The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 (UK Pace) - thread 2

[CruCru]

Hi all

Here is the next thread for those who are watching The Handmaid's Tale Season 2 on Channel 4. Please don't put any spoilers on this - the other thread (for those in other countries who are watching ahead of the UK) is www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/3239228-Handmaids-Tale-Season-2-SPOILERS-VIEWING-AHEAD-OF-UK-SREENING.

Sorry! I see everyone else has said the same already.

And btw lots of child sex abuse victims want to have sex. That doesn’t mean they aren’t victims or that it isn’t rape. It is however the rhetoric used by victim blamers or rape deniers. “She wanted it, she was all over me, she flirts with everyone”

The problem with the rape/not rape question, (I think) is that some posters are viewing through the prism of OUR moral standard and societal rules.
This is not civilised society, this is Gilead.

As PP have pointed out it's not so long ago in UK history that the upper classes married young. Even if a marriage wasn't consummated until later, some girls were married off while still in the cradle - literally- as a way of forging family alliances. Margaret Beaufort's first marriage contract was signed when she was a year old and her first proper marriage was at 12.
Mary Queen of Scots had marriage proposed to the English price at six months old and agreed with the French by five.

The age of consent was 12 until 1875, when it was raised to 13.

Yes FairfaxAikman thankfully we've moved on but by defining that kind of sex as rape generations of women, and the men too, would have to be labelled as rape victims although they, and the rest of their society, believed they were doing the right thing. Only the poor, without property to pass on could sleep with who they fancied. Of course, wealthy men could do that on the side too.

Also, until very recently historically speaking, gay men and women entered into heterosexual marriages as it was expected of them. The marriages would have been consummated - were they all raped? By a definition that broad someone who has sex with a much loved partner when they're tired, or whatever, and not really up for it is raped but that would probably include most people at some time.

We all agree that what happened between Nick and Eden was horrible.

I don’t think we’re comparing the same things here. Having Sex with a stranger because the consequences of refusing are being hung as a gender traitor is in no way comparable to having sex with a loving partner despite being tired! Really, really not.

OK, stretching a point there. But it would still compare to a gay person prior to 1967 (and for some time after due to stigma) going into a straight marriage to avoid being outed. A gay man wouldn't have been hung but could have been imprisoned (Oscar Wilde even though he was married and had children anyway) and some of the 'cures' on offer were horrendous.

I think we all agree on what is right and what is wrong it's just about the word used to describe it.

Gay men in some countries do get the death penalty.

Now - if you would like a lightweight distraction from the grimness of the Handmaids Tale, you might like this skit -

m.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCXD3_wW2w

I agree with @Zibbidoo.

I'm finding it hard to articulate how but a lot of people seem to struggle with where a line has been crossed when it comes to sex and rape, just because so many people would be in this 'grey area' in their own relationships.

Are you consenting to sex when you're too tired because you (not your partner saying so) know you'll enjoy it when you get started?

Or are you only consenting to sex because your partner won't take no for an answer and it's easier just to get on with it?

Are you only consenting to sex because your partner is coercing or pressuring you to have sex (including them telling you that you'll enjoy it when you get started)?

Are you only consenting to sex because your partner isn't taking no for an answer?

Are you only consenting to sex because you can't take another argument about not having it?

Are you only consenting to sex because your partner will be angry or will sulk if you don't have sex?

Are you only consenting to sex because your partner will get violent if you don't?

Are you only consenting to sex because you've been indoctrinated to think it's your only purpose and you've been deliberately kept uneducated and raised in a society that values you for your breeding potential only and you know nothing else and you'll be killed if you refuse?

And are you only with that partner in the first place because you've had no choice but to marry them. Nobody asked you and if you complained you'd likely be killed as either a gender traitor or a traitor against the state?

I have just had a very interesting conversation with my Dd1 aged 23...she, like me up thread, was musing on the concept that for some women gilead /being a handmaid might be better than life previously.
She said that she bets of you asked the homeless, sex trafficked, Street prosititutes etc if they'd trade bring able to read and write for a nice safe warm house, good medical care, food, and once a month vanilla sex with a clean bloke... They'd jump at it.
I pointed out that then they have to give their babies away, interestingly my dd thought that some would not mind. If you went into it knowing that's the deal, never thought of it as your baby and effectively saw the whole handmaid scenario as a form of surrogacy then she wondered if women at the very lowest of our society might feel they actually were getting a better deal. After all society doesn't do much for them now and as she pointed out nobody much cares about their health, well being and social services remove their babies.... What's the difference asked dd?

She has a good point, I'd like to see some characters with a differing viewpoint... While the handmaids who had 'normal, successful, independent lives' before clearly can see why gilead is so wrong for women, I wonder whether other handmaids may not..
Think I might need new career as screen write for hulu :)

That's exactly what Ofglen 2 says in series 1 - she was a drug-addicted street prostitute before but after Gilead, life as a handmaid was actually a step up for her.

hygge completely agree. Women up and down this country and throughout the world are coerced into sex out of duty, out of threat and out of wanting the pestering to stop. DH occasionally complains we don’t have enough sex and I’m sure it’s because I never have sex unless I really want to!

Hasn’t Nick also been prostituted?

He has to sleep with Eden or risk being reported, but his initial sex with June was at the behest of Serena, did he really have any power to refuse?

Queen... Yes ofglen2 is who I talked about up thread. However apparently it's pointed out that gilead will take her baby if she has one and she then has a bit of a change of opinion.
I would like to see a handmaid who sees it as an improvement in her life and who is effectively happy to be a surrogate.

I think Nick was attracted to june and was more or less happy to oblige so i don't think its the same as with Eden.

In a totalitarian dictatorship, which is what Gilead is, the loss of freedom to make your own choices is always removed - it has to be, because otherwise people wouldn't do what the regime wants them to - usually because the regime is unreasonable. So everyone, other than the most senior commander/s are powerless to do what they really want to do and have no recourse to any form of justice to protest.

We all have our freedom restricted to some degree. So for example, we might all fancy wandering around town or work naked in this heat, but we'd get arrested for indecency, so we don't have that freedom. We might think we should have antibiotics if we have a sore throat, but we can't legally buy prescription medicines ourselves, so we don't have that freedom. We might like to book our holidays in the middle of May and take our children out of school to come with us, but that freedom is also curtailed!

Very few societies allow their members complete freedom, what is interesting is where the cut off point falls between acceptable curtailment of freedoms for the benefit of the majority and feeling powerless, trapped and oppressed.

@QueenOfTheAndals Ofglen 2 did say exactly that, she thought it was better than her life before. Obviously that changed quite dramatically.

Janine fought at first but once they broke her, she would have been happy with everything except giving up her baby.

She had to believe that her Commander Warren loved her and that they would be a family.

But even imagining some would would be happy to trade bad situations for life as a handmaid, it's temporary.

As we've seen from Fred and Serena, they could well be in a house which still dishes out rape outside of the ceremony, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and if they don't conceive a baby, they're shipped off to the colonies. If they do, that baby is taken and they're moved on to another house and another Commander, and still likely to end up in the colonies when their fertility declines.

Maybe the way of life for a Handmaid in Gilead would be preferable for some people, if not for that death sentence that's hanging over them. I know they say a handmaid who births a viable baby won't be sent to the colonies but I don't really trust that. What else would they do with them? They can't even trade them on to other countries and I doubt they'd let them go live elsewhere as they'd have too much information to share.

Very well put hygge

And yes, similar situation to gay men who married to escape prosecution. Have sex with a woman, any woman, or your life/Liberty is at risk. That’s not sex of your own free will. And it caused untold damage and hurt to so many men and their wives/families.

I agree thered it would be good to hear from those who were actually happy to be a handmaid in gilead. There will of course be some.

' I know they say a handmaid who births a viable baby won't be sent to the colonies but I don't really trust that. What else would they do with them?'

A little house and a small pension, and a place of honour at a big state occasion once in a while. A few happy retired handmaids around the place would be very useful to help keep the current ones under control. You don't want them to think they've got nothing to lose by not cooperating.

What happened between Nick and June was animal husbandry regardless of his attraction

Yes Countess, to be wheeled out at galas and to teach at the Centre

They could become Lydias

animal husbandry is a good name for it.

@hygge.. If you really are at the bottom of society you really have nothing to lose, and these women arw often already conditioned to abuse, plus often poorly educated, chaotic and unlikely to have intellectual capabilities to think ahead. They very much exist in the here and now... So the distance possibility of the colonies or what happens if they don't conceive or get old etc really wouldn't bother them. The immediate response to being offered security, safety, food, a bed and a role in life would be to grab it... Worry about the other stuff later...

I don't think they could become aunts, how could you inflict that kind of torture on another woman when you had been through it yourself