Gratuitous Rape in Fantasy novels

[Nerds_feather]

Even male on female rape is rarely about just lust -- it is a crime of power over the weak, with perhaps lust as a catalyst. This is what the rapist gets off on (there are several studies into it) Not always perhaps, but very very often. And that's also a big part of teh fallout for the victim - they became powerless


Rape is not usually just about sex. It's often as much about power

An important point.

 

[Mirannan]

Hope, I'm new here and don't know you - at all - but in any case kudos to you for having the courage to share all that with us.

I'm not unfamiliar with the experience of sharing ghastly experiences (in my case, medical and nobody's fault, and it wasn't on this forum and I was using another name!) and to some extent, therefore, I know what it takes to open up. It ain't easy.

 

[Rolynd]

He's saying that it's a selective view of history that artificially privileges certain elements over others. Foz Meadows quotes a film critic about Lincoln:



I don't see an inherent problem with this "anti-romantic" approach, but do see problems with the indiscriminate use of rape as a way of coloring it in. Rape in fantasy* often serves to demonstrate that the fantasy world is "unflinching," "un-glamorized" and "un-romanticized," but does little else.

*Similar things can be said about science fiction, crime fiction, lit-fic and film and tv.

So it does serve a purpose then? I'm not being deliberately obtuse here, but people want to write about powerful emotions, distressing scenes and well...drama. A lot of that comes from the extremes of human behaviour, hence why we have horror as a genre of entertainment...

A few pages ago I was discussing with Springs how if a character had been raped we would expect that to have a large impact on their story arc and if the repercussions were glossed over then it would be poor writing. I stand by that, but also stand by what I said then - if you're building a certain kind of world in a certain state of conflict then as part of the world building you are justified in showing the depravity and carnage of what goes on in such circumstances.

It may be that a "dark" view of history doesn't show the positive parts of life back then but that's because most stories are set during conflicts of some description and so naturally it's a skewed view.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

So it does serve a purpose then? I'm not being deliberately obtuse here, but people want to write about powerful emotions, distressing scenes and well...drama. A lot of that comes from the extremes of human behaviour, hence why we have horror as a genre of entertainment...

A few pages ago I was discussing with Springs how if a character had been raped we would expect that to have a large impact on their story arc and if the repercussions were glossed over then it would be poor writing. I stand by that, but also stand by what I said then - if you're building a certain kind of world in a certain state of conflict then as part of the world building you are justified in showing the depravity and carnage of what goes on in such circumstances.

It may be that a "dark" view of history doesn't show the positive parts of life back then but that's because most stories are set during conflicts of some description and so naturally it's a skewed view.

The point is you think about it -- as you are -- and know the relevance of it in your own work. Of course it has a place -- it happens all over the world -- it is what you do with it and why. In the instance cited ( either here or the grimdark thread, i an losing track) in Prince of Thorns, where it us a throwaway mention,that tells us as much about Jorg as anything ( and this is a first person book, we are supposed to know Jorg's pov, not platitudes.) that it turned me off as a reader is irrelevant -- as Mark commented, he isn't going to take my views on it into account, nor should he, my demograph is very, very removed -- he did it ( I think) to show Jorg's dissociation with what is "normal". That i find it against what i want,morally, means nought (except i feel behoven to say I don't like it).

So, sure, it's a trope -- i use it -- but it should be thought about. Like anything we write. And, judging by your posts, you will.

 

[Kissmequick]

So it does serve a purpose then? I'm not being deliberately obtuse here, but people want to write about powerful emotions, distressing scenes and well...drama. A lot of that comes from the extremes of human behaviour, hence why we have horror as a genre of entertainment...

And they can't possibly do that without the women being raped? How very unimaginative



I'm reading Cloud Atlas at the moment and the differences (and similarities) between that (The Sonmi-451 section)and the Windup Girl are astounding


Both feature girls engineered to please. Both feature girls that want to break free of what they were 'meant' to do. One feature some rather graphic rape (a champagne bottle? Really? That's integral to show in technicolour, lurid detail?) and one features none.


Cloud Atlas is the more haunting, for all the degradations it shows are non sexual. Perhaps because of that, because it is more subtle. The social control is waaay more creepy.

That's not to say that rape does not have a place, and I have no idea of the Windup Girl author's intention. Perhaps he wanted to show the whole degradation etc. I assume he did, and I try to always assume good intentions (unless it's blindingly bloody obvious). But I do wonder why he thought he had to show all that when it would have been more powerful perhaps to show other things instead, or imply. Tis could, ofc be my own taste. But..very often a rape doesn't need to be shown graphically. Surely the important point is how it affects the character? Not the -*cough* ins and outs in glorious detail? To dwell on that seems to be missing the point.

 

[Rolynd]

The point is you think about it -- as you are -- and know the relevance of it in your own work. Of course it has a place -- it happens all over the world -- it is what you do with it and why. In the instance cited ( either here or the grimdark thread, i an losing track) in Prince of Thorns, where it us a throwaway mention,that tells us as much about Jorg as anything ( and this is a first person book, we are supposed to know Jorg's pov, not platitudes.) that it turned me off as a reader is irrelevant -- as Mark commented, he isn't going to take my views on it into account, nor should he, my demograph is very, very removed -- he did it ( I think) to show Jorg's dissociation with what is "normal". That i find it against what i want,morally, means nought (except i feel behoven to say I don't like it).

So, sure, it's a trope -- i use it -- but it should be thought about. Like anything we write. And, judging by your posts, you will.

Funnily enough I'm writing a sweet little fantasy novel aimed at 11 - 16 sort of age! Monsters and swords and such like lol. Hopefully a bit scary and exciting in paces but certainly no rape! I've never written any kind of sexual violence at all.

I'm just a great believer in authors writing what they want to write. It worries me when I see people "objecting" to certain content in a "that shouldn't be written or published" way rather than a "i dont like it" way. Or even worse "there's something wrong with you if you do like it." By all means criticise a piece of work till the cows come home but we should never tell other people what they should like, or want to prevent certain stories being told.

 

[Rolynd]

And they can't possibly do that without the women being raped? How very unimaginative

There's lots of ways to do it. None of them are "wrong" just as none of them are necessarily "right." A good author will have many different strings to their bow.

 

[Kissmequick]

A good author will have many different strings to their bow.

Exactly

So there is no need to have every woman raped/abused etc (this may indeed depend on the setting, but I'm talking more career wide here than individual books)

 

[hopewrites]

I know its a few pages back now, but I wanted to chime in on Hex's point of taking one's worth from one's sexuality. I feel this could apply to victims and perpetrators alike, because there are many ways to display aggression with the intent to dominant, within and without sexual experiences.

In my experience with humanity, and from what I've read, I have come to the personal conclusion that those who commit the harsher crimes against what is commenly held as human decency, tend to have vastly complex inferiority issues, no selfworth, and a sence that their victims deserve what they get.

There was a time I let my sexuality and experiences play an exaggerated roll in how I defined myself as a person. Certainly at that time my negative experiences waighed heavily on my mind and brought my estimation of my selfworth quite low. It is since then, since changing my self view and realigning my self estimation that I have healed enough to talk about my experiences and find forgiveness enough to make being open about them less traumatic to myself.

I do think that as a medium for entertaining an intellect the subject ought to be restricted to those who grasp the concepts of no-action-without-consiquence and have the mental resiliency to not suffer vicarious trauma by contemplating the topic.

As to whether a character ought to be shaped by their experience, I would ask if the negative only is being emphasized here? Surely heroes are such because they rise above what is expected of ther perceived strengths to do that which is necessary. We admire them as they encourage us to do the same. To live up to the strengths we have within us dispite the fear that by displaying our strengths openly we will be expected to use them again and again.
I think its less important to moarlize about a topic than it is to find ways of opening a persons view so that they can be capable of more compassion. I know some who prefer their villains completely dehumanized, made into hate recepticuls. I prefer the opposite. Is this a product of my perspective on my life experiences? A natural fall out of the tragedies I've survived? Or my natural predisposition shining through the s*** that has happened in my life?

I'm not inclined to know. But I would say that since beginning my healing process, changing my orientation of my self worth, and deciding to let the pain of my past be felt and let go, I have experienced more of life than before. My health and outlook have improved. And I am generally more successfull. We are what we hang tight to, I took the handle hope, not because I was very hopeful at the time, but because I wanted to remind myself of my goal to become so. I wanted to write hope back into my life.

 

[The Judge]

In the US, if a husband takes his wife by force, it is legally rape. I would imagine it would be the same if there was an implicit threat of violence, but I don't remember reading any news stories where this was the case. (Possibly because it's not news anymore when a wife accuses her husband of rape, unless they're celebrities.) There is no legal expectation that in marriage one partner will be sexually available to the other at all times. If they are never available, that's grounds for divorce, but not justification for forced or coerced intercourse.

I'd be interested to know what the law is in the UK.

When I first started practising, no, marital rape wasn't an offence. The Christian idea that a woman gave her body to her husband at the wedding ceremony meant that it was his to do with as he wanted in terms of "normal" intercourse. Buggery was a crime, and other unpleasantnesses could be brought under the heading of sexual assault, but straight sex while they were still cohabiting, no. That only changed in 1991 when the House of Lords (our then ultimate court of appeal) confirmed that the idea of "implied consent" was a fiction, and the husband in that case was guilty of rape. A decision which still met resistance in some quarters, I'm horrified to say.

 

[Nerds_feather]

And they can't possibly do that without the women being raped? How very unimaginative

I'm reading Cloud Atlas at the moment and the differences (and similarities) between that (The Sonmi-451 section)and the Windup Girl are astounding

Both feature girls engineered to please. Both feature girls that want to break free of what they were 'meant' to do. One feature some rather graphic rape (a champagne bottle? Really? That's integral to show in technicolour, lurid detail?) and one features none.

Cloud Atlas is the more haunting, for all the degradations it shows are non sexual. Perhaps because of that, because it is more subtle. The social control is waaay more creepy.

That's not to say that rape does not have a place, and I have no idea of the Windup Girl author's intention. Perhaps he wanted to show the whole degradation etc. I assume he did, and I try to always assume good intentions (unless it's blindingly bloody obvious). But I do wonder why he thought he had to show all that when it would have been more powerful perhaps to show other things instead, or imply. Tis could, ofc be my own taste. But..very often a rape doesn't need to be shown graphically. Surely the important point is how it affects the character? Not the -*cough* ins and outs in glorious detail? To dwell on that seems to be missing the point.

Cloud Atlas does feature one horrific rape (though not of a woman). Not sure if you've gotten there or not yet...but will be curious to hear what you think. But regardless, it is generally a much better book than the Windup Girl.

I also 100% agree on two points you make:

1) Rape is not the only way to show that a world is "daaaark and grimmmm"
2) Rape scenes, where and when they exist, don't need to be graphic.

 

[Kissmequick]

Cloud Atlas does feature one horrific rape (though not of a woman). Not sure if you've gotten there or not yet...but will be curious to hear what you think.

Oh goody, that's something to look forward to.... No, not got there yet. I'll let you know

And just to reiterate, this is my personal taste re the two books/implication v graphic. Mayhap I just prefer a bit of subtlety. I'm casting no aspersions about the books, only my reactions to them.

 

[prizzley]

As to whether a character ought to be shaped by their experience, I would ask if the negative only is being emphasized here? Surely heroes are such because they rise above what is expected of ther perceived strengths to do that which is necessary. We admire them as they encourage us to do the same.

Well said, Hope

 

[j d worthington]

Continuing somnething KissMeQuick said... This is not fantasy, but sf. I recall that one of the most powerful examples of such degradation toward a woman was in Heinlein's Friday, and involved her being restrained while imprisoned by an enemy. The crux came when she was not allowed to relieve herself, and went through the humiliating experience of having to release, and then lie in, her own waste. This went against the impact of her infantile "potty training", and did much to break her down.

I don't know how many are aware of how emotionally destructive something like this can be, but I assure you, the pain and embarrassment can last for years, even if it isn't used to torment and humiliate. This is true even in young children, let alone adults, where autonomy in such matters is an integral part of their self-image as an adult human being. Not to be too graphic... when I was five, I was run over by a car (on my mother's birthday, no less!), and one of the most painful memories of that experience is lying there as we waited for the ambulance, asking her to take me to the bathroom, and instead having to go through this humiliation there. I can, at a distance of fifty years, look back on it and refer to it, but I still cringe inside when doing so.

So no, rape isn't necessary. As others have said, it serves its purpose, and has its place, but there are many other ways to address these issues in literature.

 

[Kissmequick]

Cloud Atlas does feature one horrific rape (though not of a woman). Not sure if you've gotten there or not yet...but will be curious to hear what you think.

Got there. Managed to be horrific in, what? Half a sentence and two words in the next sentence. It fit too, showed the horror of what they were in, and a glimpse of what might be up ahead for all of them, and gave an added depth to the MC's worry over his family. A deft usage, to my mind. But then the whole book is deft. Ofc, the book isn't about that, so the author could perhaps get away with less? Or perhaps a book about it could be dealt with in such terms? Hmmm.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

There's a certain (deluded) mindset that if you want to create a "kickass" female character, a good way to establish motivation towards violence is to have her be a rape victim. This trope is sloppy unimaginative writing, not to mention horribly disrespectful towards real victims of such violence. There are also writers who seem to think that the only way to put a female character in peril is to have her raped or threatened with rape - as if violence towards women can only ever be expressed sexually.

I've had this sort of scenario in my own writing, but not for the reasons you portrayed. The female character in question was a physically strong character, an unbeatable warrior, but arrogant and very rude and disrespectful towards others. She was raped once by her father, and victim of sexual assault, but it wasn't to portray anything about HER, necessarily.

It was actually to portray the aggressors-to seriously portray just how much they despised and hated her. I know, it falls in with the last part, but each of the aggressors had performed non-sexual violence upon her first, and it had not broken her, so they each felt that rape would have been the only way TO break her. (For instance, the girl's father had punched and kicked her, and starved her.) It's a fine line, and one I could have probably handled better, but the entire piece of work wasn't worth the time it took to write anyway, and I think between the years I've been part of this site and looking at my glaring mistakes from an objective point of view, I hope I can say that I've improved since then.


There are definitely other ways to show aggression, towards both genders. But between it all, beyond shock value, I can't really see why it should really be considered too big a stepping stone between sexual and non-sexual aggression. Of course, that's not to say that it should happen every chapter in a novel or anything like that, but rape, on top of other non-sexual aggression, can be used to further break someone psychologically where said non-sexual violence just won't work as well. (Think warriors and soldiers; those who see, experience, and feel violence on a regular basis. They become conditioned and train their minds to numb themselves to wounds, handicapping, and loss of life. For an aggressive commander truly wishing to break the wills of the people they're attacking, rape can be an effective weapon.)

 

[Hex]

OK -- this will probably be less than coherent since I have a hideous cold and I ought to be writing a synopsis (two things that don't combine well) but...

One of the things that worries me about the use of rape as "the worst thing that could happen to a woman" is that it risks accepting a rather male point of view. Bear with me.

Rape is awful (I hope I don't need to point that out -- I am not defending it in any way at all) but there are things that could be worse -- for example, what was done to Glotka in Abercrombie's first triology. Glotka was probably raped as well but what destroyed him was the torture that systematically reduced him from a fit, beautiful young man to a physical wreck. He was permanently warped and changed so that he couldn't walk properly and he was incontinent. Basically, everything that mattered to him was taken. (Those aren't serious spoliers, I don't think -- you find this out pretty early on).

Abercrombie is a terrifyingly inventive and clever writer and I don't think it's fair to expect everyone to come up with similarly horrible fates for their characters, but permanent physical disfigurement -- pretty horrible trauma.

Is it because rape is "invisible"? ie it's down there so our female characters can still be beautiful and desirable?

One reason this whole thing makes me queasy is I suspect (coming back to the male POV thing from earlier) it may be to do with a MAN needing to know his wife is sexually pure so that when she has children he knows they are his and can pass his property to them. I'm sure people are familiar with this so forgive me for boring on (bad cold, as above). It's in a husband's interests -- not especially a wife's -- to perpetuate the sort of pure woman stuff that the church used to be so very good at, because otherwise *shock* *horror* his property might not go to his own offspring but to another man's. So the whole sexual purity stuff may actually originate in the inheritance of property.

And it seeped out of that, as things do, and turned into a taboo on women being sexually impure -- which is one of the sources of our horror of rape. Not the only one, obviously.

I thought the point about potty training was an excellent one -- rape, like being forced to soil yourself, goes against what we are trained to believe. I worry that by accepting it as a fate worse than death we are perpetuating that belief.

And I am not suggesting rape is OK. I am not.

I think also, the fact that rape isn't about lust is vital. Because if rape is not lust, then it's about power and one of the things that makes it powerful is the horror associated with it. Do you think the rapists in history were really interested in demonstrating their power over women? Or was raping women simply a way of demonstrating power over men?

I will say once more, I don't think we should belittle rape -- it's a very serious crime.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I was reading something similar somewhere, in an agent's wish list, I think -- that we are too afraid to scar our characters, that we write horrific things for them, and then they, by and large, get up and dust themselves off. They wanted to see characters who didn't do that, who were left scarred, both physically and mentally, and the bravery to address that and not give the happy ever after just as easily. (The agent didn't take SFF, how gutted was I? I do lovely scars...)

Which touches, I think, Hope's view that it's not about how the character collapses under the ordeal, or not, but how the ordeal relates to personal inner strength.

Which means, I think, two challenges:

For those having something horrific in the back story of a character (and I say something horrific, rape is only one type of horror), it's not using that as the raison d'etre for the character being the way they are. It's a catalytic event, a defining event, but it doesn't negate the person who was there before. I'm saying this badly (and I don't even have the cold to blame), but if someone was already damaged/found life hard to cope with/ had their whole being bound into being sexually pure/ believed in their own strength to the point where removal of it is catastrophic then they will respond differently that a different character type. And if it's in the back story, then the character's whole trait and make-up must support their reaction to the rape/horrific storyline. (I'm not sure that made any sense whatsoever...)

Similarly, if we're writing a character who starts off undamaged and becomes damaged during the story, then everything about them prior to the events must support their reaction to it. And they won't just change, surely, something of them must be supported by what we know of them, even if it's only their turn of phrase in speech.

There's a saying I heard that you can't stop the waves, you can only learn how to surf them (Jon Kabat-Zinh, I think), and this is a bit like this: it's how the victim copes, whether they drown or surf, and this has to be married up to how well they cope in a wider context?

 

[Hex]

After hope's comment, I was thinking about this from the perspective of Pride and Prejudice (as one does). It's not rape but Lydia Bennet responds very differently to her role as Mrs Wickham than, for example, Jane would have done.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I don't know how many are aware of how emotionally destructive something like this can be, but I assure you, the pain and embarrassment can last for years, even if it isn't used to torment and humiliate.

Brilliant! This is exactly what I needed.

I put the foundations in, and now I finally understand the consequences I needed.

No, not talking about sex stuff.

Cheers JD.