RAVISHMENT OVER RAPE

 In the third part of my essay-series THE ONLY GOOD RAPE IS A FAKE-RAPE, I wrote the following:

Commercial films-- which were, it should be said, aimed equally at both male and female adult audiences-- are replete with such forceful displays of passion, in which the male protagonist forces his attentions-- usually not to the extent Rhett Butler does-- upon a female. It's generally understood that the female protagonist is a stand-in for the female audience that is presumed to want to see sex happen between the lead characters. Ergo, the protagonist's show of reluctance is meant to be broken down in the face of passion; i.e., it is a "no" that really does not mean "no." I do not think that female audiences would have partaken of such scenes in novels and films unless they could relate to them as fantasies. This gives the audiences credit for realizing that such scenarios did not represent real experience, and that they did not represent rape as such.

Were all members of the male audiences aware of "forced attentions" as being in the domain of fantasy, and hence, not justifications of real rape? Here too I think that we must assume that the majority of males knew that they were watching a staged fantasy, though I would admit that there is more potential for misunderstanding from the male point of view.  Still, the male protagonists of novels and films usually were not represented as literally overpowering the female as Rhett Butler did. The more standard scenario was that the reluctant female would finally respond and the curtains would close upon what was then consensual, if only implied, sex.

I just finished reviewing one of the more interesting Golden Age films, Henry King's 1942 THE BLACK SWAN, which features a hero who implies that he takes feminine resistance as a signal to ravish-- but not specifically to rape-- the heroine. Here's the roguish Jamie Waring's response to getting slapped by the irritable Lady Margaret:

 In Tortuga when a woman slaps a man's face, it means she wants him to grab her, overpower her, and smother her with kisses. I understand in Jamaica a gentleman must refuse such overtures.

As I mentioned in my review, at no time in SWAN does Margaret convey the sense of coming on to Waring, nor does she ever admit that she appreciates his attractiveness or forcefulness. Only when he's shown that he's willing to fight against other pirates, and therefore on the side of civilization, does she become interested in Waring as a potential mate. So, even though Waring subdues Margaret twice-- first knocking her out and then wrapping her in a sheet and kidnapping her-- she keeps a certain amount of power in their negotiation of status. Of course, this is only possible because the film shows that the hero has fallen in love only with Margaret, in contrast to his buddy's claim that there are lots of other fish in the sea.

The cinematic situation reflects the opinion in a 2014 PSYCHOLOGY TODAY essay by one Leon Seltzer:

The multiple ironies that emerge from such a depiction can hardly be missed. To Meana, “What women want is a real dilemma.” For, relationally, the female’s paramount need (and this is consonant with evolutionary biology) may be to have a strong, dominant male care for and protect her. So we end up with the eroticized image of her being thrown up against a wall yet, as imagined, not in any real danger. In short, on a very deep level that women might well wish to take exception to—though research strongly supports the idea— it may be a kind of biological imperative that, deep within their psyche, they can’t help but crave a “caring caveman” to whom they must submit.

And the SWAN scenario also parallels that of GONE WITH THE WIND, as I explicated here. The example is complicated in that when the crucial "spousal rape" takes place by that novel's "caring caveman," the male and female protagonist have already had consensual sex. This may not have been all that exciting for Scarlett, since at the time of the caveman-assault, she has banished Rhett from her bed to keep from her bearing any more children.

I like Seltzer's emphasis of the term "ravishment" over the inexact term "rape," and the former term takes in what I've loosely termed "fake-rape." But I will probably keep using the term as one of my subject-tags, since at times the term does take in the real-life, non-fantasy crime.