Rape in fiction

[Alexia]

I would chime in and say that sexual violence isn't the worst thing that I've read in a book. Two things stand out for me: in ASOIAF, during Arya's frog-march to Harrenhal, a three-year old boy wouldn't stop crying for his father so they smashed his face in with a spiked mace. Then his mother started screaming so they killed her too. For whatever reason, that made an incredibly deep impression on me while reading.

The other thing that scarred me was while reading Last Light of the Sun, I learned about this charming execution method called the blood-eagle. *shudders* I have a horrendous picture of that in my mind.

I seem to remember an SSM where Martin commented that he'd gotten hate mail about the sexual content and he couldn't understand why a description of an axe entering a head is cool, whereas there's something wrong with a penis entering a vagina is.

[Wastrel]

That's interesting, Wastrel, although the sort of situation you posit is almost never seen in fiction. Rape in fantasy is almost always straightforward, violent, and with no question that the woman wants no part of it. I don't think I've ever come across an example of a woman initiating sex although she doesn't want it, then later claiming it was rape.

As far as Cersei, I don't know that we can say whether her sex with Robert was always non-consensual, given that we don't see much of it. She's said she didn't enjoy it (except for the first time, until he said the wrong name), but I suspect she was willing sometimes, if for no other reason than that even Robert would be suspicious if she started having kids without having any sex with him.

Well, that's actually headed in the direction of the paradox. A plausible scenario:

a) Cersei knew that even Robert would be suspicious if she started having kids without having any sex with him

B) Cersei therefore had to have sex with Robert

c) Cersei therefore had to appear willing to have sex with him - otherwise, it wouldn't be worth his effort, he'd go off an find a barmaid

d) From Robert's perspective, he was therefore confronted with a seemingly willing - perhaps even seemingly horny and seductive, if she was having to distract him from the barmaids - wife. He knew, of course, that she didn't like him, but that was no reason to assume she wasn't willing - after all, he didn't exactly like her either!

So we're back to that situation where the woman, from necessity, is deceiving the man into thinking it's more consensual that it is - of course, I don't imagine the deception was particularly elaborate in this case, but then Robert's stupid, so it didn't need to be. In which case Robert's crime is closer to being an idiot than to being a rapist.

I'm not saying that this IS what the book says happened, but it's a plausible reading, which perhaps casts a little grey on the matter.

---------

Two other things should be mentioned. First: is rape always wrong? Obviously it's always prima facie wrong, but can it be justified by a greater good? In the case of political marriages, rape for the purposes of children can bring about a lot of good in the world. Robert probably felt that his reign had to be solidified or risk another civil war, with devastating human cost - so even if he knew he was raping Cersei, can he be fully blamed for that?

[Not saying that he can't, just pointing out the question]

Second: did Cersei rape Robert? He hated her, and after a while he was disinterested in her, but continued to "do his duty", iirc. At the very least, isn't the fact that he didn't fully consent himself but felt compelled a partial mitigating factor in calling him a rapist? Further, given that, as you say, Cersei must have sometimes been willing for the sake of appearances, while Robert was disinterested in her, it's possible that on some occasions it was actually Cersei who was demanding her conjugal rights over Robert, rather than vice versa.

-------

Lady Blackfish: it's commonplace in all fantasy - indeed, all fiction - that protagonists go through a series of ordeals, sometimes traumatic, that lead to personal development. It's hardly a feature specifically of female leads, and it's nothing to do with being 'unwomanly'.

There probably are novels where the characters have no emotional baggage, go through no trauma, and simply decide to "go on adventures" while peacefully improving themselves with self-help books, but I have seen few of them, and I'm not sure why they would be interesting to read (or indeed believable). Personally, I'll stick with the trauma-produces-change model of fiction.

[Lady Blackfish]

Yeah but there's degree of trauma to consider too, and the fact that certain gendered things are more common fuels for women's vengeance (rape, losing a child, etc) to the relative exclusion of others.

Edited because I misunderstood your point.

[Liadin]

So we're back to that situation where the woman, from necessity, is deceiving the man into thinking it's more consensual that it is - of course, I don't imagine the deception was particularly elaborate in this case, but then Robert's stupid, so it didn't need to be. In which case Robert's crime is closer to being an idiot than to being a rapist.

. . .

At the very least, isn't the fact that he didn't fully consent himself but felt compelled a partial mitigating factor in calling him a rapist?

I think we're operating under quite different definitions of "consent." Neither Cersei nor Robert was terribly enthusiastic about their conjugal relations (although when he got drunk and initiated them, that would have been because he wanted to, not for duty), but we have no evidence that he was ever less than willing, and on the hypothetical occasion that she agreed to sex for the sake of appearances, she would have been willing too. The fact that you don't really want it deep down doesn't mean you didn't consent.

This is quite a different scenario from the one you presented where the wife felt threatened by the husband, even though she wasn't. In that case, she believed she was being coerced, that she was giving consent under duress, an implied threat of violence. While Robert may have threatened Cersei, that's not the case if she's agreeing to sex for the sake of her kids' legitimacy. That's "I have to have sex with you to fulfill my devious plot." Not all that different from "I have to have sex with you to make money" or even "I'm going to get drunk and have a one-night stand because I feel depressed, even though I know I'll just feel worse about myself tomorrow."

In other words: please explain your definition of "consent." I would say that if both partners agree through actions and/or words, and there's no use of force or explicit or implicit threat, consent has been given. Neither partner is meant to be a mind-reader. Not really wanting the sex you agree to doesn't make your partner a rapist.

[Shryke]

I still think that scene in Best Served Cold was the most disturbing torture scene I've read.

It's expressing the notion that it's not actually rape because the female just needs a strong man to give them some deep-dicking.

Am I the only one who finds the phrase "just needs a deep-dicking" really funny?

Even if it is really hard to work into a conversation.

[mormont]

I agree that it's technically rape since all non-consensual sex is rape. But sometimes it gets complicated. We know Cersei and how she thinks, and we know she hated Robert and would never want to have sex with him if she could help it. Yet she needed to, as a queen, to produce heirs (that the "heirs" aren't Robert's after all is besides the point of course). That would mean that every single time she had sex with the king, she was raped, since she clearly didn't want it. But that seems a bit of a stretch now to call all of that rape, no? The times Robert drunkenly forced himself on her and physically hurt her are clear-cut, of course. The other times, would we say it was just an unpleasant duty as wife of the king, or actual rape? Maybe both. But it's not that clear-cut in this case.

As far as Cersei, I don't know that we can say whether her sex with Robert was always non-consensual, given that we don't see much of it. She's said she didn't enjoy it (except for the first time, until he said the wrong name), but I suspect she was willing sometimes, if for no other reason than that even Robert would be suspicious if she started having kids without having any sex with him.

This is wandering a little too far into specific cases, maybe, but I did want to correct an apparent misapprehension here. From the information we have in the books, it's explicitly clear that Cersei did not have penetrative sex with Robert unless he physically forced her to. She occasionally duped him by various means into thinking they had penetrative sex, true, and one could presumably argue about what that might be described as, morally or technically. But the 'situation' when Robert actually had penetrative sex with Cersei was always, clearly, rape. And the key point is that Cersei was raped by Robert - there is no doubt about that. So we know that at least one major character in ASOIAF was raped repeatedly by another, even if it was offscreen.

There's an interesting discussion to be had about Cersei as a character - a woman whose life is dominated by male figures and the male/female dynamic. She's jealous of her beloved brother, dominated by her father, beaten and raped by her hated husband, obsessively possessive of her firstborn son. And of course her reactions are interesting - using sex as a weapon, her obsession with proving herself the equal of any man, etc. But that's one for the General forum, perhaps. :)

[Wastrel]

I think we're operating under quite different definitions of "consent." Neither Cersei nor Robert was terribly enthusiastic about their conjugal relations (although when he got drunk and initiated them, that would have been because he wanted to, not for duty), but we have no evidence that he was ever less than willing, and on the hypothetical occasion that she agreed to sex for the sake of appearances, she would have been willing too. The fact that you don't really want it deep down doesn't mean you didn't consent.

This is quite a different scenario from the one you presented where the wife felt threatened by the husband, even though she wasn't. In that case, she believed she was being coerced, that she was giving consent under duress, an implied threat of violence. While Robert may have threatened Cersei, that's not the case if she's agreeing to sex for the sake of her kids' legitimacy. That's "I have to have sex with you to fulfill my devious plot." Not all that different from "I have to have sex with you to make money" or even "I'm going to get drunk and have a one-night stand because I feel depressed, even though I know I'll just feel worse about myself tomorrow."

In other words: please explain your definition of "consent." I would say that if both partners agree through actions and/or words, and there's no use of force or explicit or implicit threat, consent has been given. Neither partner is meant to be a mind-reader. Not really wanting the sex you agree to doesn't make your partner a rapist.

The problem here is the phrase "explicit or implicit threat". What SORT of threats are included here? I imagine that if, say, a husband threatened to break his wife's legs, you would consider that threatening... yet for Cersei*, if she does not have sex with her husband (but does have sex with her brother), she faces the prospect of being executed for treason, and having her children and her lover likewise murdered. I'd say a woman can find that rather threatening. I also think that from Robert's* perspective, the prospect of a schism with Tywin or a failure of his dynasty, either resulting in the deaths of thousands of his subjects and many of his friends and quite possibly him as well could also be considered threatening.

It could be said, of course, that Cersei is only threatened because of her Nefarious Plans (ie being in love with another man), and that the threat goes away if she just doesn't have sex with Jaime. However, I'm not sure that this really works, because all sorts of conditional threats should be counted - eg "have sex with me or I'll kill you if you ever leave this room again" is clearly coercive, even though the threat only applies if the victim chooses to act in a certain way. So some difference would have to be found between the Nefarious Plans of having adulterous sex with your brother, and of leaving your room - but it's hard to see where the difference could be found in a way that did not amount to "it's not rape because you were planning something Bad yourself". And that's rather too close to the "you're a slut who's having illicit sex anyway so it can't be rape" line for my comfort.

*Hypothetical robert and cersei. I'm not contesting Mormont's recollection of the books as they are, just using the names and approximate situation as an example.

[Alexia]

Alexia - I remember you stating that in the GGK thread, as well. I hope it makes you feel better to know that this was an old Norse method of execution, and GGK didn't just make it up. It also is highly probable that victims would have died of suffocation, shock, or blood loss quickly during this torture...so the mercy of death would have come quickly - not like the rack, or hanging in chains, or drawing and quartering.

Yes, I looked it up on Google because I had trouble believing he could come up with something like that on his own. Still, it was very...picturesque...

Now, back to our regularly scheduled discussion... :D

[Happy Ent]

One problem with discussing the legal or moral definitions of rape in a pre-modern society is the definition of consent.

The historically stable definition of rape is that it is intercourse without consent of the victim’s owner, this being typically the father or the husband of the rape victim. This is important, and remarkably disgusting to us. It makes, however, rape legislation consistent throughout history. Women, for most of the time, were unable to give or deny consent because they weren’t persons. They were property. If a woman was raped, her father received compensation.

In that perspective, the concept of rape has been proscribed in all civilisations ever studied, as a human universal. But husbands could not rape their wives before women, to the everlasting glory of Western civilisation, received personhood. This is why, correctly, neither Dany nor Drogo consider their intercourse rape, while the lamb woman is raped by Dany’s standards and ours.

In fantasy literature, which largely is meant to appeal to a modern audience, often female, these concepts seldom appear. Just as we seldom see nice people hit their children. I find that utterly unremarkable, since our psychology tempts us to mistake description for endorsement.

[Zoë Sumra]

I agree that it's technically rape since all non-consensual sex is rape. But sometimes it gets complicated. We know Cersei and how she thinks, and we know she hated Robert and would never want to have sex with him if she could help it. Yet she needed to, as a queen, to produce heirs (that the "heirs" aren't Robert's after all is besides the point of course). That would mean that every single time she had sex with the king, she was raped, since she clearly didn't want it. But that seems a bit of a stretch now to call all of that rape, no? The times Robert drunkenly forced himself on her and physically hurt her are clear-cut, of course. The other times, would we say it was just an unpleasant duty as wife of the king, or actual rape? Maybe both. But it's not that clear-cut in this case.

Remember Cersei's comment about Robert only having got her wet on their wedding night. Forcible intercourse thereafter.

HE's point about marital rape not being a category offence outside modern notions that women are people is correct, and relevant to - for instance - Westerosi definitions of rape (where, as has been mentioned, it is clearly a crime, albeit one that's infrequently punished). However, from our perspective, Robert raped Cersei every time he had penetrative sex with her after their wedding night.

[mormont]

The problem here is the phrase "explicit or implicit threat". What SORT of threats are included here?

Well, y'know... threats. Like, when one person threatens another one?

Having sex with the king because you believe it to be your queenly duty to bear an heir, even though you don't want to, is not necessarily being raped by the king. It's a terrible reason for having sex, it's an example of the oppressive patriarchy, and it's probably pretty horrible. But if it's solely the result of social, political or internal factors and not something the king himself did, he's not responsible.

I think we need to be careful where we're going with this. Extending the definition of rape as far as it will go is normally a tactic used to downplay the seriousness of rape. What is your point here and how is it relevant to the topic?

One problem with discussing the legal or moral definitions of rape in a pre-modern society is the definition of consent. (snip legal argument)

Another thing we need to be careful of is a focus on contemporary legal definitions of rape. Again, the relevance of this to the topic isn't all that clear.

Besides, it's clear enough that although raping your wife may not have been illegal in certain historical periods, or in fantasy settings derived from them, it does not follow that no-one considered it wrong. The women certainly did, and do. The fact that they were/are excluded from the kind of power that would allow them to reflect this in the law is no trivial consideration. It is at the heart of why the 'legal argument' is a dead end as far as this discussion goes.

As for the men, to take the ASOIAF example again, there are many examples of occurrences where men clearly consider forced sex wrong even if not illegal. Robert appears to be ashamed of his treatment of Cersei and wants to deny it, even to himself. Tyrion clearly believes that it would be wrong to have sex with Sansa against her will, even absent physical force. One can argue that these attitudes are atypical and not reflective of 'real' medieval mores: but even if true (and I'm not sure we can with any authority say that it is) this is irrelevant to the topic. We're discussing the use of rape in fantasy novels - therefore we're interested in incidents that a modern author writing for a modern reader will understand as rape.

[Wastrel]

One reason they might not appear is that many novels are not actually set in catholic medieval europe, and hence the imposition of specifically european standards is not always appropriate.

The comment about women not having complete rights over consent is an interesting one, but the idea that this was due to a lack of 'personhood' is sadly revisionist nonsense. Even in medieval europe, freeborn women were not the 'property' of either their father or their husband; they were not 'owned'. This comes from the ridiculous need to describe everything that is not full freedom as though it were utter slavery (and, indeed, to describe slavery as though it were the same as being non-human property - true in a small number of slavery systems, but massively erroneous for most). It should also be observed that at the height of the medieval subjugation of women, it only applied to wives and children - and as the average age of female marriage was nearly 30 for most of the period, the idea of being handed from father to husband is simply not true in the slightest (other than for the very highest classes where marriages might be political and hence contracted at earlier ages). Women had reduced rights because they were dependent on men - those women who chose to remain independent retained (most of) their rights.

We are, in any case, talking about quite a short period of time. Women had full legal personhood in the Roman Empire, and likewise among the pagan Saxons; women gradually lost their rights between about 1000 and 1300 AD. After the Black Death, however, most of these legal prejudices were, while not repealed, at least avoided - the fact that wives could not officially own property, for instance, was circumvented by the creation of new "trust" institutions, where property could be legally 'owned' by a third party, beyond the reach of a husband, while the wife retained full legal rights to the use and/or disposal of the property. Women did not descend to their fully subordinate station again until the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (the Victorian nadir which we falsely remember as representative of all of history).

The situation was also very different outside Europe. Egyptian law, for instance, made men and women legally equal, and Islamic law repealled the limits set by Christian Byzantium to return women to full legal personhood, and in some ways legal superiority in marriage rights (women could divorce and claim half the property of their husband, but husbands could not claim the property of their wives). Consequently, in parts of Europe with strong historical Islamic influence (such as Spain and southern Italy), women had considerably more rights than elsewhere, including legal personhood even in marriage.

[i presume that this is what Martin is trying to mirror with the greater political freedom of women in Dorne, compared to the rest of Westeros]

EDIT: also, it's vital to remember that even when women were not legal persons, they were still usually considered moral people

[Wastrel]

Well, y'know... threats. Like, when one person threatens another one?

So threats must be verbal and explicit? Obvious dangerous consequences do not matter?

Personally, I think that if a woman sees a man ask several people for sex, get refused, and then kill them, and then go up to her and proposition her for sex, she is entitled to feel herself under a bit of duress, even, dare I say is, under threat. Even if the man himself has not "threatened her" explicitly. Likewise, I don't see why the fact that the man is going to kill your children, and you, and your lover, if you don't have sex with him, does not count as a situation of threat.

Having sex with the king because you believe it to be your queenly duty to bear an heir, even though you don't want to, is not necessarily being raped by the king. It's a terrible reason for having sex, it's an example of the oppressive patriarchy, and it's probably pretty horrible. But if it's solely the result of social, political or internal factors and not something the king himself did, he's not responsible.

Excuse me - have you even read my earlier posts? I specifically addressed this point earlier on, by observing that there is a confusion arising from the fact that "rape" is traditionally transitive, but that synonyms of it are not. I think that whether "being raped" implies that there was a "rapist" is an open question. If it does imply that, whether the "rapist" is necessarily the person having sex with the victim is also an open question (as the paradox raised by another poster illustrates).

I think we need to be careful where we're going with this. Extending the definition of rape as far as it will go is normally a tactic used to downplay the seriousness of rape. What is your point here and how is it relevant to the topic?

Darn! You discovered my nefarious plan. Yes, obviously, the only reason I could be interested in the complexities of free will and coercion and morality and legality is CLEARLY my secret desire to legalise, and indeed promote, the institutionalised rape of every woman and child in the land. In other news, I also eat kittens.

Meanwhile, however, using the phrase "I think we need to be careful" is normally a tactic employed by paedophiles and serial killers to get themselves elected Dictator of central european countries. What exactly is your point here, and isn't it ultimately relevant to your desire to massacre the Jews? Also, is it not true that you're only posting this to make it less believable that your hobby is impaling babies on spikes while selling puppies to illicit medical research centres?

I mean, I know that none of this is really actually explicit in, you know, anything that you've actually really said, but hey, there's nothing wrong with objections based on dubious extrapolations of undeclared hidden purposes, is there?

[Jaak]

And where's the widespread sexual abuse of daughters! In England, as late as the nineteenth century (in rural areas), daughters were expected to 'replace' their mother in her household chores if their mother died, and 'caring for' the father was included in those duties. In less the less enlightened times of the Greeks and Romans, the head of the family could go and bally well penetrate whichever memeber of his household he wanted as part of his due payment for protecting and feeding them all.

A reality check here.

Before mid-20th century, and the spread of birth control devices, condoms and acceptance of oral and anal sex, sex meant babies. Of course not each sex act, but often.

The statistics of births, conceptions and bastards exist for 17th to 19th centuries. And there were incentives for the mothers to name the fathers, and fathers to deny if they reasonably could.

Daughters were not getting pregnant nearly as often as wives. And when they did, it was usually outside family. Courtship/dating activities with loosely worded promises of eventual marriage that often were followed up (births within first nine months of marriage were common) and often were not.

No doubt sometimes incest happened, and the result ended up as unidentified father, or a wrong person blamed for pregnancy. But there simply is no place in the statistics to hide widespread incest.

[mormont]

So threats must be verbal and explicit?

Not at all. It's the source of the pressure I was making a distinction about: internal, social, political, or stemming from the other party's actions/behaviour/attitudes etc.

If you're saying you think it's hard to distinguish threats from an individual from broad social expectations, I'd say you are trying to make a clear distinction blurry. And I don't really understand why, other than for the intellectual exercise of the thing. What's the relevance to the topic?

Excuse me - have you even read my earlier posts? I specifically addressed this point earlier on, by observing that there is a confusion arising from the fact that "rape" is traditionally transitive, but that synonyms of it are not. I think that whether "being raped" implies that there was a "rapist" is an open question. If it does imply that, whether the "rapist" is necessarily the person having sex with the victim is also an open question (as the paradox raised by another poster illustrates).

I think this is nonsense and again, reads like someone approaching this discussion as an intellectual exercise. Does being assaulted not imply that someone assaulted you? Does being robbed not imply that someone robbed you? Rape is a crime against the person. If you've been raped, someone raped you.

I have no idea which 'paradox' you're referring to, but if a third party coerces you into having sex with a person (assuming that person doesn't know you're unwilling) that is still different than generalised social or political pressure. It wouldn't count as rape to my mind, either, but blackmail or sexual abuse. In any case it's an abstruse point of little relevance to the topic.

Darn! You discovered my nefarious plan. Yes, obviously, the only reason I could be interested in the complexities of free will and coercion and morality and legality is CLEARLY my secret desire to legalise, and indeed promote, the institutionalised rape of every woman and child in the land. In other news, I also eat kittens.

Climb down off the cross there and knock off the mind-reading bullshit. I asked a simple question, that's all. I notice you didn't answer it. (I also notice your attempts to be funny are rather weak.)

[Wastrel]

Not funny? I'm so hurt...

Not going to reply line by line, but some points:

- I don't understand how a man could say that his comrade is speaking 'nonsense', when he admits to not having followed the conversation up to that point - particularly when he SIMPLY says that it is nonsense, without any serious reasoning as to why. [You give a reason why rape must be ontologically transitive, but that does not make arguments to the contrary nonsense. What's more, your argument makes no sense. The fact that robbery is transitive is unrelated to whether rape is. The fact that rape is a crime is neither relevant nor given - we can only say that all rape is a crime if we adopt a narrow legalistic interpretation of rape that does not match our ordinary language or intuitions, and which your yourself warned against. If you really need grammatical analogues to the idea that "I've been raped" does not require an identifiable rapist, try "I've been deceived" - you can be deceived without any individual being, singularly, guilty of deceit - the situation you find yourself in can be, as it were, systematically deceitful without blame being able to be pinned on any individual. Arguably "I've been cheated"; certainly "I've been forced to [X]", which seems more directly parallel to rape than robbery is.]

- I'm particularly perplexed by both your 'the crime implies a criminal' attitude AND by your 'stop making abstruse points' attitude, in light of your attempt to distinguish fundamentally between "being sexually abused" and "being raped". If "being sexually abused" doesn't require an abuser, why does "being raped" require a rapist? And paradoxes of free will and moral questions about the punishment of rape are "abstruse points of little relevence", how is making this distinction of yours any more relevant, or any less abstruse?

- I am not trying to "make a clear distinction blurry"; I am trying to suggest that what may appear to you now to be 'clear' has instead been blurry all along; or at least that it's worth investigating to see whether or not it is blurry. Or rather: the fact that it is not as clear as you believe it to be is evidenced on this very thread by the number of posters who have different interpretations of where exactly this 'clear' line is; I am attempting to explore reasons for these differences. This may lead us to think that the line is blurry - or, equally possible, it may lead us to find where the line is, and realise that it was clear all along, and that some people had merely mis-seen it. I do not see why this sort of exploration of difference is a bad thing.

- I also don't understand the antipathy to intellect: this idea that by default we must accept without question, and must have some ulterior motive to consider things more deeply. Why am I daring to think about questions of morality? Well, why aren't you daring to? If you want to imply nefarious designs on my part for not taking the traditional word as read, what are YOUR ulterior motives for rejecting any consideration of traditional moral values? [Leaving aside the fact that it is far from clear that your lines ARE the traditional, accepted lines, or even that there have ever been any clear, accepted lines.] Note also that merely thinking about things does not imply rejecting them - it is possible to believe a moral precept with our eyes open and our intellect "exercised". We do not have to simply bellyfeel all our Values. Not every exercise of the intellect is merely intellectual exercise - any more than all physical labour is physical exercise. The mind can build up and tear down its own walls, and this is not an inherently valueless activity.

- Yes, this is an intellectual exercise. Unforgivably, demonically, I am engaging in a conversation that examines preconceptions our of an entirely "intellectual" desire to come more closely to the truth of the matter. I make no apology for this. I am alive; what else would I be doing with my time? Any dumb animal can kill a sheep and eat it, or have sex with something, or go for a run; the intellect is what makes us human.

- What do you expect us to be doing here, if not engaging in "intellectual exercise"? So far as I know, this is not a forum of lawmakers - we are not attempting to legislate. So far as I know, nobody is taking this consideration of rape in literature as the basis for any personal decisions whether or not to rape their wife. We aren't doing anything. We're just talking and thinking, and talking about what we're thinking - an entirely "intellectual" exercise, I'm afraid. But if you hold that against me, you should hold it against every poster here, and in every thread. Certainly, anything in a sub-forum devoted to discussing literature! What on earth else would we be doing here other than intellectual exercise? We're not writing literature in this forum, only thinking about it, in a way and to an extent entirely unnecessary for most good practical purposes.

- "Intellectual exercise", even if it accomplishes nothing, are in any case no more without value than wasteful, purposeless physical exercise is. Intellectual exercises are how we exercise our intellects, and keep them from getting fat and weak and flabby and excessively passive.

- Please be clear: when you accuse me of irrelevancy, is that another threat from a mod, or is it just bafflement on the part of a poster? If the former, I think it's highly inappropriate that you try to silence dissenting voices by threats of this kind. If the latter: well, the response to being baffled by a conversation between other people is to stay out of it. I have been replying to others, and others have been replying to me, as though we were having a conversation - either we must all be ejected from the thread as irrelevant, or none of us must be.

- You didn't ask a simple question, you asked a leading question, which did not become less leading by being spread over two adjacent sentences. I retorted by following where you lead, and by asking a leading question in turn.

- On a simple vocabulary point: "abstruse" means difficult to understand, or recondite (which in turn means profound, deep, beyond ordinary knowledge, or dealing with a difficult subject matter) - with an archaic sense of something hidden or secret. I'm quite content to be lauded by people saying I'm making an abstruse point. If the point weren't abstruse, it would be obvious already and not worth bringing out into the light. Elucidating the abstruse is basically the purpose of intellect...

[mormont]

- I don't understand how a man could say that his comrade is speaking 'nonsense', when he admits to not having followed the conversation up to that point

What are you talking about? Who is your comrade? Me? I don't even know you. When did I admit to not following the conversation?

The fact that robbery is transitive is unrelated to whether rape is.

They're both crimes against the person. You did read where I wrote that?

If you really need grammatical analogues to the idea that "I've been raped" does not require an identifiable rapist, try "I've been deceived" - you can be deceived without any individual being, singularly, guilty of deceit

No, you can't. If no-one has deceived you, you are mistaken, not deceived. We do sometimes loosely speak of situations or things 'deceiving' us, but this is simply a figure of speech. I am in any case not buying the silly grammatical argument. I am discussing reality, not language. (And I don't feel the need to toss around the word 'ontology' to do so, though I assure you I'm perfectly capable of having the same discussion in abstruse philosophical terms.)

If "being sexually abused" doesn't require an abuser

It does.

And paradoxes of free will and moral questions about the punishment of rape are "abstruse points of little relevence", how is making this distinction of yours any more relevant, or any less abstruse?

It's not, as I already said. It's a side issue of no import.

- I am not trying to "make a clear distinction blurry"; I am trying to suggest that what may appear to you now to be 'clear' has instead been blurry all along

All this says is that you don't agree the distinction is clear. You don't have any arguments that show this. Nor has anyone else suggested that rape can include sex for reasons of duty, IIRC. And you still have not explained how any of this relates to the topic.

I also don't understand the antipathy to intellect

:lol: Getting back on the cross again? Oh, please.

If you want to imply nefarious designs on my part for not taking the traditional word as read

Bizarre. When have I done this? You seem to think that being asked to clarify your point is a subtle attack.

The mind can build up and tear down its own walls, and this is not an inherently valueless activity.

No indeed. But, and I may now be labouring the point, what was your point in regards to the topic of the thread? If you're just blowing air, say so.

- What do you expect us to be doing here, if not engaging in "intellectual exercise"?

Discussing the topic. I only asked if you had a point that was relevant to it. I didn't ask for a lengthy screed stuffed with pretentious waffle and salted with mild paranoia. Sadly, that was what I got, instead of an answer. Two words would have sufficed: 'not really'.

[Arthmail]

Discussing the topic. I only asked if you had a point that was relevant to it. I didn't ask for a lengthy screed stuffed with pretentious waffle and salted with mild paranoia. Sadly, that was what I got, instead of an answer. Two words would have sufficed: 'not really'.

This. Wastrel, in your need to throw around your second year philosophy class, you've gone and missed the boat.

[Liadin]

Wastrel, I believe the reason Mormont took issue with your treatment of rape is that a couple of your posts defined it to be so broad as to be meaningless. You even suggested that maybe Robert was being raped because it wasn't really Cersei he wanted to have sex with. Under that conception of the term, no long-term relationship would be rape-free, because there are going to be times when one partner isn't in the mood, but agrees to make the other happy/maintain harmony in the relationship. But "reluctant consensual sex, minus any threat or force" isn't rape, and the effect of defining it that way tends to make the situation worse for real rape victims.

At any rate, it's a thread-derailment.

The historically stable definition of rape is that it is intercourse without consent of the victim’s owner, this being typically the father or the husband of the rape victim.

I would be careful about this. "History" isn't a monolith. It's composed of hundreds of thousands (at least) of vastly different cultures and legal structures, with a wide variety of attitudes, legal and otherwise, toward rape. As far as contemporary literatures goes, though, it's accurate to say "rape was considered bad in medieval times" even in cases where it was a crime in terms of the woman's father/husband rather than herself.

In fantasy literature, which largely is meant to appeal to a modern audience, often female, these concepts seldom appear. Just as we seldom see nice people hit their children. I find that utterly unremarkable, since our psychology tempts us to mistake description for endorsement.

To be fair to the literature, you're discussing the legal definition of rape and redress for it. I don't think fantasy authors portray that inaccurately; very rarely in fantasy literature are any legal proceedings carried out (and when they are, they're usually a sham). If a rapist is punished, it's usually through extralegal means--ie, somebody murders him.

Come to think of it, in Westeros, I can't recall ever being told what the legal penalty for rape would be, if there is such a penalty. Instead we see that it happens, and how the people involved feel about it, and to me that seems very accurate--even if rape is a crime in terms of the woman's relatives rather than herself, that doesn't mean she wouldn't react to it emotionally in the way that women are portrayed as reacting.

[Returned]

I would be careful about this. "History" isn't a monolith. It's composed of hundreds of thousands (at least) of vastly different cultures and legal structures, with a wide variety of attitudes, legal and otherwise, toward rape. As far as contemporary literatures goes, though, it's accurate to say "rape was considered bad in medieval times" even in cases where it was a crime in terms of the woman's father/husband rather than herself.

I agree with this. Also in my eyes the definition of rape is when copulation finds place that is RESISTED by the victim, not mentally but physically as well to the best of one's abilities. Unless such resistance would result in serious injury or death to the victim. of course.