The Gaming Den

Been teaching a writing class and some boys n girls are working out rape in fiction

One is using it for a shocking crime mystery, another is doing a boys love kind of thing where two bad dudes just bang a lot

So what fiction you’ve enjoyed handles rape well? I like how IASIP and Bugs Bunny do it jokingly, Berserk makes it a harrowing issue

It's been a while since I read it, but Pillars of the Earth handles rape pretty well iirc (but maybe too graphically? I was kind of young when I first read it). It had a major impact on the story and was incredibly traumatic for the character who was raped.

I'd encourage people not to use lots of rape in fiction, if only because it's incredibly likely some rape survivors will be reading your book. Makes it a lot more delicate than other horrible crimes, because I don't think many people who got murdered are going to be reading your story.

In his novel Friday, Heinlein (of all people) subverts the usual tropes by having his protagonist shrug off her rape with a combination of boredom and scathing critique of the professionalism of the rapists. The scene still has problems, but it makes her seem strong and the perpetrators seem pathetic, which is worth a lot.

About one in six women will self-report being raped. Similarly, dumbass rapists will tell you they've "used forced to coerce a woman into having sex" enough times to amount to about... one in six women being raped. These are both probably underreported. It's amazing but unsurprising how our society so very obviously fails to communicate that rape is socially unacceptable behavior. It's like if a bunch of men went around "using force to end another person's life" and judges apologized to them for having to send them off to prison for a couple months because sure that's technically murder I guess but come on boys will be boys. It can't really be murder because murder's bad and this is just totally normal behavior.

So, uhh, rape is something of an epidemic. It happens. A lot.

Now, it's fairly obvious that it is practically impossible and less obvious actually undesirable to bubblewrap culture in such a way that no one is ever hurt. My grandma wrung her hands about the moral decay of America because she could find homosexuality on television. The day we start putting "Trigger Warning: Homosexuality" on things to protect our gram-grams is the day we should probably just burn everything down and start over. And we just had the 4th of July, which some veterans absolutely spent in vomit-inducing anxiety because the last time they heard 'pop pop whizz' it didn't end with a bunch of pretty lights in the sky it ended with a blast of shrapnel turning their friend's insides into their outsides.

I suppose what I am saying is that it is genuinely hard to decide where the line on 'reasonably actionable civility' should be. Unless you are writing a story where the moral is that rape "sorts women out" or some other creepy incel bullshit, rape isn't inherently problematic - it's just a landmine. There are things you can do to help people avoid those landmines, and it's kind of nice to do those things. If you have a neighbor who you know has seen active duty, yeah, maybe give them a heads up before you set off any fireworks. If you write a story containing rape, yeah, maybe put a little "contains rape" in the front.

Piers Anthony has a series of books called Bio of A Space Tyrant. While it has sci-fi trappings, the story is about a Latino immigrant to the United States (One of Jupiter's moons to Jupiter). During the trip, very early in the first novel, his oldest sister is graphically raped. As the journey progresses, basically all the women end up being raped and by the end of it, almost all of them are dead.

It has been a long time since I read it, but I remember being literally shaken by it. I put the book down and didn't go back to it for several days. I was so disturbed that I didn't think I could continue, but I eventually decided that I couldn't leave the story there.

I don't think there were any rape apologetics - I remember it being shown as a bad thing - but the author has other issues with wish fulfillment in sexual relationships. The main character (the brother) has consensual sex with a cast of 'Bond Women' before the series concludes.

deaddmwalking wrote:Piers Anthony has a series of books called Bio of A Space Tyrant. While it has sci-fi trappings, the story is about a Latino immigrant to the United States (One of Jupiter's moons to Jupiter). During the trip, very early in the first novel, his oldest sister is graphically raped. As the journey progresses, basically all the women end up being raped and by the end of it, almost all of them are dead.

It has been a long time since I read it, but I remember being literally shaken by it. I put the book down and didn't go back to it for several days. I was so disturbed that I didn't think I could continue, but I eventually decided that I couldn't leave the story there.

I don't think there were any rape apologetics - I remember it being shown as a bad thing - but the author has other issues with wish fulfillment in sexual relationships. The main character (the brother) has consensual sex with a cast of 'Bond Women' before the series concludes.

It also has a victim of child sexual trafficking being an apologist for pedophiles before she bangs the main character (who mildly got off on seeing his sister graphically raped.) "The old dude who bought me when I was six to repeatedly rape me was just a kind old rich man with peculiar tastes, and it's not his fault I got too old for him and he dumped me without a penny on the street!"

That's what I remember from reading that a quarter-century ago. And that's without addressing his novel Firefly, which I have not read.

Piers Anthony, if not actually a pedophile himself, is a cheerleader for pedophiles.