Rape in fiction

[Shryke]

3) The Prince of Nothing books have been mentioned upthread, and legitimately so IMO. There's a prurient edge to its treatment of sexual abuse, which is partly as prevalent a theme as it is because of plot contrivances carefully set up to put it centre stage (of which the worst is the Consult, whose fiendish creations are inspired by the immoralities of Aliens From Outer Space Who Really Like to Do The Nasty).

You think PoN contains examples of Rape meant to titillate? :shocked:

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

3) The Prince of Nothing books have been mentioned upthread, and legitimately so IMO. There's a prurient edge to its treatment of sexual abuse, which is partly as prevalent a theme as it is because of plot contrivances carefully set up to put it centre stage (of which the worst is the Consult, whose fiendish creations are inspired by the immoralities of Aliens From Outer Space Who Really Like to Do The Nasty).

I don't want to make it into another Bakker thread, but I also find this opinion rather strange. In Bakker's books even consensual sex is usually described as sordid and offputting - and non consensual sex far more so. He is, IMHO, as far from prurient as any author can get and still have explicit sex scenes.

[Red Sun]

At the risk of a total threadjack: Piers Anthony :o

That said, good post SRoD. Welcome to the boards. Another book that has serious issues with what you're describing is The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. I think the author probably meant well, trying to not shy away with the realities of what someone in that situation would endure, but a poor execution nonetheless.

Yeah, I liked that book very much, but I found the tropes surrounding the Wind-up girl herself very problematic. It was probably worse, because I listened to the audiobook, read by the male reader who took an extra effort in making her chapters sound "sweet".

[Datepalm]

I don't want to make it into another Bakker thread, but I also find this opinion rather strange. In Bakker's books even consensual sex is usually described as sordid and offputting - and non consensual sex far more so. He is, IMHO, as far from prurient as any author can get and still have explicit sex scenes.

I don't want to get into PoN either, mostly becuase i've only read Darkness, and that was years ago and poorly remebered - but what I really do remember are the sex scenes that are described as sordid, but I absoloutely thought were meant to be titillating in a victorian, outraged sort of way. "oh isn't it awful what he's doing to her again and again and again in multiple positions." So without making any particular argument about the entirety of PoN, I do think there was a lot more mileage drawn out of those scenes than realism or plot.

[Shryke]

I don't want to get into PoN either, mostly becuase i've only read Darkness, and that was years ago and poorly remebered - but what I really do remember are the sex scenes that are described as sordid, but I absoloutely thought were meant to be titillating in a victorian, outraged sort of way. "oh isn't it awful what he's doing to her again and again and again in multiple positions." So without making any particular argument about the entirety of PoN, I do think there was a lot more mileage drawn out of those scenes than realism or plot.

I honestly can't think of anything like that in the first book.

[Datepalm]

I honestly can't think of anything like that in the first book.

The two i'm stuck with is one relatively towards the beginning when Esme is raped (I think. I remeber she was something like brainwashed and maybe she thought he was a client, so i'm not sure.) by one of the supernatural type bad guys, and another towards the end where she has sex with some guy in an alley for a reason I never quite figured out. I vaugely recall scenes with Serwe too that were very offputting.

Like I said, I don't remember any of this well enough to argue what it was meant to represent or what, but those are pretty much the only thing I remember from the book, becuase they were so incredibly uncomfortable to read - and not in the good sense of the word uncomfortable. I'm just trying to illustrate mileage varies on whether those scenes had a titillating element to them or not.

[Shryke]

The two i'm stuck with is one relatively towards the beginning when Esme is raped (I think. I remeber she was something like brainwashed and maybe she thought he was a client, so i'm not sure.) by one of the supernatural type bad guys, and another towards the end where she has sex with some guy in an alley for a reason I never quite figured out. I vaugely recall scenes with Serwe too that were very offputting.

Like I said, I don't remember any of this well enough to argue what it was meant to represent or what, but those are pretty much the only thing I remember from the book, becuase they were so incredibly uncomfortable to read - and not in the good sense of the word uncomfortable. I'm just trying to illustrate mileage varies on whether those scenes had a titillating element to them or not.

The first one is MEANT to be disturbing, not titillating, as she is being raped but the thing doing it is making her sexually aroused essentially against her will. And that's kind of the thing in PoN. Pretty much all of the sex scenes are meant to be disturbing (or serve some other purpose, although those tend also to be meant to be disturbing anyway).

The second one I've never understood either to be honest.

[Datepalm]

The first one is MEANT to be disturbing, not titillating, as she is being raped but the thing doing it is making her sexually aroused essentially against her will. And that's kind of the thing in PoN. Pretty much all of the sex scenes are meant to be disturbing (or serve some other purpose, although those tend also to be meant to be disturbing anyway).

The second one I've never understood either to be honest.

I thought it might have been interesting, in terms of how she internalized her own objectification and worth as a person only as a woman who can get men to have sex with her...or something. I would have needed to care about her for that to work. :dunno:

WRT to the first one - I see what it was supposed to be, I just think that while doing that - it was also titillating. It ciriticised the situation, but also dove into it. Maybe its impossible to write a sex scene where a woman is raped yet forced to enjoy it without it looking like an old schoolteacher flipping through a confiscated playboy, maybe its possible for a different writer in a dfferent book in a different scene. But not for me and not in this one. It was unpleasant to read, and I don't think it was in the way the author intended.

[Shryke]

I thought it might have been interesting, in terms of how she internalized her own objectification and worth as a person only as a woman who can get men to have sex with her...or something. I would have needed to care about her for that to work. :dunno:

Maybe. It's as good an explanation as any I've ever heard.

Happy Ent might have some ideas. I'm sure he'll drift at some point and hook his curling tendrils into this discussion.

WRT to the first one - I see what it was supposed to be, I just think that while doing that - it was also titillating. It ciriticised the situation, but also dove into it. Maybe its impossible to write a sex scene where a woman is raped yet forced to enjoy it without it looking like an old schoolteacher flipping through a confiscated playboy, maybe its possible for a different writer in a dfferent book in a different scene. But not for me and not in this one. It was unpleasant to read, and I don't think it was in the way the author intended.

/shrug

It's told from her POV so maybe it's supposed to be almost titillating and disturbing.

I didn't find it much beyond "fucked up".

[Datepalm]

It's told from her POV so maybe it's supposed to be almost titillating and disturbing.

which just brings us right back to why authors are doing what they're doing when they're sticking rape scenes in their books.

(I thought it was meant to be tittilating deliberately to illustrate some deeper point, becuase I thought there was going to be more nuance to the characterization of all the involved parties than there turned out to be. but that tension in the scene ended up not really leading anywhere, or just melding into the general tittilatingly disturbed tone of the whole book without actually doing anything except being tittilating and disturbing, but thats me way out of depth without a re-read. over and out. )

[Shryke]

which just brings us right back to why authors are doing what they're doing when they're sticking rape scenes in their books.

(I thought it was meant to be tittilating deliberately to illustrate some deeper point, becuase I thought there was going to be more nuance to the characterization of all the involved parties than there turned out to be. but that tension in the scene ended up not really leading anywhere, or just melding into the general tittilatingly disturbed tone of the whole book without actually doing anything except being tittilating and disturbing, but thats me way out of depth without a re-read. over and out. )

It's been ages since I read the scene. Akka does know SOMEONE will be coming after him and tells her to "give him whatever he wants" because he doesn't want her getting hurt trying to protect him. She decides to "play the whore" (as I believe she puts it) and sell Akka for money but then the whole thing gets kinda twisted around and I'd probably need to reread that section to get the subtler point to the whole affair.

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

On the PoN books, the poster-with-the-Cyrillic-username gets at what I mean. Mileage does indeed vary with regard to what precisely is "titillating" -- it's fair to say most of the PoN scenes would fall outside the mainstream definitions of sexy -- but they all tend to manifest indulgence-by-way-of-outrage and to draw attention to the fact that the whole mythos is carefully (and in some ways almost absurdly) rigged so that the plot, and the character developments necessary to the plot, can revolve around those themes. He goes to much greater lengths to get that stuff, titillating or not, into frame than he needs to.

Now, Bakker is more sophisticated about this than, say, Piers Anthony -- he's making a point about the literal reality of certain Freudian conjectures, and perhaps positing a world in which sex itself is more "objectively" sinful than our own -- but sophisticated skeeviness is still skeeviness. There's plenty of philosophically-sophisticated fiction that doesn't feel the need to jury-rig its setting in order to enable maximum possible amounts of plot-significant rape.

(EDIT: To go back to my original post for a second: while I did say that "sexing up" rape is an indicator of skeeviness, I should be clear, and I wasn't clear enough, that it isn't the only indicator. I used homophobic literature as a comparative example not because the people involved think they're describing anything titillating, but rather because they often describe their DISGUST WITH THAT AWFUL BUSINESS in telling detail... and because they can't shut up about it. Example. And I'm not saying this means R. Scott Bakker = Dick Hafer, just that I can see why that aspect of his work skeeves people out.)

[Happy Ent]

The second one I've never understood either to be honest.

Well, as somebody remarked once, Bakker’s whore with a heart of gold is actually a whore. That scene show us.

(Somebody else even had a feminist perspective on it, because that scene demonstrates that Esmi has agency in her fornication—at the time she has hooked up with the thing called Sarcellus, and is beginning to distance herself from him, which, being Esmi, she expresses sexually. I’m not a fan of that kind of rhetoric, but I’ll put it out there anyway.)

The scene never worked for me.

As for the first scene (alien rape of magically consenting victim), I thought that was well done, and very disturbing. I do believe that Bakker almost systematically has checked all possible dimensions of rape with regards to motivation, sex and age (and indeed species) of the involved parties, various degrees of consent, degree of conclusion, domination involved, etc. Very few of them are described in any detail at all, few are arousing (maybe with the exception of when a former concubine seduces a balding magician) or emotionally satisfying (maybe with the exception of the Aspect Emperor’s dinner with the weeper). Some are pure and gut-wrenching outrage. Most deal with his favourite themes of domination and self-rationalisation. I think Bakker gets a lot of different aspects out of this theme.

In fact, the entire major theme of the work is abstracted in single, implied violation at the very beginning of the book.

Spoiler

One night the Bard caught the boy. He caressed first his cheek and then his thigh. “Forgive me,” he muttered over and over, but tears fell only from his blind eye. “There are no crimes,” he mumbled afterward, “when no one is left alive.”

Most people see a rape here (including me), but the interesting thing is that the last sentence distills the essence of the metaphysics (and therefore, morals) of Bakker’s world, Eärwa. More generally, Bakker is very much interested in the psychological mechanism for control, domination, and abandon that are hard-wired into our cognitive facilities, so rape is an important part of his thematic tapestry.

[Shryke]

On the PoN books, the poster-with-the-Cyrillic-username gets at what I mean. Mileage does indeed vary with regard to what precisely is "titillating" -- it's fair to say most of the PoN scenes would fall outside the mainstream definitions of sexy -- but they all tend to manifest indulgence-by-way-of-outrage and to draw attention to the fact that the whole mythos is carefully (and in some ways almost absurdly) rigged so that the plot, and the character developments necessary to the plot, can revolve around those themes. He goes to much greater lengths to get that stuff, titillating or not, into frame than he needs to.

Now, Bakker is more sophisticated about this than, say, Piers Anthony -- he's making a point about the literal reality of certain Freudian conjectures, and perhaps positing a world in which sex itself is more "objectively" sinful than our own -- but sophisticated skeeviness is still skeeviness. There's plenty of philosophically-sophisticated fiction that doesn't feel the need to jury-rig its setting in order to enable maximum possible amounts of plot-significant rape.

It's not "jury-rigged" though. The metaphysics are themselves part of the works theme. And that theme, as HE points out, is tied into domination and sex in many ways

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

More generally, Bakker is very much interested in the psychological mechanism for control, domination, and abandon that are hard-wired into our cognitive facilities, so rape is an important part of his thematic tapestry.

I think this is accurate. I also think it's why I don't much care for Bakker's approach to this particular material: I find it facile to boil down control, domination, self-rationalization and abandon so easily to Sex and therefore find it gratuitous that rape/sexual abuse looms so large in that particular thematic tapestry. (The working-in of incest in the latest novel is, if anything, worse.)

In terms of prose styling I may be doing him a disservice to suggest that he's obsessed with "detail" in regards to this stuff, at least as regards blow-by-blow-so-to-speak detail. He is actually quite good at conveying it by subtle gesture, as the quoted passage you provide illustrates. But his thematic obsession with it is still a problem for me.

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

It's not "jury-rigged" though. The metaphysics are themselves part of the works theme.

Your objection does not seem relevant. Choice of theme is no more neutral than any other choice made in a work of fiction.

[Shryke]

Your objection does not seem relevant. Choice of theme is no more neutral than any other choice made in a work of fiction.

Of course it's relevant. The very fact that you used the word "jury-rigged" implies that the author deliberately changed the theme or story or whatever to add those scenes in. Like Scott say there and though "Man, there's just not enough rape going on in this book. Maybe if I changed the nature of the enemy in it, I could add more".

And even if you remove the term "jury-rigged" we have you instead advocating that "You can't make books about this subject or with this theme!".

[Ser Robert of Dobolina]

Of course it's relevant. The very fact that you used the word "jury-rigged" implies that the author deliberately changed the theme or story or whatever to add those scenes in.

Or that the author specifically chose the theme in order to have the scenes. Which I think is fairly obvious, without having to go into any conjecture about his specific thought-process. Some of this boils down to basic differences in outlook: Bakker sees this theme as genuinely profound and interesting, whereas I mostly don't, so I find it less forgiveable than I would if I agreed with him.

And even if you remove the term "jury-rigged" we have you instead advocating that "You can't make books about this subject or with this theme!".

I didn't say anyone "can't make" anything. I'm not about to go over to Bakker's house with a shotgun and demand that he refrain from writing about X. I did say that the subject and theme is highly sensitive for perfectly understandable reasons, and that readers reacting negatively to both have every right to do so, and that that reaction cannot just be dismissed as ridiculous or oversensitive. I'm happy to stand by that... unless you want to get into proscribing reader reactions?

[Shryke]

What's wrong with proscribing reader reactions?

If someone watched Schindler's List and came away thinking it was a hilarious romantic comedy about the inability of Nazi's to properly set up a systematic genocide, I'd call them a fucking idiot.

[MinDonner]

What's wrong with proscribing reader reactions?

If someone watched Schindler's List and came away thinking it was a hilarious romantic comedy about the inability of Nazi's to properly set up a systematic genocide, I'd call them a fucking idiot.

Yes, but if Spielberg had intended it to be a hilarious romantic comedy, he couldn't subsequently complain about viewers thinking it was about genocide. :dunno: