Trigger Warning: Detailed discussion of rape apologism (and some explicit reference to Robin Thicke)
The Myth Of Male Power by Warren Farrell (PhD, of course) is arguably the intellectual foundation of Men’s Rights Activism (MRA). It is also notorious for its rape apologism, using female fondness for fictional rape fantasy to argue that men should not be prosecuted for date rape, as long as they are “trying to become her fantasy.” For the record, I don’t believe rape fantasies cause rape. In the real world, desire is not so easily misunderstood. What rape fantasy does feed, as Farrell illustrates, is rape apologism. Our cultural models of “romanticized rape” shape the excuses of rapists and encourage their general acceptance. We might respond by pointing out that women consent to rape fantasy automatically, just by imagining it, by turning the pages as they read or by opening their eyes to watch on-screen. Since rape fantasy is consensual, it has nothing in common with the violation of actual rape. But with the often coercive “romance” of Fifty Shades of Grey set to rule the box office, now is a good time to ask: what actually is the cinematic appeal of rape fantasy?
Gone With The Wind: Putting the “awww” in Sexual Assawwwlt
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Rhett Butler threatens to crush his wife’s skull, declares “this is one night you’re not turning me out” then carries her upstairs, visibly struggling. Cut to Scarlett awakening the next morning with smiling pleasure. Her husband threatened to kill her, declared his intention to rape her while she protested, yet she is shown waking up happy the following day. Like Fifty Shades of Grey, this is an adaptation of a female author’s book, cited as sexual fantasy by many female viewers. What’s going on?
Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind mirrors classic interpretations of Wuthering Heights‘ romance – like Linton, Ashley represents the heroine’s social aspirations, while Rhett mirrors Heathcliff as her primal, resisted passion. This must be understood within a wider tendency by female-authored texts to reject their primary object of desire, which I’ve previously examined for Jane Austen’s Unsuitable Suitor and the “Wolf” of SARCom. In response to such rejection, Twilight‘s Jacob Black forces a long kiss on heroine Bella Swann. Buffy‘s spurned “Wolves,” Spike and hyena-possessed Xander, both attempt to rape Buffy.
This rape-as-romantic-desperation trope echoes the emotional vulnerability of Rhett Butler’s marital rape, where he finally confesses jealousy and desire for Scarlett. As Rhett threatens to crush Scarlett’s skull, the gesture emphasizes his powerlessness to control her thoughts and emotions. Though his role is brutal, supposedly excused by drunkenness, the scene actually affirms Scarlett’s emotional power: he attempts to intimidate her, but cannot; he acknowledges his craving for her emotional approval and his inability to secure it. Treating sexual assault as emotional surrender is the defining feature of this category of rape fantasy, the “awww” in the “sexual assawwwlt.” Because Rhett is the primary love interest, Scarlett’s resistance is a demonstration of emotional power, not lack of desire, as her satisfaction the following morning demonstrates. She is the avatar of female viewers, who both desire Rhett and desire power over Rhett. Our culture views sex as male conquest and female surrender, but “sexual assawwwlt” flips that script: it is female conquest through emotional withholding, provoking a rape that affirms male emotional powerlessness.
The cultural concept of “female sexual power” was born in 411 B.C., with the sex boycott plot of Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata. At the time, this was amusing partly because women were understood to have ten times the lust of men. The female fertility cults of Demeter practiced ritual obscenity, the first known sex manual was authored by Philaenis, daughter of Okymenes, and Sappho wrote nine volumes of lesboerotic poetry, all acknowledged literary classics. These expressions of female-authored sexual culture were wiped out by patriarchs of the early christian church. However, the male-authored Lysistrata‘s model of empowerment-through-sexual-resistance survived. “The Rules of Love,” laid down by Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Courts of Love in the 12th Century, included “an easy attainment makes love contemptible” and “jealousy is absolutely required by love.” Eleanor’s influential “Rules of Love” represent an aristocratic female response to social powerlessness, diverting frustration into a sadistic model of love as gratifying empowerment, rather than as emotional fulfillment. Margaret Mitchell’s depicting Scarlett as empowered by her own rape thus reflects over 2,000 years of ideology promoting sexual resistance as an expression of female power. This “female power” of sexual resistance is a poisoned chalice: by separating resistance-as-power from resistance-as-reluctance, it justifies rape as the only way to satisfy female desire, while diverting women from actual social empowerment. “Female sexual power” thus feeds rape apologism and demands male telepathy – a practice best confined to fiction.
Fifty Shades of Grey: Madonna’s Like A Virgin
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If “sexual assawwwlt” represents female sexual conquest, then the “displaced consent” of Fifty Shades of Grey represents disowned responsibility. In E. L. James’ book, Anastasia Steele expresses unwillingness and reluctance to engage in BDSM with Christian, while her consent is detached and embodied as the infamous “inner goddess.” Again, a key to understanding can be found in Jane Austen. Writing at a time of intense Whore stigma, where expressions of female sexuality were harshly punished by the withdrawal of social protection, Austen repeatedly created plots in which the heroine resists her attraction to the Unsuitable Suitor while another woman, usually a female relative, abandons social protection and elopes with him. This constant repetition suggests that the “Whore” relative represents the displaced sex drive of the “Madonna” heroine, an “inner Lydia” comparable to Anastasia Steele’s “inner goddess.” While Whore stigma is gradually declining, kinky desires remain stigmatized, especially in women. By vocally disowning that desire, “Madonna” Anastasia Steele qualifies herself to serve as an avatar for readers who struggle to acknowledge and integrate their sexual urges. The “displaced consent” model of rape fantasy may be recognized, and distinguished from the “sexual assawwwlt” model, by its masterful Ice Prince hero, whose full control is essential to eliminating the heroine’s responsibility. The classic “Ice Prince” of teen SARCom is emotionally intense, but sexually unavailable; E. L. James titillates readers by adapting Twilight‘s sexually unavailable “Ice Prince” Edward into the emotionally unavailable, but sexually intense, Christian Grey.
Compare the earlier Secretary, Erin Cressida Wilson’s adaptation of Mary Gaitskill’s story: the heroine Lee actively requests and provokes the domination of her boss, Mr. Grey, and is depicted in solo acts of masochism and masturbation that clarify her independent desire for BDSM. In BDSM practice, it is the submissive who ultimately controls the play through safe-words and consent, an ironic “paradox of power.” In Fifty Shades of Grey, however, the book’s BDSM negotiations are utterly undermined by Anastasia’s inability to sign or renegotiate Christian’s contracts, due to her disavowal of kinky desire. For sharp analysis of the book’s resulting abusive elements, from the perspective of a practising submissive, see Cliff Pervocracy’s reviews, while E. L. James’ own interviews exemplify covert desire and reinforce norms of respectability politics: “I am fascinated by BDSM, and fascinated as to why anyone would want to be in this lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s as hot as hell, and find Doms hot as hell. I met this guy recently who is a Dom… well… ‘nuff said about that – but he was fucked-up.”
Female director Sam Taylor-Johnson is apparently trying to minimize the book’s disavowal of desire, by emphasizing Dakota Johnson’s lustful facial expressions as nonverbal cues for Jamie Dornan’s Christian. His line “I like to see your face. It gives me some clue what you might be thinking” is prominent in the official trailer. But fangirls now rushing to pre-book tickets are expecting, and will demand, faithfulness to the source novel, including Anastasia’s open reluctance to enter a D/s relationship and her refusal to sign or renegotiate Christian’s contract, which deny her power of consent. E. L. James’ book also shares Gone With The Wind‘s trope of using a sexually aggressive, non-white man to provoke white male heroic protectiveness, suggesting a correlation between mainstream rape fantasy and conservative ideology. How will Taylor-Johnson tackle that? Should we support female directors regardless?
Culture’s association of sexual resistance with (white) respectability, and with (white) entitlement to social protection, acts to detach sexual resistance from lack of desire. Yet, just as Austen’s heroes cannot actually marry both the girl of their dreams and the random female relative who represents her sex drive, a hero’s being justified in forcing himself on an unwilling woman, because her consenting inner goddess is hovering like a sexual Great Gazoo, is equally unrealistic. The seduction of Anastasia may be compared to the seductions of Brad and Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a rare example of the “displaced consent” trope being unisex, as Brad and Janet’s desire is clear in their visible pleasure at “giving in,” while their vocal resistance reflects social inhibitions and fear of losing status. Janet is shown to be liberated by her coercive seduction, embracing her desires in sex-positive anthem “touch-a, touch-a, touch me,” while Brad caresses his fetish gear and croons, “I feel se-exy!” However, Rocky Horror‘s flamboyant absurdism helps to underline the fantasy aspect of this rape fantasy, as a hypothetical mental experiment in gender and sexual fluidity. Kids, don’t try this at home.
“Blurred Lines”: Male Readings Of Rape Fantasy
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Like its female equivalent, mainstream male rape fantasy centres on forcing the acknowledgement of suppressed female desire. The fact that dominant culture continues to interpret women’s sexual resistance as unconnected to any lack of desire, may be seen in the huge popularity of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” While Thicke’s lyrics include consent-positive lines like “go ahead, get at me,” the feminist backlash highlights the damaging impact of invalidating sexual resistance, not to mention Thicke’s creepy delivery (catchy hook, though).
There is no denying that degrading porn (porn focussed on humiliation rather than pleasure) appeals to misogynist men and to sexual predators, but is that all it does? Can its full popularity, dominating the ratings of porn aggregate sites, really be explained only by a widespread sexual hatred lurking in most men? I suggest that comparison with the female model of “sexual assawwwlt” offers a more complex reading. The male porn performer, like Scarlett O’Hara, is not a direct expression of desire but an avatar of sexual frustration. Popular porn is shaped by commercial pressure; to cater to the male viewer’s resentment of the female performer’s unavailability (to him personally), the male performer must paradoxically punish that sexual unavailability while having sex with her. Compare Gone With The Wind‘s urge to punish Rhett Butler’s emotional unavailability, while he’s being emotionally vulnerable. I suggest that cinematic sexual fantasy can only be understood through this contradictory duality: performers represent their characters’ sexual fulfillment, while simultaneously being avatars for the viewer’s conflicting sexual frustration. These dual pressures shape dysfunctional models for imitation.
As long as the performers are willing and comfortable, there is nothing wrong with a purely cinematic rape fantasy, or with the intense trust of consensual BDSM power exchange, that confront inhibitions while cathartically venting sexual frustrations. However, we must recognize the roots of rape fantasy in a toxic sexual culture that stigmatizes female lust and imagines female consent as disempowering surrender. Fantasy is as good a way as any to explore the resulting tensions between power and desire. But punishing female inhibition with bodily violation, when that inhibition stems from punishing female sexuality, adds injury to insult before rubbing battery acid on the wound. Films become toxic when they blur the lines of fantasy and reality, leading viewers to mistake expressions of frustration for models of fulfillment.
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Brigit McCone is semi-apologetically Team Wolf, writes and directs short films and radio dramas.
The comic artist Erika Moen compares ’50 Shades’ to eating the occasional Big Mac [http://www.ohjoysextoy.com/50shadesofgrey/].
I didn’t think I had seen any of Sam Taylor-Johnson’s previous work, but then I realized she directed the ‘Death Valley’ segment of ‘Destricted.’ It’s one of the better segments in the movie. To be fair, I have not read ’50 Shades’ and I haven’t seen the movie yet, but ‘Death Valley’ is what I imagine Christian Gray does when Anastasia is not around.
Nice cartoon – I’ll probably share that for anyone who can’t be bothered reading my whole article:)
I can’t say that “Fifty Shades” does it for me, but I loved “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, so I wouldn’t say I’m morally superior to 50 Shades fans. If E. L. James would stop discussing it in interviews like it’s a model romance, and the mainstream would stop discussing it as a BDSM guide, I’d have no problem with it as a guilty pleasure.
I have an issue with the whole idea that women have rape fantasies, there is a huge difference between dominating sex and rape. Rape is not about the victim having a say it about the rapist having control and doing what ever they please. Also in real BDSM situations the sub has all the say they tell the Dom what they want and how much they can stop at an time with a safe word. Hollywood panders to male fantasy and its dangerous that they spend this bullshit myth that all women have rape fantasies and secretly want it, and this is the philosophy that real rapists use in real life to justify their actions. Please note I’m saying that these films should be banned but I think Hollywood has to take responsibility and stop spending lies as they effect real people out in the real world by making out that rape is love, rape is not love and will never be love and its different from having a fantasy about dominating sex. Fifty Shades is not a dominating sex fantasy it is rape pure and simple, Dorian ignores safe words and does not give after care once the act is over. After care in when the Dom gives the Sub kisses and cuddles and they talk through the act. In real BDSM the sub always receives after care, also Doms do not force their subs to sign contracts, or tap their phones and mentally abuse them and do thing with out their permission.
I think we just need to be very clear about rape fantasy – by definition a woman is in control of her fantasy, therefore she doesn’t need the same safe words, planning or aftercare as she would in real life. Same with men (think of the male rape fantasies in Wedding Crashers, for example).
If people understand that rape fantasy has no relationship to the actual act of rape, I don’t think it’s a problem for people to explore the limits of their inhibitions this way. But rape apologists do ruin it for everyone…
OK, this is a really intersting article, but I’m a bit confused by exactly what you’re saying — it seems to wander a bit. A second pass might make it better, if you ever have time to write one.
I think it’s a bit shallow on the Jane Austen references. There’s a very serious focus in Austen on matters of finance, home, and security: the moral is that, for both men and women, the priorities should be first, marrying a safe, trustworthy competent friend, and second, having enough money to live on. Status should also be disregarded. This is deeply practical, not about sex, and doesn’t really fit with tropes of that era or any other — it’s actively anti-Romantic but also anti-arranged-marriage.
Another thing: I don’t know why people think of Wuthering Heights as a romance of any sort in the modern sense. I read it with no preconceptions, and when I heard that people considered it a romance, I was revolted. I’ve always found Charlotte Bronte’s interpretation of it as a novel about the moors and the wilderness and the behavior of wild creatures to be the most sensible. Once you start reading about Emily Bronte’s life, dragging her drunken male relatives home from the pub across the wilderness in the dark… and then when you read about her violently beating up her dog in order to make him obey, but then tenderly taking care of him forever after… it becomes clearer and clearer that the book is not really about romance. At all. And there are no heroes or villains in the wilderness; the wilderness does not respect our urban morality. There are only creatures.
I think the conventional reading of Wuthering Heights as a romance says more about society than it does about the book. Which may have been one of your points? That this is a general background thing going on in society, this sort of interpretation of different texts…?
I mean, Gone With the Wind is pretty clear in its pro-rape message…. except that Rhett is a scoundrel and a smuggler and Scarlett is a whiny jerk, and they bring out the worst in each other from day one, and he doesn’t seem to really like her, and she doesn’t seem to like him, and they should never have gotten together in the first place, and that’s pretty much hammered home by the ending. So why do people read it as any kind of romance?… Because people are looking for the “contradictory duality” of which you speak, I suppose?
This is a terribly interesting essay, and thank you for it. I hope you’ll make a second pass at it sometime becuase I didn’t find it entirely clear. Maybe list out the different packages of reader/viewer desire / different mental models of sexuality (based on surrrounding social context) and make it clearer which works and which readings are examples of which package. It took me two reads to figure out that you described at least three different models (or was it four)? and I was getting a bit confused as to which works were supposed to be examples of which model.
I think Gone With The Wind represents a hetero-female interpretation of Wuthering Heights AS romance (I’ve written much longer articles about both Austen and Wuthering Heights for Bitch Flicks if you want to read my full thoughts). Also check out my “Ice Prince/Wolf rivalry” essay for more background on my thinking on that one (sorry for all the links, we’re limited to 2000 words per post here, and, like you say, this is actually a complicated issue… some day I’ll write a full book, I swear)
I’d say Gone With The Wind is all about how Scarlett is empowered by her rape because it shows that Rhett is desperate for her, while she can resist him. In YA fantasy more generally, the “Wolf” character (Twilight’s Jacob, Buffy’s Spike, Kouga and Ryoga if you’re into manga) represents the character who’s sexy to resist.
Fifty Shades is all about how the man’s total control lets her experience what she desires without being forced to admit she desires it. I connect Christian to the “Ice Prince” (Twilight’s Edward, Buffy’s Angel, Inuyasha’s Sesshomaru), who is conventionally sexually unavailable, because it’s fetishizing how she is surrendering control and he is retaining control.
Like I say, the dynamics of desire are fascinating, particularly in those books that are immensely popular but routinely dismissed as trash, but complex to cram into a single post. My book is coming, man! Honest!
Oh, and I would always advise multi-dimensional readings. Recognizing that Austen is saying important things about wealth, social status and vocation (she even claimed “vocation” was the main theme of Mansfield Park, with Fanny only able to express her vocation as a clergyman by marrying the original Friendzoner, Edmund) does not mean that she isn’t also exploring sex and sexual desire in interesting ways.