Bridgerton and the "male rape" scene

submitted by [deleted] from self.GenderCritical

Idk if you guys have seen the show or the outrage and cancelling of the show online a lot of people on twitter are vilifying the show because they say the scene where the female character gets on top of her husband (while having consensual sex) and makes him come inside her (by riding him until he comes inside her) is male marital rape

what frustrates me though is that there is no similar outrage over rape scenes where women are brutally raped in shows like game thrones or 13 reasons or basically any other hollywood production where its like so normalized people dont even bat an eye

its just seen as “something that happens to women sometimes”

people are OUTRAGED and even cancelling the show for it but nothing similar happens to shows where rape of a woman is depicted and then quickly forgotten about. And the depictions are often extremely brutal and sexualised whereas this one was so mild it took me a while to even realise thats what all the outrage was referring to

It's so aggravating

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[–]MarkTwainiac 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

the female character gets on top of her husband (while having consensual sex) and makes him come inside her (by riding him until he comes inside her) is male marital rape

Are his arms and legs tied up/bound down and therefore useless in this scene? Was he drugged with a paralytic?

If he's not tied up or down, there are lots of ways a guy in this situation can get the woman off him: he can push or lift her off with his hands and arms, sit up, jerk his torso, roll on his side, give her a head butt with his forehead, knee her in her back, kick her in the head or shoulders with his foot, or wrap his feet/lower legs around her neck - one in front, one in back of the neck or one on either side.

Edit to add: he could also quickly ram his folded legs through/under her armpits, then immediately straighten them out, put them over her shoulders and cross his ankles behind her head and give her shoulders a good yank away from him. That would make her rise up off him and go backwards.*

He could also tell or ask her to stop. Or was he gagged?

Also, if people are upset about whatever happened in this TV show, they better never read the 1978 publishing sensation, "The World According to Garp."

*Obviously, I've given this way too much thought, LOL.

[–][deleted] 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Nope. She’s just on top of him. Like 5’2 100lbs compared to 6’0 massive dude. Watch the scene and look at the outrage on twitter and articles written about it

[–]MarkTwainiac 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I looked on Twitter, where there's lots of blather about it, and saw the articles, but guess I have to watch the show itself to see the scene.

If anyone has a link to the scene itself, please share it. I cancelled Netflix over "Cuties" and their pushing of trans propaganda.

[–]MezozoicGay 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I found that original work had male rape scene, but in movie it has not.

The two get married, with Duke saying that he could not have children - despite Daphne's desire to start a family with kids - which Daphne originally thought was on the grounds of his medical condition.

It's only when Daphne realises that the Duke can indeed have children but uses the pull-out method in order to avoid having children, that she initiates sex and positions herself on top of him so he can't pull out in time, even if he attempts to do so.

In the book, the scene is slightly different - Simon comes home drunk and Daphne feels an "intoxicating surge of power", takes advantage of him, and leaves him with "complete loss of speech, this choking, strangling feeling".

He was deceiving her in marriage, instead of just saying that he don't want children. It was completely consensual sex, only part of "non consensual" was "not pulling out in time" - as was against his intentions (while not having kids was not consensual descision and it was his try on controlling her reproductive wishes, whithout asking her or discussing it with her).

In book it was yes, a rape. He was drunk and she had sex with him, while he was not wanting to. In movie? No. And I'd say that man there is more guilty in this situation, he should just say that don't want kids, instead of lying to her. And what if he decided to have kids and finishes into her at one moment, without pulling out? Or maybe what if he forget to pull out and she get pregnant? Would that be her rape then by the logic of the crowd?

It is said that this scene was in book to show that she is becoming "a woman that will get what she wants" more and more, and not a helpless innocent girl anymore. Why when in movies and real life man impregnates woman, so she stays home and not goes to a trips and sitting with kids, is ignored, but this part is not? Especially considering that she was sitting with her kid from Duke in this show, as it seems, and Duke was not obligated to do anything.

[–]VioletRemi 16 insightful - 3 fun16 insightful - 2 fun17 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

My mother wanted to go studying in other city, but father did not wanted to be alone, so he made her pregnant with me. Then he was taken away into military (it was obligatory), so she was taking care of me for first two years alone. I know many more similar stories, so why when same done against a man it is "so controversial and horrible", but ignored when it is done against women?

[–]MezozoicGay 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I saw recently outrage about "Wonderwoman raped a man" and that it is very big problem. As I understood, it was not even a real rape, because sex was consensual with the person in body. Scene was next - she accidentally uses her powers, and in one man in his body is put soul of her loved man, that loved man then want sex with her, they have sex, and then "owner" of body returning back. She not even forced him, tied up or overpowered (as she is stronger than any man who is not super-hero), not used strapon.

In so many movies there are cruel rape scenes of women. My friend showed me video of a guy, who was defending japanese comics, where main plot was "monsters are only male and can't reproduce, only way of reproducing is to catch human or elf women and rape them to impregnate, then women giving birth to a monster, monster kills and eats them", and that guy was saying "it is believable scenario and adds spicines to the story. And then video of the very same guy who was very outraged of this Wonderwoman "rape" scene, saying it ruined the movie and is very amoral and ugly thing to show.

Previously I saw misogyny very often, but it never was as severe as it is today. I am not sure is it because I am more noticing such things than before, or because misogyny is rampaging on unheard levels caused by TRA and women erasure.

[–]lefterfield 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I do think that scene in Wonderwoman brings up issues of consent and the morality of using another person's body - but I wouldn't call that rape. Rape has to be done, imo, against the will of a person who cannot consciously consent to it(or consciously refuses it). I mean, if the "body" used was dead - gross, but bear with me - would we say that was rape? Of course not. Still icky. In the case of wonderwoman, I think it was a poor writing choice to create a moral dilemma that they weren't going to address. Why couldn't her lover just be given his own body back? It's magic already!

But I agree with you about the rest. This bizarre situation will never occur in real life. Men will never fear a superhero woman forcing sex on their unconscious body while another man's spirit has control over it. Meanwhile, women are raped daily but how dare they protest to violent, realistic rape scenes in movies?

[–]LeaveAmsgAfterBeep 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It’s a heterosexual couple that were both lying to each other, at least in the show I can’t speak to the book- and he didn’t object to her being on top until he couldn’t deceive her anymore because of it. Actually he almost got her off in time in the show, but came too fast. She called his bluff because he not only deceived her, but took advantage of her innocence and ignorance on the subject of sex, and more so he pretty much clued her into how sex works at all not just with him, and trusted him so for him to be “hurt” about his lying and power being stripped is ridiculous and she didn’t even get pregnant from it anyway.

Don’t forget this same male character kissed her in public while she was unmarried and without a chaperone, and her and all of her sisters might have lost their ability to marry and survive in the world’s stupid rules. He had the power to not kiss her so they had to have a shotgun wedding, but he didn’t. He had also lied to her rather cruelly once before. Because of his actions. Sure she wanted to be kissed, but ultimately he put her at risk, lied, and was upset mostly because she got him back a little and that threatened his major (and understandable) father issues [in the show, again, never read the book and don’t plan to. For the record I don’t remember these same people being as upset when in another Shondaland show the main female character cries an entire sex scene with a man, I guess that’s just normal sometimes?]

This is kind of an affront to male marital rape victims to call the show marital rape. I am a lesbian and I even know pullout is not a great method if you absolutely want to prevent pregnancy. There were contraceptive in the time period like lemons (changes vagina PH, I think honey was believed to be one for many years), and possibly condoms (made of intestines). But he was getting access to sex that was lower risk by not telling her “I don’t want kids, and also sex can make babies.” She didn’t even know that and when she found out how her body works (in the show) that makes it rape? Its ironic cause if he had been trans and not told her that was why he couldn’t have kids these same assholes would be like “go king uwu!”

And yes he could have told her he wanted to stop.

I did actually feel uncomfortable about the show, and its funny because I felt uncomfortable with how soft porn all the show’s sex scenes are and it is a lot of straight fucking like bunnies scenes between an underage character and an older more knowledgeable male character for the period who was still much better than the average male character (tm) given Daphne was almost raped by a different man she refused and the Duke helped her out of the situation a little bit (to be fair Daphne knocked that man out despite being a 100 lb 5’1” soft aristocrat girl).

But once I thought about why I was a different uncomfortable with this scene it made sense:

She gave him the exact same level of communication he had given her every 100 sex scenes implied or shown before that scene, but because he is a man we accept that, he had more knowledge and power the whole time. Because she is a woman we do not.

In the show it absolutely was an example of a double standard placed on women and men, the women are always the deceivers because we are assumed to seduce and use our babymaking and sexuality for evil and obviously carry all this knowledge at all times so Show-Daphne is evil. I think show Daphne is also like 17? And the Duke her husband is her older brother’s friend, so probably about 21-25

Maybe he didn’t want kids but every time previously they had sex there was still a risk of pregnancy, then he would have impregnated her without her knowledge and though she wanted a baby, is that not still deception in a society where he knew what makes pregnancy happen and she did not? No because she was an object to be acted on according to his desires. That’s how people see it.

I’ll give you the book may be entirely different. But for people not watching you deserve to know a little more about the context.

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

No this is spot on. Its the same in the show but its just wow. The double standards placed on women make me sick.

[–]LeaveAmsgAfterBeep 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I haven’t read the book which other commenters mentioned may have involved a very different scenario- so my write up is just the show. I don’t particularly want to read the book regardless of what happened differently, so I can’t say exactly how different it was but it sounds very different (Duke is drunk, Daphne is sober, he may not want to have sex) but in the show he was willing until he couldn’t trick her.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've only ever seen the show as well

[–]QueenBread 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Imagine if these guys discover that in L.E.G.I.O.N., a sci-fi superhero comic from the '70s, the male lead character gets beat up, raped, and murdered by one of the main female characters.

[–]Finnegan7921 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Something like that happened on Outlander iirc. The scheming girl forces the main male character to have sex with her or else (I forget what she was going to do to him), there was some minor outrage over it. They also had a gay rape scene which generated some talk as well. I think the reason why the GoT scenes were sort of accepted is that it is a fantasy show full of all sorts of brutality and that was just sort of expected. Bridgerton was marketed as some sort of woke Masterpiece Theater show so all the easily offended naturally flocked to it b/c "omgz, diverse casting, squeal !!!!". No surprise that they found something to piss them off. Their outrage radars are always on, always looking for the next target to cancel.

[–]LeaveAmsgAfterBeep 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

People claim outlander is very feminist informed but what I watched of it seemed like in the early seasons the rape or attempted rape of the female main character were sexualized (literally shots of her ass as her stalker is attempting to rape her on a desk???). When her husband is raped by her stalker, it is portrayed as not sexualized and far more horrific from the camera angles used, more like torture. This is from a film making perspective and not how characters react to it, and once again- can’t speak to how the book is.

None of these made for adults shows that capitalize on veering so close to soft porn really do a very good job of handling serious issues against women of course.