Originally posted by Deadly Chakram:
I might be in the vast minority here, but my tolerate for rape scenes depends entirely on he story. If it's just in there for shock value, I have zero tolerance for it. But, if the story depends on a rape scene, then I have a lot more tolerance for it.
For example, in my NFic, Broken, Clark was raped repeatedly while in a foster home (I didn't show it happening, but I did have him tell Lois about his experiences) and it left him "broken" as in unable to perform, sexually, once he's dating Lois.
The Game of Thrones scene in question was icky, I'll admit. But I never got the feeling that it was completely consensual in books either. (I read it about a year ago while trying to also devour birth/pregnancy books, so things got a little jumbled in my mind.)
I was just using the Game of Thrones deal because the article used it as a reference since it is so popular currently. I personally have never watched it and probably never will.
I am developing little tolerance for the rape issue even if it is paramount to the story. It is one of the reasons I have never read Broken (sorry). I read
What Makes a Man by StopQuitDont (who I normally love) and I could not wait to get that story out of my head. I can read them but I feel empty/dirty at the end. I just recently did read
In A Dark Time by Becky Bain and while I found the story worth the read I still did not feel good upon the end even though she (Becky) made a huge effort to get to end on an up note. I tend to agree with the great Nan Smith that she reads these stories to escape and the feel good at the end. I feel the same way so I try to make it a policy to avoid them if at all possible.
The main problem is how to determine if the story will contain a rape scene. One problem is that nobody has posted to the WHAM thread on the main site in years and while WHAM in general does not bother me, in fact most of the time I really like it, I just don't think I want to read through any more Lois rape scenes. I actually prefer to read WAFFY stories personally as I believe to core of the series was the love affair between the two main characters even before they (Lois actually) were willing to admit it hence the name of the series. The problem is how to let the reader know what is coming without giving away the entire store line. Most writers post major WHAM warnings and those cases I scan the story to determine what sort of WHAM it is and to me the type of WHAM is important. Some writers are better about it and many indicate the torture side but rarely do I see a rape warning. We all know that danger and injury are part of the story of Lois and Clark but just bothered me to see the celebration of the ability to create a well written torture and rape scene which a number of the posts on this thread seem to be celebrating.
Heck my wife is a big Criminal Minds (sometimes referred to a torture porn) but I rarely can stand to watch more than a few minutes of it so we rarely watch TV together.
I tend to actually like to read WAFFY stories personally as I believe to core of the series was the love affair between the two core characters even before they (Lois actually) were willing to admit it. On the other hand I really liked Pam Jerigan's
Fate Worse Than Death and one of my favorite stories is Shelia Harper's
Shot in the Dark so don't get the idea that I am totally anti-Angst. And Angst does not have to involve rape and physical torture. I could list a hundred stories where our favorite couple get put into situations that test them and allow them to overcome the tests but to me that does not require rape or physical torture.
The problem is that I have no real solution to my issue but thought this thread might be a good place to voice this issue and discuss. I like to believe I have an open mind and I have tried not to be too critical here and don't truly mean to be a downer but I felt like the other side should be heard although I may one of the few on this side.
Boy I did not mean to make this such a long post but I tried to craft the response to hopefully better state my position without p*ssing off a bunch of really good writers and people.
Thanks for listening
Mike
