Rape in literature (warning may be triggering)

You can lose your temper Carey but the fact is that this guy was promoting rape myths and you posted them here. Rape isn't some abstract thing, it actually happens - men do it to women. And men who promote rape myths are supporting rapists. We don't have to be tactful around men who do things like this, they need calling out and challenging. What he did does actually reveal something about his character and attitudes, whether you like it or not.

Why are you doing all this work for him, to try and make him into a better person and his writing better? I think the fact that you've gone on the defensive here, is because you don't want to look at the dynamic of this situation. Whatever you've heard, feminism isn't about making men better people, it's about stopping male harm to women. Promoting rape myths is part of male harm to women. If you really are interested in feminism you'll ask yourself why your flatmate was doing that.

I'm Sorry you feel you have to delete your account carey, have you had some nasty pm's too?

I've read some of the nasty comments some were worse than others, the most disgusting was insinuatiing that the poster was befriending someone who wants to glorify rapists, there are other gems in there.

And I've seen this gang mentality all too often, its interesting how as a group who stands for respect and tolerance seem to poach out and antagonise , twist the words of anyone who is different to them to the point where it mirrors an abusive predatory partner, I'm sure the sheep are going to explode at that ,
but I've noticed this before and so have other posters.

Has your mate read Irvine Welsh's 'Maribou Stork Nightmares', carey?

Is he attempting to 'humanize' lynch mobs who terrorise black people, in this novel too? Or people who beat up homosexuals?

Ask him if he thinks Nabokov's 'Lolita' ia a literary classic, or a piece of misogynistic crap - if he answers the former he is not ready to write about rape in a way that will not be offensive and misogynistic.

There are very very few male writers who seem to be able to write about rape without being crass, offensive and misogynistic - so he is in 'stellar' company.

I wrote it because he's getting you to act as his female cheerleader and also as his literary support (it's not your job to stop him writing a misogynist book, it's his responsbility not to do something like that) so I'm hoping he's not exploiting you in more material ways too.

You know if you have to stop him writing misogyny, then maybe you should examine the fact that your flatmate is a misogynist.

he doesn't need to write "more 'strong female characters'". he needs to write female characters who are interesting, complex, believable human beings. the 'strong female character' is an unhelpful and essentially sexist cliche, no better than portraying all female characters as weak and/or sexual objects.

I thought it was a fair comment actually - it does kind of matter that your mate doesn't think this is a great moneyspinner and end up selling out women in the hope of writing something 'edgy' and getting some cash.

Frankly it was a kinder comment than might have been made, as it did to be honest occur to me that I hoped he maybe wouldn't have means to support himself while writing - it'd I think be better if he were in a less isolated job so he could maybe get more real-life experience of women.

Thank you, Eleanor -- that was really interesting

I hope he's able to pay the rent whilst he's writing his novel.

i meant to post this last night, thought I had done, v useful meet the predators

Yes rapists feel good about what they've done. It gives them confidence.

Yes the lack of choice that is implied in the rapist's actions, is very misguided.

Also apart from anything else, he didn't humanise the rapist for me because I didn't believe him. I just didn't buy his thought processes. Rapists do not feel "driven" to rape their victims, they don't feel unhappy about having to go through with it, they don't wish it was more romantic. The very fact that the woman doesn't want them there, is what turns them on- if she was positive or enthusiastic, they'd be horrified, that's not what rapists want, they want that feeling of power of being able to control a woman to the extent of entering her body when she doesn't want them to. It's purely the power. Similar to men who visit prostitutes, or lapdancers and describe the handing over money at the end, as the real buzz - that counting it out and lording it for services rendered. It's not about sex, it's about power.

Hugo Goatee summarises some of the key points from up thread, stuff that bothered me about the passage and your preamble to it. Why does a "rape scene" have to be added at all? Does he think it's expected, a short cut to commercial success? If a major premise of the story is that success of characters (male) is determined by how many women they "possess," then the whole story would seem to be built on misogynist foundations.

There was something else in the narrative you posted that didn't ring true even of really crap descriptions of rape. It actually describes rape as rape, throughout. Most men who rape don't see what they do as raping. Men rarely use the word rape when discussing rape with other men, especially when they are talking about their own actions or those of the men they are talking to. Unless in this futuristic world the word "rape" has a totally different connotation, it wouldn't be being used by men discussing rape.

While rape mythology tells us that rapists are evil, deviant monsters, most men who rape don't look, think, talk or behave substantially different than alot of men who most folks would consider to be "pretty normal men." If by trying to "humanise" the rapist, the author wanted to demonstrate this fact, I could see the point, but I'm not getting the sense that's what he meant.

Also this:

"One dark, horny day"

Snoopy was a better writer.

Why does he want to humanise rapists?

Why do you want to be friends with a man who wants to humanise rapists?

Apart from that if I was going to pick out one thing that's incredibly problematic in this piece of writing it's that he sees rape as something that happens to men - "fate" or "he woke up to the face and body of a rapist". Well, no. Raping women is a choice some men make. They think they have a right to. They think they are entitled to do so.

I think you should tell him his writing isn't very good and he should give it up. The world really doesn't need one more misogynistic male writer.

"People get scored... by how many girls they get' "

People meaning men. Because "girls" aren't people.

I would suggest he reads this book

Among others, one of the probs I have with it, is that rapists on the whole, don't consider themselves rapists.

Not only that, their victims don't consider them rapists. They tie themselves in knots trying to pretend that because they didn't say No, because they didn't fight, because they didn't act like WonderWoman, it couldn't have been rape and actually if only they'd been a bit clearer about their unwillingness to have sex, the man wouldn't have penetrated them when they didn't want him to.

Rapists think all men are rapists and other men are just being politically correct by pretending not to be.

Here's another couple of sites that might give him some insight:

What men can do

the rapist checklist

The myth of no

Hope some of that helps.

Yeah - more than one female character. My real point though is that most writers/scriptwriters make characters male by default. Characters are only made female if they need to be so that some bloke can put his cock in her. So plenty of female characters (who have names, and speak to each other about things other than a man) who don't have sex at all in the course of the story. Maybe their connection with the plot is through their work? Maybe they drink in the same bar? Maybe their personal development is part of the plot. You know, like the way male characters are treated.

'People get scored... by how many girls they get'

It sounds like the entire premise of the book is pretty anti-women tbh, I appreciate your friend wants to think of himself as a feminist but it doesn't seem that he prioritises this in his writing project IMO.

The rape scene could be used really powerfully as a critique of the whole culture the protagonist is living in rather than an almost expected add-on.

I also feel that the term 'rapist' is fetishised by the way the writer places an importance on the character self-identifies as one.

And what lots of others have said about how rape is always about power, not love or desire in a sexual way. I think it comes across as a bit self-indulgent and creepy in a porny way to represent him as doing it because he is surrounded by beautiful women with whom he doesn't stand a chance. This might piss off most normal less-than-attractive men, but they don't then go around raping strangers.

Oh and also the stranger-rape thing both buys into rape myths and also serves to dehumanise the woman. She should be allowed to have a character, even if he wants for narrative purposes to keep her a stranger to him, he should give her a back story to make her more real.

I mostly think that he's missed an opportunity to use the scene to really dig deep into the culture of the narrative though, and it would work better if she was a known character - perhaps as a woman who becomes successful and therefore a threat to him? It needs to be a strong part of the narrative the effect on her, otherwise by default it makes both the act of rape and her relatively unimportant.