#'are there scenes of rape meant to titillate'

[dyrewrites]

Oh boy am I sick of seeing my name.

But they're all up now! You can find places where all the things be sold. More places being added...but the big ones are there.

Get all the horror, wherever you prefer to do that.

Except 'Don't Look', I'm pretty sure there's a particular scene holding it up and I might get my ass handed to me for not tagging it properly.

But everything else is up!

[toughtink]

regarding dandadan’s creepy aliens:

saw this screenshot floating around bsky (full text below) a bit ago and had to go find it again because i keep thinking about how poignant this breakdown of dandadan’s first ep is. i keep seeing people pronounce the series “problematic” and even going so far as to say the alien probe threat was encouraging rape culture. it’s like they can’t hold the idea of something being funny and scary, sexual but not necessarily titillating, at the same time. at least, i didn’t read it as being meant to erotically excite, especially since most people seem to have just been thoroughly creeped out. there’s definitely a moment where it feels like we’ve fallen into the beginnings of some hentai, but then the action starts going and roundhouse kicks that notion right in the face. it felt like purposeful expectation setting to me: “we’re gonna have things get creepy and toe that line of sexual horror and humor, but this story is going to focus on our protagonists leveling up to defeat these creeps.” in that sense, it’s nice to see when people make the informed decision to nope out if the story or style isn’t something they can enjoy.

[full text of screenshot, a forum post by Asterite34:

“It has occurred to me that the big spooky/problematic scenes here most closely resemble adolescent sex nightmares, with all the accompanying symbolism and externalization of personal anxieties. Neither experience has the tone or visual language of "realistic" sexual assault, nor the feel of lurid monster hentai or whatever. They have that feeling of disjointed surreal unreality that makes everything scary, sure, but also just sort of confusing and maybe actually slightly funny if it wasn't by all appearances actually happening to you. They're wet dreams with a side of sleep paralysis.

Okarun has an experience going into a dark tunnel and being confronted by vague sexual advances by an old woman who chases him down an endless corridor and traumatically (yet painlessly) castrates him. This is classic fear of women and anxiety about being impotent and emasculated and isolated, which certainly tracks with him being a bullied shy nerd who just met a girl who vaguely humors his nerdy interests for the first time ever.

Momo is wandering around in an abandoned building until she's captured by vaguely-featured salarymen clones who paralyze her and go on to calmly, smilingly explain that they're going to violate her with spiked phallic instruments and harvest her banana organs. This lines up with a conflict between adolescent sexual desire in the abstract and also a fear of loss of autonomy due to social pressure, which seems to be on her mind after her dickhead boyfriend broke up with her for not putting out.

It's only when the two dreams merge that each of them starts to get over their subconscious fears, with Ken subsuming his sense of isolation and owning his curse to become a monster that righteously emasculates his once-hoped-for alien friends/stand-ins for his bullies, and Momo overcoming her fear of being ostracized to roundhouse kick the symbolic boyfriend trying to take advantage of her.

And in the end, Okarun makes a connection with someone who won't abandon him even at his most pathetic and emasculated, and Momo connects with someone who clearly desires her but treats her with implicit respect.

In summary, communication is important, especially to teenagers.”]

[sandpapereater]

The alien assault scene in episode 1 of Dandadan isn't that bad, actually

Reasons below the cut!

WARNING: mentions of S/A and spoilers for DanDaDan

With the popularity of DanDaDan being on the rise due to the recent anime adaptation, I got into the series full of hope and excitement at the thought of a new shounen with actually compelling plots and characters.

And I got that. Easy to say, the characters are great, the plot points are great, the set-up is great, at least from my perspective. However, there was one scene that bounced around in the back of my head when going into any sort of fandom spaces to speak on the show.

The scene where the main female lead, Momo, is kidnapped by aliens and nearly raped.

The reason I kept thinking about this wasn't some perverse fantasy, it was rather fear of how others would interpret the scene. With such a touchy subject, there's sure to be lots of opinions, including ones that are very similar to my own. There's also lots that aren't similar to my own.

To say there was no issues with the scene would be a lie, as even I can recognize that it did feel a bit odd to portray an underage girl in such a compromising position. While ultimately nothing happened, I still felt disgust at the prospect of what could've, and I think that's just a human response.

However, I am not of the belief that this scene is exploitative, used purely for comedy, or even meant to be gratifying (the three main points I see).

(This paragraph is just an explanation of the scene, if you've see the show you probably don't need to read it) To give a simple summary, Momo is kidnapped by aliens after a dare to go looking into a common abduction sight. Not believing in their existence and wanting to prove a point, she does so, and ends up strapped to a metal bed surrounded by aliens. In her underwear, she attempts to escape, and this is the catalyst for her powers displayed throughout the rest of the anime. Blowing the aliens away with her psychic ability and the help of Okarun (the male mc) she escapes.

I can see where the discomfort comes from. Momo, a girl who we can presume to be roughly 17 years old is put in a very dangerous, often overly sexualized scenario (in anime) not long after a comedic scene.

Now, to get the basics out of the way, this scene, at least from my perspective, did not appear exploitative, at least not towards young women like many have said. It's shown as a horrifying, awful thing, and ultimately, nothing comes of it. Is this to say it's not still traumatizing for the characters and uncomfortable for the viewer? No. It is, and it's supposed to be that way. I understand that the anticipation of assault and being in threat of it is a trauma in of itself.

However, it's still different from what actually happened. This scene does a good job at making you uncomfortable, specifically with the designs of the aliens and Momo’s obvious disgust. You're meant to feel repulsed and upset, and the few tidbits that could be seen as comedic are hard to view as such with the context of the scene.

Momo is never once shown from an unsavory angle that most fan-service anime typically target. Despite being in her underwear, there are no gratuitous boob butt shots meant to titillate. If anything, it seems to avoid that. It establishes a threat and a potential later plot point, and it eliminates said threat without a need to focus the shots on Momo’s body.

Even still, I've heard complaints that this scene is comedic. This, I didn't understand one bit, as I distinctly remember being uncomfortable and on the edge of my seat while watching. Despite the previous comical presentation of the show, Momo’s distress is shown as serious, and while in retrospect after knowing nothing bad is gonna happen, you might find some of the lines funny, the scene itself doesn't seem to be a purposeful leeway for that.

Just because most scenes up to this point were comical does not mean this one is. I'd say it does a good job at establishing a setting and the reality of it, cutting through the initial mystification that both main characters experienced. This is like saying a horror movie can't have jokes, or that a kids show can't handle dark themes. It doesn't really make sense to act like having varying tones throughout a show means they're all meant to be taken the same.

In my opinion, this scene is purely something to present what's happening and make an impact. Could it have been done differently? Yeah, probably. Does it work as it is? Yeah. To act like any mention of sexual assault in media is automatically exploitative or meant to be titillating to the audience is a ticking time bomb, and ultimately just a wrong assumption. If you're getting your jollies off to this scene that's more a problem with you than it is the anime. And yes, I understand accountability and effect over intent, but when it's so deliberately in the angles, dialogue, and even sound to make it uncomfortable, that “effect” is only gonna be gratifying to a certain subsect of people. Unfortunately, we have to deal with them existing, and we can't cater all scenes around it.

I know that's a tricky line to tow, but on the topic of this scene, it does it well. Momo is upset, the aliens are gross, she ends up kicking their assess. If that doesn't say “the aliens are the bad guys” then call me blind, because so clearly is it trying to depict it as negative, not exciting.

If you were uncomfortable with it, that's fine. I understand if it's a bit much for certain viewers. But overall, I think it's a scene that could've been handled far worse. Does this make it the best scene in existence? No, but it also doesn't mean it serves no point in the story.

What happens in the scene is bad, obviously, but the way the scene is constructed isn't.

[bthump]

Graphic and somewhat crude discussion regarding the eclipse rape here so fair warning.

rereading the eclipse, and also keeping in mind the recently translated interview where Miura apparently said that Casca may have derived pleasure from the rape if it was Griffith perpetrating it… I’m starting to honestly think that maybe the actual authorial intent of the scene was indeed to convey Casca experiencing emotional and physical pleasure from the rape. This could explain the eroticized portrayal to some degree. It’s still obviously problematic as hell but I think it makes it slightly more… acceptable? (not really but idk how else to phrase this sorry) that it was drawn that way, because then it means there was some actual reason behind the rape being portrayed that way and it wasn’t just done for the hell of it yk? But then again I find the supposed reason itself very disturbing and problematic and don’t see how it adds any meaning to the story. Slan saying “love, hatred, pain, pleasure, life, death, all are there”. I think is also indicative of this… I mean I don’t think anyone else could be feeling pleasure in that moment other than Casca. Femto possibly? Feeling spiteful pleasure at hurting guts? Guts, certainly not. It’s also suggestive that slan says this and it cuts to Casca in a sexualised pose. It’s obvious Casca had an orgasm or at the very least felt some physical pleasure based on all the effects on the page (the shudder/shake/twitch, sparkles on the page, sparkles on her nipples after femto sucks them, the highly eroticized poses, her blushing…). Also the fact that right after casca tells guts not to look, she raises up her arms to wrap them around Griffith (her arms aren’t restrained at this point) and seemingly willingly kisses him. I just.. the framing of the scene makes it kind of undeniable to me that miura was trying to portray Casca experiencing pleasure. In this scene casca is drawn very similarly to Charlotte during her consensual sex scene with Griffith. And obviously the matter of consent in the Charlotte scene itself is also dubious, but as you’ve explained previously it’s clearly not intended to be seen narratively as such (it’s just miura and his unfortunate portrayal of these things). It’s like miura was deliberately trying to blur the lines here, to what end I don’t know. Obviously the rape was still traumatic for her. But I really hope it’s not supposed to be understood that the main reason she was traumatised to the extent of her mind being broken and regressed to that of a toddler was because she also enjoyed it and couldn’t take the humiliation and shame of this, which I’ve seen many suggest. I think her telling guts not to look before kissing femto lends itself to this idea though. However, like I said, I just don’t see the value in this to the story? Or to Casca as a character? Or any character for that matter? The alternative is that miura drew the rape scene in this way for no reason, or even to be titillating which is equally as terrible to me. Maybe worse

Sorry I know this ask is graphic and kind of tactless. I understand if you don’t want to post it

link to the interview for reference

lol honestly you pointing it out is the first time in several re-reads that I actually noticed that Casca wraps her arms around Femto of her own volition. It's definitely a fact that Casca had an orgasm during the rape scene, so to me there's no doubt that she was experiencing physical pleasure. The idea that she was experiencing some amount of emotional pleasure too is more ambiguous, but yeah with that quote from Miura and the panels of her wrapping her arms around Femto it does seem pretty undeniable that that's also intended an element of the scene, though idk if it quite reaches the level of text, rather than implication.

And yeah like, I get what you're getting at, and I think it makes sense. It sucks either way, but if we're meant to understand the porny eroticization of the Eclipse rape as a context clue that Casca's not just feeling unwanted physical pleasure but also some amount of emotional fultillment, then yeah it arguably works better on a strict storytelling level.

Though if it was Miura's intent to show that Casca is torn emotionally between desire and horror, idk if I'd make that argument because I think that would be much more effective if we were shown/told more directly that Casca is feeling confused emotions (perhaps hearing her thoughts from her point of view) while being visually shown the horror, to match the rest of the Eclipse, and to prioritize the horror in the hierarchy of confused emotions.

As is, if we assume Casca is feeling desire for Griffith/Femto, to me the eroticization of the rape could be more indicative of Guts' feelings while watching - maybe Guts interpreting it through a lens of jealousy? I think that could potentially be effective if, like, it had any bearing on the story/characters/relationships at all lmao. If it was something Guts had to deal with, something that impacted his feelings towards Casca, something that was depicted as a major flaw to overcome, and potentially something shown from Guts' point of view as erotic but shown as horrific when in an objective (or even Casca's, if we got hers) pov, etc.

Buuuut it's all pretty moot anyway lol because like you said, what's the value? As it is, it's not a well-done depiction of complicated emotions. I agree that it would suck a lot if that was intended to be the reason for Casca's regression lol, like yeesh, it'd be absolutely dismal and I really hope that's not the case. It seems to have had no bearing on Guts' feelings or decisions, in fact it hasn't been referred to at all. We're only infering Casca's mixed feelings right now based on like two panels of Casca lifting her arms and one Miura interview, so if it is meant to have an impact on the story/characters then it should probably actually be textual and yk, have an impact.

So yeah, ultimately I agree with your conclusion that it's bad either way. Personally I think I'd actually prefer a more straightforward "Femto rapes Casca and Casca is plain old horrified and traumatized and it's sexy because it's in a magazine aimed at horny men" interpretation than the story making Casca confused emotionally and doing nothing with it except adding some eroticism, because without any impact on the story/characters it feels less like the eroticism is a way of underscoring Casca's mixed feelings, and more like Casca's potential mixed feelings are a way of justifying the eroticism while adding even more misogynist and otherwise problematic baggage to the rape scene and not even doing anything with it.

Or maybe even worse, doing something with it now that Casca's in Falconia. Because I gotta say I have negative faith in the ability of anyone involved to write this kind of thing well lmao and I am horrified at the prospect.

Thanks for the ask! And no worries, it's a difficult subject to discuss but I don't think you were tactless about it at all!

[beevean]

I don't watch Hazbin Hotel but I seem to understand that some who've watched it and NFCV hate Valentino with a passion yet simp for Lenore

Fancy that huh?

Ah, my dear friend, but it's obvious why :)

Can't exactly jerk off to a moth man, can you? (well, I suppose you can, but he's ehhhhh less conventionally attractive than a cute redhead woman)

But it's not only that:

When Valentino abuses Angel, it's a horrifying scene. There's no music. There's nothing that can distract you from the realism. The sexual undertones (Angel covering up with his vest, Valentino trailing his fingers up his chest) are subtle yet sickening. You feel Angel's fear and powerlessness (helps that the voice direction is perfect), and root for him because we know him and know he did nothing to deserve this and he only wants to protect Charlie despite his terror (look! A character motive!). Furthermore, we learn here that Valentino owns Angel's soul, in a contract that he signed apparently willingly, judging by the little heart: he blames himself, but the show never blames him for falling into Valentino's trap. Nor does it blame him when later on, in Poison, we see flashbacks of Angel dancing with Valentino with a smile even as he's getting slammed into the ground, and jumping into his arms: it's not a downplaying of the abuse going on, because the implication is that maybe in the past he loved him, but now he's trapped and hurting, because Valentino took advantage of the power imbalance. It makes it all the more satisfying when Angel tells him to fuck off.

I don't think I need to tell you that this is the complete opposite of the disgusting shit NFCV pulls with Lenore and Hector. The show blames him for being stupid. You cannot root for Hector because he has nothing to root for, he's a shell of a character with no strength and no motivations, and there's no reason for you to care about what happens to him. It glorifies Lenore for being so cunning and manipulative - sure she's evil, but she's "cool" about it. The sexual abuse is played for straight titillation, from her licking his face after she beat him into unconciousness to the "walkies" to the rape by deception. Later on, while Hector does help destroy Lenore's life, he does so without any malice or resentment in his heart: it wasn't revenge against her, because he loves her, after all. How couldn't he? She's actually nice deep down. Everything she did was for his own good :) he just needed to understand it (off-screen) :) and this is not portrayed as him being a broken man who cannot understand love due to a life that was nothing but abuse, no no no we are meant to find them cute and tragic. Hector's character development culminates not with him standing up to the people who broke him, but him peacefully letting his abuser die on her own terms, as if the issue was that he was selfish and needed to learn to let go.

It's as if HH justified Valentino by saying that well, Angel is a famous porn star thanks to him, and clearly he enjoys the sex and drugs, so what has he to complain about?

Oh but tell me more about how Poison is rape apologism because Angel signs a catchy pop song about his misery in Valentino's grasp. Tell me how his dance interplayed with his abuse is offensive representation of trauma. Where the fuck were all of you when Lenore literally brushed off her raping with "you were having fun" and Hector let her do that?

Go fuck yourselves. I'm not going to be polite about it. This double standard makes me actively angry.

[esther-dot]

So to jump in regard to the 'hot chick with a dragon' ask. GRRM's depiction of Drogo and Dani is one of those things that fandom can't wrap their head around because, yet again, they fail to see that Martin is not the woke writer they think he is and fail to remember that he conceived of this plot in the 90s. I feel like a lot of the fandom isn't well versed in scifi/fantasy books written by white men in the 80s/90s - those books are very, ummmmm....how do I put this....let's just say a lot of those writers used their fantasy books to explore certain taboos and fetishes for titilation, not necessarily as a woke moral lesson in their fictional world. I am in no way saying this makes them bad people, or that they would act inappropriately with women/minor girls in real life, because fiction is fiction, but yeah...

The Dani/Drogo relationship is literally that swords and sorcery trope from the 80s/90s where Hot Nubile Princess gets 'sold' to Hunky Barbarian, they proceed to have a ton of hot sex, and then fall in love. The fact that Martin couldn't even bare to make Dani at LEAST 16 (which still would have been disgusting) makes me side eye him a lot. But people thinking he meant for this relationship to be some dark psychological exploration of stockholm syndrome is hilarious. Do I think there might be some amorphous critique of girls being sold into unwanted marriages? Yeah, sure. But a lot of that relationship is just straight up the Hunky Barbarian trope that's why the wedding night is a 'seduction.'

A lot of discussions about these books would be easier if people just admitted Martin is a little bit of Freak when it comes to his depictions of relationships and sex and uses the fact that 'WelL ThIs Is tHE mEdIeVAl WoRLD' to depict minors in situations like this not because he's critiquing the patriarchy or whatever, but because it's taboo and therefore titilating. A lot of fans really like this series and don't want to admit a series they are really into has super problematic elements especially a series that is 30 years old which I think is silly. People can enjoy it while critiquing the author.

(about this ask)

The fact that from the inception of the story Martin was gonna have a hero/heroine engage in some fauxcest says at a minimum the man is a lil…quirky. Actually, no, I think most Jonsas would say he’s a little freak which is why we still think he’ll go for it. 😂

You’re right about the tropes of the era and having to accept problematic elements in the older generation of writers. Stephen King infamously wrote a sex scene with eleven year olds. Writers sometimes write weird shit. For something that’s finished, people can memory-hole the weirdness, for us, we have to wrestle with it a little more. I don’t like to be publicly critical of fellow Jonsas because we have nowhere else to go. The rest of the fandom has radically different ideas and have pointedly excluded us, but I don’t see a problem with voicing criticism of Martin here. It has no impact on him, his feelings or career, whatsoever. It’s tumblr, we’re not even in danger of something trending and a journalist asking him a question that breaks the wall between fandom/creator. I like reading all of the metas and different ways of analyzing ASOIAF our fandom comes up with because I don’t feel like I alone have cracked the code, but there is a danger of kinda, white-washing Martin’s problematic choices. I didn’t fully appreciate that before.

Actually, back to the tropes, I was reading some Angel Carter recently, she was an important feminist writer, but she too wrote one of those young girl & “barbarian” stories which has beats that are similar to Dany/Drogo. I’m not gonna read that one because it sounds even more racist, and grotesque in how it handles rape than ASOIAF. Long review that explains some cultural and literary context for it. People can write fucked-up, deeply offensive things and also write things we like. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[thenixkat]

People are also lying claiming that the sexual assault scene in ep/chap 1 isn't portrayed in a way meant for titillation at all.

If it wasn't it wouldn't have lingered like that in several places, more so in the manga.

Hell, the rape kink bastards on this site have posts on the scene with the way it's framed. They'll call that lie out.

[initiumseries]

Rape scenes in GoT didnt seem to serve a function sometimes like it was just there to titillate the audience whereas for the men, the torture they went through actually had a bearing on the plot imo

Well it begs the question, when does rape ever serve a purpose? Like narratively, when do we ever absolutely HAVE to have a rape scene? If the goal is to show control and domination, you can absolutely do that and never show a rape scene. Men do it to other men on screen all the time. But a rape scene is meant to degrade and titillate on screen. It's rarely ever treated with the horror and gravitas it should be. It should be far more sparing, if we ever see it at all.

[maletofujoshi]

okay so im like. 4 chapters into devilman lady and its like. kinda strange. i kinda love it for that but. its a lot more occupied with sexuality than the original series which is an... interesting bend (. that "girls love" tag on it is. scary.) of course that. also manifests in like. a lot of demon themed sexual violence. and human themed sexual violence... there also seems to be a sexual liberation/agency thing going on for the protagonist though, i cant tell if that's a genuine thing that's being developed or like, meant to be like, "kyaa! i cant transform into a beast! that makes me horny!" yet.

the. rape scenes are honestly a bit much i think. i dont they exist for titillation at least, but like. starting off with many in sequence... idk how i feel about it yet tbh because it kinda seems like when go nagai had the idea to do a gender swapped retelling of devilman he thought to emphasize gendered violence. and. i'm kinda in two minds about that at the moment so i'll wait till i have context of the whole thing.

. on another note i really like this series' and the og devilman's sense of humor. the whole offputting gay stranger/bestie thing is always great. also like. Devilman As A Media Property exists in Devilman Lady. like. girlryo is like "You're like Devilman, from that hit 70s manga for teens and anime for children! but a lady!" and another guy is like "there was some anime that had a siren that was a bird lady..." which is like. very cute i think. Devilman Crybaby also does a similar thing which pairs really well with the whole reality bending to satan's imagination thing. did i mention here that i watched devilman crybaby after reading the manga. that anime made me cry it was so good. back to things i like about this, there's a bit where protaggirl is like. climbing a staircase with a knife in one hand while masturbating out of anticipation to murder. tbh that moment is just kinda great in isolation. also. this exchange. lmao

[dulcetash]

In Which I Claw Off My Blinders So That I May Examine Them

So, I’ve been having a high old time with Dracula Daily, and I’m learning fascinating new things along the way.  A dear friend shared how formative Jonathan Harker’s May 16th entry in Dracula had been for her from earliest memory, in response to my reblog of this post, wherein I’d encountered an enlightening, new-to-me definition of “swoon.”

Her words led me to confront something about myself that has been creeping around the edges of my brain for awhile.  I’m truly bothered by my lack of awareness and lack of-, of impressionability, in my own youth, to this kind of formative influence.  To put it bluntly, I am a basic, basic bitch.

I started to respond on the original post, but my thoughts rapidly spun out in a way that would derail that post’s thesis, so I’m giving them their own space here.  I rarely share of myself in public this way, but it seems necessary tonight. So here is my reply:

... it’s a fantastic passage.  And the first time I read it, probably when I was in my 20s, it went right over my head.  So many things that I’m now finally learning to see as queer-coded, or even just sexually coded, were a gigantic blind spot for me until, well, pretty much my 40s (likewise, some of these meta posts on DD are teaching me to see anti-semitic coding that I had NO IDEA about: separate issue, same source).  And this “bit of well-known shorthand,” with regard to swooning?  It certainly wasn’t known by me, AND I WAS AN ENGLISH MAJOR.  

All those jokes you see today about those dense heteronormative scholars who say, “these women who wrote about the joys of undressing each other, you must understand it was merely a form of social bonding that indicated emotional closeness and the discomfort of corsetry, blah blah blah...” I have been that dense reader for most of my life.  My own formative coming-of-age literature went from Beverly Cleary and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott and even friggin’ Sweet Valley High, directly to rapey 80’s bodice-rippers and Stephen King.  There was no transition or middle ground between tender/sweet/romantic/sexless and titillating/explicit/traumatic.  And for whatever reason, I never thought to imagine any.

In that Jane Eyre podcast I’ve been listening to, one of the hosts mentioned Rochester’s threat to rape Jane, and I was like, *record scratch* -wait WHAT?  She referred to this:

“Jane! will you hear reason?' (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear) 'because, if you won't, I'll try violence.”

And I… I never thought about what that meant.  I was raised without physical violence (thank god), but I was also raised to feel that a man being angry at me was the most terrifying possible circumstance.  I never once imagined what the anger might lead to; the anger itself was The Bad Thing to be avoided.  So if I HAD been asked to imagine what form Rochester’s violence might take, it would have been, like, hurling crockery or some similar tantrum.  Jane Eyre fell into the tender/sweet/romantic/sexless category for me, so anything else was literally unthinkable. 

Later, In the same scene, he gets more explicit:

"Never," said he, as he ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!" (And he shook me with the force of his hold.) "I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage--with a stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it--the savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue and purity--that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like an essence--you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh, Jane! come, Jane, come!"

And STILL.  I’m like, yeah, Rochester’s a drama-llama all right, he imagines that tearing her chest open to get at her spirit might just be a fresh alternative to locking her in his attic, what a character.  It never occurred to me that he was thinking, “I could sexually compromise her, and then she’d be ruined and have no choice but to stay with me.”  It’s not like you even have to squint to see it, I just… had these huge blinders.  

For fuck’s sake, I’m one of those sweet summer children who thought for way too long that “Netflix and Chill” literally meant to relax and watch movies together.  Thank god I was never really on the dating scene; I thought “inviting someone up for coffee” was literally an invitation to sit around and drink coffee and converse about life.  In a previous century I’d have been that ditz nerding out over the chance to see etchings.  I NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE SEX CODE.

I find that I am angry and disappointed in the culture that raised me not to see, much less analyze, various forms of physical desire.  This culture was also deeply homophobic, not in an openly hostile or aggressive sense, but in a true “fear of” sense that manifested as nobody talking about it.  Ever.  Sometimes there were hushed whispers, quickly shut down by firm denials.  It was just weird.  Not a reason to be MEAN to someone, oh no, but as a default, Don’t Think About It; it’s an embarrassing affliction, and it’s not polite to point.  So I didn’t.  And what you don’t think about, you don’t see.  

But I also find that I am angry and disappointed in myself, about my own lack of curiosity about all of those locked doors.  About my own complacency - complicity? - in Not Thinking About Things.  As I became an adult and started to encounter People On the Internet who avidly DID think about queer romance, I was perplexed by all of these folks who seemed so determined to see things in media that - *tsk* - just weren’t there.  “People can love and care about each other without it being SEXUAL,” I’d think, because for me, the sweetest, least-problematic examples of love in media had always culminated in a kiss. And apparently, I need things explicitly spelled out.  I mean, clearly, who I am today versus who I was 20 years ago means I can learn and evolve, but also, clearly, I am the walking cautionary tale on Why Representation Matters.

*sigh*  Without knowing the code, I’ve missed out on so much.  And my own self-concept has been stunted.  Once I’m done processing and mourning that, I can look forward to rediscovering old literary and cinematic favorites through a more enlightened lens.  No wonder Wizard of Oz and rainbows are queer touchstones.  It’s like seeing colors after a greyscaled lifetime of dismissing them as a vanishingly rare phenomenon.

[magpiefngrl]

Do you think people taking issue with the noncon/consent exploration in mdzs are people who mainly read fanfiction? I'm wondering because I've recently read both atonement and the world according to garp and I found both interesting and good reads even when I morally disagreed with the main characters actions or opinions, whereas in fanfiction I often look for 'canon fix its'. All my favorite mdzs fics are about people making amends. Maybe for some reason people want mdzs to be an explicitly queer fanfic version of the untamed? Idk, I think what I really want is to read a full-blown thesis on fandoms

Hi anon and apologies for my late reply.

The short answer: I don't know. I have to say, first, that I'm mainly on the periphery of the mdzs/cql fandoms (who congregate on twitter), I haven't made many new fandom pals, and I keep seeing posts about drama that has happened somewhere somewhen but never the actual drama. I keep missing all the wank lol (seriously, tho: fandom wank can be very illuminating as to the attitudes of the fanbase)

In short, I'm not very knowledgeable as to the prevalent fandom mentality and why people might complain about the consent issues, but if I were to make some assumptions, this is what they'd be:

Firstly, the topic itself. Consent is a sensitive topic, it's a huge trigger for many, and it's understandable that some people don't want to read wangxian's con noncon kink or a dub con kiss or anything similar. Which is perfectly fine, they should stop reading a narrative that explores consent throughout in order to keep themselves safe.

But my gut tells me that you're right, though, in that many of the people kicking up a fuss about the consent issues of mdzs are mostly people who came from cql; in other words, people who have watched the subtle version of wangxian romance, and are used to fanfic or published romance novels like Carry On etc, and expect something similar. They expect romance. Porn. The kind of sex you read in fanfic or in the romance novel section of KU, which is meant to arouse and titillate. When I began reading MXTX's novels, I also initially assumed they'd be like fanfics: a story with a canonically queer pairing posted on internet? It was also my own assumption, come to think of it.

From what I've seen, the romance is the key re: consent (the dub con kiss, the incense burner extra etc) because few, if any, have made similar complaints about the non-consensual golden core transfer, which is the only massively and unarguably noncon instance in the whole series. I've seen excellent meta about it, but not the vehement reactions and hate that the sex scenes have gathered.

The number of fans who began reading danmei recently (and I'm including myself here) must have quadrupled since the success of cql. It's a niche, very niche genre that became almost mainstream, and of course there'd be friction. The success of cql plus other adaptations brought a lot of people that prob wouldn't read danmei or enjoy it. Which is fine to not want to read it, it's fine to dislike the genre, as it's fine to explore new genres and discover new things but many fans, imo, came with the expectations mentioned above. That it's cql but with hot sex. Fans of the novel mdzs are (I'm speculating) people who are comfortable with a highly nuanced book about many weighty themes incl. consent, and prob read similar books which all seem to feature hugely messed up characters and grey morality and be angsty af, so I'd be surprised if the original danmei fans were the ones complaining about a rape fantasy in an extra.

As for wanting to see different things in fanfic, well, that's what fic does, isn't it? It's pure wish fulfillment. You write about the ship you think should be together, or happy endings for the ship that didn't get one, or the yunmeng siblings reconciliation that we all wished we'd see, or Wen Qing being alive etc. It's what we didn't get. I love reading this in fics but I also loved the actual canon story. If I read books that remind me of fanfic (in that everything is neat and orderly and people are being their Best Selves and make few, understandable mistakes for which they immediately apologise), I don't actually enjoy them. I relish the Atonement angst (read this ages ago; should give it a reread), but if I were to read Atonement fanfic, I'd like a happy ending, you know? I get different things from fic than I do from novels, but a lot of people read only fanfic and perhaps they think that's how stories are.

I've rambled on and on. As I've said, I am just a lurker in this fandom. I assume others might have a better understanding of why people have whined so much about the noncon elements of a novel nobody forced them to read. (i'm being salty bc most of the times people complained about this they were also incredibly dismissive towards the author and the genre to the point of coming across as culturally insensitive and racist. Lots of bad faith takes, basically.)

I'm also fascinated by fandom ecosystems---I'd love to read a good thesis on the mdzs/cql fandom too.

[lilnasxvevo]

I think that part, PART of the problem with ~the discourse~ (I refer to ~antis~ et al specifically) is that no one is going to see eye to eye on The Problem when we can’t agree what The Problem is.

Like I saw a post the other day, and I’m not going to reblog that post because I don’t want to bother OP and I don’t think it would be a productive conversation...I’m just gonna screenshot the post so I don’t have to try to paraphrase this and so no one can accuse me of distorting their words. The following is NOT my own words but I have cropped URL for privacy because I have too many followers (as in more than zero honestly) to be able to ensure that no one will send this person hate because I criticized their post and I really don’t want that.

Here is the other person’s post:

(ID: ‘the sentiments "completely sterilized fiction absent of any of the bad or evil things that happen in real life is neither inherently good storytelling nor morally superior" and "holy fuck you shouldn't be producing child porn" are not mutually exclusive and there is, in fact, nuance in the world’ /END ID)

Okay so.

To me.

The problem with this post is that it is NOT NUANCED ENOUGH. The problem with this post is how much nuance I believe it IGNORES.

(As a side note, this post does the thing I deplore which is labeling written fanfiction about fictional characters “child porn.” As previously discussed on this blog, “child porn” is a term that is only supposed to be applied to real child sexual abuse materials, as in real images of real children really being abused. To call any written story about fictional characters “child porn” is to call a mystery novelist a murderer because people get killed in their books.)

But the issue with “holy fuck don’t write child porn” is that every single person is going to have a different opinion on where that line in the sand has been crossed. For one person, the difference between “disgusting porn” and “this is acceptable” might be the age of the people involved—perhaps one person thinks 16 or 17 is okay (perhaps they base it on the legal age of consent where they live), whereas another person can barely tolerate it when both characters are 18 or 19. Another person, and we have all seen people who talk this way, will call something disgusting and unacceptable and tantamount to “underage” if one character is a very young adult, say 20, while the other one is somewhere around twice their age. Yet another person might say “the difference between disgusting porn and material that is acceptable is whether or not it is meant to be arousing—a scene where an underage person is raped and it is meant to be upsetting to the reader is okay.” Yet another person might agree with THAT person but the two of them might disagree over individual works of fiction with one saying it is clearly meant to be upsetting and another saying the same work is clearly meant to be sexually titillating. Yet another person thinks the age of the writer is the only thing that matters—a 16 year old may write about two 16 year olds having sex, but an adult may not. Yet another person thinks the target audience is what matters—two teenagers having sex in a YA book is okay but not in a book aimed towards older adults. Yet another only opposes underage sex scenes in fanfiction and is okay with it in all other fiction. Yet another person believes it is never ever okay to write something that depicts an underage person in a sexual situation.

This has historically always been a problem with censorship. EVEN IF we can get everyone to agree that “x thing is unacceptable to portray,” we will never be able to fine-tune a definition of x thing that everyone agrees on. The way this usually goes is that everything that might remotely offend anyone is banned, and then people find that they are unable to write, for example, a fictional story exposing the horrors of child sexual assault and/or raising awareness about the issue, because ANY depiction of statutory rape has been banned so that no one can say “This is disgusting, they shouldn’t have been allowed to post/publish this, I thought we banned this, it isn’t fair to make exceptions!”

Whether or not it is right to try to ban anyone from writing anything is a different post altogether that I’ve discussed many times on this blog. But this to me is the most immediate “Tell me you can see the problem with the thing you just said” issue on this post.

Yes, you’re probably going to be able to get most people to agree that “writing child porn” is on some level morally wrong. But you’re never ever going to get even a significant minority of those people to agree on a coherent working definition of what the morally wrong stuff even looks like.

BECAUSE THERE’S NUANCE.

[palworld-cremis]

as a guy who read an absurd, awful amount of Jack, i gotta firmly disagree. I think the one real "rape scene" (ie the poison mv as a whole, i only quote the latter text because i believe this counts as multiple scenes, but you get my point) we've seen in hazbin was too sexualized and a bit exploitative. It felt shlocky and unnecessary to me personally, but as we all know it's INCREDIBLY contentious. but IN MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION i find it feels like a mix of shock "oh look at these AWFUL things done to angel dust!" and a bit tantalizing to the viewer (angel is intended to be sexy, hes doing sexy dances, and then oh no a big fat demon fucks him! how awful!). it's dissorientating and weird and not handled very well IMO.

Where as in Jack, the rape is CONSTANT. i genuinely do not believe im exaggerating when i say there is more rape in Jack than their is jack (the character). Because in Jack, the rape is there to tantalize YOU, the reader. the intent is supposed to titillate and turn you on. the author is putting women in these situations over and over and over, all the while framing it with "look at all these defenseless, helpless women about to be assaulted, and there's nothing they can do!" it happens to the children in jack too, might i add. remember that one chapter about the teenage girl AND her (female) caretaker both getting molested by the same guy?

And don't get me started on the weird homophobia of the whole comic. Let's ignore the entire arc of Jack dedicated to a gay man being forced to learn the moral "being mean to homophobic people is WRONG. you have to be patient and respectful towards homophobes or you'll go to hell for being so bitter and cruel!", the rape is also used to teach us the moral that rape is natural. All men are naturally inclined to be rapists in the world of jack (which is basically meant to teach real world morals it seems), except gay rape which is AWFUL DISGUSTING EVIL. Even all the other rapists know that gay rape is evil (from "the musical holes" chapter. guh...)

This is also ignoring the COUNTLESS times lesbians specifically are targeted, the author has a special affection towards lesbian characters being raped to... idk, give them character development? even in way later chapters, one there's even a lesbian x lesbian rape scene, with bondage and everything, specifically framed to be as gratuitous as possible.

Sure, the rapists are never intended to be sexy, but the assault is ALWAYS supposed to be a bit of a turn on to you the viewer (you know, cause it was made by a guy with a rape fetish). Like say what you will about how DOG ASS hazbin is at handling these topics. But at least it wasn't made by the same dude who made a comic about kids with cancer being routinely raped to death by their doctor.

And tbh, this is just personal preference, but I'd take 30 more "angel dust gets raped and its not very well written" episodes of hazbin over even one more chapter of the dogshit prolife rape-fetish furry comic that is... Jack 🤢🤮

(also no hate to anon or OP, im just throwing out my opinion on the subject, no disrespect towards your opinions ^^)

Why does it feel like Jack the webcomic treats rape better than Viv does. Jack. The religious shock horror rape kink ‘i cut my own dick off years ago. Balls too…’ ugly furry comic

I think it's because in Jack, even though it's basically the Spear Counterpart to HH/HB right down to the rape fetish and awful creator, the rapists still suffer horribly and the victims -- even the ones that don't survive -- come out on top in the end. Drip is Hopkins' fursona, but even though he's shown to be a desperately unhappy victim himself, he's consistently portrayed as a disgusting, pathetic monster. He's not sexy, he's not a silly little goofball, he's a vile sack of shit that even his own colleagues don't like.

[requiemforthestars]

That one thread on writing advice by Lily Orchard (see post because the thread won’t open for me on Twitter for some reason?) really exemplifies how ridiculous the whole anti vs anti-anti fighting is.

Like, not only is the OP of the twitter thread framing “personal preferences in media“ (which are totally okay to have, duh) as “writing advice“ meaning “If I don’t like it you CAN’T write it!“ but it’s also very telling that she’s mentioning these tropes appearing in children’s media (like SPOP and Star Wars) and using the names of common fanfiction tropes.

Because... for most people who engage in these debates, the main media they consume IS children’s shows and fanfiction, and those are, by default, more black and white and less complex than adult media and fiction (even with fanfiction having adult themes, it’s very one-track minded). So, by combining that and fandom being mostly made up of young people and how fandom is often as vehicle to spread political ideas these days... you get a very black and white debate of what is “okay“ to depict in media.

So on one side you have “you CAN’T write Enemies-To-Lovers“, “you CAN’T redeem evil characters that have killed more than *insert ridiculous arbitrary number*“, “you CAN’T use Bad Words“; and on the other side you have “actually if you think it’s fucked up that I write graphic rape and pedophilia fics purely because they excite me, you’re engaging in censorship“ when the correct answer is “It’s okay to include dark themes in media, and the degree of how they’re included will vary depending on who that media is aimed at, it’s also okay to criticize how these themes are included in media and people have every right to say that they think you’re fucked up if you write graphic pedophilia in a way that’s meant to be titillating“

Because there’s ways to write, and ways to shape a scenes and to frame it. And it’s possible to frame the same dark event as either something to condemn, or as either something the author seems to be okay with. And, even then, regardless of how these issues are framed, people are still going to like/dislike certain portrayals and *gasp* consume media that there’s elements which they criticize!

For example, one of my favourite books, ever, is The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I seriously consider it to be one of the best pieces of Hispanic literature (and she IS the Hispanic author most read in the whole damn world for a reason, the woman is just very very good!), but that book also has one of the main characters rape a girl under his service, this rape produces offspring and then at the end of the book the girl’s grandson rapes and tortures this main character’s granddaughter. In both instances, you have women suffering and paying for men’s crimes. I, personally, don’t have a problem with the scenes existing in the book (it is a very brutal book and it talks a lot about violence, and politics and history, and a military dictatorship, so dark themes ARE to be expected) what I have a problem with is that, as the years in-book pass, one of the main characters who was a rapist and a horrible man and an abusive father gets “redeemed“. Why? Because he’s old now and he’s nice to his granddaughter and age has softened him. And yeah, that’s bullshit! That’s infuriating! That made me want to throw the whole book out. And THAT doesn’t stop the book from being a brilliant work and one of my favourites ever. I also recognize the time period it was written in and how the story has autobiographical components on Allende’s part.

I can critize the depiction of misogyny in this book and still love it. Just like other people can hate it. I can also be obsessed with Catradora and dislike Reylo (when both follow the same trope, kind of) because of how each is written. I can also enjoy the dark themes in many stories, and think that, during fanfiction browsing, I’ve come accross way too many fics in which people write noncon (aka RAPE) in a way that’s not meant to be seen as a condemnation of it, but titillating (case in point: Dragon Age, there’s people absolutely obsessed with writing Fenris being explicitly raped based on a throwaway line that implied it in the game, and so many definitely write it in a way that feels like they get off on it!) There’s a clear difference in framing a fictional events as a good or a bad thing. And it’s a skill all writers/media creators need to learn. And I can’t make people write one thing or another, but I have the right to criticize it. That’s what the whole conversation is about, really, but making it into a black and white “NO, you CAN’T write ANYTHING that’s dark“ vs “You can write absolutely anything because it’s fiction and fiction never has anything to do with reality ever“ argument, when neither of those positions are true, is very immature.

[mirandalinotto]

I am asking out of mere curiosity, and (of course) feel free not to respond if it triggers you, but in what ways do you think Nicks arch with Lucifer wasn’t respectful/good/ not masterful? (Not that I am saying that it was)

I really appreciate you giving me an out here, so that I don’t feel like I have to respond, but I think I’ll try my best to answer without getting too deeply into why my own experience of rape trauma syndrome informs my reading of the way they handled that metaphor. Just know that it does and I’ll leave it at that before talking solely about the show.

I’m going to put the rest of this under the cut just in case my breakdown is triggering to anyone. This will not be a complete or exhaustive list of reasons—just the ones off the top of my head. I’m too tired to go back and rewatch things to properly cite my opinions.

Proceed with caution. Discussion of trauma and trauma recovery below.

First, Nick’s time with Satan inside his body is portrayed in the most overly-sexualized way possible, featuring a strenuous, well-oiled, half-naked wrestling match between an adult and a teenager (or an actor who is meant to be portraying a teenager... although Nick Scratch is canonically way older than Sabrina... so what the fuck are they doing having him be with a 16 year old? Anyway. I digress).

However, when Faustus Blackwood later experiences the same “violation,” he is fully clothed and they have a more intellectual, rather than physical, altercation going on. The fact that they didn’t make Richard Coyle take off his clothes and wrestle, purely for the sake of consistency, tells me that the sexualization of Satan being “contained” by Nick was done purely to titillate the audience with Gavin Leatherwood and Luke Cook’s “sexy” bodies. 

(I put ‘sexy’ in quotations because I find absolutely nothing sexy about the wrestling scenes).

So, what I think is disrespectful here, among other things, is that they used a rape metaphor as a way to titillate the audience, and they were inconsistent about it.

Second, It bothers me that the writers of CAOS repeatedly traumatized the adult female characters with implied rape, abuse, and psychological trauma, but it is COMPLETEY IGNORED, meanwhile Nick is given a half-assed trauma recovery arc. Where was Zelda’s recovery arc after the Caligari spell? Where was even an acknowledgment of the fact that Lucifer intended to rape her the night before her wedding? Where is Lilith’s trauma recovery after 5,000+ years of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse? Where is Mary Wardwell’s recovery arc after being told that she had been strutting around Greendale for 5 months, meanwhile the last thing she can remember is seeing a movie the week before Halloween?

What I’m getting at here is that Nick having Satan inside his head is given more narrative weight than any other traumatic thing that has happened to the female characters. Nick is given a trauma arc, while women who have suffered far worse trauma* are expected to carry on like nothing ever happened. It places Nick’s trauma above Lilith’s, above Zelda’s, etc., because the writers sat around a table and decided that the one character who would be allowed to exhibit signs of PTSD would be the young man, as opposed to literally any of the women.

Third, while engaging in risky behaviors is an extremely common occurrence after someone has experienced trauma, they explore this in the most sexualized way possible. Nick gets whipped by sex demons as a kinky way to show that he’s trying to erase the “touch” of the Dark Lord. Now, they could’ve just had him request this and then disappear into the room, to imply that he was engaging in risky sexual behaviors, but no; they had to SHOW it, because why pass up an opportunity for kinky traumatized sex?

Anyway, my point here is that they could’ve implied Nick was cheating on Sabrina without showing him getting tied up and whipped. They could’ve cut away, so as not to use a sign of trauma for views, but they didn’t.

Fourth, the way the Weird Sisters talk to Nick is just vile. I won’t repeat it here, since I put this point in my earlier post, but if people didn’t catch the rape metaphor before this conversation, they absolutely would after it, especially with such lines as “how does it feel to have been with Sabrina and her daddy?”

This is getting long, and I’m getting tired, so I think I’m going to leave it there. I don’t think the storyline is respectful because it sexualizes and sensationalizes Nick’s trauma at every opportunity. I also think it’s absurd that they chose to explore Nick’s trauma at the expense of Zelda and Lilith’s own trauma recovery.

And, not for nothing, all signs point to the fact that the trauma recovery arc will be dropped immediately in Part Four, so they quite literally had no intention of actually seeing that story line through to a meaningful conclusion.

TL;DR if you’re going to do a rape metaphor, you should have enough respect for the sensitive topic to not sensationalize it for views.

*Trauma isn’t a competition. Trauma shouldn’t be compared in real life the way I’m doing it here. I’m saying in the context of the show, Lilith has suffered for 5,000+ years at Lucifer’s hand, and she’s not given an opportunity to process that trauma, because the writers would rather sensationalize trauma in a younger male character instead.

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Yeah, I remember when I was reading acotar 1 and writing my posts about it, when Rhysand made his first major appearance where he stalks up into tamlins manor I was like "i already have a lot of thoughts about him, but I'll save those for when we get to THAT scene UTM" and I was mentally preparing myself to write a whole analysis on what makes dark dub-con/non-con scenes hot vs what just makes them feel weird and gross because from the way Ive heard people talk about it, I assumed it would be far more overtly sexy and horny but then it just wasnt

Or, atleast it wasnt horny in a conventional way. I talked about a distinction between non-con fiction thats primarily meant to be hot and rape fiction thats meant to seriously explore the topic and its kinda hard to properly describe it in general terms without like pulling up examples, but one of the tells for me that a piece of media is horny and meant to be titillating, is when it puts most of the emphasis on the physical sensations. Like, in my experience non-con fantasies will have a lot of pain being transcended and somehow turning into pleasure or the pov character whos being assaulted being like 'it should be painful but it somehow feels good' or something along those lines, while fiction that actually explores rape and how it feels will linger more on the aftermath and the violation and humiliation of it. However, i have also encountered a decent amount of non-con fantasies that put an equal amount of emphasis on the violation and humiliation as they do on the purely physical aspects. And the UTM scene almost comes across as a fantasy scene that does that except without that physical aspect, if that makes sense. Like, the complete loss of autonomy and Rhysand sheer power over Feyre are the thing thats meant to be hot in that sequence. Its kinda supported by Feyre still describing Rhys as sooooo beautiful while hes controlling her body when they first properly meet and shes very aware of the fact that he could kill her in that moment if he wanted to, although i dont really remember that scene coming across as at all fetishy to me when i read it

Idk, i dont think its a great explanation but its the only reason I can think of for why its Like That yknow

Ive been thinking a lot about Feysand UTM fanart lately and why it discomforts me the way it does. Like, i know a lot of people like to complain about it and shame feysand shippers for romantizing that part of the story and i get it, but I also understand that sometimes people have dub-con or even non-con fantasies and thats very normal, hell, I love reading dark romance stuff involving dubious or even no consent because I think it can be very hot. Well, as long as its not cishet. I think Ive talked about this before, but when I see dark romance where theres a submissive traditionally feminine fragile "girl" and a dominant dark dangerous man, i just see The Patriarchy but on a smaller scale and while I can understand why a lot of people do find that hot in some way, i just find it kinda repulsive, so its only hot to me if its gay pretty much. or if the woman is the dominant one but its so hard to find stories like that

Anyway, so thats my first reason for disliking that genre of Feysand fanart i guess, although its really more of a reason for my dislike of Feysand as a pairing in general. The second reason is that Feysand shipper as a whole often put themselves on a moral high ground because their ship is the one thats 'healthy' and 'feminist', so it really rubs me the wrong way to see those same people create art about the traumatic events that the female main character went through that does not center her trauma at all and in fact objectifies her. And like, there are definitely plenty of Feysand shippers who like it exactly because its fucked up and a typical dark romance couple (i mean just look at all the people who only ship acotar!feysand because its the only version of the ship thats genuinely dark and they like that) and Im guessing those are the people who usually draw romanticised UTM fanart, but it does still find appeal in the broader fandom space so I think my point still stands

And now the last reason: the original UTM scene is not written to be titillating at all. Like, I just said that I find dub-con/non-con stuff pretty hot so Ive read a lot of it, and there tends to be a very distinct difference between non-con fiction thats supposed to be hot and get you off and fiction about rape or SA that actually explores the topic in a serious manner, and the original UTM scene is very clearly a case of the latter, so I find it pretty discomforting when fans (and the books themselves tbh) retcon it into being hot instead when its like, thats clearly not what it was originally imo