Rape in literature (warning may be triggering)

[careyjones]

Hi there, first off I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Carey and I'm 21 and just getting into feminism and found these wonderful boards.

I'm hoping to get some feedback from some of the more seasoned feminists on here, (but any opinion is helpful!)

My friend is writing a book...and in the book he includes a section about rape. The basic premise of the book is set in a futuristic world, where people get 'scored' for how well they play by the systems rules, how attractive they are, how many girls they can get. Its supposed to be a dystopian novel and he writes it very well and its funny and intelligent. In the section that I am talking about, he is introducing a character who 'one day realised he was a rapist'.

Now, he writes in quite a surreal way, and he is clearly not painting this rapist character as a sympathetic character at all. But there is something about it that just doesnt sit right with me. And i'm not sure what it is. I have tried to talk to him about it, but I really am quite new to these topics and can't quite seem to articulate what exactly I find uncomfortable about it.

He is a feminist. His mum and his sister were both raped...so he is not some sort of rape apologist.

He said his motivation for writing the rape scene was because he wanted to delve deeper into the MIND of the rapist, as even if we see them as 'evil' people (they do indeed to evil things) they are still people. He wanted to humanise them. Not excuse what they did but understand. And also to show how messed up the society had become, that things like this could happen.

I think my main problems in the scene were

1. the absence of any female voice. I think its very important to have the voice of the rapist to understand them...but having nothing from the girl...seems oppressive and not constructive. Unless he is deliberately trying to prove this point. In which case he needs to be more obvious.
   

1. The idea of 'stranger rape' in an alley way....whereas actually women are raped more often than not by friends or people who know them.
   

But there may be more. I don't know.


I want to be able to give him constructive criticisms on it...because i think it is so so so important to deal with these issues in the best way possible. We live in a society where rape joke are rife and politicians talk ridiculously about 'good rape and bad rape' so if we have the smallest chance to make a difference through literature/art/politics I think we should do our best to take it.

I'd like to post the excerpt (my friend wont mind, he has told me I can show it to as many people as I want to discuss it...he wants to make it good) I will post it in the next post and I would love,love,love to hear peoples opinions on it.

Beware it is quite descriptive of the rape, so if you are upset by thing like this you may not want to read on.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

I don't think the OP is the author - I have friends who write but aren't published and don't mind me sharing their work with other people, especially if it's someone who might know something about the topic on which they're writing. The author could be a student or something after all he clearly has a lot to learn. :o

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Fair enough Elephants ... maybe I'm too cynical.

To be honest I suspect I'm on the defensive because the extract gets all my 'stop peddling rape myths' defensiveness engaged.

[careyjones]

No I'm not the author.

Honestly, I'm not actually asking for critisms of the WRITING, I'm asking for cristisms of the way he wrote about the rape. Anything can seem like 'bad writing' taken out of context so I'm not asking you to judge his skills as an author...that is not fair. And he is not a bad person or a bad writer, he is a victim of misinformation about rape from the society we live in. He is trying to write about something he clearly does not understand to a full extent.

I was asking for constructive criticism in regards to talking to him about how he could write about rape in a feminist context.

And yes, I have heard of rape myths...I listed the fact that I disliked his use of stranger in an alley rape.

What WOULD be a good way to write about rape? What WOULD be an attack on common myths and misconceptions?

[careyjones]

LDR...honestly I completely understand. The reason I AM posting this here is because MY 'stop peddling rape myths' alarm bells were ringing when I read this. I want to be able to talk to him about this constructively but I really honestly do not know enough about it to explain it to him fully.

Which is why I asked for help here. As I stated before I am new to feminist issues but I have started to be very interested in them lately.

I really am sorry if I caused any offence. And yes this is my first post, but I was looking for a feminist forum, for the sole purpose of asking about this excerpt.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I think we did give some information about how to write about rape in a feminist context ... the answer from both me and SGM was he needs to read a lot more. And it may be that ultimately the answer to how to write about rape is 'not by humanizing the rapist'.

I think fiction is a really difficult way to attack myths and misconceptions. I'm not saying it is bad or anything like that, but it is difficult. So if his main interest is challenging rape myths, I think the best way is to always challenge them in public, maybe to get involved with or form a local society of men against rape, that sort of thing. Or if he is more interested in learning, I suggested and will again, that reading some feminist theory might be really interesting.

I'm sorry if you felt offended by proxy by my criticisms of his writing style. However, I would respecfully disagree that anything can seem bad writing out of context. His writing style does need some work. It could be that his style is not equal to the very difficult task of writing well about rape ... but then, this too would be an argument for not trying to use fiction as the means of communication, IMO.

[careyjones]

'What is less usual is to read someone explaining the actual hidden assumptions that underlie rapists' way of thinking.' LDR this really interests me, what sort of thing do you mean by this if you don't mind me asking? What hidden assumptions?

Also...is the rapist point of view quite well documented? I was doing some research trying to find accounts of rape from the rapist POV earlier today and couldn't find any. I mean...I wanted to find an actual rapist who was talking about his crime honestly after having paid time for it. I wanted to understand why men rape. What actually IS in their mind? So much research is done on 'why women get raped' and 'how women should act so as they dont get raped' which is obviously awful...I want to know WHY men feel like they can rape.

[Prolesworth]

Here carey: Rape culture 101

[careyjones]

No LDR I wasnt offended, and I'm very grateful for you for taking the time out to comment/criticize.

And yes his writing definitely does need more work...it is only a first draft, nowhere near finished. Which is why I want him to nip this whole misreperesentation of rape thing in the bud before it goes further!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Well, a lot of people (like your friend) assume rapists rape because they want sex, for example. In fact the rape myths Elephants listed cover a lot of it. Is that what you mean?

I mean, you know your rape myths ... I'd have said that the myths are what rapists either think is true or want to pretend is true, they're the 'hidden assumptions' (eg. that women deserve to be raped if they're in a dark alley, etc. etc.).

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Oh, that's just what I was looking for proles. Thanks.

[Trills]

I want to know WHY men feel like they can rape.

You should probably also add I want to know why men WANT to rape - because it's not about fulfilling a sexual urge.

[VeryLittleGravitas]

It reads like a fourth-rate John Courtney Grimwood; who himself is guilty of producing badly-written misogynistic drivel posing as cyberpunk.

Lit. crit. aside, it looks like an attempt to clumsily shoehorn some rape porn into the narrative in order to fit the meme. Maybe your friend could look to Gibson and Sterling for inspiration. They are both capable of producing intelligent cyberpunk without resorting to porn, and even have female main characters.

[careyjones]

Thank you proles thats really really helpful.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Just FYI Carey it's quite polite to thank people for their input, when you've asked for it :)

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Sorry if that sounds snippy, I just know that a lot of people on this section are bringing personal experience to bear here, and we are all giving our time to help your friend.

If he wants to write about someone who commits rape while feeling hatred for himself as an ageing person or whatever, fine. But he will be committing that rape because he wants to feel power over someone, to feel that someone - a woman - is lower than him, because he despises them. Not because he wants to show them love or "have sex".

[careyjones]

I am honestly very grateful Elephants, its broadening my mind a lot, and has really helped me understand WHY i felt so uncomfortable reading it. :)

[careyjones]

Likewise thank you to everyone. I am making notes and getting ready to have a long heart to heart with him about it when I next see him. I just needed help in explaining WHY...I knew I felt that I wasn't happy with the scene, but I honestly couldnt find a justification for it. I really am new to all of this.

[VeronicaSpeedwell]

If he wants to think about rape in literature he should also read other novels which deal with the topic, as well as of course reading feminist writing on rape. If you want to help you could read the same texts as he does and talk about the ways in which the topic is treated. Which position is the reader encouraged to identify with? How/why? What are the text's implications on questions of blame? How does the literary depiction correspond to testimony from rape victims? What ideologies might it be promoting? I'm not suggesting that this is deeply ground breaking, but it seems that he is struggling to articulate himself in all kinds of ways, and to do this he needs to leave his writing and do some reading and thinking. Keeping his blinkers on to carry on plugging away at this particular exercise isn't going to generate any meaningful advances.

[leafgreen]

I haven't read the extract and I'm not going to - even the comments here are too triggering. I really appreciate your warning in the thread title, and the warning before you posted the extract - thank you for being considerate about that.

But here's the thing that strikes me: it's not rapists who need humanising, in literature or anywhere else in our culture. It's their victims. And that does mean not using rape victims, even fictional ones, as a means of 'understanding' the rapists who violate them.

[careyjones]

Thank you veronica that's really interesting, those questions are so helpful. I'm looking at some texts right now and this one looks fairly interesting.

www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Feminism-Literature-and-Rape-Narratives-Sorcha-Gunne-Edited-by-Zoe-Brigley-Thompson-Edited-by/9780415896689

also the wiki seems quite comprehensive en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_and_Representation

good starting points to give to him anyway...along with the Rape culture 101 blog.

I think I am going to tell him that if he wants to write about this subject he is going to need to give it the proper care and research and time that it deserves.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

He could really really do with reading Sexual Politics.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

And exactly what leaf said.

It is actually not rapists that people have difficulty sympathising with. It is rape victims. Automatic response to a woman telling someone she was raped is still too often cynicism.

He should think about that.

[careyjones]

Really appreciate you posting that Leaf, its a very true statement that really does cut down to the heart of the matter. I'm sorry the subject matter is triggering to you.