Comments | lostboy_lj: Rules of Engagement: Violence and Hyperreality in the Buffyverse

lostboy_lj

Rules of Engagement: Violence and Hyperreality in the Buffyverse

Jul 27, 2012 21:15

rebcake recently posted a poll regarding the onset of Buffy and Spike's sexual relationship in the BtVS episode "Smashed." I answered "neither" and began to post a comment to explain, but it started to get long-ish, so I thought I'd just do a long-ish blog post instead. What I wrote turned out to be somewhat off-topic in terms of her poll, and more ( Read more... )

thinky thoughts, meta, buffy the vampire slayer, btvs

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bone_dry1013 July 28 2012, 05:22:55 UTC

bil·dungs·ro·man or Bil·dungs·ro·man (bldngz-r-män, -dngks ( ... )

lostboy_lj July 28 2012, 11:34:09 UTC

Thanks, bonesy.

I wasn't aware that there was this perception of Smashed, but then again I'm out of the fandom loop.

Me too, most of the time. But I duck my head in every now and then, just to give people the chance to smash it with a flying coffee mug.

but Smashed? She initiated that...

Yeah. Buffy initiated it in OMWF, too, when she follows Spike out into the street. The tables keep turning throughout the season in regards who's chasing who, but I think it's fair to say that Buffy is shown to be the main sexual aggressor up until "Seeing Red." In "Gone", for instance, Invisible Buffy even breaks the "No means no" rule herself, prompting Spike to kick her out. It's not Romeo and Juliet, for sure.

boot_the_grime July 28 2012, 19:07:51 UTC

The tables keep turning throughout the season in regards who's chasing who, but I think it's fair to say that Buffy is shown to be the main sexual aggressor up until "Seeing Red.I'm not so sure. There are plenty of instances of Spike being the sexual aggressor - Wrecked, the kitchen scene in Gone, Dead Things (which all constantly get overlooked while the Gone crypt scene get mentioned over and over), plus he spends most of Older and Far Away sexually propositioning Buffy, and he also comes and suggests sex at the front of her house in As You Were. On the other hand, we see Buffy initiating the sex in Smashed, acting sexually aggressive in the crypt in Gone (during the time when she's textually supposed to be acting OOC due to the feeling she can do whatever she wants while invisible) and we see her coming to Spike's crypt and initiating sex in As You Were ( ... )

lostboy_lj July 28 2012, 19:29:39 UTC

Well, I guess "main" was probably a poor choice of words. I guess I meant "the majority of times that we actually see someone make the first move, it's Buffy."

By my count, she makes a first move in "OMWF", "Tabula Rasa", "Smashed", "Gone", "Dead Things" and "As You Were." That's not to say Spike doesn't make his own share of passes, and, due to the "collapsed time" nature of TV, I think we are supposed to assume (like you say) that they have sex far more often than is actually pictured on the screen.

boot_the_grime July 28 2012, 19:50:53 UTC

I'm not what you mean by first move in Dead Things?

aycheb July 28 2012, 22:33:14 UTC

Or AYW. Spike suggested the sex both times.

rebcake July 28 2012, 22:51:05 UTC

I'd give you "Dead Things", but in AYW Buffy comes to his crypt and asks (with words, this time) him to tell her he loves, needs, and wants her. He agrees, but I don't think he can be called an "aggressor" in that case.

aycheb July 28 2012, 23:09:03 UTC

Initiator not agressor:

SPIKE: Clock ticking?

BUFFY: Whatever he's doing, he's doing it soon.

SPIKE: Soon but not now?

BUFFY: (quietly) Tell me you love me.

Buffy's "Tell me you love me" comes out of nowhere unless she's reading Spike's soon but not now as some kind of invitation along the lines of "we've got time for a quickie."

There's also the "Maybe you can come outside" encounter on the front lawn at the beginning of the episode.

rebcake July 29 2012, 05:56:56 UTC

I'm not really seeing it. If that counts as sexual initiation, it's got to be said that Spike's overtures are much more subtle than Buffy's "throw 'im up against a wall and get started" technique.

But then, "so, ya wanna?" has long been used at my house as an example of hilariously unconvincing woo. YMMV.

aycheb July 29 2012, 08:21:58 UTC

The question was who made the first move not how forcefully they made it. I'm just saying that in that instance (and on the lawn earlier and at the OAFA party and on the balcony at the Bronze and in DMP and in the opening scenes of Wrecked and Gone it wasn't Buffy. Gabrielleabelle did a much more detailed analysis of their various encounters back here:

http://gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com/277767.html

None of it adds up to the model of one-sided abuse leading to hospitalisation and an early grave given in the OP but I doubt most people believe they're implying anything that extreme when they describe Buffy and Spike's relationship as "mutually abusive." The striking thing about it is how little either care that they might be hurting the other. For the most part and certainly from OMWF to Dead Things they want what they want and they take it.

boot_the_grime July 29 2012, 11:45:43 UTC

I'd hardly call putting his hand between her legs (Wrecked, Gone) subtle. ;)

rebcake July 29 2012, 17:50:28 UTC

And yet, still more romantic subtle than Faith Buffy. ;-)

bone_dry1013 July 29 2012, 00:07:27 UTC

I'm not sure why the number of times who initiated what really matters. It feels like a fairly trivial point to quibble over ( ... )

aycheb July 29 2012, 08:38:04 UTC

I'm not sure why the number of times who initiated what really matters. It feels like a fairly trivial point to quibble over.
I agree but these debates always seem to come down to that. Everyone begins with the best it "they both gave as good as they got" intentions but as soon as one person starts down the "But X was obviously the main sexual aggressor/had the all the real power in the relationship" these counting games begin. It's as if fandom abhors a balance.

I can maybe see why someone would think that if they looked at like...just that scene in Seeing Red in isolation (which to be frank still disturbs me like nothing on TV has ever disturbed me and paired with Tara's death and Buffy being shot is the reason I have trouble watching that ep at all), but Smashed?
Smashed is no Seeing Red but I do thing the seeds of the bathroom scene are visible there. Even more so in the morning after from hell scene that follows. Maybe it didn't have to go that way but it did.

boot_the_grime July 29 2012, 11:44:13 UTC

Yeah, I agree with all of that. But the number of times who initiated sex came up because it was stated that Buffy was the "sexual aggressor" most of the times, which isn't quite true. I think that this tends to happen when people are arguing against the view of Buffy as a the Victim and Spike as the Abuser, and people then go to the other extreme in trying to make their point and claim that Buffy initiated almost all the sex and was more sexually aggressive or had all the power etc. which isn't what happened. And although that wasn't lostboy's intention and he's not one of people with these views, the opposite extreme view that Spike was the Victim and Buffy was the Abuser is also quite common in fandom just as the other one.

lostboy_lj July 29 2012, 16:56:34 UTC

I'm not sure why the number of times who initiated what really matters. It feels like a fairly trivial point to quibble over.Yeah, it is. I think the real point is that the references to "stalking" that the characters themselves make (particularly Xander) belies the truth of the relationship that is forming between them, and Buffy knows it. "Stalking" is a form of highbrow fart joke, in that way, because the Metaphor-Masters that are the Scooby Gang call it out by name ( ... )

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