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[–]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