to think films/books with sexual assault as a plot device can piss right off?

[IScreamMonday]

Just watched The Good Liar with excellent Helen Mirren and there it is, completely gratuitously (they'd already established revenge cause and, even if they hadn't, they could have chosen another crime)
Recently read the Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse who is currently presenting as a feminist and the whole thing hinges on the myth of a woman being entirely defined by her assault.
I try and avoid this crap and it sneaks in everywhere as light bloody entertainment

Yes, it's sensationalist insensitive and lazy, and i think theyre appealing to the rape fantasists. It can fuck right off.

Yup. I have pretty much stopped reading fiction/watching TV dramas for this reason and the endless violence towards women.

Yes and I'm bloody sick of men writing it for each other through their own gaze while pretending to be doing it through the female character's eyes. Steig Larsson I'm looking at YOU. I really loved the rest of that series but not that part, it was totally gratuitous and pointless.

We watched the pretty shit film Man Up where the main character is “hilariously” blackmailed by her stalker in to a performing sexual on him in the toilets of a bowling alley. Really gross and not funny at all

I use the website DoesTheDogDie to check for things like this, but it does drive me crazy how prevalent it is now used as you say for "light entertainment".

I, probably rather naively, wanted to start Game of Thrones as everyone was talking about it. I couldn't get past the first couple of episodes. The violence against women was just too much.

Hate it. Turned off The Americans after the first scene for exactly this reason.

I couldn’t watch Happy Valley for this reason. Where the main character’s daughter had committed suicide (prior to the events of the show) after a rape. We learnt nothing about the daughter or her life and personality, just that she had been raped, became pregnant and killed herself after having the baby. It didn’t sit right with me.

You're right, OP. Abusing women as entertainment. Like porn, like the 'man-talk' about rapes and other disgusting behaviour. It has to stop. Time to stop tolerating it.

I agree... I hated don't worry baby because of the sex scenes.. then to discover they really were a sex fantasy... in the film, of someone who was abusing his partner...

I have also stopped reading a lot of fiction / watching series or films because of this. There are a few in past few years that really pissed me off... Where the Crawdags sing and The Paper Palace, especially.

Yup. Louis de Bernieres loves a gratuitous rape scene too 😡

I really struggle to find things to read and watch. You think you're safe them BAM!, story ruined and horror mental images remain.

Not to mention the horror/disgust that people use such awful acts for entertainment.

It's why I like fanfiction so much - trigger warnings.

Surely it's just a reflection of real life

I think this misses the point. There is nothing vaguely 'real-life' like in the examples I mentioned. Sexual assualt wasn't coming up as a comprehensive portrayal of women's experiences. It was there to move the plot along and titillate the fantasists at our expense.

Damn, I was about to start the Crawdads

I think this is relevant here:

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge