the ask@AAR: Could you forgive this hero?
It’s always an experience to read Vintage AAR. This article by Paula Detmer Riggs on writing taboo subjects is especially thought-provoking. She wrote about the hero of her book, Her Secret, His Child, a book she published in 1995 and we gave a DIK to in 1998.
Years ago, her hero–and he is her hero–date-raped the heroine. Riggs writes:
The hero I love is imperfect in some terrible way. He’s an all too-human soul who’s driven by inner demons far more deadly and cruel than any serial killer or evil empire or double-agent. A man, who, because of a mistake in judgment or action, had done a terrible wrong to an innocent victim, and if that victim is our heroine, so much the better.
She knows her choice is controversial. To her critics, she replies:
Why was it written? Why choose to frame a love story in such a way? What kind of message does a rapist hero and an irresponsible heroine send to the reader? In my opinion and intention, one of hope. If the people in my fictional world can face their own mistakes, learn to forgive themselves, and rise above the harm they’ve caused themselves and others, so can each and every one of us. Our mistakes are most likely far more benign, and yet, perhaps, just as painful to admit. Most of us have a strong sense of personal integrity, no matter what our religious preference. To violate our rules of decent behavior shames us. It’s often easier to accept our failings when we compare them to the far more serious failings of fictional folks. Living through their pain, seeing them make restitution, and thus find redemption and happiness is often enough to encourage us to do the same.
What do you think? I wonder if we are less tolerant of heroes and heroines who, in the past, have done reprehensible acts than we used to be? And, is that a good or bad thing?
Let us know your thoughts.
I hope this isn’t too off-topic, but getting back to the original question of “Could you forgive this hero?,” are we as romance readers becoming more intolerant of non-verbal forms of consent in romance? I ask because lately, my romance reading has been filled with enthusiastic consent- which is fantastic!- but its manner of presentation is often overkill in its execution.
For example, it is becoming almost standard to read seemingly endless repetitions of “Can I touch you here?” Sure, for a first time sex scene with a nervous virgin or a character who has suffered trauma, that can make a lot of sense. But when it keeps happening in every single scene with the same two characters, it feels like the author is trying to cover her butt to avoid accusations of having a rapist hero.
Has anyone else noticed this? Do you think it’s killing subtler, sexier forms of seduction and nuance? Is there any room for misunderstandings or sexual mishaps? What about instances where a character performs a non-favorite sexual act in order to please a partner? I certainly don’t mean rape or any kind of force, but compromise. What about adult conversations during pillow talk about how things went “wrong” and how to fix them in the future? What about regret and hurt feelings?
I’d love to hear some thoughts on these messy questions if you don’t consider them too off-topic. I realize that romance is often idealized (some of that is inherent in the genre), but it seems like heroes are never allowed to “mess up” in the bedroom anymore at all- just like a heroine can’t seem to be touched with one finger without having an explosive orgasm. After all, there are more ways to demonstrate healthy sexual interaction than a constant call and response of “Can I touch you here?” “Yes.”
As ever, Nan, you have asked some interesting questions that deserve an answer so here goes with my responses to your can of worms!!
“are we as romance readers becoming more intolerant of non-verbal forms of consent in romance?” I think this may be the case, sadly, which I interpret as a deficit in emotional maturity and intuitiveness. I believe that non-verbal communication is supremely important in relationships of all kinds and I also think that most adults are pretty proficient in using and interpreting it.
“it is becoming almost standard to read seemingly endless repetitions of “Can I touch you here?” Yes, and for me, it’s a bore. A huge bore. A sexual groundhog day..
“it feels like the author is trying to cover her butt to avoid accusations of having a rapist hero” I agree, Nan. It’s probably as a result of our litigious society combined with the Harvey Weinsteins of the world and social media egging everyone on. Everyone is running scared, most of the time it seems probably without cause or need. Sad.
“Do you think it’s killing subtler, sexier forms of seduction and nuance? Is there any room for misunderstandings or sexual mishaps?” In a good relationship, surely misunderstandings or sexual mishaps are part and parcel of its growth and development. None of us are born with all of the answers about everything; nuance is a tool for use in learning and understanding.
“What about instances where a character performs a non-favorite sexual act in order to please a partner?” Amongst my cohort of girlfriends I don’t know anyone who hasn’t, as an act of love at least once or twice, agreed to something they weren’t that fond of. And in a loving relationship, I am sure we all got something in return. (And I don’t mean submitting to rape or something that causes harm though some will feel that emotional harm is equal to or trumps physical harm.)
“What about regret and hurt feelings?” I can hear Frank warbling away. It’s called LIFE.
“but it seems like heroes are never allowed to “mess up” in the bedroom anymore at all- just like a heroine can’t seem to be touched with one finger without having an explosive orgasm” Precisely. It’s so irritating. I like character-driven romance and without someone(s) messing up at least a bit, no one matures or deepens a relationship to a satisfactory level. One finger, eh, Nan? Hmmmm!!!!
“After all, there are more ways to demonstrate healthy sexual interaction than a constant call and response of “Can I touch you here? Yes.” Absolutely. After 40 years of a very happy marriage, I would die of shock if asked that question. So would the DH. We finish each other’s sentences, know each other’s thoughts, tastes, preferences, dislikes, joys, sorrows, regrets and expectations. Of course, like any other couple, we have a few deep secrets but not many after all this time!
Aw, thanks Elaine, for answering my questions so thoroughly. It’s good to know I’m not the only romance reader who has noticed a definite shift in how sex scenes are portrayed- and I haven’t been a reader of the genre that long. While I don’t want to tell authors how to write their sex scenes, I would recommend a little more “showing” and less “telling.” I think a good writer can just as easily describe a series of come hither looks and suggestive banter as having a character constantly say “Can I touch you here?” outright.
As for non-verbal consent, I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I watched the 1970 B-film The Losers for the first time. Granted, it is a war picture about a bunch of ragtag bikers dropped in to Vietnam to rescue a CIA operative via guerilla warfare tactics (stick with me here), but there’s a rather touching subplot between one of the gentler bikers and a local woman. Okay, okay, I can hear the cries of “OMG! A foreigner and a possible prostitute? Sexist, racist, blah blah blah!” But hear me out.
Basically, Limpy (such a politically incorrect nickname for a biker with a limp, but this is 1970) goes to this club where he sees a young woman, Kim Su, (yeah, yeah, bear with me) sitting on the sidelines like a wallflower. They exchange glances, quick “hello’s,” and then Limpy offers her his hand. She takes it. They end up on the dance floor doing this sort of disco thing where they never touch each other but flirt entirely with small talk and come hither looks. As things get more heated- again without any touching or direct sexual offers- Kim offers Limpy her hand. No words, but the next thing you know, she’s leading him up the stairs. As the viewer, you feel their connection as strongly as they do, no unnecessary chitchat or contract signing required. Cut to the next frame and we get a nice, natural pillow talk scene. Actually quite sweetly funny too when Limpy gives her a kiss and says, “Well, now that we’ve got that out of the way, what’s your name?” And the whole thing really is all sweetness and smiles in sharp contrast to the war raging outside. Problematic by today’s standards? Maybe, but I thought it was one of the better examples of enthusiastic consent sans practically needing a written contract prior to a sexual encounter. Despite not showing actual sex- unless you consider exposed female breasts an automatic depiction of sex- I thought it was quite steamy.
As an unrelated fun fact, The Losers is the movie that is playing in the background in Pulp Fiction. Apparently, it is a favorite of Tarantino’s and he auditioned Paul Koslo (the guy who played Limpy) to be in Pulp Fiction. That didn’t work out, but he put one of the scenes from The Losers in his film to give him a cameo appearance and pay him residuals.
An even steamier movie that I think shows the rougher aspects of consensual sex is the erotic thriller Sea of Love with Al Pacino and Ellen Barken. Pacino plays a detective on the case of a possibly female serial killer targeting her ex-lovers, and ends up falling for the prime suspect. Given the setup, this is borderline dubious consent at times, but its portrayal of sex feels very adult in comparison to the scaredy-cat type sex scenes in books and movies nowadays that do everything but shout to the audience, “Look at us, we’re consenting- with a capital C.”
After reading comments from the people who have read the book and Marian Perera’s comment where they point out how the author described the events of the book in her article, I find that I’m a bit confused / don’t have a clear enough understanding of this particular case to have a proper opinion of it. How things went down all in all matter to me when I’m trying to understand the hero and figure out whether I could forgive him. Which doesn’t mean that the heroine’s experience wasn’t horrible from the moment on she didn’t want to go further no matter which way it went down. Or that I’d expect her to be able to forgive the hero.
In this type of situation I feel like whether or not I could forgive the hero and whether I could buy into a romance between two people with this kind of past are two different things. I have read several romance novels with characters who have done reprehensible acts of different degrees in the past, but I can’t remember reading a book where a victim was paired with their offender. I’m failing to see how that could work for me especially in case of violent crimes.
In a more general sense, how everything happened matters and intentions matter when I consider if I’m able to forgive someone’s actions. In my understanding, learning about the variety of intentions won’t change the victim’s experience. It might, but I would imagine most often might not, change how the victim ends up feeling about it all in the long run.
Like, you can drive over a person accidentally or on purpose. The victim will be just as dead or paralyzed or perhaps just badly bruised (if they are really lucky) regardless of the intent, but it would certainly be harder for me to forgive an act like this if it was intentional instead of accidental. I think that if the victim lives it might end up meaning something to them as well to know that the collision was accidental. Or, as I said, it might not.
Or perhaps a group of people are waiting in a line at a grill kiosk after a night out in a bar. They are drunk, a few of them quarrel and someone shoves another person. Instead of taking a few steps back like they would if they were sober, they stumble, fall, and crack their skull on the edge of the road. Here the shove, the intention to do harm was there, and I don’t think it’s something anyone should do in such situations, but in my understanding people don’t generally shove other people like that and expect them to die. I find that it would affect the way I feel that the intention was not to do serious harm even though it changes absolutely nothing for the victim and the consequences of the act were horrendous.
I’ve read the story of a heroine who had killed her abusive husband. I didn’t feel like I even had to forgive this heroine. She did the only thing she could – she saved herself in a situation where, while he had not attacked her (yet) heaven knows what would have happened if she had not acted. She had no choice.
I do believe that people can change, learn from mistakes, do better in the future. I don’t think that every person who behaves in a certain way will automatically keep repeating the behavior until the day they die. I also know that change won’t happen by itself. A person has to genuinely want to change and be ready to work hard and then work even harder.
Annik, lovely post!
a few excellent points to think about,
I particularly think about the point of “can the victim forgive / have a HEA with her offender” – a lot of romances, especially older ones, say yes. Especially for sexual abuses. And this is really such an essential point: what does it mean for a woman who felt raped, no matter all our long debates about whether it was rape, she felt that. So how can she be happy and feel fully safe with him? Are women so used to not being safe from men, even in our closest intimate relationships, that we mix up objective forgiveability with subjective love story with the offender? I did, until you pointed it out, which means I have to look carefully at my thoughts on all this.
thank you, I like thinking new paths!
Thank you for your kind words and an altogether insightful comment, Lieselotte!
You ask good questions – I’m going to have to give them some serious thought.
Having read articles and discussions of the romance genre, I’ve been aware that abuse between love interests is not such a rare thing especially in older books, as you say. I can obviously only speculate why I have not read such stories yet, but I would imagine that the fact that I’m still quite new to this genre and the books I’ve read so far have mostly been on the newer side of the spectrum does figure into it. Also, since I have to buy almost all the romance novels I read I do try to research them to the best of my ability beforehand, because I know that there are certain subjects that I don’t deal very well will because of things in my past. Perhaps avoiding certain subgenres and/or tropes might have contributed a little too, I don’t know.
“Perhaps avoiding certain subgenres and/or tropes might have contributed a little too, I don’t know.”
That’s certainly possible, annik. These days, rapist heroes in romance novels generally don’t fly outside of really niche markets that are difficult to bump into by accident. I would say that’s a good thing. Although, unfortunately, there is a growing extreme on the other end of the spectrum where characters can hardly make one move without constant verbal checking-in with the partner- as I discussed with Elaine S. below.
If you avoid things labeled “dark romance” or “mafia romance,” you generally won’t find the extremely forceful heroes that used to be commonplace. I’ve never run into that sort of unpleasantness in a Harlequin Historical, Harlequin Intrigue, or Carina Press title, for example. I’m not a paranormal reader, so I can’t really speak to that. Although I have heard that there’s a lot more leeway for brutish behavior in heroes in more fanciful genres than historical or contemporary romance right now.
Those are all good points and I agree about intent. If a person intends harm or is just the victim of very bad luck – those are two different very things.
Here in the U.S. there are various degrees of crime for many offenses with intent being a key differentiator. There are even differences made between crimes of passion and crimes of intent even if the end result is the same thing. If someone just lashes out in response in the heat of the moment it’s still wrong, but so very different than someone who meditated and then plotted to do harm.
I had wanted to read this book now just to see the language used and be able to relay what specifically happens but haven’t decided if I want to invest in owning it.
Thank you for your kind words and sharing your thoughts, Chrisreader! I’m happy to have learned something new again. :)
I must confess that my knowledge and understanding of even my own country’s criminal laws is embarrassingly limited, and having spent the last hour reading about the classification of crimes here in Finland so that I wouldn’t end up talking nonsense about such a serious matter, I was once again reminded about how damn hard legal text is for me to read.
There are so many kinds of crimes of course, so this couldn’t be further from comprehensive, but what I do know is that we don’t have the kind of degrees of crime here as you do. We classify crimes according to their severity such as petty assault, assault and aggravated assault, rape and aggravated rape etc. (It depends on the type of crime if there are petty and/or aggravated cases of it.) and between these the seriousness of criminal conduct and the harm done or danger caused seem to be more often the key differentiators than intent. However, one of the differentiating elements between murder and manslaughter is premeditation. There are three other elements that define murder, and to be considered a murder a homicide has to have at least one of the four elements and be considered aggravated overall. The second most severe homicide charge after murder is manslaugther (which requires that the act of violence that caused the death was deliberate) then surma (there’s no English equivalent for this law term as far as I know, it’s basically petty manslaughter) and then negligent homicide. Also, for an act to be considered a crime to begin with, there has to be something objectionable about it – at least some degree of intent or neglect. If something is purely accidental, it is not a crime. But that’s just my uneducated interpretation, and honestly, the more I read the more complicated it all became especially in terms of intent and neglegt.
It did certainly start to seem that to ascertain what precisely happens, what are the actual words used in Her Secret, His Child, one would have to read the book oneself. It kind of bugs me, not knowing, but at least for now I’m just going to have to live with it.
I had to rest yesterday and only now noticed that there is a small but rather important part missing from the paragraph of my original comment where I talk about the heroine who had killed her husband. The second sentence was supposed to go like this:
She did the only thing she could – she saved herself in a situation where, while he had not attacked her (yet) that time around, heaven knows what would have happened if she had not acted.
Her husband had been abusing her for years before she killed him.
I don’t know how I managed to bungle it up like that. I’m sorry it took me such a long time to make the correction.
Excellent post, Annik. Thank you for this post. It reminded me of Alexander Pope’s words: “To err is human, to forgive divine.”
Thank you for your kind words and for sharing the Alexander Pope quote, Elaine S! I’d only heard the quote in Finnish before now: ”Erehtyminen on inhimillistä, anteeksiantaminen jumalallista.” It was lovely to see it in its original language. :)
Interesting question. I have purposely refrained from answering it until I have had adequate time to process my thoughts on the subject. First, how much I am willing to tolerate/forgive in a protagonist (“hero” or “heroine”) depends a lot on the genre. As some here have said, if you read something marketed as a “dark” story, there’s a totally different expectation than in other forms of romance. But a character who committed any form of abuse against an animal or child, for example, would definitely be off the table as a protagonist for me, regardless of genre. I’m definitely okay with morally ambiguous protagonists (i.e. antiheroes) in darker stories such as professional criminals (gentlemen thieves, jewelry robbers, crime families, etc.), but you are beyond redemption if you torture animals or people of any age. Period. And the same goes for unambiguous rapists. By “unambiguous rapist,” I mean a character who, beyond a shadow of a doubt, knew exactly what he was doing to the victim- not iffy cases that may have been the result of legitimate misunderstandings. Just as an example of a fictional legitimate misunderstanding for narrative purposes, I remember reading about a controversial science fiction story where an alien unknowingly commits rape because he totally misunderstood every signal his victim gave him as enthusiastic consent according to his cultural norms and had no frame of reference otherwise. It might have happened on his planet too, if I’m not mistaken. With a setup like that, I could possibly keep reading to see how the story turned out. That doesn’t mean I’m going to excuse the rapist, but I’m not going to put that in the same category as a character who willfully committed an act of rape. Second, moving over to real life rather than literature, I am sympathetic to the painful stories many have shared here. I totally get the frustrations about victim blaming and shaming. However, I am also a staunch defender of equality before the law. So, I do have a problem with blanketed social movements to automatically “believe her” when doing so flies in the face of everyone’s right to a fair trial and the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” Rape is a heinous crime, no question. Unfortunately, it is difficult to prove in a court of law, especially if a) much time has passed and/or b) there is little concrete evidence to suggest physical injury. I’m not saying any of this to cause hurt or to discredit victims, but there is an important legal side to this. You cannot rightfully convict someone of a crime without solid evidence. So, what can realistically be done to ensure a) justice is served while b) making sure innocent, falsely accused parties are not punished for crimes they didn’t commit? As for the argument that false rape reports are rare, I don’t think there’s any way to gather accurate, concrete figures on this. People make false accusations about various things all the time. People commit murders and cover them up with piles of lies. People lie, lie, lie before cops and judges to avoid being punished. People tell dastardly falsehoods to ruin people’s careers (I know a patently false accusation of plagiarism nearly ruined me, so don’t try to tell me it doesn’t happen). In short, people can and do lie about anything and everything for their own personal gain. So why are we supposed to believe that people never or hardly ever lie about rape? I’ve definitely heard horror stories about divorce lawyers encouraging their clients to accuse their ex-spouses of rape, child molestation, and other forms of violence in order to get the ex to lose all custody to the kids. Believe me, there are some really ugly reasons why a person would accuse someone of committing heinous crimes. That’s why we have to uphold the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” Also, I don’t see taking common sense precautions as automatically falling into the category of victim blaming. I see it kind of like this: In a perfect world, I should be able to walk around with several hundred dollar bills hanging out of my pockets without ever having to worry about getting mugged. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world, so it’s better to exercise caution. True, if I walked around with my money hanging out and got mugged, that wouldn’t make me any less of a victim. But at the same time, it wasn’t the wisest decision I could have made. I… Read more »
You are entitled to your opinion of course. However, it is interesting that you have presented no actual data or statistics to support your argument beyond a few anecdotal examples. No one here is saying that someone accused of rape is not entitled to a fair trial. I am a law lecturer and my husband is a criminal defence/family barrister, you don’t have to convince me of that. When people say ‘believe the woman’, what they mean is that we should listen to her the way we listen to other people who report crimes. Data shows that false reporting for rape is no higher than for other crimes (Gilbert and Pittman, 1993). Yet we rarely approach an alleged victim of theft or robbery with the same suspicion and vitriol as we do an alleged rape victim. Your argument that ‘everyone lies’ is the reason why it is so hard to uphold an allegation of rape in court; it frequently comes down to a he-said, she-said situation. This is why any ‘good’ lawyer, would NEVER advise their client to make up allegations of rape etc in court. Not only is it a breach of a lawyer’s duty to the court, it is also quite frankly a piss-poor legal strategy. You are right to argue that a person is ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but does it not apply the other way too? Shouldn’t a person be innocent of the crime of falsely reporting rape, until they are proven guilty? Let’s not forget that there is very little to gain from making a false accusation of rape. A woman or man coming forward with an allegation of rape, will have to withstand a barrage of victim-blaming, invasive questions of their personal life, and (quite often) death and rape threats. That’s why a number of women in this thread have decided not to report their own experiences with sexual assault.
“But at the same time, our society is failing women by teaching and socializing them to be too nice to their attackers. Girls need to learn early and often how to make a big, loud possibly violent scene if touched against their will. Frankly, I think a lot of the “freeze” reaction, while definitely legitimate, is often conditioned throughout a lifetime of teaching girls to always be nice and quiet”: The ‘freeze reaction’ is complex, it is often a psychological reaction to the trauma of rape. When someone I know was gang-raped by 5 robbers, their mind automatically went blank, their body froze and till today, they cannot remember anything of their rape. Their freeze reaction cannot be easily explained as they were being nice to the poor robbers. You are right to point out the toxicity in teaching girls to be nice and quiet. Yet, when these girls decide to speak out, you quickly change tune and question their motives. A little bit of mixed messaging here.
Finally, in relation to your point of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and not automatically believing the accuser, perhaps it is worth employing the same tactics that it is used against women reporting rape, to accused rapists. Why were you placed in a situation, that led to another person to accuse you of rape? Why did you drink so much? Why didn’t you just walk away if you were both inebriated? Why is it the case that we know so many decent, upstanding men who have never been subject to the false accusation of rape?
“You are right to argue that a person is ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but does it not apply the other way too?”
From what I understand, the burden of proof falls on the accuser regardless of the type of crime. Am I right?
“You are right to point out the toxicity in teaching girls to be nice and quiet. Yet, when these girls decide to speak out, you quickly change tune and question their motives. A little bit of mixed messaging here.”
I don’t think it’s mixed messaging to be skeptical when rape accusations come to light years after the fact as opposed to a victim fighting back and/or reporting the incident immediately. Especially when there was a lot of that he said, she said ambiguity as opposed to your example of that savage gang rape by robbers. Yes, I understand the cultural and social reasons why it is often difficult to come forward. I don’t blame anybody for that. But at the same time, I recognize there are definitely widely different scenarios that constitute rape. To me, mutual drunken stupidity followed by regret and then accusing someone ten years later when he runs for office is not the same thing as being traumatized by robbers. Yes, I absolutely think people should be sober when having sex, but I think treating every case of moronic college behavior from both parties as automatic rape- as some people want to do- is taking things too far. Drugging someone or having sex with an unconscious person is absolutely 100% rape and the full measure of the law should be thrown at the rapist. But a bunch of bad judgments from both people that led to a disappointing and ambiguous sexual encounter? I’m going to be giving that the side-eye if I were on a jury. That doesn’t mean I automatically wouldn’t find the accused guilty, but I would have to listen to and view all the facts of the case.
Having said that, like you and Marian, I am absolutely disgusted by the Brock Turner case, especially that f-ing judge. I don’t give a rat’s tail about an obvious rapist’s future and frankly think he should have been put into a maximum security prison, general population to learn the real meaning of rape. You’ll find that I can be quite draconian toward irredeemable criminals…
I think the situation in the U.S. was turned on it’s ear with the proceedings that took place against now Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh.
The accusations against him were so unspecific the original letter accusing him didn’t even include a year, just “early 80’s”. Dr. Ford not only could not provide a date, time, or address for the incident-every single “witness” she said was there had no knowledge or recollection of the party let alone something happening as she described.
Even her best friend (also a life long democrat) who she claimed was there said she had no recollection of the party, let alone an incident. At first she said she believed Dr. Ford was telling the truth even though she had no first hand knowledge or memories of the party, but then later recanted saying she was put under huge pressure to support her. (The friend was undergoing cancer treatment at the time as well and was harassed by the media amongst others).
From what I understand there is not a single person who can corroborate that Kavanaugh and Ford ever even met or were in the same place at the same time.
Dr. Ford could not say where the party was, how she got there or how she got home. She didn’t mention Kavanaugh (or the incident I believe) until 2012 or later when he was a very high level judge. Every person she listed as there said they had no knowledge of any such gathering let alone the incident.
Dr. Ford was allowed to present as “evidence” a polygraph test that was not overseen by any official agency with no review of questions or presentation. A polygraph is considered so unreliable it is not considered admissible in court. (Even if we assume that the polygraph was correct and accurate- and that’s a huge if, all it would conclude is that Dr. Ford BELIEVES it to be true).
Because there were no witnesses to examine, no place or time to prove or disprove anyone was there or that the event (party) ever took place (even a question of the year) it was a situation where there was absolutely no way for the accused to prove it didn’t happen despite the “defendant” producing detailed calendars and evidence saved since the early 80’s.
The whole incident, driven entirely by politics became a primary example of the “Me Too” movement where a number of prominent people and countless women demanded that the standard should be “believe all women” despite the evidence or lack of evidence.
It is my opinion that this whole proceeding did IRREPARABLE harm to women and to anyone trying to accuse/prosecute someone of sexual assault.
It allowed an official proceeding that in no way resembled anything that occurs in a courtroom or real life to be blasted all over the world and put in the minds of millions of people that this could happen to anyone, particularly any man.
It falsely made people think our justice system allows people to drag someone and their name and life publicly through the mud with an accusation that has not one shred of evidence or proof behind it apart from one person’s word and unrecorded recollections from decades previously. That is so unspecific that it does not name a date, let alone a week month or even originally, a year when it occurred.
That unfortunately is what many, many people think of now when they hear “me too”. Not that women (or any victim) of a sexual offense should be treated as we treat victims of other crimes- fairly and examining all evidence after due investigation- but that there is a separate standard apart from what we use in other investigations and cases just for women where a woman just saying something happened is enough and more important than any other evidence or testimony.
I was wondering if someone was going to bring up the Kavanaugh case, but I didn’t want to be the one to do it. Thanks for describing some of my thoughts so articulately. Like you, I believe kangaroo court cases like this one- especially this one- really damage the credibility of actual victims.
I think a lot of the problem with rape cases in general is finding/supplying proof. A lot of people blame this on patriarchy- which isn’t entirely unfounded- but a lot of it has to do with the nature of the crime itself. People consent to sex all the time, whereas they don’t consent to robbery (short of an inside job), theft, murder, etc. So, it’s very difficult to tell without concrete evidence if a sexual encounter occurred voluntarily or by force as the outcome can “look” exactly the same. Cases like this Kavanaugh business certainly don’t help any. I do remember with a tinge of bitterness hearing a cop get asked what rape victims should do to help their cases. His advice was something like, “At the moment of the infraction, make sure the room looks like a crime scene- smashed vases, overturned furniture, etc. In other words, make sure the crime scene- and maybe you too- looks so bad that there’s no question of a lack of consent.” To this day, I’m not quite sure what to make of that…
The biggest problem with the Kavanaugh case, in my opinion, is that it was perceived by the world as if it were a court case when it operated as no court in the U.S. ever would.
I think it was incredibly damaging and put out a false idea of what an actual trial for such an offense would be like.
“I think it was incredibly damaging and put out a false idea of what an actual trial for such an offense would be like.”
And too often today, people are tried by the media itself- certainly in the Kavanaugh case but in many others as well. Honestly, I’ve had it with so-called “reporting.” It’s been ages since news outlets have even pretended to be impartial. But I digress.
I don’t know if I agree with this. Speaking as a non-American, my friends and I were more troubled with the political spectacle and partisanship that attaches to the election of a US Supreme Court justice. I think most right-minded people were aware that it was not an ordinary trial process.
You’ve very fairly highlighted the problematic aspects of the case against Kavanaugh, but I fear that you may have over-emphasised the supposed weakness of Ford’s testimony. Firstly, she is a well-regarded professor, who came across as a very credible witness. She has no previous history of lying. Experts in sexual trauma have stated that her inability to remember certain details is consistent with the experience typically faced by sexual assault survivors.
A college classmate of Kavanaugh, Deborah Ramirez, also came forward and alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her in college. Another woman, Julie Swetnick, alleged that Kavanaugh was involved in enabling a pattern of sexual assault in high school. Ford offered some corroborating evidence in the form of therapist notes, and the other women were able to show that there were friends and classmates who had heard of the allegations at the time.
Whether or not such claims would be upheld in court is unclear, particularly given the passage of time. However, it is worth bearing in mind that it was necessary to listen to Ford’s claims, in order to determine whether or not Kavanaugh was fit for a lifetime appointment, particularly one where he would be called upon to decide upon the rights of women. Kavanaugh’s conduct during these hearings casts doubt as to whether he has the necessary temperament to serve as a judge.
I don’t see any long-lasting harm to Kavanaugh – he has been elected to one of the highest office of the land, for a lifetime position no less. Meanwhile, Ford has been the subject of horrendous death threats and doxxing.
Thank you for saying this. I’m an American and I’d characterize the events similarly.
Thanks a lot Cece:)
Deborah Ramirez came forward, again after 35 years with a story that when she was so drunk she couldn’t lift herself off of the floor at a party Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her.
It was later reported that “two of the men Ramirez identified as being in the dorm room where the alleged incident took place, the wife of a third man she said was there, and six more classmates all signed a statement disputing Ramirez’s story.
“We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it – and we did not,” the statement read. “The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett. In addition, some of us knew Debbie long after Yale, and she never described this incident until Brett’s Supreme Court nomination was pending.”
The other woman you mention, Julie Swetnick, who also coincidentally only “remembered” her allegations against Kavanaugh after Ford came forward- was not only discredited but was referred to the Justice Department (along with her infamous criminal attorney Michael Avenatti) for criminal investigation.
(Avenatti her lawyer who publicized Swetnick and said he fully vetted her as “credible”was convicted on felony charges of transmission of interstate communications with intent to extort, attempted extortion and honest services wire fraud.)
“Swetnick made her allegations in a sworn statement to the committee on September 26. In an October 1 interview with NBC News, however, Swetnick specifically and explicitly back-tracked or contradicted key parts of her sworn statement on these and other allegations. In subsequent interviews, Avenatti likewise cast serious doubt on or contradicted the allegations while insisting that he had thoroughly vetted his client.”
Absolutely none of these allegations (all made by people who opposed Kavanaugh’s appointment on political grounds but say it didn’t influence them in any way) could not produce one witness, or any other piece of evidence. Even when the “witnesses’ were friends of theirs and people who shared the same political viewpoint who had motive to disparage Kavanaugh.
I think it proves my point that all of the people listed above are still being touted by some people as “credible” witnesses when at the least- after investigations, there was no evidence or even witnesses found and the worst, they were investigated for criminal behavior.
Dr. Ford being a “respected professor and having no history of lying” -(was Ford ever investigated?) doesn’t mean that everything she says should be taken as gospel over the word of countless people, including her own “eyewitnesses”. Dr. Ford could 100% believe what she is saying is true- but that doesn’t make it true.
Unless we want to go back to spectral evidence and accepting the unproven testimony of only an accuser as they did in 1692 this type of testimony or witness would be highly unlikely ever to make it to any actual legal proceeding.
With respect, I think you have misunderstood my point. I stated above that it is unclear whether Ford’s claims would have been upheld in court, given the passage of time. I also asserted that reasonable people would be able to recognise that the Kavanaugh hearings were not proper legal proceedings. I agreed that you highlighted some of the more problematic aspects of Ford’s case.
My argument was simply that you did not highlight some of the strengths of Ford’s case, and also that it was necessary to listen to her allegations, in light of Kavanaugh’s appointment as a Supreme Court Justice. The very nature of the job, the fact that it is a life-time appointment, and that it would significant ramifications on matters relevant to women all over the US, means that it was important that she was heard.
“Unless we want to go back to spectral evidence and accepting the unproven testimony of only an accuser as they did in 1692 this type of testimony or witness would be highly unlikely ever to make it to any actual legal proceeding” : This would be relevant if we were talking about a legal proceeding which we are not. Furthermore, it is simply not true that Ford’s case relied on spectral evidence. As I highlighted above, she did offer corroborative evidence in the form of therapist notes, and there is also the testimony of other women which indicate that there is a pattern of conduct. The testimony of an alleged rape victim also counts as evidence, which is why her credibility is important. This is also why in many rape cases, it is hard to secure a rape conviction when the alleged victim has a history of sleeping around or when she is already in a relationship with the rapist. Personally, I found Ford’s testimony to be credible, and there are a significant number of other people who find her credible too, including experts in the field of sexual trauma.
As for the veracity of the other womens’ testimony, it is certainly difficult to establish without a proper legal trial. However, when taken together with Ford’s testimony, the polygraph test, her therapists notes, they at least indicate that her allegation against Kavanaugh was not baseless, and worth hearing when considering whether or not Kavanaugh should be appointed as a Supreme Court Justice.
“We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it – and we did not,” the statement read. “The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett. In addition, some of us knew Debbie long after Yale, and she never described this incident until Brett’s Supreme Court nomination was pending.”: It is worth noting that two students who initially signed the statement that you mentioned, Louisa Gary and Dino Ewing, approached the New Yorker afterwards asking for their names to be removed from it as they were not present to dispute Ramirez’s allegation. I am also a little less persuaded by the view that it ‘would be completely out of character for Brett’. There are many rapists and murderers who appear to the world as fine, upstanding citizens, and who would have friends who would believe that it is out of character of them.
Anyway, it is a contentious subject, and I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I have however enjoyed discussing some of the nuances of this case with you:)
I agree it is contentious subject as it became both a political and gender battle rather than a careful and reasoned examination of a candidate. I think we are at cross purposes as I am very concerned with precedent-but even more so with even and fair application of the law and the processes for appointing Judicial candidates. I have a doctorate in law and find the idea that there should be special rules for different people to go against everything our laws stand for.
There cannot be different standards for different people or different genders and in many ways that is what happened here.
Let’s take the particulars and flip genders. Suppose a man who was respected in his field accused Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Elena Kagan at the time of her appointment of a crime (choose any type it doesn’t have to be a sexual assault). This alleged crime occurred decades ago. He won’t specify the exact date, or even week, month or year. He names people as witnesses who say they were not present and know nothing about this alleged crime. He never spoke of it at the time and the only alleged mention is made decades later after the Justice is a public figure. The only connection is that he lived in the same area and knew some of the same people.
His only “corroboration” is therapist notes from decades later that say that he says she committed this crime. There is no prior relationship or proof he ever met the Justice.
It is unimaginable that he ever would have been given a platform or that anyone would have argued that this was a reasonable argument that she was unfit to serve.
Would anyone argue that “it was important that he be heard?”
I understand we are not going to come to an agreement on this point and that Dr. Ford became a symbol for people not only in terms of the me too movement but for people who wanted to oppose an appointment because of ideological reasons.
I think this whole proceeding was detrimental not only to the process but in setting a precedent that lowers the bar for accusations and accusers.
The next time when it may be an appointment that you do support, this precedent exists.
It also promulgated the idea that women’s testimony should be weighted more than another person’s.
But as you say, I enjoyed discussing the particulars with you and I always find it interesting to see another person’s take on the same information and circumstances.
We have a lot in common – I too am about to complete my doctorate in law! Just as a final point, I think that the very nature of sexual assault and rape renders it difficult for us to draw an analogy with any crime. In many instances, rape/sexual assault boils down to a he said-she said situation. However the impact of such a crime on the victim is such that it is important to listen to any alleged victim of a sexual violence, be they man or woman. The extremely low conviction rates for rape coupled with the worrying under-reporting of such cases, makes it important to create an environment where women (and men!) feel safe to come forward with their stories. I am not saying that their stories should be listened to uncritically. I am however saying that they should be afforded an opportunity to speak.
As for the issue of precedent, I am quite happy to create a precedent where any allegation of sexual assault or serious crime against a potential nominee of the Supreme Court should be heard, regardless of the party of the nominee. It is worth noting that, as evidenced by Ford and Anita Hill, the women who have reported sexual allegations against such nominees rarely come out unscathed. The men however? Both Supreme Court Justices.
Congratulations on your upcoming graduation! It’s wonderful how many women go into the field of law now. When I entered it was quite a big deal because the students were finally 50/50 male to female. It’s an education that will change the way you look at everything for the rest of your life (in a good way I think).
I agree 100% that all alleged crimes, particularly ones of a sexual nature, need to be investigated thoroughly and prosecuted vigorously if any evidence is found. Everyone should feel safe reporting a crime anytime they feel they have been a victim.
Usually in the U.S. a grand jury decides if criminal charges should be filed and there is an old joke that a grand jury would “indite a ham sandwich” if the prosecutor was pushing for it. In this case I don’t think even a grand jury would have gone ahead with the evidence.
In this case, for political reasons, it skipped right to a pseudo-trial. I think people knew absolutely it didn’t meet the level of evidence necessary but hoped if there was enough publicity and outcry the nomination would be pulled, which is not how the system is supposed to work.
I do think people come out scathed when they are dragged through the public meat grinder of politics. I agree that both the men you mention did end up becoming Supreme Court Justices but I don’t think Dr. Ford’s accusations meet the same level of evidence as Anita Hill’s did.
I also think it’s interesting and sad that the last three out of five presidents (if you count the President elect) have had allegations of sexual assault made against them with varying levels of interest by the press. It’s also interesting that our President elect is the person many blame for the rough way Ms. Hill was treated all those years ago.
I don’t think you can validly compare rape or sexual assault to any other kinds of crime (with the possible exception of child abuse) WITHOUT dealing with the issues of trauma & suppression and the social, legal, familial, psychological, etc. pressures that many posts in this discussion have reminded us about. These ARE a special class of crimes that must be handled uniquely because many victims DO stay silent for decades. I know human memory is horribly fallible—scientists have shown that it is incredibly easy to induce false memories—but due to the long silences of so many victims those memories must be the starting points.
To be fair, there is also trauma and suppression related to all other types of abuse as well, not only sexual abuse. They are all horrific crimes and the younger the person is who is victimized the more horrible the effect on them usually is.
In the case of every crime that is not reported immediately the victim’s memory is the starting point. But because humans are imperfect and memory is often flawed, investigations are made before people are tried or charged for crimes.
There has to be some evidence that ties a defendant to a crime for it to proceed, sometimes it’s just enough that they were actually around the person. In this situation all the “witnesses” went against what the accuser has said and there was not a single person or piece of evidence that showed these two people ever met or were ever in the same place.
Ask yourself truthfully if you would be comfortable if that was the standard now set for crimes of this nature. If you would be OK with it even if it were yourself and your reputation and there were no “facts” you could disprove.
No date so you could prove you were elsewhere. No place so could show you were never there. That supposed “eyewitness” denials were discounted. That the accusation would always be out there to every person who ever knew you and there was absolutely no way with the “evidence” presented you could prove it was untrue.
This simply goes against everything our legal system stands for.
This is not to say I think Dr. Ford lied or is dishonest or a bad person. She could believe 100% her story is correct and she could still be wrong.
Here is a recent news story, that while not exactly similar, explains why eyewitness testimony is the most flawed type of evidence.
All witnesses identified the wrong person and vehicle.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/us/jazmine-barnes-shooting-differing-accounts/index.html
A 9mm Glock, Nan? Please, no. Seen as so American and not a good look. If women were to go round armed with lethal weapons on the pretext they might be molested, and USED them, what kind of a world would future generations grow up in where a woman could whip out a pistol on the off chance? Better a swift knee in the family jewels but not death. Maybe self defense should be taught in PE classes on a mandatory basis.
I loathe America’s gun culture. But I’ll say Nan is sadly (IMO) right about the increasingly number of armed women due to their (unrealistic) fear they’ll be attacked by a stranger. I’ve worked in offices where 75% of the women carried a gun in their purse to work because “How else would I protect myself?”
That world where a woman could whip out a pistol with ease is already here in most of America.
It’s so strange because it is illegal to even carry pepper spray in the UK. I also wonder how many people carrying arms in the US are actually well-versed with gun safety.
Many are not. Gun laws vary from state to state and many require no training. I have worked with people who owned 80+ guns, where the target range is a family activity with kids.
Our gun culture is very frightening. Hunting and that sort of thing does not bother me, but handguns? Pretty scary stuff.
I do not loathe America’s gun culture.
It’s my right as an American to own a gun, under the Constitution, and that’s for good reason. (I don’t own a gun personally, but I’m thinking of getting and learning to use one, in these troubling times in the U.S.) I particularly don’t have any interest in what other countries, especially socialist countries, think about U.S. gun laws.
Also, criminals in the U.S. get guns illegally all the time. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. IMO, this is not going to change, and if you think magically that we can make it change, you’re entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. So I’m perfectly fine with law-abiding citizens owning guns as well.
I do believe in reasonable requirements for gun owners, such as taking a gun usage class, storing guns properly, etc.
I’m sure I’ll get plenty of push-back on this comment.
Whatever. You’re not changing my mind.
That’s fine. At AAR, we can all have different opinions.
Yes, you have a right to your opinion. And a right to own firearms. I just wish we didn’t have such a thriving gun culture here in America or a society so prone to violence. I have no answers, but I do hope someday that things change here.
stl-reader, I had a feeling I’d be opening a can of worms with my Glock 9 mm comment and would rather not dig too deeply into the topic here except to say that I 100% agree with you. There is a bias in national news that shows the tragedy of irresponsible gun ownership and rarely when a homeowner has used a gun to save her life from an intruder- which is actually quite common (you generally have to look at local news reports and FBI statistics to get the scoop, and a lot of non-lethal incidents don’t get reported at all). My own great-grandmother pointed a gun at a home invader. He fled. Of course, no one can say what would have happened to her if she didn’t have a gun. But her family members were certainly glad she did.
“There is a bias in national news that shows the tragedy of irresponsible gun ownership and rarely when a homeowner has used a gun to save her life from an intruder- which is actually quite common (you generally have to look at local news reports and FBI statistics to get the scoop, and a lot of non-lethal incidents don’t get reported at all).”
Bingo, Nan De Plume. You are exactly right. Once I started looking at statistics (which are tedious to research and review, I’ll admit), I realized how wrong I was on several key issues in the U.S., use of guns being one of them.
I respect people’s rights to find firearms distasteful. I agree all owners should have to take basic gun safety and training classes. Requiring reasonable safe storage of guns in the home? Absolutely, let’s do it. But removing my 2nd amendment right? Nope.
I disagree that women are buying guns out of an “unrealistic fear” of a stranger. As I state above, women are statistically buying guys out of a need for personal protection, but it’s not necessarily a fear of a stranger jumping out at them.
As the topic here started out on the subject of forgiveness, I wonder how many of us would forgive ourselves if we killed someone in the heat of the moment? I assume you would have to fire before a potential perp could touch you otherwise how can you do so if you are under attack? I grew up in the USA so I am more than familiar with the 2nd Amendment and gun culture and I have never been able to come to terms with it. It’s all very sad to me. And very worrying. I truly can’t imagine working with colleagues packing guns in their purses; they would have to be loaded to be effective so what if there was a terrible accident and you killed the person sitting at the next desk? How could you live with yourself? Could you forgive yourself?
I have profoundly anti-gun since I was a small child.
My husband, for years, treated all the facial fractures at a major medical center. Countless gunshot wounds, including many failed suicides, children inadvertently shot, police shot, and so many other tragedies. So, for me personally, that’s a question I’ll never have to ask.
You bring up an important fact in your list- suicides. Something like 60% of gun deaths or gun violence in the U.S. are actually suicide and not from people shooting one another or accidental shootings.
I think you could extrapolate this to many things. If you were responsible for the accidental death of someone else I think you would carry the same guilt no matter how it came about.
Statistically in the U.S. it is far more likely that someone would kill someone in an auto accident than with a gun. Accidental deaths are third behind heart disease and cancer and include car accidents, falls and poisonings.
If you own a gun then you are the person most at risk from it as about 60% of gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides.
Why should women be held to a special standard? If you want to argue against gun ownership then you are certainly free to do so but women have the same rights as men under the law to own a gun.I don’t think they should be worried about what’s a “good look. Furthermore, women have been shown to be be a demographic that is most likely to get training and be responsible owners.
Women are most likely to be victims of violence (from a partner, sadly) and I think there is a huge assumption that some women are just packing pistols because they are afraid of a stranger. Sadly, many women in studies are afraid of men they know just as much, if not more, than strangers and stalkings, harassment and former abuse. The number one reason women buy a gun according to research is “personal protection” but it doesn’t say from whom. I think it s big jump to say women are just buying out of an unknown or irrational fear.
Founder of the She Can Shoot shooting league Tina Wilson-Cohen told the New York Times in 2013 that 90 percent of the women who joined the organization were motivated by the fact that “they’ve been a victim at one point of their life, of stalking or date rape or domestic violence, or they have just felt so vulnerable, and they want to feel competent and like they can protect themselves.
Just one quick explanatory comment, Chrisreader, then I have no more to say. By “not a good look” I refer to the disbelief, dismay and disgust with which US gun culture is observed from outside the US. Nothing at all to do with differentiation between men and women at all. These days mass shootings are almost always assumed to be in the US when they hit the news though admittedly they happen everywhere but perhaps without the frequency. As a US ex-pat I have listened to friends and colleagues who will never understand nor would they like a 2nd Amendment. It really is embarrassing to be on the outside looking in sometimes. Agree to disagree: result stalemate. But it’s good to talk, if only folk did more of it in all circumstances!!
I agree it’s good to talk and I truly do appreciate hearing other viewpoints even if they don’t always align with mine. I think 99.9% of the time there is common ground.
I know a lot of people look at guns as the problem but I am someone who looks at the motivations and problems of the people committing the crimes more. I live in a state where the most horrible atrocities were committed in a crowd of families, including small children who were killed and maimed using pressure cookers in backpacks.
I know it’s a comforting idea to say “if we just got rid of guns there would be no more mass killings”. It’s not true and unfortunately there is an underlying mentality that needs to be addressed. Years ago in the U.S. guns were far more readily available, casually stored, not always secured yet we didn’t have these kind of attacks until the late 1960’s maybe? What happened? I personally think the media fame of these maniacs plays some part but that’s just one component.
There are other countries where gun ownership is quite high yet they don’t have the mass shooters like the U.S. does. We have had evil people use cars, planes and even fertilizer to create mass killings.
I am a firm upholder of the Constitution with all reasonable limitations. If Switzerland can have an armed civilian populace as well as Israel etc. then there is nothing inherently evil or bad in guns. We have to solve these problems on a deeper level unless we also want to take away cars, pressure cookers etc.
Thank you for bringing up the prior availability of guns in the US. It’s actually within living memory of some senior citizens when you could literally go into a store and purchase a gun no differently than a golf club or a lawn mower. And yet, you didn’t see the mass killings like today. Gangsters with tommy guns, sure. But we’re not talking about mass killings to children and innocent bystanders. In fact, I remember an old guy lamenting, “I miss the good old days of New York when gangsters dressed nicely and killed each other, never us.” LOL, I guess?
As for the reasons behind mass killings now, I honestly think it has a lot to do with severe mental illness. In the old days, people who were even a little bit “off” were institutionalized. That wasn’t a good thing as harmless oddballs- especially “hysterical” women- were just as likely to be hauled away as truly dangerous people. Unfortunately, totally eliminating institutionalization for even the severely mentally ill has brought its own problems.
While it’s certainly true that most mentally ill people are not violent, you’ll find that most of the people who commit these heinous attacks do have at least one form of severe mental illness (how could they not?) Also, a lot of these mass shooters have been found to be on mind-altering psychotropic drugs or recently ceased taking them prior to the attack (probably not all, but enough that it’s worth looking into as a factor). You know those commercials that say, “Warning, this drug may cause suicidal behavior?” What they don’t tell you is the other side of that, that the drug may cause homicidal behavior. Certainly possible just via common sense that if a drug has the power to influence someone to harm himself, how far of a leap is it to believe an afflicted person could harm others? Again, correlation is not necessarily causation, but blaming guns in these cases without looking at any other significant factors really covers up what may be the result of a nation-wide mental health crisis. Not an expert in these matters, not giving legal and/or medical advice, etc., but I think these matters are worth investigating rather than defaulting to an oversimplified formula of “guns = bad.”
I don’t think that romance readers today are any more or less tolerant of flawed protagonists. I do think our shared understanding of sexual assault, trauma, and consent has evolved considerably since this novel was published. And it’s not as if modern romances have unilaterally done away with these themes; they’ve just been appropriately framed as dubious or non-consent and mostly regulated to the non-mainstream “dark romance” sub-genre.
As someone who was sexually assaulted and didn’t tell anyone for years, it has been sad and dispiriting to see some of the comments in this discussion. Rape is an exceedingly under-reported and under-prosecuted crime and false accusations of sexual assault are incredibly rare so it’s been shocking to read comments here that express victim blaming and “himpathy” (or extensions of empathy towards male perpetrators over female victims). Trauma is also a complex psychological state, which can complicate, delay, and interfere with a victim’s ability to identify and/or report what has happened to them.
When #MeToo became widely known, some of my coworkers started talking about how men would be too afraid to even ask anyone for a date now.
It was all I could do not to reply, “Great, then they’ll know how women feel.”
Love this!
And wow, that seems like a big misunderstanding of the #MeToo movement.
I am so sorry to hear that you’ve been sexually assaulted Cece, and I hope this discussion has not been too triggering for you. In this conversation alone, there have been a number of women who have stated that they have been victims of sexual assault, and who have also pointed out that they never reported their assault. This bears out the well-documented fact that rape and sexual assaults are vastly under-reported. ‘Himpathy’ and ‘victim blaming’ also clearly demonstrate why sexual assault victims rarely report their assaults. I will never sympathise with perpetrators of sexual violence, and I certainly have no desire to read the redemption arc of a rapist in a romance novel. It is literally SO EASY to check if your partner wants to have sex or not. Other people do not have ownership of our bodies – this is a lesson that needs to be taught to both boys and girls as early as possible. Just think back of how often girls have been taught that boys pulling their hair, or snapping their bra straps, are just ‘boys being boys’ and it just means that they have a crush on them. We have been indoctrinated early on to be apologists for harmful and toxic conduct. No more.
Thank you. Yes, I just got caught up with the newer comments and I’m deeply relieved and grateful that women have come forward with their own stories and respectfully pushed back against the victim blaming and “himpathy”. This discussion hasn’t been triggering, but it has been really, really frustrating and disappointing at times…maybe a little shocking? Hopefully, some of these perspectives reflect how fast we’ve evolved as a society, rather than how deeply entrenched these harmful ideas are.
I couldn’t agree more! Enthusiastic consent is not an unreasonable burden, it’s a simple and easy way to ensure everyone is having a healthy, happy good time.
YES.YES.YES.
I’m very fortunate in that I have never been abused in any way sexually, so I can’t claim to understand how devastating such an experience must be, but I feel deeply for those who’ve experienced this kind of trauma. Sadly, I certainly have a number of friends who haven’t been as fortunate.
Responding to the mention of statutory rape, I will never forget my aunt telling me in 1970 that a student of hers (she taught elementary school for about 50 years in rural Tennessee), age 11, married a man who was 33 years old. It wasn’t very uncommon then in that community (or mine) for girls to marry in their teens, but this was shocking to me, a California girI 12 years old.
I want to thank everyone here for this discussion. It went in some unexpected ways and I think for me than just me, it was challenging. It brings up things that are painful. But I feel heard and respected here and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. Discussions like this are part of healing, especially when people feel heard.
I’m glad I’m a part of a community like this.
Thank you for sharing what are obviously very painful memories and experiences. I’m so happy you feel supported here and comfortable enough to post. What you have said has definitely made me think and look at things from different perspectives.
I haven’t read the book, just the comments, so I may be way off base here. But it sounds to me as if they were both drunk and they were both enthusiastic until the final moment when she had qualms but didn’t say anything. Is he supposed to be a mind-reader? She may be feeling morning-after remorse, but I don’t see how his behavior could be considered rape.
The article by Ms. Riggs says :
“When she said “no” (when things had gone much too far), he didn’t hear her, and he didn’t stop.”
I responded to your comment above a few hours ago, but evidently it hasn’t been approved so I’m not sure this will be (trying a new email address). I could be remembering the moment wrong (it’s been a while and I no longer have the book); I always remembered it as her not saying no, but maybe it played out as Riggs describes (although how an author intends things to come across isn’t always the way they do). I read through some of the reviews on Goodreads, and the impressions seem to vary (and if readers, who presumably weren’t drunk while reading it, have different impressions on what happened, it’s probably no surprise the characters do). Several readers had the same impression I did, that she never said no. (The fourth review says she only realizes years later that she didn’t say it). One thing Riggs and the rest of us seem to agree on is that he didn’t know she’d changed her mind at the last second, after being very responsive up to that point. Whether it was because she didn’t clearly say no or he didn’t hear her, he didn’t know the encounter was anything but consensual and certainly didn’t intend to rape her. Which brings us back to my original point, that Riggs wrote it in a way to have a “rape” without having the hero knowingly commit one, which is far easier to “redeem” than an intentional one.
Apologies – sometimes there’s a delay in approving comments if neither myself nor Dabney is around (and I’m in the UK so – timezones).
Yes, it’s clear that he didn’t knowingly and intentionally rape her. I just want to point out that if she said “no”, then she can’t be held responsible for having qualms but not speaking up.
This discussion reminded me of the rape storyline of Luke and Laura on the soap opera General Hospital. It was aired in October 1979 and very controversial. Laura was with Scotty, Luke wanted her, so he raped her. He was to have been killed off. However, over the course of his run, viewers liked him and his chemistry with Laura, so the showrunners kept him on. Luke and Laura became the first huge soap opera super couple. The show vacillated over whether it was a “true rape” vs a “forced seduction,” as if that excused it. I was not watching the show at the time of the rape, but a friend got me watching at a later date, and I accepted them as a couple without much thought. I wonder how I would have felt had I seen the rape scene and the aftermath? I looked it up on Wikipedia, and years later their teenage son found out, and it was treated clearly as rape. I was glad to see that. I can’t imagine the showrunners making the same choices today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_and_Laura
I never watched GH but that storyline was inescapable if you ever saw a People magazine. At the time they did the big wedding I thought (quite aside from finding that guy really unattractive): ‘WTF’ – at the idea that anyone would think it was romantic for a woman to marry her rapist. And yet it was HUGE.
I remember watching it long after the events at the disco transpired and they had gone on the run and then ended up on an island and all kids of craziness ensued so they were already an established couple. I was quite young, not even in high school and all the kids I knew were rushing home to watch General Hospital after school. There was even a hit pop song written about it that made the charts.
It was easier in those days without the internet or a way for people to repost old shows for producers to “retcon” storylines. Unless you had a VCR those shows were gone, never to be seen again and so many people started watching afterwards unless they read soap opera magazines they probably never knew what the original storyline was.
I can enjoy books where the hero has cheated on a woman or, when they were younger, behaved terribly towards her as long as, in the now, he is remorseful and determined to right his wrong. The same goes for a heroine.
I know for many in romance infidelity is a no-go but it’s not for me.
Same here, good to know I am not alone in this view.
I have a good friend who caught her husband kissing another woman and they subsequently went through a horrible, angry bitter divorce. Now, ten years later, she wishes she’d handled it differently as do her kids. Life isn’t black and white.
There are things I read Back In The Day that I would not choose to read today. It’s possible that a date-rape scenario could be handled in such a way that it wouldn’t squick me out or make me mad. A book in which that scenario was the basis of a future relationship would have to be exceptional in every way for me to consider it a ‘keeper.’
From some comments here from people who have read the specific book in question, it’s likely I would hate it because of the heroine, and would not want that hero to end up with her.
There’s a difference between silent consent, acquiescence, and no consent. There is a difference between mutually-impaired judgement and coercion. I’ve been on the receiving end of the latter, so that tends to be a hard line for me.
I have stopped reading more than one author because of coerced (or violently forced) sex between heroine and nominal hero. It doesn’t even have to proceed to violent force for me to bail out. I don’t see how you can have true love/HEA without trust, and I don’t see how you can have real trust with that in the history. If someone is in his right mind and yet is forcing someone to have sex, he is a rapist.
I’d agree that
However, there are many today who would argue that only enthusiastic and repeated consent counts as consent. I’m not partial to that definition.
The goal should be, for both (or more) parties, that, when it’s over, no one regrets it. However a couple (or more) gets there is fine with me.
I think this is part of the problem. Often, we regret things afterwards, particularly stupid things done during parties as teenagers. Or during the office Christmas party as adults or or …
Jumping into intimacy is super stressful, really, and often does not deliver the magic we hoped for. This makes us fragile insecure and potentially regretful.
no matter whether consensual at the time or not.
the viciousness of our shame and self-blame is often intense.
and our scrutiny of the behavior of the other party is then also painfully detailed.
So we are already in a storm – and on top of all that, crystal clear communication should be possible, and should be fully recalled in all details, afterwards?
I would plead for charity in grey areas. and give both sexes a pass on some behavior, if they learn and grow up.
”no regrets” should be the goal, I agree.
It will be missed even with full consent, I believe, quite often.
”If someone is in his right mind and yet is forcing someone to have sex, he is a rapist.” -Agreed.
“There is a difference between mutually-impaired judgement and coercion.” This is where I have to disagree, at least to a point. If a woman has been drinking too much to properly consent, then I don’t care how drunk the guy is. If he’s sober enough to perform, he’s sober enough to stop. It’s on him not to rape a woman too inebriated to give a verbal YES.
Our society is so indoctrinated into victim blaming that we can’t help thinking.”Well,she should be more careful.” or “She shouldn’t be that drunk.” None of that is the point. If a man gets into the car too drunk to safely drive we don’t give him a pass because his judgement was impaired. We should never give sexual abusers a pass because they were too inebriated to make sure they had a verbal consent.
I have to respectfully say, I don’t see that as at all fair. If both parties are drunk and behaving as though they want sex, why is he any more at fault?
This has nothing to do with victim blaming. If a person is sober and the other person is not, that’s not cool. But if both parties are trashed–and I’ve seen kids who were blackout drunk still say they had sex, men and women–why is the guy the villain?
I think it is due to the fact that rape is often legally defined in terms of ‘penetrative sex’, which tends to apply to men rather than women. Generally, you cannot use your own drunkenness as a defence to committing to a crime, thus it makes sense that this would be applicable in the rape context as well. In any case, it is extremely rare for women to plead rape just because they regret a sexual encounter. If I ever had sons, I would tell them not to have sex if they are too drunk to make a decision about sexual intercourse or if they are too drunk to check if their partner wants sexual intercourse.
I should note that in the UK context at least, a person accused of rape will have a defence if he is able to show a ‘reasonable belief’ that their partner has consented. It should be relatively easy to establish this defence, if both parties are drunk, and not just the woman (or man, as men can be victims of rape too).
The problem with “reasonable belief” is that in our culture, men get a pass and women get blamed. “Reasonable belief” can be a little as, “well she was drinking and dancing with me and said I could drive her home.” We might all think that’s not smart, but that is no reason to believe a woman wants to have sex with you if you haven’t gotten a verbal consent.
Look at any new account of a rape and you can read a thousand comments about how the woman was “asking for it” and “should have known better” and “what did she expect?” That last one kills me. Our society rarely blames men, especially for date rape. They think, “We shouldn’t ruin this young man’s future for 15 minutes of action.”
I don’t think anyone in this thread believes a woman was ever asking for it.
Oh,no! Me either! What I said, or at least meant to say, was that comments on news articles go that direction.
I looked this up because I was curious. From what I’ve read online, it seems that the definition hinges on the expression “performing a sex act”. If an intoxicated man penetrates an incapacitated woman, she is unable to consent and he has committed sexual assault. But this doesn’t exist one way: if an intoxicated woman performs oral sex on an incapacitated man, he is unable to consent and she has committed sexual assault. In this definition, the person who initiates the sex act is the one responsible for getting consent.
I think you are right, I was speaking specifically about rape in the UK context. There is also a separate offence of sexual assault, for which both men and women can be charged. The definition of rape in UK law is expressed in masculine terms and this has been the subject of some legal controversy as a woman who penetrates a man with an object, can only be charged with sexual assault and not rape.
Oops, I didn’t see your comment when I posted mine. I didn’t know that, re: U.K. law. And yeah, that seems discriminatory.
We’ll just have to disagree here. I don’t know how you prove if both wanted to have sex. The default needs to be NO SEX without consent, not “sex is ok unless I get a no.”
If a guy is sober enough to get it up and maintain an erection for penetration, he is sober enough to stop if his partner is passed out, or too inebriated to give consent. For too long the responsibility has been on the woman to stay sober enough to say no and fight off advances. It’s time men take responsibility to keep their dicks in their pants and not assume a drunk woman wants sex. We need to teach our sons that active, positive consent is the only right way.
A woman can dance with you and not want sex. A woman can kiss you and not want sex. A woman can hug you and make out with you and not want sex. We need to stop acting like men have a right to a woman’s body.
I agree with all those situations you mention in your last paragraph.
No one has an inherent ungiven right to another’s body.
Zero tolerance for me. Period. 50 years after my experience and a decade of therapy, and I’m still dealing with the after effects of “forced seduction” (call it rape, please) in ways that impact the quality of my life. I have two daughters who were sexually abused by a family member and they both have physical and mental health issues, even after years and years of therapy.
I just spoke to my old boss whose girlfriend was raped while intoxicated on a company trip. He went alone and with her to therapy, but they’ve broken up because she’s internalized the trauma and asked to split. They were living together and looking towards marriage. All gone now. Rape wrecks real people’s lives.
The pain, shame, and trauma of rape, not matter what name it’s called (date rape, forced seduction, grooming, coercion, etc) does NOT go away with an apology. And I don’t give a damn about the rapist’s road to redemption. I don’t read romances to get tales of redemption for rapists. Not sexy. Not romantic.
I understand your position entirely. Before I read the description of the book, like Mark states, it would have been a hard no for me. If there is any intent on the man’s part then I can’t get past it. Although I have not read the book it doesn’t seem to be the case here.
I can forgive many things, but forgiveness does not absolve the perpetrator. That individual is still responsible for their own actions and the consequences of them. Sometimes consequences can be dire. Forgiveness is about helping the victim to let go of the pain and anger and to move forward.
We recently had another discussion of forgiveness here at AAR, but I don’t really like the definition of forgiveness as a way for the victim to “move on” or “heal.” I understand the sentiment, but that ends up putting the onus back on the victim, and can be (not necessarily is, but I’ve experienced this) just another form of victim blaming and gaslighting. “He asked forgiveness, and now it’s up to you to forgive and move on.” Sorry! I don’t have to forgive! What is forgiveness, anyway? Is it saying “It’s ok now?” as some people seem to think? Is is saying I’ve moved on? or I no longer want your balls on a platter?
The thing is, I don’t owe anyone forgiveness, and I couldn’t care less if my rapist needs to “feels forgiven.” Let God forgive him; that’s his job.
And don’t get me wrong–I don’t stew about any of it even though I’m still living with the PTSD symptoms. I had interactions with the person and was civil. I don’t wish them good or ill. I don’t think about it unless I am forced to.
I just get angry when people blow off consent issues or start to victim blame, or state emphatically that we need to forgive to move on. In my daughters’ case, the family member (who was a juvenile when it happened) is someone I love, so it gets very complicated. But I would never insist they forgive. When and if they feel that they are capable, then fine. I guarantee you not one of their therapists or mine has ever made forgiving the perpetrator a condition for healing.
And honestly, I still don’t know what people mean by forgiving.
For me forgiving, is letting go of your own anger.
Ok. But why would someone ask that of you? I mean, is that what a person is asking for when they ask forgiveness? “I’m sorry. Please let go of your anger.” I think most people think asking for forgiveness more in terms of absolution. I can, and have for the most part, let go of my anger towards the person, but I don’t absolve them. That’s not within my power. Any current anger I have is towards the cavalier way our society treats sexual harassment and abuse, and how it forever affects the lives of the victims.
Also, letting go of anger is a process, not a once-and-done. At least in my experience. You move towards letting go, and then get sucked back in because you break down at the grocery store with a flashback. (I have friends I can call while shopping because of these panic attacks. They talk to me while I shop and keep me grounded. The “big box” aspect of most stores is a trigger that my psychiatrist helped me identify 40 years after the fact. Now I navigate them much more easily because I am aware of what’s happening.)
When your quality of life is in constant flux because your body really does remember and keep score, then it’s always a dance of two steps forward, one step back. I recommend YOUR BODY KEEPS THE SCORE as a reference on how PTSD affects people and how they heal.
Carrie, forgiveness is extremely complicated, and the worse the offense the more complex it becomes. Forgiveness is for YOU and no one else; the perpetrator does not even need to know he has been forgiven. And honestly, there are actions that no on has the right to ask forgiveness for. I think one of those things is rape. As far as I’m concerned let the rapist live with the guilt until the end of time, even if he has been forgiven. You can forgive and still get revenge.
And you are correct, forgiveness is something that you do over and over, daily or even hourly sometimes. But its about letting go of your burdens, and not allowing the anger to subsume your life.
I have never been raped or assaulted, but I grew up in an extremely toxic family where I was discounted, scapegoated, criticized, yelled at, especially by my father and brother. My mother was cold and distant and she did her share of shaming me too. There was rampant alcohol abuse in the home, and that fueled most of it. I grew up angry and depressed, and is it any wonder? After finally getting therapy and moving 1000 miles away, I got better. It was effing hard, but I did it. And I had to forgive in order to get there. I loved my family, I still do even though they are all dead now. And some days I still rage at them. And I have to forgive again. It isn’t easy, it is never easy. But that rage, that black depression only hurts ME, me and no one else. And I don’t want that in my life, so I forgive.
No one can decide to do it other than yourself, and it is HARD. Some people can never forgive, and that’s fine too. But in my life, staying angry is letting them win. I have a great marriage, am financially secure, have a lovely home, lots of cats and books, and good friends. I think that makes me the winner, and I’m the only one who gets to keep score!
Hugs to both of you.
I hear you and I respect that everyone processes anger differently. I do think, however, that anger often hurts the wronged more than the person it’s directed at. For me, it’s an emotion I work to rid myself of.
If we define forgiveness as letting go of anger, then I completely agree with you. It doesn’t happen all at once, but it’s my goal. I do think we feel very similarly on this. Thank you.
Unfortunately many people see forgiveness as meaning you can’t continue to process your trauma. I’m reacting here in part to really bad, toxic theology that taught me I had to forgive and forget, and no longer bring up anything to do with the matter.
Everyone needs to be allowed to heal at their own rate with lots of love and support, and not be rushed because their grief is uncomfortable for others.
My sister is friends with Eve Carson’s parents and I always think about how they say, for them, retribution would have made their pain even greater. They have worked to forgive the young men who brutally murdered their daughter, but they’ll never stop processing their trauma. Their goal is to do no more harm on this earth. That’s the way I try and think about it.
I agree that it is up to the person who was hurt to decide when and if there is forgiveness based on what is best for them. They certainly don’t owe anyone anything except to protect themselves and do whatever helps them heal and feel safe.
I feel like there is an expectation that people should say they forgive to somehow prove they are the better person even if their feelings aren’t there yet, or may never get there. Everyone’s process is different and too many people I think can get put in the trap of trying to be too selfless or have to think of others first all the time. It’s OK to put yourself first sometimes.
Carrie, I am with you 100% on this one. In certain circumstances, such as the one depicted in this book, I can imagine choosing to forgive one’s rapist, as an act of healing for yourself, if you feel that is something that you desire. But I cannot imagine wanting to be in a romantic or parenting or friend or coworker relationship with someone who raped me. I would be reliving the trauma day in and day out. It sounds horribly unhealthy. And the rapist, assuming he has changed, would be caught in that reliving as well. Better they both move on with their lives separately, one asking for forgiveness, one giving it.
This is a really interesting demonstration of the importance of language. The initial post uses the term “date-rape” (which to me suggests drugging or forcing), so just on that basis my initial answer was going to be a hard no. Then I read the more complete description by MyNameHere, and it made me wonder if the term “date-rape” actually applies. Given the MyNameHere description, I would forgive the hero.
There isn’t too much a decent writer can’t make me forgive a guy for. Serial killer, bros who do their sisters, men who torture, those creeps I’m not reading a romance about.
But men who’ve slept around on their women, had sex with a drunk willing girl, lost their temper (once or twice) and acted badly, I can get into a story about them if they’re over it and the author is good enough to get me to forgive them.
I don’t like secret baby stories so the book here isn’t for me.
Same for women, or is there a difference in forgiveness? Just curious because I started thinking about it when I read your comment. And I do not know if I would be able to forgive the same things in a woman.
Unfair.
Will think on it.
When I was younger I definitely admit I was more narrow in my choices of heroines. I didn’t want heroines that weren’t largely a reflection of me and my life and values.
As I have grown older I have come to enjoy heroines across the board with very different experiences and lives. So I can say yes, I can forgive and do very much enjoy a “flawed” or imperfect heroine as well. That includes ones who also need forgiveness.
I agree that an author can get me to forgive a number of sins if the hero or heroine is truly sorry for past transgressions and has genuinely learned from their mistakes and bad behavior. Just having a bad upbringing isn’t enough for me to forgive, the characters have to have grown and become better people.
As to your list of the unforgivable I was nodding and agreeing and then it struck me- I enjoy Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series. I think some of the heroes, like Lothaire Definitely crossed some of those lines in the sand yet I still enjoyed them.
Anne Stuart’s heroes definitely cross lines as do men in some of Eloisa James’ earlier books.
I think because of the supernatural nature of Kresley Cole’s books I give them more leeway. Lothaire, like Angel and Spike gets more leeway from me as he’s a vampire. I don’t give human heroes the same latitude.
About date rape:
As a young girl and woman, I did not know about consent, and lived in a culture that was a total double standard: men could not help themselves and women brought it onto themselves when they were in places where anything could happen to them (which was pretty much everywhere, really, safe places were few). There were some hard limits, but rape was to me then a truly violent act, and persuasion, or shaming a girl into sex, or any other mental behavior war not seen as rape, unless it was blackmail or serious threats.
I think that this was the culture many here were brought up in.
I mean, this was the reality of Europe and US in the 80-ies, to my best knowledge.
Right next to feminism and women becoming normal in the workplace etc.etc. this existed as a norm, as far as I can make out.
No wonder most good men had no idea either.
I remember boys and young men being teased by their peers (and by quite a few girls too) for not being decisive enough, not showing clearly enough that they really wanted a girl and so on. Basically, they were told to just aggressively “seduce” because the girl would not be sure they were into her if they were just gentle and sweet and asked her consent all the time. She might think they were not truly passionate about her.
Horrible stuff, looking back.
But at the time, this was normal, and there was no sense of wrongness to the men’s behavior.
And most of these young men grew into responsible adults, and caring partners, and still, they did unacceptable things, and girls / women had them done to, and often consented, no matter how faulty that consent was.
I did.
Nothing dramatic, just feeling pressure, giving dubious consent and icky feelings about it all later.
So, yes, just like I believe my classmates and university friends are redeemable, I believe in such redeemability in romance.
We all – or most – did not know better.
And I believe that still, many persons do not.
They know what is wrong, but how to be with the other sex without the learned (toxic) templates is difficult.
I love how authors today are exploring what all was wrong, and writing a different template. Because to me, this is what authors of romance today often do. They actually create a model for how relationships can be that are shed of the above ideas. How masculinity in love and in passion can work that is not coming out of the places above. How passion can still be present without women feeling unsafe. How femininity can be honest and say “no” and draw powerful boundaries in intimacy – this is fascinating.
I believe a lot of today’s romance & passion is aspirational, not reflecting the reality even of today, and a lot of it is women’s fantasy of how we want men to be, just like a lot of older books was about the fantasy women had then, of how passion and relationships were (and that was a toxic fantasy).
I would hope that those young men of then would do things differently if they started a new relationship now. That is to me the quintessence of redemption – learning from our past and doing better.
I have not read the specific book (or I do not remember it), this is a general comment.
I think that life is messy, and that it depends on the details and specifics of a specific love story whether I can believe in this person becoming a responsible caring loving HEA partner, either man or woman.
So yes, to me nearly all can be written about and it depends on the author whether I will believe the romance & HEA or not.
I really enjoyed reading your thoughtful comments. I have often thought about how acceptance of various things have changed over just my lifetime, not just in terms of consent which is the issue here, but also what is considered age appropriate.
I think it’s hard for people who are significantly younger to understand that people don’t always have or had what we would think of as “current ideas” of what is acceptable. For instance I know a lot of women who are now in their 50’s that dated (and often later married) men who were a good ten years older than them while they were in their teens.
There was an investigation of a politician here in the U.S. a few years ago over allegations he was engaged in sexual behavior with very young teenage girls when he was 20-30 years old I believe. I think we can all agree any adult engaging in that way with a 13 or 14 year old is just wrong.
In investigating his life however, much was made of how at 28 years of age, he would often date or approach young women of 18-19 years and how this showed he was “creepy” and had a propensity for young girls. This happened in the 1970’s I believe (possibly earlier).
Even though I was still quite young in the 70’s I can tell you this was considered acceptable behavior by everyone I knew in the 70’s, 80’s 90’s and I am sure long after. I know of many couples, including long married people, with a good ten year age gap who got together while the female was in her teens. If a guy was respectable and responsible a lot of people thought that was good for the girl as he wouldn’t be as “wild” as a teen her age would be. He would be more serious and looking to settle down (which was assumed all girls wanted) and not just out for “a good time”. Now they weren’t pairing up at 13 or 14 but by 16-18 no one thought a guy 10 years older was a child molester or a creep for dating them. Nowadays I think it’s looked at very differently.
My first boyfriend was 22 to my 16. My kids are always appalled at that but, in 1977, it seemed totally fine. #differenttimes
Do you remember the made for TV movie “Sooner or Later” with Rex Smith? The heroine is 13 but wears makeup and pretends to be 16 to date a 17 year old. By the end he accepts her age and they say they are in love but agree to “take things slow”. I cannot imagine that being made today.
I don’t remember that but I do remember the utter insanity that was 1975’s Sweet Hostage where a 31 year old Martin Sheen, a mental patient who we were clearly supposed to see through the lens of R. D. Lang, kidnaps a teenage Linda Blair and they, in the most messed up love story ever, go on a Thelma and Louise like run from the law.
It would never be made today and that’s a good thing although it did inspire me to read Coleridge’s Kubla Khan.
Check the trailer out. It is NUTS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kljq5SuIwLE
The 70’s were nuts! Melanie Griffith at 14 was openly with Don Johnson who was 22! Linda Blair lost her virginity at 15 to 25 year old Rick Springfield in the 70’s. Don’t even get me going on what Led Zeppelin and David Bowie were up to.
I recently rewatched “Sooner or Later” online. I saw it on TV as a kid back in 1979 (it was a huge hit) and was curious what I would think of it as an adult. It was a *completely* different experience. The biggest problem was they cast a 25 year old guy as the 17 year old but had an actual 13 year old girl playing the 13 year old. I was literally squirming watching parts of it as my ick factor conquered my nostalgic memories.
I also re-watched “Young Love First Love” with Valerie Bertinelli and Tim Hutton (also from 1979) where they are teenagers playing 17 year olds and it was a completely different and still enjoyable experience.
OMG I just watched it. Whoever thought the line “The insane can’t teach us all a lesson in life” must have had a few issues themselves.
The fact that this exists is proof to me of how much men were controlling all aspects of the entertainment industry.
I thought I was the only one who remembered that one! It was very popular with girls at my high school. One girl couldn’t understand why he was so upset with her, and another had to explain it to her.
That same year, I got to see Rex Smith play in Grease in Baltimore,. After the show, I got an autograph. And an unexpected kiss!
Even pre-COVID, do you think an actor would do that with a fan in today’s environment? It seems like a 1970s thing.
But what do I know? The last autograph I got was from the late Sid Haig a couple of years ago. Completely different experience! :)
I’ll be honest there were parts of it I didn’t get at all watching it as a pre-teen that I understood watching it as an adult women. When I was younger I just loved the makeup and romance and fact he was a musician.
I saw an old interview with the actress who played Jesse in the movie and she talked about how she had a crush on Rex Smith (like every other young girl) and how awkward it was to film the extended kissing scene at 13 with a 25 year old guy whose wife was standing there! I can’t imagine that happening today.
Young Chrisreader would have been very jealous of you attending that concert and meeting him. I had to make do with my cassette tape of his album.
Maybe not but here is a bit of info cribbed from Wikipedia:
Only two US states – Delaware and New Jersey – have set the marriage age floor at 18 with no exceptions. Twelve states do not have any set age limit, and six allow girls under the minimum age to get married if they are pregnant.
Pretty shocking, really.
I know of at least three couples, all of them long-married with children and grandchildren, who met in the 1970s in high school when the husband was the wife’s teacher! All of them have a small age gap (less than ten years) between spouses and all of them were “secretly dating” when the wife was a high school senior—and the secrecy was more a matter of not wanting other students to believe the girl in question was getting preferential treatment regarding grades than anything considered inappropriate about the relationship. I can’t stress enough how “normal, if not frequent” this behavior was in the 1970s. But times do change and what was once considered acceptable would not pass muster now: a teacher today could never date a student (“secretly” or otherwise) and still remain a teacher for very long.
Have you ever seen the movie Margie with Jeannie Crain? It starts off with an older Margie telling her daughter about her teen years. It goes back to the time when she is high school student and by the end of the movie it’s one of her teachers who brings her home (as in a date) from the high school dance and the big reveal is he is the “dad’ and Margie’s husband. It was “good old fashioned entertainment” you can still catch on the old movie channels.
Not all that many years ago large age differences or relationships where a person had power over the other’s grades or job etc, wasn’t even blinked at. Older teen girls were considered fully “adults” in terms of consent. It’s like there was a line at 16-18 where once girls hit it -people thought no differently than if they were 30 years old.
This is a book that has long been on my keeper shelf. I know it’s hugely controversial and that people hold very, very strong views about it. So, here is some text extracted from a review I posted elsewhere 18 years ago and a final word written today in 2020:
THEN: “I know this book has attracted controversy in the past because it deals with date rape – a subject which is often in the news these days because of the concern over the legal fraternity in getting it treated fairly in our politically correct world. It’s a subject to be handled carefully and, to be fair, I feel the author does so in the main. However, I did not really warm to her heroine because frankly, Carly Anderson is not someone I would like for a friend. There is just a touch of hollering “no” at the point of no return and that is, of course, the heart of the problem with the whole topic of date rape. Also, for a very intelligent woman, she allows this one episode to cause her to make some questionable choices in her life; she is not a happy woman when we meet her and you really have to wonder why she has not been able to be just a bit more pragmatic about herself.
“The hero, Mitch, is made to suffer disproportionately, in my view, for something which he did at a very young age. PDR makes this man a paraplegic at the height of a fantastically successful career as a professional athlete. He does, in the main, rebuild his life but he still suffers – there is no truly meaningful relationship in his life and his physical disabilities are horrendous although he does cope very well with them. He is a very charming and desirable.
“It’s the “hidden baby” in this book where I thought there was actually a more significant issue. Although Mitch meets and loves his daughter when he is allowed to know her, Carly and he (really Carly in my opinion) decide to keep her paternity a secret. Denying a child knowledge of its paternity is, I think, probably a worse “crime” than the date rape especially when the father is loving, caring and willing to take full responsibility. The issue of IVF for paraplegics is explored which is interesting because it allows Carly and Mitch to start again. However, any resulting child will know its parents but not its sister.
“I liked Mitch and felt able to forgive him. He was realistic in handling his disability. He suffers and is tortured about his actions and their outcomes but handles them better and more maturely than Carly who is, I think, a little bit two dimensional by comparison.
“This is PDR at her angst-ridden, tortured hero best. I loved Mitch but would not like to have lunch with Carly. Highly recommended for the issues raised here: date rape, retribution, suffering, disability and paternity.”
NOW: So, now in 2020 how has my POV changed? Not a lot, frankly. I have always thought I would hate to be on a jury trying a date rape case because despite changes in the law, it is still a very fuzzy and highly emotive area. I accept that women should be protected under the law from rape but it’s the actual definitions applying to the spectrum of rape cases that is, for me, worrying. On a purely personal basis, I fail to understand the logicality of waiting months or even years to report an incident nor am I a fan of naming only the accused in the run up to and during a trial – at least in the UK. Until and unless there is a conviction, I believe (no doubt very wrongly to some) that in the main both parties should be anonymous particularly in date rape cases where there can be so much ambiguity. It has been shown too often that a man cleared of rape (especially a very young one) carries a stigma that can badly affect the rest of his life and I do not see this as fair. Whilst I realise that naming an alleged perpetrator can flush out further alleged victims, it just seems to me that it’s a very murky and grey area.
PS – I have always wondered what happened to Paula Detmer Riggs; I loved her books but one day she just seemed to vanish.
I appreciate you and others who have read the book posting because, as I said above, the review does not cover any specifics and the circumstances of the incident as well as the intent of the hero are crucial to deciding if this hero can be forgiven.
I would say based on the information you and others provided, then yes, I could absolutely accept this hero. There appears to be zero malice on his part and he’s presented as a very great guy.
He is the complete opposite of an old Victoria Holt novel where the “hero” drugs and rapes the heroine. It’s not even a case of old school “she’s so beautiful I couldn’t help myself” but because she is engaged to a relative that thwarted him and he wants revenge. It’s pure evil and aggression, not even cloaked in the misguided ideas of the time as romance. Yet somehow the poor heroine ends up with him in the end. That “hero” I do NOT accept.
You have wonderfully expressed my own thoughts about the two protagonists. My sympythies lay mostly with Mitch, less with Carly. I found her self-righteous. She was unable to admit that she wasn’t totally unblamably for what happend.
The problem, sadly, is that often the modern POV on this is that the man is at fault without question and that what the woman says is taken by law enforcement to be the unquestioned truth. I would hate to be the mother of an 18 year old son right now. It seems that currently a man must get permission in writing, in triplicate, witnessed and pinned to his backside before making love to someone sometimes, even, including his wife.
It’s not that bad–I have sons 24, 27, and 29. It’s the most pronounced on college campuses but once out, the real impact of this dynamic is the there is less sex, dating, and intimacy. In the US, 1 in 4 people haven’t had sex in the past year and of those, 28% are men in their 20s, a huge jump. I also see both young men and women needing copious amounts of booze to get laid.
It is true, however, that when accusations of sexual assault come up on college campuses, it’s always presumed to be the male at fault even if both parties were altered.
Sad, very sad
I don’t think it is as scary as you suggest. Firstly, if you look at actual data in the UK, only 15% of those who experience sexual assault report it to the police, and of reported rape cases, only 5.7% end with conviction (much lower than for other crimes). Purely anecdotally, I know of a frightening number of friends and family members who have experienced sexual assault and rape, and have not reported it to the police because it is too triggering to go through the whole process, and because it involves people very close to them. It’s strange – if you ask most men, they will say that they’ve never known a rapist, but if you ask the majority of women, most of them would have experienced some form of sexual harassment or violence at some point in their life. We also should ask ourselves, is it really such a bad thing to get consent from our sexual partners before engaging in sex?
Also I would like to add, that parents of 18 year old sons who somehow feel scared that their sons might be unfairly accused, may want to consider the parents of 18 year old daughters, who are constantly worried that they are going to be raped and assaulted. Perhaps such parents would do better teaching their boys about the importance of consent. I for one, am sick of the unsolicited advice that I had when growing up to avoid getting raped i.e. don’t wear short skirts, don’t walk home alone, don’t drink too much, don’t sleep with too many boys or you’ll get the reputation of being ‘easy’ etc etc etc…
I also think that penalties for rape need to be more severe, and should include life imprisonment if certain criteria are met. There needs to be no statute of limitations, just like murder, because it may be decades before the person is ready to report the rape. And don’t get me started on child rape; my notions on that are pretty medieval.
“…it may be decades before the person is ready to report the rape.”
For anyone who wonders why some victims don’t speak up until months or years later…
When I was fourteen, one of my father’s friends got drunk and groped me. It wasn’t outright rape. He never got under my clothes. But he was like an uncle to me, because his daughter and I used to hang out together. And I was incredibly sheltered at the time. I’d never even spoken to a boy my age, and I’d certainly never been taught what to do if someone touches you against your will. We didn’t have that kind of education in my family or my school.
So I froze up. I couldn’t move or talk (in case anyone is wondering why I didn’t fight him off or say no). He stopped eventually, and then I pulled myself together and went to tell my parents.
They had no idea what to do or say. They looked at each other. Then they looked back at me. And finally my father said that since it was past ten p.m., I should go to bed.
We never referred to this incident again, though the man and his family were never invited to our house again either. But since it was clear that my parents wanted to close the book on the whole matter, that’s what I did.
However, if I heard today that other women had accused that man of sexually assaulting them when they were teenagers, I’d speak up. Not because I was trying to get him into trouble, not because I think that he’ll be held legally responsible years after the fact. Certainly not because I want to run the gauntlet of “Why did she wait so long?” questions.
I’d do it so those women would know they were not alone.
I’m so sorry that you had to go through such an awful experience. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. You are absolutely right; by sharing your stories with others, other women feel supported and know that they are not the only ones who have been abused. My mum went through a similar experience with two of her uncles, and like your family, it was never talked about again and the perpetrators faced no consequences. When I asked my mum, she said that she just froze up and was too ashamed to tell her parents in case they didn’t believe her. She also said that she just wanted to forget about it.
“Certainly not because I want to run the gauntlet of “Why did she wait so long?” questions” : So true. I think people forget that a lot of people don’t want to report sexual violence because they don’t want to have go through the humiliating process of inquiry that follows it.
Thanks again Marian, for sharing your story.
Thanks, AlwaysReading. It means a lot to me when people offer their support. And I’m sorry to hear your mother endured this as well. I knew my parents believed me (otherwise the man would still have continued to visit us). They just didn’t know how else to react.
I think people forget that a lot of people don’t want to report sexual violence because they don’t want to have go through the humiliating process of inquiry that follows it.
That too. Quoting Chanel Miller again : “Each time a survivor resurfaced, people were quick to say what does she want, why did it take her so long, why now, why not then, why not faster. But damage does not stick to deadlines. If she emerges, why don’t we ask her how it was possible she lived with that hurt for so long, ask who taught her to never uncover it.”
And remember what happened when Alice Sebold was brutally raped by a stranger inside a tunnel? The police told her that previously a girl was murdered in that tunnel, so she was “lucky”. I didn’t need anyone consulting their sliding scale of trauma and telling me I shouldn’t be so upset since it wasn’t actually rape.
I am glad that your parents believed you, and I understand how it can be difficult to know how to react when your loved one suffers from sexual assault. I can only hope that by fostering dialogue we can all learn the best ways to support future victims of sexual assault. With my mum, she used her painful experience to educate us, and to let us know, that she would always be there for us if anyone behaved inappropriately with us. Culture is also a huge factor, we’re an Asian family, and sexual assault is a taboo subject. It is easier in such cases to turn a blind eye then to confront the behaviour head on.
‘But damage does not stick to deadlines. If she emerges, why don’t we ask her how it was possible she lived with that hurt for so long, ask who taught her to never uncover it.”:
This is so poignant and true. It is so sad that very few people ever think of asking these questions of survivors.
‘I didn’t need anyone consulting their sliding scale of trauma and telling me I shouldn’t be so upset since it wasn’t actually rape’: This sadly happens all the time. Only you get to decide how you should feel and process your own trauma. It is disgusting that there are people out there who would try to invalidate it.
“Culture is also a huge factor, we’re an Asian family, and sexual assault is a taboo subject.”
Oh, same here. Asian family. Just to give you an idea how repressed we were, when I was a sophomore in university, I came home for a visit. My brother was twelve at the time, and I asked my parents whether they had told him about the facts of life.
They said, “No, we were waiting for you to do it.”
So true. My mum was better than most, she had a long talk with me about the birds and the bees. However, I was then expected to relay the information to my younger sisters and cousins.
Hugs to both of you. Life can so often suck. <3
Its perfectly normal to want the whole thing to go away, and especially girls under 18 or so are still prone to magical thinking. The “If I tell no one it didn’t really happen” mindset. And you do have to relive the trauma every time you tell your story or see your victimizer. There is also the fact that women often shut down their brains while the assault is occurring, which they then think makes them bad witnesses. Ten years ago it DID make them bad witnesses, but now there is much more understanding of victim psychology, denial, and PTSD.
That is not to say that it is easy to report these crimes, and it’s certainly not easy to face your rapist in court. There is still a definite “blame the victim” notion amongst jurors. No wonder it takes some victims, some of whom are men let us remember, years before they come forward.
Here is what I say to those who say date rape is just a misunderstanding: how do you want your sister to be treated? Or your daughter?
Absolutely! There are so many reasons why survivors may only come forward later on. I think you are right to frame it as a question of empathy: how would you want your loved ones to be treated? A little bit of compassion goes a long way in helping survivors process the trauma of sexual assault. The point you make about how trauma may cause survivors to be bad witnesses (particularly when the brain shuts down during the violent act) may also explain the low conviction rates for rape.
“We also should ask ourselves, is it really such a bad thing to get consent from our sexual partners before engaging in sex?”
Here’s a quote from Chanel Miller’s memoir on that topic :
“When a woman is assaulted, one of the first questions people ask is, Did you say no? This question assumes that the answer was always yes, and that it is her job to revoke the agreement. To defuse the bomb she was given. But why are they allowed to touch us until we physically fight them off? Why is the door open until we have to slam it shut?”
That’s such a beautifully-worded paragraph and so powerful. It’s so true how men really feel like they are entitled to our bodies without us saying a word. Take for instance, how some men always feel the need to touch women on their waists when they are moving through crowded bars. It is so unnecessary and invasive. I’ve been meaning to Chanel Miller’s memoir, I’ve heard such wonderful things about it. I think it shows that we need to start shifting our thinking on consent and dating.
I recommend Miller’s memoir not only because it’s so well-written, but because it shows the aftermath of the crime for her. What she and her family went through during the legal process, for instance. The judge was concerned about Brock Turner’s potential as an athlete and a college student being lost because of “20 minutes of action”, but what about her life and her future?
Thank you, I have just ordered it. The judge in the Brock Turner case angers me so much.
THIS! Consent isn’t yes UNTIL it’s no, It’s NO until it’s yes! Men have no rights to our bodies and should ask for consent from the get-go. I love reading some romances these days where the guy says, “I’m going to kiss you now. Is that ok with you?”
Teach your sons: “Don’t assume yes until you hear a no. Assume no until you here a yes!”
This is why I don’t enjoy romances where the heroine says she doesn’t want to have sex, and the hero says, in effect, “Fine, I won’t force you to. But since you didn’t say no to everything else, I’ll get into your personal space, make suggestive comments, touch your hair, maneuver you into being alone with me, and push your boundaries every chance I get. Sex may be off the table, but everything else about you is on it.”
It’s not outright rape, but it’s part of what normalizes and excuses rape when that occurs.
Do we forgive Rhett Butler? Reading the “carrying up the stairs” scene today, it’s clear he rapes Scarlett (even if her response is presented as reveling in it—needing someone to “bully and break her”). And what about the heroes of those multitude of bodice rippers my generation consumed in the 1970s & 1980s? I’d say in the majority of those books, the hero raped the heroine—although at the time the act and context surrounding it weren’t presented as rape. Personal and cultural attitudes change. If they didn’t, we’d all still be reading things like LOVE’S WILD DESIRES today. That said, I do read quite a bit of dark romance where dub-con/non-con/“forced seduction”/abduction/captivity/ Stockholm Syndrome rule the day. But I know what I’m getting when I pick up a mafia romance or something by, say, Skye Warren or Natasha Knight. I would not have the same tolerance (in fact, I’d be shocked and appalled) if “rapey heroes” started showing up in more mainstream romances by writers like Serena Bell, Juliana Stone, Molly O’Keefe, Julie Kriss, etc.
On the other hand, I do think how the author frames the story goes a long way toward our tolerance for the hero’s behavior. A few weeks ago, I read an HP from 2016: Maisey Yates’s CARIDES’S FORGOTTEN WIFE, which features a borderline-alcoholic, serial-adulterer husband. An unfaithful husband “hero” would generally be a hard pass for me, but Yates did such an excellent job with the character (never giving him a pass for his behavior, but letting us understand the roots of it) that the book went immediately onto my list of favorites read in 2020 (“published in a prior year” division).
i’m a big fan of tackling difficult topics in fiction. i think life itself is full of infinite ambiguity-very rarely are we afforded the luxury of morality. therefore, i like the books i read and the movies i watch to reflect that. i think humans are attracted to taboos: call it our id or repressed desires, but i think the fascination with true crime and the prevalence of anti heroes/bad boys comes from the same place in our psyche. fiction is where we can live out our messy fantasies without severe repercussions.
i also think that people can change. to paint criminals/people who’ve wronged another as subhuman and throw them into prison without hope of rehabilitation seems pointless to me. i live in a country where rapists are rarely, if ever punished. even when they are caught, they don’t seem to understand what they’ve done wrong-is executing or imprisoning them truly a punishment when they don’t understand the magnitude of their crime? to me, a novel where the character successfully realises what they’ve done wrong and makes amends makes for a more engrossing read compared to one where the character played by the rules. good people don’t make for addicting stories usually. ultimately, humans are full of contradictions. why shouldn’t the people who populate the worlds we create reflect that?
I think it’s worth noting that Riggs didn’t portray the encounter as the hero knowingly raping the heroine, because even she likely knew she couldn’t pull that off. She did it in a way to make him look as blameless as possible, while still technically being rape. The heroine was infatuated with the athlete hero, lied about her age and experience and drank as much as he did in the run-up to the encounter, so they were both intoxicated. She gave him no indication she was anything but into it, and was into it until just before the moment of penetration, when she suddenly got scared. But he was kissing her and she couldn’t say no with his mouth on hers, so it happened. The morning after when he saw the blood on his sheets, he realized she was a virgin, was remorseful and wanted to apologize for how it went, but she had already taken off. So, no, she didn’t want it, but he also had no way of knowing that. Rape without making him look truly bad or aggressive. Yes, he should have made sure he had consent right down to the end, but he was as drunk as she was. The whole thing was messy.
The whole book was a mess. Naturally she got pregnant and had their secret child, who was a teenager by the time the hero (now using a wheelchair after having been injured playing football) learns about her (and that the heroine considered their encounter rape). Then the teenage daughter is raped by a football star in the same manner. The book has a lot of fans, but geez, I thought it was lousy.
Yikes, this book does sound like an unpleasant mess.
If your description of the “rape” is accurate, MyNameHere, that makes a difference to me. I’m all for “no means no”, but your description makes it seem that the hero had a reasonable belief that the sex was consensual, right up through the end. If the heroine was unable to effectively express her last-minute change of heart, that’s unfortunate, but it’s no one’s fault either. Describing such a man as a “rapist” sounds like a stretch to me.
To clarify my opinion: When both parties (inebriated or otherwise) are eager and willing to have sex, and they both appear to be of legal age, and at the very last minute (point of penetration) one has a change of heart, but the other one doesn’t realize this, or doesn’t realize in time to step on the breaks, that’s not the same thing as someone forcing sex on a clearly unwilling person or on an incapacitated person/minor child who cannot give consent.
Thank you so much for posting this. I had read the review and not the book and I could not get any details from the review that were helpful about the specifics. This is indeed a very specific circumstance and one that seems particularly timely as it’s discussed very often now.
I believe it is Malcolm Gladwell who brought up these questions of consent and miscommunication (or no communication) in encounters such as these in his latest book.
One of the somewhat controversial things he examines is when both parties are equally inebriated why the male is considered at fault- especially if the female does not raise any objection at the time.
It is all too sadly common for there to be incidents where both parties are intoxicated, both agree to go back to-say the male’s apartment or dorm, they both agree to some kind of encounter. Because they are both willingly engaged in some behavior, the male (who is also intoxicated) believes consent has been given generally. At some point the girl/woman decides she does not want to go further but does not verbalize it from fear, inability or some other reason and things go farther. The next day she considers the act non-consensual and the boy/man is stunned to hear it.
It sounds like these are the circumstances (roughly) in this book and I understand why people who read it can still be sympathetic to the hero.
This is a sideways comment on the topic, but I highly recommend the HBO series I May Destroy You if you want to see an examination of all the ways in which consent can come into play and how it’s such a nuanced and difficult concept when it comes to sexual/relational interactions.
The series starts out with the protag coming to the realization that she was drugged in a bar and something happened to her. Clearly non-consensual and not wanted. But as the series progresses you see her and her friends, all of whom are 20-somethings in London, having interactions with sexual partners that range from black and white to very gray in terms of who is consenting. What are some of the lies we tell ourselves and each other in the give and take of getting to a sexual encounter? Are they violative of consent? If you think an encounter was one thing, but you find it was something else?
I just loved all the ways in which the nuances were written and played so brilliantly by Michaela Cole and the rest of the cast.
And to bring it back to the topic of forgiveness – the show showed some of that too. And also showed that most people are not saintly or evil, but fall somewhere in between. That really appealed to me. And appeals to me in my reading too.
The PDR doesn’t sound like my cuppa for a variety of reasons but in general the books I’ve loved most have been ones with complicated, messy characters. Do I want them to ultimately do right? Yes. But I’m okay if they do some wrong along the way.
“But he was kissing her and she couldn’t say no with his mouth on hers…”
I just read the article by Ms. Riggs, which says :
“When she said “no” (when things had gone much too far), he didn’t hear her, and he didn’t stop.”
Trying this again…I could be remembering the moment wrong (it’s been a while and I no longer have the book); I always remembered it as her not saying no, but maybe it played out as Riggs describes (although how an author intends things to come across isn’t always the way they do). I read through some of the reviews on Goodreads, and the impressions seem to vary (and if readers, who presumably weren’t drunk while reading it, have different impressions on what happened, it’s probably no surprise the characters do). Several readers had the same impression I did, that she never said no. One thing Riggs and the rest of us seem to agree on is that he didn’t know she’d changed her mind at the last second, after being very responsive up to that point. Whether it was because she didn’t clearly say no or he didn’t hear her, he didn’t know the encounter was anything but consensual and certainly didn’t intend to rape her. Either way, my original point stands, that Riggs wrote it in a way to have a “rape” without having the hero knowingly commit one, which is far easier to “redeem” than an intentional one. (And also why it’s necessary to get consent right down to the moment of penetration.)
Personally, learning about rape culture has made me far less ready to believe that a rapist is a decent person who just made one mistake. When I read that a young man date-raped a girl, I wonder how many other times he refused to take no for an answer. How many other girls he made uncomfortable or fearful. Why he believed he was entitled to sex, and what, if anything, has changed about his mentality and his behavior since then. I’m cautious around such characters.
That said, I’ve read books where the protagonist commits rape (The Fountainhead, Lord Foul’s Bane) and enjoyed them on the whole. But I’m just not comfortable with a romance hero who sexually assaults a woman.
When I started reading romance years ago, this was the norm, and it was usually presented as the heroine being so beautiful that the hero just couldn’t stop himself. Unfortunately these days, especially after reading memoirs like Chanel Miller’s Know My Name, I can’t separate the reality of rape from a dubious-consent or no-consent sex scene in romance.
Moving on to acts in general, I think in some ways we’re less tolerant, and in some ways we’re more so. I just browsed through reviews for Robin Schone’s The Lady’s Tutor, and they mentioned how the heroine’s husband is first revealed to be gay, and then exposed as a child molester who preys on his own sons. Likewise, when I started reading romance, any time the hero was with a sexually experienced woman, I knew she’d be tossed aside at best and murdered at worst. But many readers now are fine with a heroine who’s had sex before she meets the hero. At the same time, there was a level of cultural appropriation in older books that wouldn’t pass muster today.
Great topic, Dabney, and I look forward to reading the responses to it.
I stopped reading Christina Dodd long ago after a non-con sex scene that, to me, read as flat-out rape. She said No, he didn’t stop, I was done.