#potential rape scenario

[kylejsugarman]

its actually maddening when people reduce skyler down to a "girl boss" without looking into her actual character and how her competence changed the trajectory of the show's events. we're told from the very beginning that walt is intelligent, he's wasting his intellect teaching high school chemistry, he was responsible for helping launch a now wildly successful company. this is stressed to the point that the first few episodes really linger on how much "dimmer" the people around him are: hank is an ignorant loudmouth, marie is a vain airhead, jesse is a raging dumbass, and skyler has her pipe dreams of writing, doesnt she?? how Cute. but as the show progresses, we start to realize that walt is not some tortured genius surrounded by incompetents. skyler is just as smart as he is: she picks up right away on his bizarre behavior, she does her research and puts together pieces in an exacting manner, she thinks ahead to potential consequences and scenarios that walt doesnt even consider. we learn that she's brilliant with numbers and finances, that she's keenly observant and dedicated. and that fuels walt's resentment. he was the genius behind this empire, the one in control of everything, the one singlehandedly rescuing his family from ruin. his pride was such that he saw skyler as his loyal handmaiden, his inferior (trying to rape her in the kitchen is the pinnacle of this attitude). but as soon as skyler got involved and started solving problems and running things, he grew resentful and hateful. skyler forces him to confront the fact that he's not solely responsible for all of this success and that he lucked into a great amount of it. his wife becomes his equal for the first time in their marriage and he can't stand it. and it just makes u think: why Did skyler stop writing?? why did she sound so unconfident when marie asked about her novel?? why did gretchen end up with elliott?? was it just because elliott "got" her first?? or could walt never be in a relationship with someone who was so obviously his intellectual equal and could not be dissuaded from this fact??

[tomwambsgans]

tom & greg + fixation on, and fear of, sexual assault

of all the characters involved in a plot centered around a sexual exploitation scandal, it's ironically not any women but tom and greg - the very characters through whom we're introduced to the exploitation - who show repeated concern for their own bodily autonomy, particularly on a sexual vein. that particular point of irony serves to exemplify their outsider statuses that remain in spite of promotions, marriages, etc, but also, these aspects of their characters being so consistent tells us a lot about their relationship to the entire culture of masculinity, not just waystar.

greg in particular is practically introduced with a fixation on sexual assault. his character in general is a notably un-sexual being up until the end of season 3, with the only allusions he makes to sex until then being a matter of himself as a victim. that fixation/fear becomes most apparent when the notion of prison comes up - and it is clearly the chief worry driving that fear for greg. in contrast, tom does have other repeatedly expressed worries about prison: non-sexual autonomy lost, a lack of comfort, a lack of Finer Things, particularly food and wine... but (implicitly non-consensual) sex makes the list and is also brought up multiple times, interestingly with less apparent fear than greg's. this may be due to tom already having a pragmatic relationship with (heterosexual) sex that allows him to plow through a series of sexual encounters that are tainted with elements of Wrongness - the idea here being that a fear of sex is just kind of normal for tom, so he's used to it. he has a very high tolerance for pain and physical discomfort. it's less losing autonomy and more acknowledging he barely has any to begin with. he's less panicked, more resigned. perhaps even less of a victim and more of a... coerced participant, because to even conceptualize himself as a victim would be too vulnerable. one more character does allude to being victimized by sexual assault, meanwhile - roman. where he contrasts with both tom and greg, though, is that rather than fearing it happening in the future, there's instead the idea of it having happened in the past. there may or may not have been any actual event or even a theme of sexual abuse in roman's childhood, but we get multiple notions: roman jokingly threatening to accuse connor of "diddling" him, the vibes that float around the dog pound story and how he "went weird," "yeah they raped me a little," his inability to pee around other men and the implication he's seen a therapist for it... and of course, this:

which is where roman's relationship with all of this contrasts the most starkly with tom and greg's: whether he's truly a victim or not (and if he wasn't, he clearly does at least cling to the notion as a potentially easy explanation for all that's wrong with him), he turns around and starts weilding the idea himself. furthermore he communicates, in that particular deleted scene, his knowingness of something between tom and greg. and he reinforces the idea that there's something wrong with it. the scenario he evokes, where greg is a Victim and tom is a Perpetrator, isn't accurate whatsoever, but it sends a message, implants an idea, sets the tone, etc - sex between men will always include those two characters. this is, undeniably, the precise reason for both tom and greg's fixations on being a sexual victim of other men. the canonical fixation in and of itself, and its uniqueness to the two of them, may as well establish this - in the gender theory of the show (and also real life), tom and greg are of a different gender class than Real Man. they are adjacent to women. to be frank with you, they are faggots. both know on some level that intimacy with men is what they want, and therefore, however consciously, have that sense of their role in the world being a vulnerable one. there are elements of both fear and fantasy, building off of each other: "this is inevitable because of what i am" and "what if i enjoy it, what does that say about who i am?" and "if i have no choice in the matter, then maybe i'm free to enjoy it." there's a loop of freedom from contending with one's own desires -> a hyperawareness of them. now, roman may join tom and greg in being Categorically Less Of A Man, but he still sits above them on the axis of class and therefore doesn't feel the same ramifications. tom and greg are not only gay but live far more directly in the Real World, with origins in the present and physical homophobia of the middle and lower classes. tom also knows the corporate homophobia from climbing his way up and gives greg the crash course. tom and greg's differences wrt their fears of SA lie in self-awareness, self-hatred, and how successfully each of them have already carved out a space for themselves in the sexual hierarchy. but ultimately what they have in common is the most significant: their inability to fit authentically into the world of the roys. their shared uniqueness, amongst the elite, in having a body - one that can and often does experience pleasure and pain. in having real desires and therefore being vulnerable. in being gay little nudie turtles underneath.

[immortalthunderstorm]

Aemond Targaryen and the Brothel Madam: A Case of Vulnerability? 

With the final trailer out and conversations running rampant, @liv000000 and I have been bouncing off ideas and theories on that Aemond shot and our thoughts on it. Obviously none of these are set in stone and need to be taken with a very sizeable pinch of salt as we don’t really have anything concrete to base it on, so a lot of this really is us just weaving scenarios together and trying to craft a narrative and character exploration based on a few crumbs.

Before we start off, we’d like to just say that we are not necessarily in favour of these. House of the Dragon has a history of often brushing over sexual trauma without giving those moments the recognition they deserve - we aren’t confident that this show is the right medium to accurately present such sensitive topics and that the writers really wish to do this in depth beyond victimisation and shock value. Neither is the fandom as we’ve now gotten to know it at large mature enough to accept and analyse these, especially if it involves a character they aren’t particularly fond of, as we’ve seen with the Alicent-Viserys rape scene or the ‘Foot Scene’ with Larys which got turned into a joke and yet again was squarely placed at Alicen’t feet as something that is somehow her fault and not the guy’s who was sexually assaulting her.

But, although we dislike the overall sentiment, we still want to try to make sense of it. 

We’re here to talk about this scene:

Some eagle-eyed fans have connected the hand holding Aemond here to the one of S1EP09’s brothel madam which he encounters with Criston Cole on their search for Aegon (there’s a scar beneath her knuckles that the actress, Michelle Bonnard, also has). For this analysis, we will pretend that this is confirmed.

For reference, we’re talking about this lady here:

A bit of background of what we learn of her and her ‘connection’ to Aemond:

“Aegon brought me to the Street of Silk on my 13th name day. It was his duty as my brother, he said, to ensure I was as educated as he was. At least that's what I understood him to mean. [...] He said, ‘Time to get it wet.’”

For his thirteenth nameday, Aegon took Aemond to the Street of Silk to lose his virginity, no doubt as a right of passage to essentially have him become a man, as fostered by Westerosi culture (we could write an entire other meta about this and Aegon’s perspective but won’t get into it here). Notice that Aemond expressed that he himself wasn’t sure of the advantage/purpose of this and just parrots what Aegon said to him without actively supporting this as his own opinion. It’s something he clearly didn’t really want to do himself but went along with because his older brother told him to.

Cole asks her about Aegon, while Aemond stands next to him, silent. At the end of the conversation, she says (flirtatiously):

“I wish you luck, good Ser. And my best to your friend. [to Aemond] How you've grown.”

This is personal, she recognises him. Was she the one to take his virginity? It seems likely. He clearly also hasn’t been back there since that day.

How does Aemond react to this?

He clearly still feels very uncomfortable around her even three years later, can’t maintain eye contact, shrinks away etc. This has no doubt ruined his perception of sex and engrained in his mind, the act of sexual intimacy is something unpleasant, humiliating, and potentially painful.

@darksvster also posted the script of this scene, which has Aemond ‘clearly shaken’ over being confronted with his abuser.

Since we know he hasn’t been back to the brothel since, him going there willingly now invites the presumption that this requires some sort of extreme trigger moment for him.

The two moments we’ll delve into for this are Blood & Cheese and Rook’s Rest, in which members of his family get hurt either directly or indirectly as a consequence of his actions. This also adds up with the leaks that the actress of the brothel madam is going to have a nude scene in either episode 2 (post B&C) or episode 5 (post RR).

Theory 1: Self Punishment

(we found this gif on Reddit, please let us know if you are or know who the original creator is and we’ll credit them)

In this shot, Aemond looks mentally defeated. His cheeks are wet, but he is not actively sobbing. He’s despondent and catatonic—empty. He also looks the most vulnerable we have ever seen him. His eye patch is off (something that we know from the book he rarely exposed on accounts of insecurity and ‘scaring the ladies’), he is naked and lying in a foetal position while someone (the brothel madam?) is holding onto his arm.

As we’ve explored how traumatic his first experience with her must have been, and how he was unwilling to even look her in the eye, much less seek her out for intimacy. This could be a form of utter self-punishment, a willing reenactment of the second most traumatic experience in his life. After B&C, he’d feel troubling amounts of guilt, so this is his way of putting himself through as much mental and bodily harm as possible. If this was about pleasure or comfort, it is doubtful he would go back to the woman who never gave him that feeling. Neither does his body language here show anything other than anguish. He’s partly disassociating.

There is also a theory floating about that rather than having 6 year old Jaeheara threatened with rape as in the book, this will be given to Helaena in the show (understandably so, as little Olive was only six at the time of filming).We could see the taunts being passed onto Helaena as her mother is tied up and can do nothing to help her, and it works just as well as it serves as humiliation to Aegon, as she’s his wife. In the shot below, Cheese has Helaena by the hair, very close to his body, and he’s delighting in her torment. This would hurt Aemond deeply, as he’s shown to be fond of Helaena and takes it upon himself to defend her whenever necessary. So, he’s essentially putting himself (guilty) to what his sister (innocent) was subjected to in his grief.

Theory 2: Emotional Incest

Emotional incest is a family dynamic that oversteps healthy boundaries between children and parents. It's a type of abuse in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult. The effects of covert incest on children when they become adults are thought to mimic actual incest, although to a lesser degree. It’s normally found in adults, but if you have people pleasing children (or parentification), they sometimes want to take on the role of the partner, rather than the child.

There are a few instances in this season, hinted at in the trailers and supported by the book, in which Alicent and Aemond won’t see eye to eye - she will not be happy with how he killed Luke and essentially ended all chances of peace. She also seems to advocate for caution and diplomacy alongside Otto whereas Aegon and Aemond will be out for revenge and full war. If we go by the book and Aemond also is the one to injure Aegon at Rook’s Rest, she will probably give Aemond the cold-shoulder after he’s willingly or unwillingly endangered his own brother. She’s shown to want to take the slow and diplomatic approach in this war, to avoid bloodshed as enough has been spilled, whereas her sons are eager for battle and war to get vengeance for the tragedy that has befallen them. She no doubt will give him an “I told you so” lecture, and Aemond will perhaps seek comfort, as he’s grown a twisted sense of his abuser after revisiting her in the brothel.

This adds to the theory that young Aemond chose the brothel madam specifically out of a need for comfort. In a situation like the one he was subjected to he chose a whore who at least looked like the person he feels safest around, his own mother who is a source of comfort for him and who he loves deeply. If that is the case, this paired with with the mental consequences of this encounter, it could develop into him being attracted to and seeking out women who remind him of her. This could also impact his later relationship with Alys Rivers.

We really dislike this, as much as it could make sense. Aemond is one of the few men in Alicent’s life who loves her without desiring or exploiting her, their relationship in season 1 was very soft and if the above is the case it adds a bit of a sinister and sexual note to a parent-child dynamic which so far has been relatively unproblematic.

[johannestevans]

sometimes w disability, including mental illness, you just have to do something that works, even if it seems counterintuitive or would be hard to explain to an abled and healthy person

like for example, i have some paranoia issues and tendencies to hypervigilance - i get really freaked out when people stare at me and i don't know why or what they're looking for

and you might think, oh, but, johannes, you dress in vintage clothes and waistcoats and lace and ruffles and you wear high heels and you wear "tattoos" on your face

but no.

people look at me even when i'm in sneakers and an old coat and jeans bc like. i'm a faggot and i'm disabled and autistic. i have limp wrists and i swing my hips when i move, sometimes i stim or rock in public, i have some vocal and physical tics, i get Concentrated on activities, i'm either extremely under or extremely over expressive compared to NT expectations

so when people are staring at me without makeup or my foppish dandy clothes like. why are they looking at me? do they want to fuck me? rape me? do they want to do violence against me? have they recognised me and want to say smth nice about my work? have they recognised me and want me to die? have they clocked that i'm a homo and want to make it an issue? are they gonna call me a slur? are they gonna get physical?

and 99% of the time like. most of those don't apply. it's literally just someone glanced my way - it's not even necessarily a stare, or even really actively looking at me. human beings have eyes that track motion, and we automatically look at people's faces as well as other interesting details about them.

if someone wants to say something nice, or have recognised me, they'll come say so. if they want to fuck me, they'll tap me on grindr or come and talk to me. if they actually do hate me or want to hurt me, most people are too cowardly to do that ANYWAY

but because i don't know why they're looking at me, it ramps up the paranoia and the potential fears and scenarios etc.

but if i'm dressed up or wearing eyeliner and nail polish or wearing heels like... i know exactly why they're looking at me. there's no mystery or uncertainty to trigger my brain into coming up with paranoid worst case scenarios

yeah, they probably ARE staring a bit (although never as much as your paranoia tells you), but you're dressed like something worth staring at. don't worry about it, it's nbd

like even when i feel my paranoia getting worse when i'm dressed down i just go and put my eyeliner and dots and anchor on and immediately feel better, and it does help!

[fishsinsareacknowledged]

i love when you write nikto because you're one of the few people who doesn't boil him down to "he's rough and has a mental illness he must be an abuser"

i wanted to read some nikto fics on ao3 and the very first one portrayed him as a rapist like yeah sure let's take this man who was tortured and has a multiple personality disorder and make him a rapist that doesn't add to the demonisation of people with that mental illness at all

why are people so stupid?

i mean he's right there and he's a weird little guy who has great unconventional shows of affection potential and potential for so many cute scenarios yet people don't see him as anything else other than an abuser or a typical "rough daddy dom"

im so glad you exist and have a working brain that gives us weird blorbo nikto instead

HE'S JUST A WEIRDO OFFICERR PLEASEEE. Nah but I get it, I started writing him mostly because I couldn't find any good Nikto content that wasn't like oh okay he's just standing there to literal abuse/rape/noncon. I get people like reading that but also cmon :((.

You can't boil down a character just to their mental illness nor can you do that to irl people because that's just really fucking weird first of all. Also I really don't get why people try to demonize mental disorders and act like oh, it's their true personality because they suddenly snapped yadayada. Like bro no. That's not how that works.

He's just a guy that acquired a mental disorder. Thats it. That's the main point. Just a guy thats gone through too much and continues to do so because he's so fucking disassociative that he doesn't know what else to do. That's how I write him ngl. Honestly just hoping that some people take inspo from my writing sometimes to write soft Nikto because genuinely. Pls. THATS WHY I WRITE THEM LIKE SIDE NOTESSSS.

Also xoxounhinged writes em soft sometimes too and like yes :3. My fav.

[colorisbyshe]

Feel free to ignore this because I’m sure you’re well beyond tired of “ace discourse” at this point but I’m curious if you’ve seen the recent studies claiming that asexuals are more likely to be offered conversion therapy than LGBT people, and if you have any thoughts on it?

Means absolutely nothing to me because in this context... it's clear no one involved knows what the term "conversion therapy" means, as aces have been watering down the term for almost a decade now, making it to mean "any attempt to change your sexuality" which has ALSO been watered down to mean "any ace being asked if they have depression, sexual trauma, or possibly a hormonal condition and if they want treatment for that."

Conversion therapy (in the context of sexuality, not gender which is similar but not identical, though it often involves sexuality based CT as well) is a fairly specific thing--it involves some authoritative figure (a "therapist," a priest, an "ex gay guru") trying to do two things--erase same gender attraction, often through forcing the person to associate it with shame/pain/disgust/nausea, and to force them to act as it they experience "correct" attraction.

Conversion therapy is often viewed as "successful" if only the first step is complete. As in, the person comes out unable to enjoy/experience/recognize their same gender attraction. They could go the rest of their life celibate, not dating, not marrying and it is successful enough. Best case scenario, they can marry someone of the "right" gender, MAYBE have sex, MAYBE have kids but... the lack of tangible gayness is enough. (NO, I am not saying conversion "therapists" want people to identify as asexual or aromantic, just that they don't mind if gay and bisexual people feel NO attraction/desires when they are done with them.)

Understanding conversion therapy is about destroying sexual attraction, romantic attraction in gay and bisexual people means it is impossible to link up with anti-ace "conversion therapy." There is none. There is no organization or group vying for people to experience sexual attraction in that way. Who are tormenting, abusing people into feeling attraction.

This is especially obvious when you realize... that the argument because "There are organizations that want gay and bisexual asexuals to experience sexual attraction." Run by who? Where? What are they doing to force gay people to want to have sex?

Like... is this just for straight aces then? Can you name a single group in the world that believes in conversion therapy that WANTS gay sexual desires? Gay romantic desire?

So, conversion therapy for aces doesn't exist. Not any systemic level. Are aces being abused, harassed via rape culture? Sure but that isn't conversion therapy.

What aces often claim is the hypothetical "HSDD diagnosis, which Ive debunked as aphobia... years ago.

Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder is a SUDDEN LOSS of sexual attraction COMBINED with DISTRESS at said sudden loss. The DSM EXPLICITLY has an exception for lifelong HSDD--if you have never experienced sexual attraction, no one cares. If you experience DISTRESS at lack of *libido*, doctors may offer exploring potential help on that front... and counseling to accept that maybe you never will.

There is no forced, coercive treatment. If you experience sudden loss of sexual desires (LIBIDO, NOT ATTRACTION), they may test for depression, hormonal changes, cancer, and other potential causes... if you want them to. You're offered counseling for the distress.

HSDD is the type of shit men get viagra for.

Surveys like this are suggesting being prescribed viagra is conversion therapy.

Honestly, the fact that the survey is about conversion therapy being OFFERED, when often it is a COERCIVE practice against minors or vulnerable adults in faith settings, is kinda all the proof you need that what they are discussing is not conversion therapy.

But rather an uncomfortable moment at the doctors where the doctor asks questions they don't like, just to rule out potential health issues.

ANYWAYS ANY ATTEMPT TO ARGUE WITH ME WILL JUST BE MET WITH MY TARGET WISHLIST. I ALSO DON'T WANT ANONS AGREEING WITH ME. I WANT THIS TO BE ONE AND DONE POST

[yfere]

it is INTERESTING, isn't it, that almost, if not every one of Angel's productions we've seen/have been alluded to so far are non-con/rape fetish works. in no particular order:

interrogation scene (the one that won him the sex-x-xy award - ep 4)

burglar gang bang (ep 4)

a bdsm scene that also looks like a gang bang (this is the one I'm least certain about. ep 4)

angel stating that valentino is into a waterboarding fetish, and that he's doing a lot of waterboarding shoots (ep. 6)

on the one hand, what we've seen of angel's on-screen persona is that he portrays a character that is always into the sex, and happy about it -- on the other hand, the actual scenarios that he does work for.... have a pattern to it. I wonder if this also adds some potential additional context for how angel apparently gets roofied on the regular -- to what extent does angel's acting influence the public's perception and treatment of him? in that sense, this is work that is harmful and isolating on multiple fronts - not only to do work on set that makes angel feel so miserable he needs to dissociate, but also, by the very virtue of this work and the fame and visibility it affords, being seen by the public as something like the characters he plays -- essentially, someone who is happy to be treated cruelly and without respect.

[rainbowolfe]

[Warning: Discussion of SA]

In trying to lock in and write an essay about the relationship system down in Hell AND an essay about Alastor.... I think I might've cracked the code. I've potentially stumbled ass backwards into what's going on with Alastor's relationship with Vox.

A shortened version, just to have it on record in case I never actually finish the full analysis:

Valentino puts it very plainly. Vox's kink is killing Alastor. In the same way that Val's kink is raping Angel Dust.

I've come to the firm conclusion that Angel and Alastor are mirror characters. They share many, many similarities and their differences stem from their relationship with sex. Angel has all of it, and Alastor has none of it.

But down in hell, violence and sex are two sides of the same coin.

So while Angel has a passion for sex (that's being taken advantage of by Valentino), Alastor has a passion for violence (that's being taken advantage of by Vox).

Val goes further than just assaulting Angel himself. He primarily manufactures scenarios in which other people rape Angel while he watches. And while some of it is CNC (notably the film Angel shows for Show and Tell), Poison shows us that between the drugs and the contract, a lot of these films have dubious consent at best.

Not to mention, by making Angel famous for being SA-ed, it encourages "fans" to seek him out to actually drug and assault him.

And so, as Angel's mirror, a lot of this would apply to Alastor. Just replace the CNC/SA with staged/forced fighting.

What if...

Vox sent Overlords to kill Alastor for his own enjoyment? Finding stronger and stronger entities, where the point was that Alastor would fight, on film, for Vox to get off to and sell. But since Alastor didn't get the memo, he just kept killing the Overlords because he was stronger than them.

Alastor was, effectively, their gladiator. And it seems clear that, at some point, Alastor did die. Causing him to disappear for seven years. But his death wasn't recorded. And to add insult to injury, the deaths of the Overlord's he did broadcast aren't associated with Voxtech, because he put it on his own radio show.

What Alastor "owes" them... is content.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Non-Christian: The morals imposed by god in the Bible are neither perfect nor unchanging. Unless you believe the forced marriage of a rape victim to her rapist is moral.

Response: Here is the passage in question:

“If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." - Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Let us explore the text, which some have interpreted as a command for a rape victim to marry her rapist. This interpretation, however, requires closer scrutiny, particularly with regards to the context and the original Hebrew language of the passage.

The Hebrew word used in verse 28 is "taphas", which translates to "seize" or "lay hold". While this word has been used in various contexts in the Bible, it does not inherently imply violence or force. To conclude that this means 'rape', a term signifying a violent act devoid of consent, would be a leap in translation that isn't supported by the original language.

Further light is shed on the matter when we look at similar passages in the Bible, notably Exodus 22:16-17. Here, we find a similar situation to Deuteronomy 22:28-29, where a man sleeps with a virgin who is not betrothed. There is no hint of force or violence here. The prescribed consequence is an obligatory payment and potential marriage, which can be refused by the woman's father. Moreover, Jewish law or halakha, of that time gives both the woman and the man the right to refuse this betrothal, even though the man is still obliged to make the payment. This law aims to safeguard the woman's welfare.

In the context of Deuteronomy 22, different punishments are laid out for different types of sexual offenses. The severity of the punishment varies based on the severity of the transgression. Just before the verses in question, the Bible addresses the issue of rape (22:25-27) and prescribes the death penalty for the rapist. This difference in punishments between rape and the scenario where the man must pay the father fifty shekels of silver in 22:28-29 shows us that the Bible clearly distinguishes between the two situations.

We can sum up these points as follows:

— 1. The scenario in Exodus 22:16–17, which lacks any indication of violence, helps us understand the similar situation in Deuteronomy 22:28–29.

— 2. The passage immediately before Deuteronomy 22:28–29 directly addresses rape and prescribes a death penalty, indicating a clear difference between these offenses.

— 3. The phrase "and they are discovered" in Deuteronomy 22:28 implies that both parties share responsibility, suggesting a consensual act rather than a violent one. Different Hebrew verbs are used to describe the actions in these two situations, further differentiating the actions.

— 4. So, this passage does not seem to be referring to rape but more likely to a situation of seduction or consensual relations outside of marriage, insisting that the man involved must take responsibility and provide for the woman.

These laws were designed not to oppress or subjugate women, but rather to protect them. In a society where women could face serious financial and social consequences from sexual relations outside of marriage, these laws offered a measure of security and protection.

So, with all this in mind, it's clear that Deuteronomy 22:28-29 is not a command for a rape victim to marry her rapist. Instead, it should be seen as a testament to God's protective love and justice, seeking to safeguard the welfare of His people in a challenging world.

[velvetvexations]

Ppl act like gender essentialism (the man/beard brand) is necessary to keep women safe but even that scenario could actually make them less safe bc it downplays the danger of bears, which I think also illustrates the issue I have with true crime. When you're taught as a woman that there are certain dangers that are the worst (be it men or serial killers or rape as the very worst thing that could possibly happen to you), you might underestimate dangers that appear less obvious to you like wild animals, unpreparedness, inappropriate equipment, lack of spatial awareness, going alone when you're inexperienced, heat exhaustion bc, dangers from other animals or bugs bugs (where I'm from in Europe we need to get vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis, my father didn't, got it & almost died).

I'm from a culture that's big on hiking & hiked a lot pre-transition, mostly with a cis male best friend, and I never had a bad experience with other ppl (except maybe when someone didn't say hello, very impolite) but we did get lost pretty badly once on a new trail with no phone signal & that was scary. I was always safer in the woods with men around bc if there are ppl, you know you're on the right path & won't get lost! Also it you get injured & can't walk or god forbid lose consciousness, you want other ppl there to help you. I also worked at a homeless shelter (pre-transition as well, they all knew me as a short, not at all threatening looking woman) and that taught me to shake off the fear I had of homeless people, men especially, because they too are just ppl & it was bigoted of me to have my gut instinct tell me I was in danger when I saw a homeeles man just existing or behaving erratically in public. It was classist, ableist & was not in fact justified just bc I was navigating the world as a woman.

Yes, keep yourself safe, but actually learn to recognize potential dangers & how to handle dangerous situations, don't just rely on your gut instinct.

I also think we can absolutely teach ppl how to keep themselves safe around other folks without resorting to gender essentialism & sex profiling simply by focusing on behaviors instead of gender presentation.

This would serve to protect trans & queer ppl with a masc appearance/presentation including non cispassing trans fems/women, trans mascs/men, non-binary & multigender ppl, intersex folks, even cis gay men, who are also at a higher risk of being assaulted than cis straight men and yes, even straight men, who are also capable of being victimized. Because nobody is truly safe from violence & abuse, we all need to know how about dangers & be able to get protection from others in our communities!

That reminds me of what I've been talking about recently where someone blamed a fixation on punitive justice on people being tricked into it by white supremacist background radiation in Western culture when it's actually just an apolitical fault of the way human brains are wired that goes back to the earliest human civilizations. And like, granted, this is the third time I'm bringing that post specifically up so maybe I'm overexaggerating the issue because I don't follow that kinna discourse closely, but especially in conjunction with transandrophobia discourse I feel like there's this trap of viewing the things you face as cosmic forces rather than mere sociology, you know?

[chaifootsteps]

I keep seeing people saying stuff along the line of "If Vivziepop didn't get herself into controversies then her haters would have genuinely love HH and HB" and "People dislike HH and HB because they only hate poor and innocent Viv" which is complete bullshit,like even if we remove Viv from the equation that doesn't change the fact that HH and HB are badly written shows with wasted potentials that try so hard to be an adult show,Viv being a terrible person isn't the reason why we hate these two shows

If Vivzie were the absolute sweetest person in the world, I think I actually would enjoy these shows for the occasionally endearing pieces of bad media they are.

Also, in a hypothetical scenario where Vivzie is a better person, I think that would shine through in the writing. So less misogyny, less victim blaming, less rape jokes, better shows.

[greater-than-the-sword]

re: marriage of convenience -- Isn't there the potential for the man to be doing it respectfully or out of friendship for the woman, rather than straight-up seeing her as a plaything or trophy? In 90-100% of the contexts in which i see the trope used, the "convenience" isn't the marriage itself -- that's a necessity, either for political or socioeconomic reasons -- but that this particular person is volunteering to do it, for their family/country, so the other person doesn't have to marry a stranger/unsuitable person, because they're the best option in this scenario, etc.

There's something about the power/social dynamic of involuntary marriage that's so intrinsically biased in favor of the male that you have to actively correct for it if you want me to ever think "oh poor him, he's really taking one for the team and feels just as out of place as the woman in this relationship."

Take the situation of a King who "has to" marry a foreign princess in order to create peace or whatever. Say what you want about him being forced into it by circumstance, he is still very much the instigator of the whole thing and the situation is very much under his control and he's enjoying a much greater degree of power and autonomy than his new wife. At worst he is burdened with the responsibility of financially providing for an expensive woman. He doesn't have to fear for his safety.

Every involuntary marriage trope I've ever seen has the woman struggling to see some cold man who has tons of power over her as human, while he is just trying to get past the inherent awkwardness of basically being her prison keeper. Will we ever have a story like this that doesn't have the faint background threat of possible rape hovering in the background?

[ruthlesslistener]

All this talk of breeding kink has resolved not one but TWO things in my brain.

First was cementing why it's kink. As far as I can tell there's not an easy line between kink and non-kink and it seems more related to what society counts as "normal" or not. Which in that view I kept thinking, well wouldn't reproduction be the most "normal" as it's the "point" (evolutionarily) of sex, and humans do in fact keep reproducing? Which just led to my brain spinning in circles on how arbitrary such definitions are.

And well. Okay I actually didn't resolve the arbitrary aspect, but it does make more sense how it would play out ask kink if the sorta fantasy aspect of breeding is disconnected to actual want for that.

Which led me to my second revelation of why I often (not always) find breeding kink stuff so disappointing. As someone who wants kids/pregnancy XDDDD And all I could think was "why don't you want to follow through" in such works. The worst offenders being tagged breeding and then not even....mentioning such a thing at all...(okay maybe that's just a tagging/bad writing problem).

Anyway I just enjoyed reading your thoughts. Made me think.

Yeah this sort of discussion really is deeply fascinating- its part of the reason why I'm so interested in sex from a scientific perspective, but it makes talking about it hard because of societal limitations (ie, rn I'm worried I'll be called a pedophile for exposing minors to discussions about sex, but since I'm just discussing it in a non-arousing context + clearly don't want to fuck kids I'mma file that away as my OCD being cruel to me). Thing is, it really is fascinating how it makes our brains tick! There's all sorts of papers by sexologists out there that talk about how its like a completely separate part of your brain from your logic center or something similar (been a while since I read any of those papers, so don't take this at face value), which is why you can have people like me who are repulsed by the idea of getting pregnant for various reasons but have a breeding kink. You're very literally not you when you're horny! The reason why I was musing about breeding kinks potentially being an evolutionary 'trick' to get people to have more kids is because it's one of the most common ones out there, despite lots of people not wanting to get pregnant- because its disconnected from the logic system and is way closer to 'instinct' than most other of our desires

The way I define 'kink' myself is some aspect integrated into sex that makes it a whole lot more arousing to an individual, but is not necessarily a commonality across individuals (and is separate from a fetish because its typically sexual in nature, whereas fetishes oftentimes don't seem to be tied to sex at all). Like, for example, people who are attracted to penises are, across the board, probably going to become aroused by seeing an erect dick, and watching people having sex is arousing even if you yourself are not attracted to either person in the picture. That's not a kink. But stuff like breeding, cuckholding, etc are, because while they're common as a source of arousal, they're not shared by everyone in the population. Though I do think that what you mentioned about there being a blurry line defined by societal rules def. does play a factor into it, because a lot of the super popular/common kinks are directly linked to what is seen as 'taboo', like nonmonogamy or public sex (I believe there's been extensive research on why rape kinks among afab people are so common, for example, and it's because society looks down on female sexuality so much that it's a way of uncoupling the person's shame at being horny from the actual scenario that arouses them- they cannot be 'impure' if they had no agency in what happened to them. Which is probably why someone like me, who thinks arousal is the stupidest thing to shame someone for, doesn't see the appeal at all. But that's a direct tie between social expectations and kink). Idk, the psychology of it is really fucking cool and I highly recommend checking out papers written on it sometime!!

As for why some fics get tagged as breeding kink without any mention of breeding itself- my guess is that because its so widespread of a kink that people's opinions on what constitutes it ranges anywhere from 'not stopping until the person is confirmed pregnant and then some' to 'unprotected PIV sex'. The former of which is what the definition should be imo, the latter which is the way more boring and vanilla option that you probably ran into

[divinekangaroo]

Thanks @palmviolet for tagging me!

How many works do you have on AO3? 154

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 900k

3. What fandoms do you write for? Peaky Blinders, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy VII, Dragon Age II, The Professionals.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Interesting and not straightforward question: I've been writing since 2007 and only rebooted my fics to AO3 in 2023. I backdated them to time of writing rather than posting live into the current update stream. I was vaguely curious to see what *actually* attracts readers through the AO3 search engine. So, my current top five are all Peaky Blinders Tommy/Lizzie fics, and given my small followers list, everyone following me will probably already have read them!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do, and it’s my vain (both senses of the term) struggle with how to do it appropriately. I am conscious of how comments, particularly on an AO3 "archival" fic, can weight a reader's further interpretation/engagement of or with fic by that author, and that I'll never put so much time into comments as I do into fic.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? 7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? The fics I thought of picking for these two pretty much overlapped. Perhaps this shows just how I approach happiness – it’s moments, it’s never an ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Only old Dragon Age fics. Interesting period of time where any fic author that didn't unequivocally support the moral rightness of one particular character's opinions was targeted. Like: ok to write torture/rape fics of this character, but only if it was clear the author thought this character was morally right. Such a destructive troll.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I'll write sex, mostly as part of a larger arc rather than standalone smut; often it is a partial scenario rather than linear start-to-end event written in a rhythm to support a coherent wanking rise-to-climax read. I'm pleased if people find it pushes their buttons, but I'm also not bothered if it doesn't. I do approach smut as one of many possible lenses or frames for a character, however, so smut that detaches from character confuses me.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Sometimes but they have to feel really right. I think I tend more to fusion or pastiche (I think those are the terms?) rather than crossover: I take a particular character concept/theme and port them into a particular environmental context which is not possible in the canon to see what happens. The only one I still have up is a FFXII/Dragonriders of Pern fic (incomplete) which was going to be all about the horrible knowledge of socially accepted and endorsed ritualised rape and forced feminisation of a character.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I'm not that popular to notice.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have a memory of one in FFXII but can't recall.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! Taught me a lot, including the kind of writer I am - difficult to collaborate as my push to complete within a motivational urge period will always be greater than a long-haul effort, and I struggle to be available for other people. I’m either good at the front end ideas-generation, or a micro detail ‘write this particular thing/scene and fill it with goodness’, and not very good at the middle bit – the long slot of planning and plotting and aiming for consistency etc. I am so grateful fandom exists to support non-traditional prose formats which let me play with writing and thinking and engagement without needing to produce to book-style production standards.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship? I usually fixate on a character, and pairings allow means to explore that character rather than being an end game.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Oh they all carry this potential. *cries* The issue for me is loss of motivational drive/thinking; because I rarely have good structural notes etc if I lose my immediate thread of 'thinking of everything all at once' I find it hard to pick up again later. I also stop some fics because I realise how ambitious the scope really is, and I feel like I can’t do them justice.

16. What are your writing strengths? Speed-sketcher? Completionist? Tests multiple ideas rapidly and freely and never worries about something 'being wrong' because there's always another fic to try? Intuitive gut level hits on characterisation here and there?

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Editing, pacing, I can't sustain long fic, I frequently move characters around like paper dolls for the sake of the cool and forget they need their own internal motivation.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I prefer the kind of cant-based/dialect-based approach which splices non-English terms fluidly into English dialogue, mostly because as a child of many migrants this has been my world experience. I do suck at writing this, hence my frequent use of cop-outs to say 'language shift here, meanwhile still writing in English'. But when it’s done well it hits so many of my sweet spots.

19. First fandom you wrote for? FFVII.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Anything in my Personal Favourites list: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3728710. (I'm still too close to Peaky Blinders to pick a fav, it'll take about five years of distance!)

[cannoli-reader]

That stuff in your post on how Egwene should have ended was really harsh on Moiraine! She had no choice, there were only bad options if she didn't do what she did.

Who says? The lady who tells us that the Aiel and Mat & Perrin are not in the Prophecies of the Dragon, who said that women were just as strong in the Power as men, and that the Heroes of the Horn will fight for the Shadow if the wrong person blows it?

Moriaine is not infallible, and this, in particular, is a place where the story itself introduces beforehand, reasons to doubt her assertions. Jordan does this a lot, throwing in the counter-argument before the argument is made.

When Moiraine first went into Rhuidean, we got warnings that the alternative scenarios disappear from your memory, that your mind can't retain it all. She was also told about the dangers of making assumptions about prophecies. The Wise Ones tell her that in every dream they had of her coming to the Three Fold Land, she insisted on going to Rhuidean, only for in reality, Melaine to let it slip that they dreamed Moiraine needs to go through the rings.

What we can take away from this is, is that merely by knowing the future, you alter how it plays out. This happens with Moiraine. She claims that they would inevitably end up on the docks, confronting an enraged Lanfear, but how or why would that have played out? Rand had no intention of going anywhere near the docks. He was going straight to the mustering ground to Skim to Caemlyn. There might have been a delay for the Maidens' intervention, but after being stalled to deal with Sulin's complaints, Rand would have had even less patience for potential delays. The only reason he goes anywhere near Lanfear is that Moiraine insisted he come and everyone around Rand supported her for various reasons of their own. There is also the possibility that seeing Rand & Aviendha in close proximity put their relationship foremost in Kadere's mind, and led to him telling Lanfear about them hooking up. Maybe if he had not seen them, and got confirmation in his own mind, he might not have bothered reporting that tidbit to her, and she might not have flipped her shit.

But even if she does get the word from Kadere, and go psycho looking to kill Aviendha, what good is that going to do her, if Moiraine does not drag Rand & Aviendha down to the docks to set up her "rescue"? Maybe if she comes after them, she pops in in the middle of the battle around the Royal Palace in Caemlyn, and Rahvin kills her, thinking she's after him. Or she takes a random kill shot which are prone to happen in the chaos of a full scale battle. And Moiraine does not get the credit, and keeps sliding down in importance as a mere lackey of Rand, and eventually completely overshadowed when Cadsuane arrives.

A bad faith interpretation of her character might suggest that the timelines branching from the docks were Moiraine's preference, having seen that fate and diminishment, and choosing to set up the dock fight to thwart her own irrelevance. But even putting the best possible intentions on Moiraine, she overlooked the fact that she forgot 99% of what she saw in the rings, and is misinterpreting a warning that going down to the docks has only bad outcomes, except along a very narrow path, requiring a lot of good luck to achieve.

For comparison, look at all the stuff Aviendha gives no indication of remembering from her own spin through the rings:

Rand's revelations about the Aiel backstory

Opening Rhuidean

The battle at Cairhien

Fighting Trollocs in Caemlyn

An encounter with a village of Aes Sedai who want to recruit her

A near-encounter with a Forsaken fleeing Ebou Dar

The Bowl of the Winds

The Seanchan (either encounter)

The destruction of Elayne's gateway

The siege of Caemlyn

All we know she saw was a version of her sexual encounter with Rand that seems to have made her think he was going to rape her, and that there would be a relationship with them and other women.

Absolutely nothing we know about the rings in Rhuidean support Moiraine's assertion that the encounter at the docks was inevitable once they were told of Morgase's death, and there were only three possible outcomes of the confrontation.

[gothic-alpha]

Not to sound old, but if you’re new to the VC fandom, reeled in by the new (absolutely phenomenal) show and now you want to read the books, especially if you’re gen Z, you need to understand something before you pick up Interview: this series, its original source material, is about villains. Though they are complex in many scenarios, these are not your romanticised tumblr-crushes, Dean Winchester, Loki Laufeyson type villains either, where you want to laugh and think “Oh I could fix him!” “Oh but look at his trauma!”

The protagonists are the genuinely unlikable, irredeemable, committing-atrocities-at-every-turn, bad guys. There is nobody in this series who comes out of it morally defendable, neither is anyone going to face the appropriate consequences for being the way that they are, or for the actions they take. But that’s unfortunately often the way life is, and just because a book series, especially a horror book series, is fantasy does not mean it is under any obligation to keep you comfortable.

This series is not going to apologize for potentially making you feel like you can relate to or even like characters who are terrible people. It’s not going spell it out for you, either:

SLAVERY=BAD

PEDOPHILIA=BAD

ABUSE=BAD

RAPE=BAD

MURDER=BAD

If you need media that’s going to do that, look elsewhere. What this series is great for a lot of the time is making you think.

Can I understand that this action is bad even when presented in a way that makes lines look blurred? Why is it bad? Why am I against this? It can make you examine why you believe what you do, which I think at this point in time, especially amongst younger generations who are often getting their opinions from Instagram infographics, could actually be hugely beneficial, but what’s not beneficial is taking to the internet to cry about how awful these books are because Louis is not the sanitized, sympathetic version of himself we get in the show (even if he thinks he is), and because Lestat isn’t put in time out for treating him and everyone else horribly. If you only like the show, great. The show is fantastic. Just stick to that. I fully anticipated it, but I’m so tired of this book burning already.