Gratuitous Rape in Fantasy novels

[hopewrites]

Hex I really feel you are spot on with your perceptions, cold or no. Springs too.

Of all the thins I've lived through rape has been tough, but not the toughest. That award goes to the emotional conditioning that made the (I loose count) latter set possible. I know I'm up against years of reconditioning on that one. But pretty much most of what we've discussed here about rape goes for those other horrors too. In my not inexperienced opinion.

Think about the really old fairy tales, campfire stories, and old wives tales. They're full of grim things that people have to survive and move on from. I secretly loved Hansel and Grettle as a little girl, she took care of her own without brandishing her strengths to anyone. While I openly adored Arora for waiting with pure patients for her true love, I secretly wished I was as smart and indomitable as Grettle.

There is a famous line whose origins I don't know "you'd be suprised what you can live through" I've oftener found the opposite true. I'm suprised what people die of. I'm not talking physically though I'm talking about those cases where the will to live abandons the flesh to let it die in its own time and way.

When I'm writing a new character I often ask myself where their limits are and what would happen if I crossed them. The one romance I tried to write had a male protagonist who fell in love, risked everything, failed miserably, repeatedly, and for about 1/3 of the story I was suprise he wasn't going to get the girl in the end. I new this wouldn't be crushing for him but couldn't justify the plot I'd started out with of torturing then rewarding him. Decided the female protagonist was weakness and made her more human and rational. This made her more attractive to all the male characters who then had to be overhauled so I could figure out if any of them could be attractive to her, let alone the one I wanted. I gave it up as a bad plot when I realized the whole thing had no point. But that's not the point I forgot I was making.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Btw, apologies if it sounded like I wasn't taking the subject seriously - JD raised a very important point that related to what I was working on.

Every psychology student learns about the stress scale presented by Tennant, which lists different life events in terms of negative impact. If a writer is so dissociated from their characters as to need a list to work from, try that first.

Any writer who wants to motivate a character, and immediately thinks to raping them, really shouldn't be allowed near a pen and paper, but instead should be tied down and bludgeoned with old paperbacks (proverbially).

 

[glutton]

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but in my last completed novella a male character beats a female character so badly he smashes the bones in her face and permanently disfigures her in an attempt to subdue her so he can... yup, you guessed it... rape her. She then proceeds to literally rip off his penis. They later manage to be friends again (and be antagonists to the MC at first, but later buddies). The story is a comedy BTW, and these two characters are still not as out there as the MC who is The Most Delusional One.

With regard to my writing in general, I've had several rape attempts against the heroines but only one was actually raped (as a slave in her childhood), more often the attempts are unsuccessful with horrific consequences for the men. One of the heroines did kill a man attempting to rape her when she was a small child which had a part in making her messed up, and the one who did get raped finally unmanned her last would-be rapist and fled when she'd had enough as a teen.

 

[glutton]

Why *are* abuse backgrounds for "feisty" female characters so popular?

Where does the need to "justify" something about a female character using this come from? Writing dozens of feisty female MCs I've only used abuse twice as an explanation for something about their personalities, and that wasn't their feistyness itself... For the feistyness I prefer it to be attributed purely to being a plain old tomboy, or just a brave girl.

Granted with the physical ability levels of the female characters I write, it would be hard *not* to be a little feisty even without being a tomboy... one of the least powerful and most down to earth female MCs I've written, who is just a high school student and model (and aspiring pro wrestler, so I guess a little tomboy but still), is still able to easily lift her 260+ lb (female, BTW) best friend, slam a large man unconscious, and take dozens of punches from a group of men without being knocked out or seriously hurt.

The girls are war machines.

 

[Brian G Turner]

glutton, I've moved your latest post into this thread.

 

[barlennan]

I would recommend that anyone who is interested in writing characters with dark inner turmoil, or just has in interest in real people, should listen to some of the interviews on The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast. It is VERY frank and VERY adult and sometimes very funny.

Lots of very inspiring people have contributed and sexual abuse and sexual shame appear very often, as you might expect. Despite somewhat slanted towards the preoccupations of the host, minor US comic Paul Gilmartin, it's worth a listen to hear how normal, articulate people have lived through the most traumatic circumstances, indulged in the most self-destructive behaviors, or suffered the most bizarre psychiatric episodes.

Just don't listen to too many at once: Some of them are very sad indeed.

It is my view that nothing should be taboo in literature. Why is it that SFF must avoid avoid talking frankly about issues which affect a great number of people such as rape, incest and domestic abuse, but we don't call authors insensitive when they write about tragic things like murder, suicide or mutilation and often, glorify them?

I love comedy: I once saw a stand-up comic, sat beside a girl who I like very much and knew to be a rape survivor. The hardest she laughed was when the comic made a joke that compared sex when you have kids to a date-rape. I'm not making that sound very funny, I know. That person is not over it, or stronger for it and I know it affects how she sees herself everyday, but she is still alive and still laughing and I'm not getting offended on her behalf anymore.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Liz Bourke has an interesting essay on this topic today.

 

[Hex]

Good essay. Thanks for the link.

Here's Elizabeth Bear too: http://www.elizabethbear.com/?p=1402

 

[Mouse]

Good links you two.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Does this mean Terry Goodkind had it right after alll?

 

[Handsome John]

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.

If a noob may go off on a little tangent...?

...and this is where marriage comes in, doesn't it? Because the best way to ensure sexual purity is to make that vow before the highest possible power, which was obviously God, right?

Back on topic...as terrible as rape is, it's nevertheless a realistic part of existence. As such, if an author was to include it because it was a natural part of the story and/or was important in the development of the characters then it's fine, right?

Including it because you want to shock is disgusting. Being overly detailed is also disgusting, unless you want to explore the future mental state/changes of the victim at which point the graphic details might serve a purpose.

 

[alternatesanity]

I have this strange belief that purity is of the mind, not the vagina. Never do you hear of a man being classed as 'impure' because he dipped his wick before marriage so why should a female have to ascribe to a much higher ideal, a man made ideal?
Rape in fiction can be a very useful means of character development or defining why the bad guy is actually bad or a host of other things. I do not believe such scenes need to be gone into in detail unless there is a specific purpose crucial to the story. Otherwise it is just space filling or fantasy fulfilling, neither of which are laudable.
Rape happens, especially in times of war (common in fantasy and other genres) or times of social unrest/breakdown. Do we as writers sugar coat atrocities or try to present them realistically? We don't need to dwell excessively or unnecessarily on rape but ignoring rape is also unrealistic.
Weather such scenes are warranted lies within the context of the story.

 

[hopewrites]

I'm not in the habit of rezing threads but...
I was walking home from work about a week ago now and thinking about how odd life is. I've hinted before that my past isnt as sparkly happy as my attitude often leads people to think it has been. Something had come up that got me thinking about Rape Culture, and what it means to live in one.

Let me take a moment to clarify what I mean by "Rape Culture" firstly I spent a good half the walk thinking about just what that term really means. On the surface I was thinking it meant a Culture in which Rape happens and not much is done to address it. It's normalized or repressed to the point of invisibility.
But it has to go deeper than that. You see. In the household I grew up in adults had unquestioned authority over children*. So when someone who was bigger, older, and therefor wiser than me approached me sexually, I was a ready victim because my programing was such that he was not to be questioned about what he was asking me to do. I was just to do it. It was his place to request anything, and it was my place to deliver to the best of my abilities.
If I had told my parents, or anyone what was going on, I'm sure it would have been stopped much sooner. But I've always been good at keeping secrets when asked to. And even learned to keep them when not asked later in my childhood.


I seem to have wandered off point. Not surprising because I went on to spend bits of mental down time thinking about what I'd thought about.


So a Rape Culture needs to have several things to exist. 1) a system for unquestionable authority to be taken advantage of. 2) a system for repressing the voice of the victim. 3) victimized people with few outlets and positions of power.

Now I'm back on track, so. Power. Disempowered people are often someone else's villain in life. My Friend has a saying which I have loved since I first heard him use it "hurt people, hurt people." Which is to say; people who are hurting are the most likely to lash out in a way that hurts others. Think cornered animal. I love that scene in White Fang when he bites The Love God, he knows he's done wrong, he knows he's committed a mortal sin. But he couldnt help himself. He was hurting and it caused him to hurt the Man he was trying so hard for.


In a different conversation with a different friend I was lamenting about the strictures of gender rolls and how they have shaped some of societies more enduring stereotypes. I personally waffle on gender rolls in society. I think people should be free to be who they are. If a woman wants to go into a profession where she would be loving and nurturing people into growth and embracing healing moments, why should anyone assume her gender played any roll in her choice or in her ability to perform well in said profession? On the other hand, when gender rolls were being parceled out (before they became static and intractable things) wouldnt they have gone where it made the most sense for them to go? Isn't that why some stereotypes have endured longer than others?


none of this is actually what i wanted to post that i was thinking about, though it's important back drop.


what I wondered is if cyber-relations can count as rape? one would immediately think "no" but! if one has been programed to acquiesce without question as part of their gender roll to the demands or even requests of the opposite gender. if one has come to treat one's sexuality as a trade item of minimized value. if one finds oneself with people who have no scruples asking for what they want. One could end up advancing explicit materiel, not against one's will, will has been deactivated in said arena, but against oneself. one finds oneself thinking "I dont want to do this, I have x reasons not to. but i cant say no"


isnt that the same as date rape? especially if one puts out there that one has a weakness and that weakness is exploited by other weak individuals who fear rejection above all else? and then there is a being who says "I'm incapable of rejection. please dont ask for anything you or I would regret"


Rape Culture would be any culture where this kind of thing can happen. Where a person can be raped by someone not in their time zone or even on the same continent with them. I would class cyber rape with the more emotionally manipulative rapes. like child rape or date rape or spouse rape, where those are less than violent in their acts.

A society that puts a taboo on rape enables it to happen. Not only because the forbidden allures some. But because nether party has any outlet to talk about what has happened to them or why.

I think this is why the statistics are out there saying that people are more likely to rape others if they have been raped themselves.

It comes back to my Friend's saying "hurt people, hurt people."





*Not blaming my parents for what happened. Its a bit of an old paradigm now, but one they grew up under so I completely understand how they felt their position was validated.

 

[Hex]

Many hugs and bouquets of lovely things for you, hope. I think you've done a really important thing with this discussion and made it about someone we all love. I bet none of us will trivialise rape in our stories (though hopefully we were unlikely to from the start).

About rape culture: I have been reading the most terrifying things. Stuff I never guessed happened.

So, after Stubenville, people have been blogging about their experiences and there's one who blogged about how she was almost raped at school when the big, handsome football star (or whatever he was) started chatting to her and telling her she was pretty. A teacher sent her home, having heard the football guy and his friends planning to abuse her later.

So, he saved her but nothing happened to the horrible football star/ friends.

And apparently it's not unusual for girls to be raped, and it's filmed and then they're bullied online about what has happened to them.

Tried to talk to my son about the idea of consent a couple of days ago (apparently lots of boys have no idea, and coerce girls into sex). He was confused and then appalled ("urgh. Why would anyone want to do THAT?"). He is only six, though.

Also, have you seen the film "My Body Belongs to Me"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-5mdt9YN6I

 

[hopewrites]

I hadnt. But I might make sure my son sees it, just to be sure that nothing like what happened to me happens to him. Thanks for the link.

obviously the topic of sex should be treated with dignity and respect, just as we would like our sexualities to be treated. But I dont think that precludes tasteful jokes. Sometimes joking about something is a door to opining a discussion about it.

After watching that "My Body Belongs to Me" I would also say that even grownups need a safe person they can talk to about the things that are happening in their life.

 

[JoanDrake]

I'm sorry, JoanDrake, but how can you say rape has no effect on a character? If a character is to be realistic, someone a reader feels could actually exist, then to have a traumatic event happen to him/her without any consequences destroys any credibility. Even if a woman feels determined NOT to let a rape affect her, she's consciously going out of her way to do so, so it's affecting her life. She might make choices she wouldn't otherwise, because she's so determined not to think about it (which is subconsciously thinking about it, at first). Also, a character who goes out of her way to suppress traumatic memories is still having a reaction to rape - and that should be obvious if handled well. I would feel the author were using rape as action if the rape had no consequence.

Honestly, I would expect a realistic character to have some reaction to being raped - even if mostly after said event. I don't understand how an author could write any differently and expect the character's reactions to be realistic. You suffer a car crash, you likely have flashbacks and shock. You get robbed at knifepoint, your mind likely replays it afterward. People are human. People have feelings.

And the idea that the Nation Organisation for Women has "long campaigned for rape to be treated as a form of simple aggravated assault, instead of a crime nearly akin to murder" sounds ridiculous if true (where is your source? I'd be interested to read it, because surely that's not allowed? ). How can a group which supposedly supports women's rights brush off one of the most serious crimes? No, it's not murder, but at least you're dead after murder, you don't suffer nightmares and memories.

But no, I can't say I agree that victims should be treated as "misbegotten victims". They need counselling and closure, if possible, if they're deeply affected by it (depends on the level of violence, I'd imagine). And when you say that the latest studies on rape show that "women are surprisingly resilient in the effect rape has on them", where are your sources? I know two people, very close to me actually, who have been raped. Both were not treated as misbegotten victims, and both were raped in their teens. Half their life later, the rape still affects them in quite different ways. Yes, they were raped differently - one was by someone trusted, the other was by a vicious stranger in an alley - but their effects still linger. To this day, one of them is seriously suffering from PTSD - even after counselling and seeing her attacker get sentenced in court for doing it to other young women.

I certainly will not listen to a group which purports that rape is not violent and is merely "simple" aggravated assault. What's simple about being attacked and violated against your will? In fact, one peer-reviewed study shows that "Sexual assault is associated with an increased lifetime rate of attempted suicide. In women, a history of sexual trauma before age 16 years is a particularly strong correlate of attempted suicide." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8639039)

Another peer-reviewed study to measure stress hormones and immunity following rape showed that "At least one-third of women develop postraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic attacks, depression, and physical health problems" and "Female victims report lower perceived health status, more somatic symptoms, and more negative health behaviours, more headaches, chronic pain syndromes, gynecological disorders, premenstrual syndrome, gastrointestinal disorders, morbid obesity and substance abuse" and "There is an association of physical illness and PTSD in trauma victims." (http://kendal-tackett.www.uppitysciencechick.com/groer_rape_cyto.pdf)

I am quite willing to accept these findings, because they back up what I've seen.

Anyway, because this topic's got me interested, I've done a quick search online, and Rape Crisis, the leading charity, says: "Long-term consequences of sexual violence and child sexual abuse include post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and panic attacks, depression, social phobia, substance abuse, obesity, eating disorders, self harm and suicide, domestic violence and in some cases, offending behaviour." They also state that "Rape myths give people a false sense of security by minimising and / or denying the occurrence of sexual violence. They accomplish this by blaming the victim and making excuses for the perpetrator. In effect these myths perpetuate sexual violence because they play a powerful part in defining responses to rape and create an excuse not to address the realities of sexual violence." (http://www.rapecrisis.org.uk/mythsampfacts2.php)

When people make an argument that rape is not serious and that it causes little long-term harm, they're another person bandying about what's called "rape myth", which is actually harmful to real victims. According to a peer-reviewed article by Philipp Süssenbach, Friederike Eyssel and Gerd Bohner, published after their studies into rape and rape myth, "Rape myths are "beliefs about rape (i.e., about its causes, context, consequences, perpetrators, victims, and their interaction) that serve to deny, downplay or justify male sexual aggression against women" (http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/02/07/0886260512475317.full.pdf+html)

The following first-page preview has interesting evidence that talks about how the myth that "rape is trivial" can be one driver for justification among young offenders: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10926771.2013.743937#preview

Finally, a peer-reviewed article entitled Walking the Woods: The Lived Experience of Sexual Assault Survival for Women in College sums it up, in my opinion: "conversation revealed one overarching theme of the all-encompassing nature of rape survival" and "In other words, after being raped in college, the experience continued to be intimately connected to everything they would live through thereafter." (http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/13540)




Edit: And perhaps some of this info will be useful to writers who want to write realistically...

I conflated the legal and generic meanings of "simple" assault and felonious assault. NOW wanted rape to be treated as felonious assault. This makes it equivalent to attempted murder. I can see your being upset if you thought I was saying they wanted it reduced to misdemeanor status but they don't. Attempted Murder is a very serious crime, often getting you 25 to life if there are aggravating circumstances.

All you say is about rape is true, in reality. However, the whole process of writing is largely, like the Mythbusters say, "to reject your reality and substitute my own". If I want to have a character who is relatively unaffected by rape then that is her/his character, isn't it?

To put it another way, one of your studies said that one third of women suffered PTSD after rape, which means that the majority of women don't, yes?

I can also turn your argument about, saying that what you're saying is that a woman who has been raped is ruined forever. I know that is not your intention but if we overestimate the damage rape does to a woman, don't we re-open the door to that sort of interpretation?

I was listening to a Nova show just last night where they were playing transcripts of conversations between German prisoners whom the British had bugged without their knowledge. One German talks of seeing women working in the fields when they first invaded Russia and how they would pull them into their vehicles, rape them, and then move on. He talks of it quite casually, with absolutely no sign that he felt any guilt or remorse. When the Russians took Germany it is well known that the Red Army repaid these crimes in kind. This is certainly rape of the most gratuitous kind imaginable. It happened, on a mass scale, in Europe and within living memory. It is still happening on the same scale in Africa right now.

Rape is now, and has been for several thousand years, one of the major psychological weapons used in war. It is among the most egregious acts of violence and terror that one person can do to another. I think we're being rather unrealistic if, when we write about war and violence, we act as if it doesn't happen, or as if it always leaves its victims as psychological wrecks. Mind, I am NOT saying the damage done is inconsequential. I am just pointing out that not every soldier who has survived combat becomes dysfunctional and not every victim of a serious physical crime is a basket case for the rest of their lives.

 

[the Jester]

Okay, maybe someone has already said this- I just kinda skimmed this thread- but I'd say that the key word in discussing this is "gratuitous"- yes, gratuitous rape is distasteful (to me). If it serves the story, though, nothing is off-limits.

 

[BetaWolf]

I'll agree with The Jester. Gratuitous anything is not good, particularly in this case. I have learned as a college instructor that you need to be careful when subjecting your audience to certain things. You don't know how they will react.

I use violence sparingly, and only when it moves the story along. I won't get into the current debate in US politics on when rape is legitimate or not.

 

[ZombieWife]

Hello all! I'm a bit new, but I found this thread interesting. There are two sides to this, at least in my mind:

1. If you're choosing a faux medieval setting then perhaps there is that oppressive element toward women that is more "accepted" or "condoned" in a sense. And, looking at it from this angle makes me reluctant to tell any writer how to go about creating the world in which they work.

But, this leads me to #2 . . .

2. Rape has become kind of the "go to" act to commit against a woman (in fantasy settings and non-fantasy settings) in order to break them, humiliate them, or subjugate them.

I offer up this scenario:

You have the hero tied up in a chair. He's been captured by the villain. The villain goes into a monologue about why he's doing what he's doing, pacing back and forth in front of the villain. Then, he takes out a knife and holds it up to our male hero.

How many of you think, "Oh my God, he's going to be raped?"

I'm going to say very few (if any). Yet, we put a woman in that chair with the bad guy pacing in front of her. Out comes the knife. Our mind goes there (for most of us). Why? Perhaps we've been conditioned to fear this because it keeps happening.

How do you make a bad guy SUPER bad? Make him a rapist, of course.

For me, part of the problem exists because we do not give many dark, heroic arcs to women. How many female characters have you seen on screen that have endured what the Dark Knight's Bruce Wayne has endured? Or any other "dark" hero for that matter who has been pushed to the edge? And how do they break that dark hero? They kill his family, his friends, his dog. They MIGHT rape his wife, but for the most part, it's about taking things away from him.

We don't see this often with our heroines. Or, if we do, someone (writer, producer, director) gets squeamish and adds in a "nurturing buffer" to anchor the female character. Put a child in the mix. Show everyone that she has motherly instincts.

Perhaps studios and other creative entities are reluctant to go so far with female characters because people will always worry about the R-word coming into the mix. She's going to get raped. It HAS to happen. Men can't control themselves, especially one-dimensional villains.

I do think this trend is capable of changing. We're seeing less and less black-and-white hero VS villain scenarios. Villains are given dimension. Less raping occurs for the "cool" bad guys (that's left to the mindless henchmen).

For me, when I write a villain, I think it's a cop-out to assume that every bad guy IS a rapist, that the rapist within defines who he IS as a bad guy.

In my own writing, I have no interest in writing shallow villains who go around raping, happy as the day is long. I have no interest in writing a female character who is defined by rape (victim).

This is not to say that rape doesn't happen and that we shouldn't thoughtfully consider how devastating such an act can be. Should it be hands off? No. Should it be eliminated from fantasy? No. Should we tell writers when and how they can portray rape? No. But, I think it deserves a conversation at the very least, which is what I see happening here.

 

[prizzley]

Hello all! I'm a bit new

Welcome.

If you're choosing a faux medieval setting then perhaps there is that oppressive element toward women that is more "accepted" or "condoned" in a sense. And, looking at it from this angle makes me reluctant to tell any writer how to go about creating the world in which they work.

"A faux medieval setting"! Manywriters chose to create worlds where what we know as "modern" weapons don't exist. But just because no one in my world has a gun or a bomb, that doesn't make them medieval.

And your generalist link between "medieval" and attitude towards women has me screaming. There are many societies in our times that have an oppressive attitude towards women. Does that make them medieval?