Rape Rarely Referenced

[peppermintyrose]

I keep seeing this one around, and even though I've dealt with it generally before, I'm going to break it down for those who can't see. There is this assertion that Sookie's rape - the trunk scene with Bill - is not dealt with in the text, and that CH glosses over it. Usually it's said by people who haven't been victims, or occasionally one lone

Comments

[thyradane]

As all your threads, this was food for thought - but probably even more so than most of them.

I remember one of my first outrages from watching television. I was younger than 10 and had been allowed to watch Dallas (it might be Dynasty - they ran at the same time) by my parents. Pretty early on one of the main characters is raped by one of the other main characters and later on finds out she is pregnant. What pissed me off, and I remember my anger even today, was the fact that she ended up marrying her rapist. I think I stopped watching the show after that - though back in those days with few television channels, it was the talk of the school and I couldn`t join in.

This is not important but it goes to show that we`re all children of both our upbringing but also of a crappy pop-culture that tells us that we should marry our rapists. Maybe even fall in love with him.

I never did hate Bill because of the rape. I didn`t think Sookie should ever go back to him after it, but I didn`t hate him for it. My real distaste for Bill came with Selah and how cruel he was to both Sookie and Selah by prancing her around in the place where Sookie worked - and read people`s minds.

I do not have your knowledge of the after-effects of rape and I was happy when you explained all the washing routines because I`d never paid attention to them. When I reread the books after your explanation, a whole lot of things made more sense.

But even if it makes me miss out on important things - I do like it when CH does not spell out everything for us. So what if I didn`t see Sookie hitting the shower ever so often as a result of her abuse and rape? It just gave me a second layer when I read the books again. And that`s really the sign of great books - more layers the more you understand of them. This is why I love Hans Christian Andersen so much - even if he "only" wrote fairytales. The multiple layers you can read his stories in.

[peppermintyrose]

Rape gets used a lot as a dramatic plot device - for which writers should be keelhauled. Usually it's used to spread more shit myths about rape. That's often what happens with fanfic too - some writer thinks it's good to write about Sookie being raped and Eric saving her from herself, when that's just complete crap.

I never hated Bill for the rape either. I don't think it was deliberate, but the stuff with Selah certainly was.

Yeah, the hygiene rituals are something obscure that people don't tend to know about. Sometimes they go the opposite way - with victims not wanting to shower and groom, with the underpinning notion that it will lessen attractiveness. It all comes down to how they process the rape.

I love the layers in the books. It surprises me how much information she manages to jam pack into the text.