Trigger Warning for Discussion of Rape.
Spoiler Warning for Sookie Stackhouse (up to book 8) and possibly the True Blood series. I don't know, I've not seen it.
Last night - or rather, very early this morning - I finished one of the Sookie Stackhouse books, All Together Dead. My mother bought me a box set of the first nine and the short stories for Christmas, and I've been working my way through them.
The Sookie Stackhouse books are the series on which True Blood is based. The main character, Sookie, is a telepathic Louisiana barmaid who, in the first few books, dates a vampire, gets slowly drawn into the supernatural world, and, while not so much enjoying the life-threatening parts, loves the fact that she can't read most supernatural minds.
Speaking of her telepathy; Sookie describes it as a disability, which confused me at first. I wondered if that was offensive to real people with disabilities, to describe an ability like that as one. Then I realised that I was defining disability as something which "most" people would agree is worse than "normal", and I realised that that was a really problematic way to think about it. Sookie herself describes the ways in which telepathy is a problem; she finds it hard to have friends, when she knows what they're all thinking, and she's never had a lover, because, seriously, how off-putting would that be? Hearing everything your lover thought?
Anyway. At one point, Sookie locked in the boot of a car with the vampire she's been dating. I think they were still dating at that point, but this was quite a few books ago. The vampire, Bill, is injured, and incredibly hungry. When he wakes up, his body takes over, and since, for vampires, blood and sex and intrinsically linked, he has sex with Sookie without her consent, and without his will or knowledge until afterwards.
I'd almost completely forgotten about this until, looking through reviews last night, someone brought it up as an example of the series being anti-feminist, since Sookie isn't particularly traumatised by it, and since she mentally defines the event as part-rape. I disagree, personally, but to explain why, I need to go into my own experiences.
I've been seriously sexually assaulted twice. The first time was with a man; we were both drunk, and, no, that doesn't make it okay. Please understood that I am talking only about my own experiences and how I dealt with them, and I'm in no way trying to say that my way is right. I'm just describing what happened to me.
So. We were both drunk. I said no; he ignored it. I wasn't frightened, or hurt; during, I was just kind of wishing he'd stop, so I could sleep. Immediately afterwards, I was sad. After that, I was angry. I wasn't traumatised by this. I avoided associating with that person again, and with his friends, especially since, when I made it clear I didn't want to sleep with him again, he tried to insult me by saying he'd thought I was a virgin. I'm not sure why that's supposed to be an insult, and it hardly makes him look better (see? Annoyed and snippy). But not traumatised.
Contrast this with my second experience. That time was by a woman. She was a friend of a friend, and I had known that she'd had a crush on me; she'd revealed it the night of experience one, by kissing me against my will. I hadn't seen her in almost a year by that point, and I'd done my best to forget about the whole night. She apologised to me, and, at the time, I thought she understood that I wasn't interested in her, and was apologising for the groping. I've since realised that she hadn't understood that at all, and was merely saying that she was sorry that experience one had happened.
I ended up staying at hers. She was a friend of a friend, and she was a woman; my mind just mentally marked her as 'trustworthy' despite prior experiences.
She ended up pinning me down and trying to kiss me again. She told me that she'd been in love with me for four years (we'd met once, a year before), and that she "knew" I was gay, and that I returned her feelings (neither were true). Apparently, I'd been giving her "signs".
I tried to talk my way out of it, while trying to surreptitiously wrestle her off me, and I know that sounds ridiculous, surreptitiously wrestling someone. It felt like, if I made a big deal, it would be an escalation, and then things would get worse. I was worried that I'd be seen as a drama queen if I escalated it, like my friends wouldn't want to be around me any more because they'd blame me for causing drama. I didn't want to disturb anyone else sleeping in the house. I just wanted the entire situation to stop, with no repercussions, and I knew if I escalated it, there would be repercussions.
Then she started talking about how she knew I was into it because of my breathing (slowly growing more panicky), and she began to seem turned on by the fact that I was struggling. She had her hand over my mouth at this point, and when she took it away, I remembered that I had a mouth, and screamed as loudly as I could.
It worked. She immediately got off me, and let me go. I had time to pull on my clothes - she'd leant me pyjamas before attacking me - and then she physically pushed me out the front door. Yanked on my hair too, in a petty, childish way. I still panic if anyone does that to me now.
I called the police. She did too, to accuse me of attacking her. The police called me a liar during my interview, and blamed me for trusting her. They dropped the charges due to "lack of evidence". I spent two weeks sleeping as little as possible, starving myself, and drinking constantly.
Even though experience one was technically more physically traumatic, I found that experience two was the one that left lasting wounds.
So, going back to my point; Sookie's reaction makes sense to me. Her experience lacked what truly scared me about experience two - the fact that someone seriously wanted to hurt me, and didn't care how I felt about it. Her first experience was rape, same as my first experience was more technically rape than my second, but it made sense to me why she'd want to draw a mental distinction between that and something that she would have found traumatic.
I'm not saying that anyone who would have found an experience similar to my first experience or to Sookie's traumatic would be wrong - I'm saying that not being traumatised by rape isn't a wrong reaction either. I don't want to bandy about the idea that "rape isn't always traumatic" because that's the kind of thing psychos have a field day with; all I'm saying is that my first experience didn't traumatise me, so it makes sense to me that her experience wasn't traumatic for her. The character made sense to me.
And no, I don't think her reaction is anti-feminist, in the same way that I don't think mine was. Being traumatised or not by an attack is not a feminist decision. It's not usually a decision at all.
Of course, the difference is that my experience was real, and that Sookie's was fictitious. My experience was just what happened; her experience was how someone imagined that another person might react to a hypothetical situation, and that reaction was broadcast to a huge audience. I get that. I'm not sure how I feel about that part. It's not untrue that some people have that reaction, but then, it's also not untrue that some people lie about being raped. But, the rates of false accusation for rape are identical to any other crime. Despite that, people still have this idea that it happens often, which is ridiculous. Because people have that idea, I am concerned about portrayals of people lying about rape in fiction, purely because it happens so much more often than it actually does in real life. It's not untrue that it happens, but showing it like that feeds an untrue and damaging idea. I'm not convinced that this is the same thing.
I like Sookie, though. She's more patience, understanding, and less prone to overthinking than I am. I'm thinking of cross-stitching a "What would Sookie do?" bookmark.
The Sookie Stackhouse books are the series on which True Blood is based. The main character, Sookie, is a telepathic Louisiana barmaid who, in the first few books, dates a vampire, gets slowly drawn into the supernatural world, and, while not so much enjoying the life-threatening parts, loves the fact that she can't read most supernatural minds.
Speaking of her telepathy; Sookie describes it as a disability, which confused me at first. I wondered if that was offensive to real people with disabilities, to describe an ability like that as one. Then I realised that I was defining disability as something which "most" people would agree is worse than "normal", and I realised that that was a really problematic way to think about it. Sookie herself describes the ways in which telepathy is a problem; she finds it hard to have friends, when she knows what they're all thinking, and she's never had a lover, because, seriously, how off-putting would that be? Hearing everything your lover thought?
Anyway. At one point, Sookie locked in the boot of a car with the vampire she's been dating. I think they were still dating at that point, but this was quite a few books ago. The vampire, Bill, is injured, and incredibly hungry. When he wakes up, his body takes over, and since, for vampires, blood and sex and intrinsically linked, he has sex with Sookie without her consent, and without his will or knowledge until afterwards.
I'd almost completely forgotten about this until, looking through reviews last night, someone brought it up as an example of the series being anti-feminist, since Sookie isn't particularly traumatised by it, and since she mentally defines the event as part-rape. I disagree, personally, but to explain why, I need to go into my own experiences.
I've been seriously sexually assaulted twice. The first time was with a man; we were both drunk, and, no, that doesn't make it okay. Please understood that I am talking only about my own experiences and how I dealt with them, and I'm in no way trying to say that my way is right. I'm just describing what happened to me.
So. We were both drunk. I said no; he ignored it. I wasn't frightened, or hurt; during, I was just kind of wishing he'd stop, so I could sleep. Immediately afterwards, I was sad. After that, I was angry. I wasn't traumatised by this. I avoided associating with that person again, and with his friends, especially since, when I made it clear I didn't want to sleep with him again, he tried to insult me by saying he'd thought I was a virgin. I'm not sure why that's supposed to be an insult, and it hardly makes him look better (see? Annoyed and snippy). But not traumatised.
Contrast this with my second experience. That time was by a woman. She was a friend of a friend, and I had known that she'd had a crush on me; she'd revealed it the night of experience one, by kissing me against my will. I hadn't seen her in almost a year by that point, and I'd done my best to forget about the whole night. She apologised to me, and, at the time, I thought she understood that I wasn't interested in her, and was apologising for the groping. I've since realised that she hadn't understood that at all, and was merely saying that she was sorry that experience one had happened.
I ended up staying at hers. She was a friend of a friend, and she was a woman; my mind just mentally marked her as 'trustworthy' despite prior experiences.
She ended up pinning me down and trying to kiss me again. She told me that she'd been in love with me for four years (we'd met once, a year before), and that she "knew" I was gay, and that I returned her feelings (neither were true). Apparently, I'd been giving her "signs".
I tried to talk my way out of it, while trying to surreptitiously wrestle her off me, and I know that sounds ridiculous, surreptitiously wrestling someone. It felt like, if I made a big deal, it would be an escalation, and then things would get worse. I was worried that I'd be seen as a drama queen if I escalated it, like my friends wouldn't want to be around me any more because they'd blame me for causing drama. I didn't want to disturb anyone else sleeping in the house. I just wanted the entire situation to stop, with no repercussions, and I knew if I escalated it, there would be repercussions.
Then she started talking about how she knew I was into it because of my breathing (slowly growing more panicky), and she began to seem turned on by the fact that I was struggling. She had her hand over my mouth at this point, and when she took it away, I remembered that I had a mouth, and screamed as loudly as I could.
It worked. She immediately got off me, and let me go. I had time to pull on my clothes - she'd leant me pyjamas before attacking me - and then she physically pushed me out the front door. Yanked on my hair too, in a petty, childish way. I still panic if anyone does that to me now.
I called the police. She did too, to accuse me of attacking her. The police called me a liar during my interview, and blamed me for trusting her. They dropped the charges due to "lack of evidence". I spent two weeks sleeping as little as possible, starving myself, and drinking constantly.
Even though experience one was technically more physically traumatic, I found that experience two was the one that left lasting wounds.
So, going back to my point; Sookie's reaction makes sense to me. Her experience lacked what truly scared me about experience two - the fact that someone seriously wanted to hurt me, and didn't care how I felt about it. Her first experience was rape, same as my first experience was more technically rape than my second, but it made sense to me why she'd want to draw a mental distinction between that and something that she would have found traumatic.
I'm not saying that anyone who would have found an experience similar to my first experience or to Sookie's traumatic would be wrong - I'm saying that not being traumatised by rape isn't a wrong reaction either. I don't want to bandy about the idea that "rape isn't always traumatic" because that's the kind of thing psychos have a field day with; all I'm saying is that my first experience didn't traumatise me, so it makes sense to me that her experience wasn't traumatic for her. The character made sense to me.
And no, I don't think her reaction is anti-feminist, in the same way that I don't think mine was. Being traumatised or not by an attack is not a feminist decision. It's not usually a decision at all.
Of course, the difference is that my experience was real, and that Sookie's was fictitious. My experience was just what happened; her experience was how someone imagined that another person might react to a hypothetical situation, and that reaction was broadcast to a huge audience. I get that. I'm not sure how I feel about that part. It's not untrue that some people have that reaction, but then, it's also not untrue that some people lie about being raped. But, the rates of false accusation for rape are identical to any other crime. Despite that, people still have this idea that it happens often, which is ridiculous. Because people have that idea, I am concerned about portrayals of people lying about rape in fiction, purely because it happens so much more often than it actually does in real life. It's not untrue that it happens, but showing it like that feeds an untrue and damaging idea. I'm not convinced that this is the same thing.
I like Sookie, though. She's more patience, understanding, and less prone to overthinking than I am. I'm thinking of cross-stitching a "What would Sookie do?" bookmark.
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