I’ve noticed a trend in literature in the last few years: gratuitous rape scenes. Specifically gratuitous anal rape combined with demented torture.
I find this trend disturbing and I’ve boycotted the authors.
Not a sort of “I hate you now and I’ll never read you again,” boycott.
More of a “I don’t trust you now and I don’t want your demented images floating around in my head,” boycott.
The latest was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I could have done without the very graphic descriptions of torture, the very demented mix of sexuality and violence.
It’s not only in the fiction of male authors. It seems female authors are going for the emotional jugular and shock value as well. Specifically I’ll mention Kira Silak’s The White Mary and one of Janet Evonovich’s numbered novels. Both had incredibly horrific imagery of vaginal mutilation and anal rape.
I’ve gotten to where I don’t read much of the thriller mystery genre anymore.
It’s particularly disturbing when the author feels it necessary to graphically describe the rape, anal rape and torture of his or her own protagonist. Often times by someone they love or have a relationship with. Then the protagonist will spend maybe a day or a few hours washing herself off and going about her business, as if this is just what women should expect of the world and the men they are involved with.
There is a disturbing underlying emotion of hatred of female sexuality, a hatred of females in and of themselves, an objectification that goes beyond a one-night-stand-use-them-for-pleasure into women-are-disposable ideology. It’s an absurd notion that the witnessing of such horrific deeds – fiction or otherwise – passes for harmless entertainment in the plots of the stories.
It makes me wonder several disturbing things like:
How many men are jacking off to these images and creating an attraction to the mingling of misogyny, a fear and loathing of normal female sexuality and taking an an erotic pleasure in climaxing at the moment of a woman’s mutilation and even her naked death?
It also makes me wonder about the female audience. Why are we passively consuming graphic descriptions of rape, violence and torture of women in mass quantities of mainstream literature, music, television, movies and online porn and not offended by it?
I think there’s something wrong with both the men and women who are not offended. Mass desensitization to sexually violent misogyny can’t bode well for us.
It’s a form of vicarious rape of the masses of femininity. I don’t know whether its intent, in all cases, is to “keep women in their place” making sure that they’re aware of and just a little frightened about their physical vulnerability in this world – but I do think that’s the effect of it.
For more on this theory check out Misogynistic Violence for Breakfast where I discuss the sexuality violent graphic nature of commercials during family programming time.
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4 comments ↓
Kira Salak’s character sought out every sort of punishment/hardship she had witnessed around the world, I wonder if maybe that was the character’s way of seeking out the experience of brutal rape also? I don’t know, it was certainly disturbing and I sure could have done without it that’s for sure.
Which Janet E novel was that? I usually enjoy her books but want to be sure I stay away from that one.
I can’t remember which number it was. I stopped reading her books after that. It was a hideously violent scene involving misogyny and mutilation that I have never been able to remove from my brain and I resent the hell out of her for that.
When there’s a horrible depiction of rape and abuse I’m offended by it and then gratified when the rapist is creatively punished and actually then killed by someone else. Oh darn.
I’m not offended by the fact that the rape scene is in the book in the first place. If the rapist wasn’t punished and later killed or sent to prison I would be super pissed though and wouldn’t read the author again.
Since violence against women is real I think that it should be a part of fiction literature… but it’s not always necessary to describe the details, of course.
The entire theme of the Millenium trilogy is a woman fighting back against abuse and ultimately winning vindication and freedom, and in the process bringing down alot of men who are either sex slave traffickers or rapists or pedophiles. So if someone was really in favor of subjugating women I don’t think they would enjoy those books, because they are really about a strong woman who really has contempt for men who hate women and takes revenge against all of them. Men who hate women are presented really as idiotic morons in those books.
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