My main character, Kate, ran into a snag, and she was essentially raped by creature which feeds on blood. The feeling of being violated is something I’ve experienced, though not something I know a great deal about.
A healer type came and took away her memory for a short time, and it made things worse instead of better for Kate. And when she came out of it (she passed out from blood loss), she didn’t want anyone touching her. Still, a female bodyguard (she is an actual princess, remember) insisted on a hug, and gave Kate the option of refusing. Kate just sat there and cried for what seemed like hours. I figured this was a very real reaction to something so traumatic. I’m just glad this is a fictional character.
Meanwhile, a male bodyguard (also in the room) was asleep, head on the bed that Kate was resting in, hand resting palm-up. As he woke up, he provided some much-needed comic relief and laughter for Kate. These are Kate’s friends.
When I set out, I didn’t intend for this to be included in my book. When I started to write it, I thought it might be some weird, sick, twisted little thing. I didn’t realize what I was setting up. I don’t know how I really feel about it. The emotions are a very mixed bag.
This is really a tough subject for me. I really have to say, feeling the horror and sensitivities of what I write for my characters changes my perspectives on lots of things. But when I’m doing something traumatic, putting my characters through the wringer, most of the time I can detach. In this case, I wasn’t able to. It’s one of those things I just don’t know how I could detach from. So why write it?
Because it’s important. The concept of rape to someone who has never experienced it firsthand—especially to those who have misconceptions about what is or isn’t rape—is difficult to talk about. It’s difficult to discuss, because it’s so very personal. And when you’re motivated against talking about it by whatever set of factors you have, getting motivated to talk about it is really tough. It takes facing the fears you have, setting them aside, and plunging headlong into an entire world of uncertainty.
What’s worse, Kate’s real mother (a queen) is going to try to hide it, because she doesn’t want to have to deal with shame or pity. She doesn’t want people to think that nobility ever undergo a moment of vulnerability. The perception that her daughter is vulnerable emotionally means that the enemies of the crown (and there are plenty) will do what they can to take advantage of the situation. It’s dangerous to reveal.
The only thing worse than everyone knowing is nobody knowing. And if Kate can convince her mother otherwise, perhaps courtiers can be informed, and some minds can start work on preventing something like this from happening again. You see, that’s the power of being informed: people can work on ideas to help prevent the bad stuff from happening. It’s when ideas are suppressed, such as when people think that their idea isn’t worthwhile, that nothing gets done. Ideas lead to action. Action leads to prevention. It’s just the way things work.
You don’t have to publicize something like this. Truly, too much publicity can increase the effect of the trauma for someone who is in an emotionally-vulnerable state. Victims should be protected from attention as much as possible. Perpetrators are the ones who need the real attention. But even that can be overdone—I mean, really: is it fair to believe that some idiot who decided to go nude sunbathing in Utah in the wilderness is the same kind of sexual predator as the Good Father who isolated and molested some 60 children? Yet we look at these in the same light, because the nude sunbather might come into view of kids.
Give me a break. Seriously. The problem isn’t the idea that kids might accidentally see something. Incidental exposure isn’t what does the damage; it’s the reaction of everyone around them. Certainly, it’s a shock to see someone without clothes on if you’re used to the opposite, but an accident is an accident. It’s not like this sunbather person is in a church—a place which is intended to be safe—targeting children who are planned victims. Seeing nudity repeatedly lowers its impact, makes it so that naked people really just don’t get you excited.
You see, most sexual predators and serial killers get a thrill from violating a boundary, breaking a rule, and so forth. They thrive not on the sexual thrill (that’s just a payoff—a reinforcement which makes the danger worthwhile), but on the secret breaking of rules. We all do! It’s human nature. But the part of a serial killer or sexual predator which this feeds doesn’t result in guilt. They’ve learned through having their guilt played on throughout their lives (usually from overbearing mothers, according to FBI profiler training) to turn their guilt off. When guilt is used as a tool to control someone, it turns into something dangerous.
But the rapist in my story wasn’t even sentient. It was a complete accident, amplified by a well-meaning doctor who was trying to something to take the memory of the rape away. Instead, he made it worse, because when the memories finally returned, she remembered everything, and heaped on top of the feeling of invasion she felt guilty because she’d been acting solely on instinct instead of memory, judgment, and understanding. She enjoyed it. Did this negate the fact that it violated her? No. The enjoyment made the violation worse.
In speaking with several victims (perpetrators are harder to interview), where there was an element of enjoyment, the enjoyment was negated by the fact that they submitted to sexual intercourse out of intimidation or trickery on the part of the assaulter. The issue wasn’t whether or not she enjoyed it; it was whether or not she was willing.
This led me, believe it or not, to ask some people about S&M, especially about rape scenes and pretending not to submit. While all involved (both “tops” and “bottoms”) stated flatly that they were fully willing participants, and the likelihood of those who were inexperienced and unaware of someone who was on the fringes and not actually in “the [S&M] scene” was low. This is by SSC (“Safe, Sane and Consensual”) rules, which require consent prior to any rape scene. Anything else opens one up to not only legal issues, but to social and injury issues as well. Consent is a formal arrangement in such scenes, even if the online porn (which I haven’t checked out yet) doesn’t really show that aspect of it. Safety and sanity require that rape scenes be entirely pretend, and by arrangement: in other words, role-playing.
Other kinds of sexual situations came to my attention, including date rape, but these still conform to the ideas I established above. And in the end, no consent or withdrawn consent is rape.
But what about “rape after the fact”? For those who don’t know what this is, it’s where consent is withdrawn for the act after it was completed. In speaking to a few of the victims, this has actually happened where there was a person that a group wanted to be rid of. This is enough to warrant a trial, because not every case is actually considered rape. Because it’s known that this has occurred in the past, an automatic conclusion cannot be reached.
The recent court victory of a teacher accused of having sexual contact with a sixteen-year-old girl (several, in fact) resulted in a bench trial, where the verdict was that there was no evidence of sexual contact between teacher and student. We can’t know for certain whether or not anything happened. The law said he didn’t do anything, but the mere accusation will haunt that teacher for the rest of his life—if not just his career.
People are afraid of sexual predators. There’s good reason to be afraid! But the problem is that popular media tends to blow all of the things to be afraid of way out of proportion. The mere accusation results in a kind of “better safe than sorry” attitude, even if there was really nothing to the accusation to begin with. And after the little revelation that some people are actually set up, I’ve been rethinking the whole accusatory stance.
But what if the rape is entirely a case of mixed signals? This is a question I asked a lawyer who tended to take on such cases. The result in court is basically a long “he said/she said” argument. If there’s no recording, then any sexual contact is presumed to be forcible contact. This is because it’s the only evidence they’ve got. This doesn’t negate “after the fact” rapes, where someone simply changed their minds about the sex and cried rape, but that’s what a trial is really for. Even then, the (now fake) victim gets the benefit of the doubt, and the prosecution of the case is basically assured a guilty verdict. Even if these are the vast minority of the cases, I’m basically seeing a reason never to try to have sex again—because you can actually be prosecuted for raping your wife.
Sexual contact of any kind can result in rape, legally, even if there was no rape in fact. That’s scary.
And all of this, just because I decided to write a very disturbing scene in a work of fiction. I think I’m basically ruined forever. I hope not, because, you know, I happen to like sex… but the risks involved are so high that I have to wonder if it’s worthwhile.
Stupid people don’t worry about risk. Maybe that’s why there are so many!
