating the necessary empathy with Gina, as well. I disagree. I don't think that it is empathy that is generated. We are not 'connecting' with either Sharon or Gina in those scenes. Empathy requires some form of common ground, and I refuse to believe that those scenes were written specifically for women who have been sexually assaulted (in which case they would be unbelievably thoughtless).
Instead, the rape scenes are there to remove the threat that Sharon and Six pose, by removing all of their power, and turning them into victims. It is not possible to view Six or Sharon afterwards as pure villains, and not to dote on them and want the writers to protect them. But that emotion is not really about them at all, is it? The focus isn't on Sharon, it's on Helo and the Chief, who attempt to protect her. Sharon is merely the impetus for the confrontation between the Galactica and the Pegasus. We have one, maybe two scenes dealing the aftermath of the attempted rape for Sharon, but how many scenes for Helo and the Chief? Sharon doesn't say much, merely sits on the medical bed and allows herself to be examined. She is mostly silent, mostly unmoving, and wholly passive. The Chief and Helo, on the other hand, are full of energy and righteous rage. And why not? They are grade-A heroes.
Here's the thing: the rape of Gina and the attempted rape of Sharon isn't actually about them. It's about what they represent: Cylon power. Cylon power in BSG is female in nature, presented almost entirely by female Cylons in their various guises. How many male Cylons have we seen at that point? Any that we see are swiftly dispatched. The female Cylons - Six, Sharon, the report (whose name escapes me) - are constant and are powerful. They are strong. And they cannot be killed. Violence against them doesn't seem to bother the Cylons much, as part of it is transitory. Either the marks will fade, or they will die and be reborn.
Rape, on the other hand, drives Gina to want to commit suicide. True suicide, with no possibility of rebirth. It is not the act of sex that distresses her - she had no problems seducing Gaius as Six. It is not violence that distresses her - she didn't want to obliterate herself after fighting Starbuck. It is the peculiarities of rape, the feminising* from soldier to victim that is the breaking point for her. While the Cylon power may be a female power, represented by women, it is not an acceptable power. These women are wrong, incapable of reproduction. They are not truly women. This wrongness is addressed in two ways:
- the rape of Gina, instantly turning her from 'soldier' to 'woman and victim'
- the almost rape of Sharon, and the image of her sitting on the medical bed, stroking her wrists and looking down at her swollen belly. Not only was Sharon almost raped - thereby fulfilling one part of the criteria - but she's also pregnant. The only missing piece would be to have her be barefoot.
It's not just in BSG, so I'm going to leave that alone for the moment. Ron Moore introduces Sophie to us in Carnivale by having her almost raped, and saved by Ben - what a guaranteed way to make Ben look like a hero! At that point, Brother Justin was still looking sufficiently heroic for that act on Ben's part to muddy the waters as to just who is the good guy in that show.
Away from the canon itself and into the fanfic, slash fic for shows such as Voyager seems especially keen to perpetuate gender norms. The number of fics I've read where Tom Paris is raped, or trades sex for safety, or some other variant on sexual exploitation, is disturbing. It makes it difficult to read any fic, because even writers that seem to start out writing a gen fic will somehow work a tragic childhood of sexual abuse into the fic sooner or later. Interestingly, it is not Seven, or B'Elanna, or Kathryn, or even Kes who get subjected to all of this abuse, but Tom Paris, a male crewmember. Why, then?
I'm going to argue that it is because these fics want to write about two men, but using the standard gender norms of a heterosexual relationship. And by that I mean that they have to have 'the man' and 'the woman', even in a slash fic. I've ranted before on the emasculation of blondes in fandom, so I'm not going to repeat that here. I will say, however, that rape is one of the primary tropes, if not the primary trope, of signifying that Paris is the female, and is available for 'comforting'. This feminisation*, the un-manning by the act of rape, removes the power of wisecracks and insight and a sharp right hook that Paris would normally possess. It makes him vulnerable, and helpless and in need of protection. Chakotay, acting as the strong alpha male, is then compelled to protect him. Even more insidiously, the relationship seems to be precipitated by the rape - as someone once pointed out, all wounds healed by the 'magic cock' that makes Paris like sex again. Lovely.
Two things:
1. Using rape to feminise* implicitly supports the argument that the female is submissive, passive and helpless, and the male is dominant, active and powerful. By male and female I am not referring to man and woman, but to the gender roles cast. So we can have Paris cast in the female role in these fics. And we can have Six and Sharon reset in those roles, and only allowed to grow into 'acceptably' strong women, having become emotionally involved with a strong man. It's still using binary rhetoric, which I'm historically not a big fan of, and it's incredibly damaging. There is no coming back from that, once you have been feminised*, that's it. You are looked at differently: as a victim. Victims have no voice^, as the definition of victim is someone who cannot defend themselves, who articulate the crime against them. Someone must speak on their behalf - a father, a brother, or other authority figure, someone who was charged with protecting them. It is a retroactive act, this victimisation. It not only creates a victim, but it writes them as always having been a victim. Anything we see after the rape is coloured by it, and all reminiscences are tainted by it. Sharon is imprisoned (before the attempted rape) becomes Sharon is imprisoned in an unsafe environment (after the attempted rape): somehow, the assault makes Sharon always-having-been someone deserving, needing protection. She does little speaking in the medical scene, and is not asked, but is told. She has become chattel.
Similarly, the rape(s) of Tom Paris turn him from a strong, charismatic individual into someone who is actually a bit of a woobie and needs snuggles. The strong, charismatic individual is revealed to be a front, because no one can be both raped and strong - that doesn't make narrative sense in these discourses. Is it any wonder that, while violence of every kind is used on our heroes, rape is not? Buffy is the only one who comes close, and she asserts her 'hero' status by fighting off her attacker. If she had been raped, how could the show have continued, with a hero who was no longer heroic but in need of protection?
So, if the use of rape in narrative is so destructive, wiping away any strength on the characters, why is it so prevalent in fandom, particularly in slash h/c fics?
2. Because of the healing power of Chakotay's cock, of course! When both Paris and Chakotay are strong, dominant characters, they are both in the 'male' role. One must take the 'female' role, be feminised* in order to allow a slash fic to take place within the prescribed gender roles. But there is a problem. Paris is too strong a personality, on screen. It is difficult to get him in bed with Chakotay, and get him to relinquish control to a sufficient extent, and keep him in character. So what better way to accomplish that than to do away with the need for characterisation by introducing a traumatic, role-changing event? All that needs to happen is for Paris to be raped, and he will then be in the 'female' role.
Couldn't this be accomplished by a thorough bout of non-sexual torture? Well, yes. Always possible to break someone that way (see TNG, "Chain of Command"). This, however, can mean that they recover and come back stronger and more determined than ever. Obviously not the goal here. Also, having the comforter assume a sexual role following brutal torture makes the whole thing seem exploitative (as if it wouldn't be, otherwise! But I digress). We need to be happy for the characters, of course. So, rape. I can't think of any other way to phrase it other than 'easing the way'.
In City of Vice, a girl is raped. She starts raving about having been ruined, and being turned into a whore. Her father asks her about any urges - and, not specifying which kind, he leaves the viewer to ponder whether he's talking about self-harm, or about sex. Because having sex, you see, makes a woman want more. Insert the Pringles ad here. Hence the importance of bringing virginity to the wedding bed - otherwise who knows how many men might have had her? A girl who loses her virginity early these days is still looked upon as someone rather loose, someone who is more likely to have sex than those girls who waited. Clearly, she couldn't wait.
A lot of the early erotic literature, and also quite a bit of pornography these days, is based on the assumption that the lady doth protest too much. She will struggle a little, and she will protest, but once things are on the swing of it, she'll like it, really.
We've tried to move on a little from this, but have not gone so very far. We don't have a lot of fics where the rape turns enjoyable mid-way through - thank god - but the underlying basis remains the same: that the female role is wanton, that female desires are insidious and must be kept in check. That, once a female starts having sex, she turns into a nymphomaniac.
Now let us bring in the roles of the attacker and of the comforter. The role of the attacker is to take away the masculinity of Paris, to feminise* him through rape. In this way, he will place Paris firmly in the female role. Furthermore, he will force m/m sex into Paris's life, which is not necessarily something that Paris would have experienced (and any prior experiences are necessarily wiped out by the rape). In this way, we have a blank slate for Chakotay to come rescue: someone newly feminised, with all past sexual history erased or overshadowed by this one act.
Chakotay, as the comforter, claims Paris legitimately, through 'relationship sex'. He is tender with Paris, as if Paris was a virgin, because he 'heals' Paris with this new, 'legitimate' sex. The new Paris is docile and loving, and not the least bit like the old, cocky Paris. It's the same principle behind pimps raping new prostitutes into submission - rape them until they voluntarily yield, and then they 'know their place'. C/P fanfic writers are certainly keen on showing Paris his.
***
I haven't covered a lot of ground here. There is a wealth of literature on rape out there, and it is difficult to separate out the different facets of rape - the act itself, its role within our discourses, the treatment in the courts, the treatment of victims, the treatment of perpetrators, the history of it and its symbolism. The above is merely a short rant on the mis-uses of the rape trope in narrative fiction, and does not reflect on the act itself or on the perceptions thereof in society.
I'd also like to stress that I have only seen one and a half seasons of BSG, as I stopped watching shortly after the afore-mentioned scenes. I'm sure that it's lovely, and my flist seem to enjoy it a great deal. But it's not for me.
* the use of the term here is linked to theories on rape in wartime, particularly around the use of rape as a war tactic against fellow soldiers. I can provide more data or clarifications if needed.
^ I'm using theories on the sub-altern here, as well as some Lyotard. Again, happy to provide sources and further reading if people are interested.