Random thoughts on Rape Fic

[valarltd]

By being a violation of the character--a physical invasion of his body, a mental and emotional humiliation--rape in slash takes on the role of transformative experience.

It is about breaking down the character: his attitudes, his confidence, his very sense of self so that the author can allow him reshape himself from the brittle broken thing into something whole and human. And rebuilding himself can be as heroic as rebuilding the whole world.

This is why hurt/comfort is a popular genre. The comfort is as necessary to the concept of hero as the hurt. The enduring of the hurt is a heroic act, true, but the rebuilding, the acceptance of comfort afterward is as well.

Comments

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. Yes. The noncon - triumph/survival - comfort arc was the first explicit story that I absolutely had to write.

*adores your insightfulness*

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I watched a rape literally transform someone close's life. The complete personality rebuilding she underwent changed her in so many ways, and ultimately for the better.

I can't say I'm glad it happened. On the other hand, the way she was acting, I am glad she was "only" raped instead of the half-million other worse things that can and do become of young ladies who get into cars with strange men. (Does that sound like a horrid cliche? It's exactly what she did)

[tanacawyr.livejournal.com]

OH, yes. Gawd, yes. It's about showing the endurance that comes after. That's one of the irritating things about movies and TV shows, limited as they are -- they don't show recovery much. The hero is whumped to within an inch of his life, and then the next time we see him, he's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ... we all know life doesn't work that way. And rape fic can be just a subset of the genre of fanfiction that demands that we SEE the recovery process.

That's a major reason why I like the character of Archie so much in "Hornblower." He was whumped to within an inch of his life, and we SAW the recovery process, in detail. Stretched over a span of years. Just like life.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Ah, medical inaccuracy. I refer you to the essay "'Taint So!" by I think Larry Niven (could be very wrong). He talks about thud-and-blunder writers who have the hero ride the same horse at a gallop for days then vault off and fight 20 opponents bravely taking gash after gash from swords and arrows.

I'm writing a couple of rape fic, one in which the rape is a hugely transformative experience for the person involved. It changes his whole perspective on himself, his friends, the world around him. And the recovery will be long and painful, yet heroic.

[jkb.livejournal.com]

I like what you said a lot and I mostly agree, but as far as realism goes, not everyone is looking for it. Some people don't want to be medically accurate, or have realistic recovery. Some people really aren't into the whole "comfort" part at all when it comes to abuse situations; they're happy to have the comfort be no more substantial than the kind of post-torture comfort we saw in Star Wars -- e.g. a droid wiring a new hand onto Luke's wrist in the medbay, or Luke bouncing back to his feet after the Force-lightning torture. I know, sometimes the lack of realism gets ridiculous, but some people aren't looking for realism at all.

Let me be clear, I do think there's a great deal of truth to the idea that people are often looking for the character to be transformed in a rape story; I just don't think they always expect a lot of it to happen in the "comfort" section of the story. And of course, the kind of transformation they expect to have happen sometimes has nothing at all to do with the likely effects of a real-life rape, so it's often unrealistic in that respect too. (For example, rape in fanfic often serves to get the character more in touch with his body, rather than making him feel dissociated and cut off from his body the way a real-life rape might.)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

It's your fault i got to thinking about this anyway.

I am one of the "not big on comfort" types. but I think there must be some. And i think in the one we're working on, the recovery period is as important as the experience itself.

[jkb.livejournal.com]

My fault? *g* How so? 'cause I'm doing research on the topic or 'cause we're writing this story?

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

The story. I'm having ideas. Look for words soon.

[candika.livejournal.com]

I think you've raised a number of interesting issues here.

When I first started reading these they distressed me. After all most women are very conscious of the possibility and are prepared to curtail their activity in order to minimise the risk. Many of us have experienced it first hand and no matter how transformative it's always really, really tough. We empathise when a character is raped. Obviously in this genre the character is male and I find that interesting. I think maybe it gives us some distance so we can think about it without feeling threatened ourselves.

It gives us the chance to portray the pain and courage of the victim, the comfort offered him by his friends and , as you say, the possibility of change and transformation. These are dark subjects but vitally important to many women.