K. Tempest Bradford is guest blogging at Jeff Vandermeer’s blog, which is where I found this gem of a blog post. I love it when someone puts into words stuff that I feel but never bothered to write down. #1 is a particular sore point – you don’t need rape to cause your protag to change/get stronger/break down.
Consider this: if a man was intimidated by another man and decided to strike out and somehow de-empower his rival, he wouldn’t think “I’ll get him drunk and take advantage of him!” If a man found out a secret about another man and wanted to use that to his advantage, he wouldn’t say, “Have sex with me or I’ll tell your secret to the world.” If a man gets pissed off at another man, he doesn’t beat him up and rape him, he just beats him up.
As she says, it does happen in the real world, and it can have a place in stories – but it has to be done right. If it’s just a “let’s shock the reader” or “what is the worst thing I can do to my character?” then it’s bull and needs to be edited.
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4 Responses to Strong words of advice from K. Tempest Bradford
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Yeah, it is often used as a crutch for character motivation and to move the plot forward. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be written about- just that it shouldn’t be the one note that defines the character. People are more than the events that happen to them.
While I agree with the point of the post – writers shouldn’t lean on overused devices like rape and racism as shortcuts for character development – I don’t agree with her presentation. “If a man gets pissed off at another man, he doesn’t beat him up and rape him, he just beats him up.” This very statement implies that women experience something different than men do in the same situation, and that says more about society than it does about any given writer’s skill.
I think that “if a man etc.” bit was simply because generally it is a male antagonist who rapes a female protagonist, and the blog-author was simply pointing out that a male antagonist doesn’t always have to interact with the female protagonist in a sexual-aggressor way, but could simply treat her as he would treat an enemy in whom he doesn’t have a sexual interest (i.e. not raping them.) The issue is that poor writers tend to jump on the rape-bus when they have a male enemy and a female hero and they want to show just how bad-nasty the male enemy is.
I suppose she has a point, but rape is used in the real world to humiliate and break an enemy. And if you think this only applies to women I would remind you of the Abu Ghraib story – it may not have been rape but they definitely used sexuality to humiliate and break the prisoners and raping the women is used to disempower the men (and if you think that example is rare I suggest you check your history books). Sex and power are intertwined. I, however, do think that in genre fiction the issue is oversimplified.