Gratuitous Rape in Fantasy novels

[Kissmequick]

Coming back to the original post, I have to admit I haven't read many books with rape as a major event, but I get the impression that the blog linked to is talking about contemporary-set fantasy (UF? YA?) and a rape that affects the protagonist, not something like GRRM where the rape is often a side-event and just one symptom of the brutalising effects of war*.

I've (unfortunately) read way too much - while I've used it (well, implied it - it's never outright stated what happened to her in the past) once out of all my many characters, for some writers it seems like the only way a woman can be motivated to kcik butt or be strong... I hesitate to say they may have other reasons to include it, but if all your females end up that way....well, it's going to look odd. At best. Especially if you go into glorious technicolour detail about it, but your consensual sex scenes of the victim afterwards (which should be just as important characterwise if she is recovering from her experiences with the Hero) are all coy and 'Oh, boobie!' followed by a fade to black*.

A UF author (can't recall which off the top of my head, I'll try to find out) recently said she was asked when - not IF, WHEN - her female protag would get raped in the series, because, well, it was a given, right? That just boggles my mind....



*Let's not get me started on the Hero who can instantly cure a woman of her rape experience with his manly manly man love. Ugh.

 

[allmywires]

I've read Lord of the Rings, does that help?

Lotsa rape in that one...

 

[Mouse]

Lotsa rape in that one...

Like uh... Saruman's rape on... the environment?

 

[Ursa major]

Just looking at the first two examples, the Gor series and the Conan series: the first sounds downright awful and the second is a series of adventures** set in a non-technological world.

It strikes me that while the Conan stories are not antediluvian, except with regards to their setting, those Gor stories sound as if they are, and so are not manly under any modern definition. (What's manly about rape, bullying and persecution?)




** - As it happens, I've read the book, The Complete Chronicles of Conan.

 

[Anne Lyle]

Especially if you go into glorious technicolour detail about it, but your consensual sex scenes of the victim afterwards (which should be just as important characterwise if she is recovering from her experiences with the Hero) are all coy and 'Oh, boobie!' followed by a fade to black*.

This. Very much this.

One of the reasons I write on-the-page sex scenes rather than fade-to-black is I think the genre needs more (non-graphic) consensual sex, as a balance

A UF author (can't recall which off the top of my head, I'll try to find out) recently said she was asked when - not IF, WHEN - her female protag would get raped in the series, because, well, it was a given, right? That just boggles my mind....

It was Seanan McGuire - I remember the blog post very clearly. And yes...WTF? This is painfully indicative of the prevalence of rape as a trope in urban fantasy.

Epic fantasy - and modern swords'n'sorcery - is mostly pretty tame by comparison, thank goodness.

 

[Hex]

I've read a couple of Gor books (including the marvellous Slave Girl of Gor), I think I read some of the Sword of Truth and the first 6 or so of The Wheel of Time, I read and loved with complete passion the first three books of the Drenai series. I've read most of the Thomas Covenants and, obviously, The Lord of the Rings.

I don't have a problem with "manly" fantasy. Legend was one of my favourite books (though I haven't read it for years so it may not be as wonderful as I remember), I thought Abercrombie's first trilogy was pretty manly as well.

The icky thing about the Gor books is the theme that all women (except those who are weird in some way) want to be controlled by powerful men who can dominate them physically, chain them up and make all the decisions so the women don't need to bother their pretty little heads about difficult things like, you know, thinking. I haven't read Fifty Shades but I sometimes wonder how different it is.

One thing I have to say in defence of the Gor books (and that's a phrase I never expected to write) is that they're so plainly ridiculous male wish fullfilment, harking back to a (non-existent) time when women knew their place, that they can't be taken seriously.

(EDIT: and just to be completely clear, I don't think all men fantasise about this sort of thing and I'm sure some women do).

 

[Brian G Turner]

Interesting how many of this list's 'manly fantasy novels' seem to involve rape - anyone who's read these, any comments?

Seems more a complaint about lack of female presence in "classic" fantasy.

Apparently, the romance genre has far more problems, with rape tropes as established:
http://dearauthor.com/features/letters-of-opinion/sexual-force-and-reader-consent-in-romance/

 

[R.P. Soon]

(A little warning. Trying not to keep this graphic, but... subject matter *shrug*.)

My thoughts. Probably unpopular ones. Through my work, I've been around a lot of women who've been raped. Most of them, in conversation, treat it very casually. It happened, they accepted it, they moved on with their lives. How quickly depended on several factors including how severe/violent their circumstances were.

In my own experience, rape is not the worst thing that can be done to a person, especially nonviolent rape. If someone you know just pins you down and has their way with you, and you've already been through hell and back, I at least found myself internally sighing and thinking, "This is very rude, right here. Now I'm going to need to get STD testing. And I'm going to need to get the plan B pill so I don't get pregnant..."

I didn't even bother to tell anyone about it, not because I was ashamed, but because I just didn't consider it to be a rape. Yeah, I was pinned down and hurt so bad I screamed a lot and went to that nice happy place I go when I'm in loads of pain.

But, I don't consider myself scarred or ruined by it. I remember some time afterward, I told someone about this really rude thing a guy did on a date, and they informed me that I'd been raped. There was a moment where that horror crept up, the idea that women who are raped are supposed to be scarred for life and all that. And then I dismissed it, because, honestly, there are so many worse things that have happened to me.

It's been five years now, and if one you tells me you're sorry about what happened to me, I'm going to laugh at you and tell you you missed the whole point.

As a writer, think about your characters. Rape affects each individual differently. If they're already a hardened badass, they're gonna be pissed, but might be just fine. If they're a sweet, innocent virgin, they're gonna be pretty shaken up about it, possibly suicidal. But maybe they're a sweet, innocent virgin with a lion's share of bravery. Who knows? Maybe it's a hardened badass, but he/she gets the crap beaten out of him/her and needs to be hospitalized due of the extent of the damage. PTSD special.

The thing I see many times when authors/readers approach rape, is their tendency to assume it can only be done one way. If the rape you read doesn't match your own experience or the experience of your friend, or what you read in a textbook once, it's possible the author wasn't researching very much, but it's equally possible their character was just a completely different person living in completely different circumstances than your friend or the textbook case you read once.

(I apologize if this post angers anyone. It was not intended.)

 

[Warren_Paul]

Anyhow, the thread issue is about the prevalence of rape in fantasy -- but is it also prevalent in SF does anyone know?

I've not read enough SF fiction to know of any cases, but there is a movie that comes to mind. Gamer. VR games has pretty much taken over the world, but instead of controlling imaginary characters, the players control real people who are put in the game as characters because of debts or criminal charges and such. One such person is a woman who is controlled by a man and forced to do sexual acts against her will.

Also, I wonder why rape is so easily used in fiction -- does it have to do with the belief that it's the worst thing that can happen to a woman? or is it to do with a truly pure woman obviously not wanting to have sex, ever, so one way to keep her "pure" in the author's eyes is to have her raped (that's so twisted), or is it actually supposed to be sexual fantasy (which is significantly worse)?

I'm afraid there is actually people who write stories about rape because of sexual fantasy... ugh... for statistical purposes, just did a count of the number of stories posted on a popular site for posting up erotic fiction, and there were 4000 stories about rape as a sexual fantasy, 8 posted today alone. That's really disturbing.

But for most cases I suspect it's like guys mentioning breasts to tell the reader that the character is female - I know, guilty - and suspect it most likely is more to do with them wanting something terrible to happen to the character and rape just happens to be the thing that quickly comes to mind, just like breasts quickly come to mind when describing a female character.

Plus, I also wonder how much authors investigate violence and the effects of war on people -- really research rather than just imagine it.

AND would having a story about real war actually be one you'd want to read?

Yes and no. Isn't there a trend for people to want more believable stories? So if making it more believable means making it feel like a real war... then those things are going to happen. I don't think people - or at least most people - want to read about rape but considering it was so prevalent, then if the author is writing historical fiction, or at least in a world that is based on a country from reality, then to make it realistic they might think they are obligated to include it for the sake of realism. I'm sure this is the case for GRRM.

In regards to if they research it or not... no idea.

I read the scene at a writers' group and a book club and the reaction was overwhelming positive, but feel free to tell me I shouldn't have included all the detail.

It's really subjective. I don't think you shouldn't have included it, as long as it accurately represents the situation and is dealt with properly.

There is another kind of fantasy rape fiction that was much more common a couple decades ago than today. That of the strong, usually warrior woman, constantly being overpowered by stronger men who "have their way". And although she is always an unwilling participant, her body "betrays" her and she loses herself into the experience.

As you labelled them, those are sexual fantasy, deliberately written for titillation and arousal. I find them highly disturbing, as it says a lot about the author, reading those books. And yes, it's scary how many novels that have rape with no emotional consequences are written by women, so it's not just men who have issues with writing about rape.

 

[Mouse]

...rape is not the worst thing that can be done to a person...

I'd agree with that. I can't remember who said it here (sorry) that it'd be worse to be raped than lose a parent. Just... no.

And I've said it before on this thread, probably more than once, but every person is different.

 

[Hex]

My thoughts. Probably unpopular ones. Through my work, I've been around a lot of women who've been raped. Most of them, in conversation, treat it very casually. It happened, they accepted it, they moved on with their lives. How quickly depended on several factors including how severe/violent their circumstances were....

(I apologize if this post angers anyone. It was not intended.)

Actually, this was one of the points I was sort of trying to make (but not very well). You made it much better than I did. Thank you

And one of the weird things about the original article was a perfectly rational-sounding and sensible commenter wrote in the comments that she'd rather die than be raped. Everyone is different but some of the ideas about rape, which are reflected back at us by some stories (and yes, I accept they're about a historical world when things were different) are more to do with an insane and outdated version of sexual purity than with any sort of reality or any kind of society I'd want to be part of.

 

[The Judge]

I can't remember who said it here (sorry) that it'd be worse to be raped than lose a parent. Just... no.

Um... well, that rather depends on the parent, doesn't it? Not everyone has a good relationship with either parent, let alone both, and for some the parent's death can't come too quickly.

The other thing to remember about writing scenes like this, though, is that no matter how real something may be, if it doesn't read as real it will fail. A couple of years back I saw a play that involved a family get-together when the mother is forced to acknowledge her husband's sexual abuse of their children. A friend who saw it with me, and who works in that field, thought the mother's reaction realistic, whereas to me in the context of the play, it read as false and I couldn't believe any of it.

 

[Mouse]

Um... well, that rather depends on the parent, doesn't it? Not everyone has a good relationship with either parent, let alone both, and for some the parent's death can't come too quickly.

Well all right.

 

[Warren_Paul]

My thoughts. Probably unpopular ones. Through my work, I've been around a lot of women who've been raped. Most of them, in conversation, treat it very casually. It happened, they accepted it, they moved on with their lives.

(I apologize if this post angers anyone. It was not intended.)

Would you say that is compartmentalising?

Compartmentalising seems to be a sure fire way for us to protect our own sanity, by locking the pain and horror of something away in the back of our mind and shrugging it off. I also wonder though if it at some point may come back to bite them?

 

[Hex]

The other thing to remember about writing scenes like this, though, is that no matter how real something may be, if it doesn't read as real it will fail.

Yes. This.

 

[Warren_Paul]

But how do we know it 'reads' as real, because surely that's subjective? Every reader would have their own opinion about whether it's real or not.

The link I mentioned a few of my posts back had a story about a man being raped. If you look at the comments, people were split 50/50 on whether the story was true or not. Some thought it didn't sound plausible, others thought it could very well have happened how the writer described it.

 

[Toby Frost]

To keep with the issue of writing, I completely agree with Anne's point at the top of last page, which seems very sensible to me. Even without the substantial moral issues around having your characters raped to drive the plot/make them tough, good writers simply don't pull that kind of trick. It's not just morally offensive, it's crass and cheesy, and bad writing. A good book has to ring true on some basic level, even if the setting is impossible. I can think of books where one element isn't very good (the awkward dialogue in Mythago Wood, say) but the rest of the book works. But I think that you can't insult the reader's intelligence to the point where the book falls flat, and the use of rape as Anne describes it does that.

 

[Gordian Knot]

Would you say that is compartmentalising?

Compartmentalising seems to be a sure fire way for us to protect our own sanity, by locking the pain and horror of something away in the back of our mind and shrugging it off. I also wonder though if it at some point may come back to bite them?

I'm not sure that compartmentalizing is an unhealthy thing to do. In fact it seems to me we need it as a way to get through life. Rape is but one example of a terrible event in a person's life that they have to find a way to live with. Most everyone on this site has probably had tragedy strike their lives in some fashion or another.

The issue Paul was thinking about is perhaps suppression. Now that is unhealthy. And it often leads to unpleasant consequences for the person as that is not a coping mechanism. It is ignoring the event, which often leads to subconscious conflicts.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

But if it doesn't drive the plot, why have it? It is how it drives the plot that is important and that is part of a wider understanding of our characters and their motivation. It is also about allowing your character to react in a way that is realistic. So, yep, to toughen someone up, there are lots of ways to show that, to show a realistic post war scenario, rape might well be a plot line.

What, i think, the writer has to be absolutely sure of is that the rape is integral to the book, is portrayed in a circumstance where it might happen, and is not then pushed to the side once that plot line is done. But to shy away from it as a subject seems very fake. Rape statstics are scary, sex assaults even more so, hidden domestic violence ( have a look around and tell me which one of your ten closest female friends is subject to it?) to ignore itas a subject may be more disturbing as showing it responsibly.

I hope the crass, cheesy, bad writing refers to gratuitous rape and not considered presentation of a difficult subject.

 

[allmywires]

Even without the substantial moral issues around having your characters raped to drive the plot/make them tough, good writers simply don't pull that kind of trick. It's not just morally offensive, it's crass and cheesy, and bad writing. A good book has to ring true on some basic level, even if the setting is impossible.

But does that mean you can't ever write about rape as a character driver? I can think of plenty of other things that would work just as well for making the character take a dark turn and would be nowhere near as polarising, but it seems like nothing should be off-limits just because people have done it badly. Isn't that a challenge to us, as good writers, to do it right?

edit: crossed with springs. Who said it better.