lkh_lashouts | (no subject)

Richard DID realize it was rape in NIC, even if he didn't call it that.

He screamed, pushed her hands away, and tried to leave the room. She felt his fear through the mind link and ENJOYED it, the way a bully of a man would enjoy raping a woman he couldn't control.

Afterwards, he clearly feels violated, and instead of apologizing, or even asking if he was all right, she essentially blames the victim by telling him he never said no.

When he leaves her after the ardeur-rape, she manages to turn the situation around (as always), and blame him for hurting HER, and as usual all her idiot fan-girls buy into this interperetaiton. In ID he even has to apologize for leaving her.

Sorry LKH. When an abused person leaves their abuser, it's not considered to be hurting the abuser in the mind of a sane person.

It's interesting that LKH will recognize a situation is wrong beforehand, but once it happens she always finds a way to justify herself.

She knew having sex with Nate would be like child-molesting and that he had a pattern of having sex with those in power over him in order to gain their protection. The ardeur "forces" her to have sex with him, and instead of making sure it doesn't happen again, she makes him her pds, and has his "therapist" condone the relationship.

She knew London was a recovering ardeur addict, she readdicted him, and instead of trying to help him recover his sobriety, he becomes another slave on the feeding cycle, but that's okay because he tells her she won't be cruel the way Belle Morte was.

The lion king spoke up and told her she was behaving like a slaver, and was condemned to near-certain death along with his family, but that's okay because it's all his fault for trying to live like a family instead of a gang.

If Anita had a conscience, and a brain, she should have hated JC for infecting her in the first place, instead of Richard for refusing to be her victim. She should be trying anything she could to break the tri. All she'd have to do is find another vampire to give her 4 marks, which would break JC's. If the ardeur were actually the horror it should be, instead of a wish-fulfillment device it would be worth it.

According to human law, Anita should face execution. Even if the preternaturals don't want to involve them, all it would take is one death to end the enslavement of all the weres. Anita makes all their lives worse not better. The only reason the council keeps dropping by is because of her. They know where she lives, she supposedly still has a job, half the time she's on her back, how hard could it be? If I were any supernatural in the city (aside from JC, Micah or nate) my top priority would be to take the psycho-bitch out!

I honestly don't think a publisher would be able to publish this series if it featured a male character who behaved this abusively towards women. The fact that Anita is constantly called "strong and independent" by her admirers, many of whom call themselves feminists, never ceases to amaze me.

When I first started reading the books, they weren't that bad. The main character was flawed, but it was in a good way. As real people have flaws.

Then things just started to take a turn for the rather uncomfortable. And it keeps getting worse. It makes me both sad and scared that when people read these books they don't see the problem. That they think it's alright for someone to treat another person the way Anita treats her boys.

OT: But is your icon from Maka Maka? <3

Yup! Jun. I have a whole bunch of them. As I look rather like her. If, you know, I was all prettified and in a comic book ^.^

Awww that's cute :p

Mind you, I do think Anita herself is being raped by the ardeur to some extent - she doesn't want to be sleeping with all the men she's sleeping with. She's rationalised herself into a place of "enjoyment" and building relationships about it, but when you consider how prudish her character was early on, the infliction of the ardeur on her was pretty much rape, even if it was unintentional on Jean-Claude's part (and even if he hadn't already violated her by giving her vampire marks against her will), because it leaves her entirely without control of her own body. She's as much a victim as everyone else (which doesn't excuse her own victimisation of others). She never intended to become so promiscuous - she never intends to take any new lovers. It's always pushed onto her by something she has absolutely no ability to control.

Fundamentally, LKH really hasn't got past the "I can only enjoy crazy wild sex if I'm coerced into it" stage, which is deeply problematic in someone who uses feminist polemic all the time. Neither Anita nor Merry can just do it because they're into having group sex, it has to be something that they're backed into a corner over and then, oh dear me, find they enjoy. It's pretty much the same as those romance novels where the women are raped by pirates or sheikhs or whoever and it's supposed to be terribly sexy, except that Anita (and LKH) is in such deep denial over the amount of control she has or lacks over her own life that she can't see the position she's really in.

I would love to see what would happen to Anita herself if she suddenly lost all her powers, particularly the ardeur, and how she would actually deal with the reality of what she'd been doing if she didn't have to do it any more. Alas, LKH is convinced that she's writing someone truly liberated and cannot see any of this, so is unlikely to explore the possibility of Anita realising that she's become a slave. And not in the kinky sense.

I agree that Anita is raped by the Arduer (just finished reading the first book where it comes up), and she's also raped by Micah the first time they have sex. She tells him no, she tells him to stop multiple times, and he keeps going.

The way LKH just avoids that whole part of it afterwards still amazes me. It's an almost standard rape scene, and still LKH/Anita doesn't see it as such.

What surprises me, is that readers blame Micah instead of JC. If she's raped by anyone it's him. Micah, as usual, is just a convinient dildo. JC not only infects her with the ardeur with no warning, though at absolute minimum he knew it was possible, and probably did it on purpose since it gave him everything he wanted: more power and made a monogamous relationship with Richard impossible. Yet she never punishes him, or even interrogates him with the marks open.

Furthermore, when Anita reached out through the mind link to ask for his help, he used their link to force Anita's hand onto Micah's dick, thus making her protestations unbelievable to someone under the sway of the ardeur. He's the one who destroyed her autonomy, and her ability to truly say no, but like most bodice-ripper wanna-be's, that's exactly what she wants. JC is only fulfilling his function as the agent who forces her to act upon her repressed desires.

LKH only considers it rape if the rapist is unattractive to the victim. That's why no one is allowed to turn Anita down without being killed or humiliated. Since Anita is never forced to have sex with anyone she isn't attracted to: no one who's fat, bald, or a flesh-and-blood lesbian ever makes it into the DoomCrotch, and since she shows no anger towards the creature who infected her, I can't consider her a slave or a victim, though that's how the ardeur should work if LKH weren't using it to live out her masturbatory fantasies.

She's an evil tyrant who's too self-deluded and narcissistic to admit that she enjoys controlling and abusing people, so she makes axcuses for her sick desires and demonizes anyone who dares to speak truth to power.

I also don't think she was genuinely prudish in the beginning.

Her celibacy was her way of maintaining control of her relationships.

First she controlled them by having sex with no one.
Then she controlled them by being faithful to no one.
Then the ardeur gave her personality-warping and addictive powers

She's not capable of a monogamous relationship because there's a possibilty of equality in that situation. That's why she went from zero to multiple lovers from whom she demands one-way sexual and/or emotional fidelity. It allows her to maintain the upper hand by being the most important woman in the lives of all the men while never allowing them the same security.

She's the world's sluttiest tease, and in her mary-sue fantasies that just makes the supernatural studs want her even more.

Micah is the one who was told "no" and kept going anyway. That makes him a rapist.

I think it's been pretty well established that neither party can really say no while under the effects of the ardeur. The one moment he might have been able to stop was before JC forced Anita's hand onto Micah's dick.

I think being infected with a supernatural std which forces you to rape or be raped every single day is a hell of a lot worse.

Furthermore if readers really believed "no means no", no one would have been rooting for JC back when it was just a triangle. How many times did Anita refuse to date JC? Until he threatened to murder someone she loved. He didn't even have the excuse of acting under some sort of metaphysical compulsion. Readers seemed to be thrilled with that, so why wouldn't LKH be shocked at the reaction to the shower-scene?

There's a big difference between bugging someone to go out with you and having sex with someone who is saying 'no' and 'stop'.

Besides, Jean-Claude has said he had no way of knowing Anita would get his ardeur. If you think he's lying, that's your prerogative, but the fact that Micah raped Anita is right there in the text.

Threatening to murder someone she loved goes way beyond bugging. Since he was in his right mind at the time, I think that's a hell of a lot worse than what Micah did while under the effect of a metaphysical roofie.

JC told Anita right before they married the marks, that they would be sharing powers. He knew the ardeur was one of his powers, therefore at the absolute minimum, he knew she could catch it, and gave her absolutely no warning so that she could decide if the risk was worth it. There's no way the possibilty wouldn't even have occured to him, especially since they were married at the groin chakra.

What's in the text is that the ardeur acts as a deate-rape drug on both parties, and that JC consistently lies to and manipulates Anita. Not just about the ardeur, he also lied to her about his lust-inducing powers in CoTD, never told her about being an incubus, or that the master-servant bond can feel like love. The reason readers seem to ignore that, and forgive JC, seems to come down to: JC's hot and Micah's not.

Since Anita found out about JC's continuing lies and manipulation in BM, and refused to deal with it, I have no particular sympathy for her, but how anyone who claims to be a feminist could side with JC in the early books, when he acted just like any other controlling creep from a bodice-ripper is beyond me.

What he said was, if she didn't date both of them, he and Richard would fight. Richard could just as easily have killed Jean-Claude, and it's not like R was exactly reluctant to fight either. I'm not saying everything Jean-Claude did is innocent, but Micah damn sure isn't. I don't buy "the ardeur made him do it".

How can you blame Anita for what the ardeur makes her do and then turn around and excuse Micah on the same basis? I'd say that's a lot scarier than not hating Jean-Claude because he didn't tell Anita every single possible consequence of marks which were already a done deal anyway.

When I blame Anita for the actions she takes, it's after the ardeur hunger has been fed.

I blame her for showing no concern for Richard, telling him he never said no, then acting as though he was the one in the wrong for leaving her. (though the fact that she enjoyed his fear means she wanted to hurt him)

I blame her for continuing to use Nathaniel to feed the ardeur after the first "accidental" time. (though the fact that she wanted to have sex with such a childlike character who she was acting as a guardian for says something deeply disturbing about her)

I blame her for continuing to use London after another "accidental" first time, instead of refusing to take advantage of an addict.

Since the ardeur works on both parties it's no more fair to blame the man than the woman.

The marriage of the marks was not a done deal.
Getting her into bed in the early books was not a done deal. The only thing she felt for him was lust, and he lied about the source of that lust in order to get her into bed and addict him to her sexually. At the beginning of BM, Anita says she feels addicted to him, but it wasn't vampire powers, just good old-fashioned lust, since JC's an incubus, it wasn't just lust, it was addictive, supernatural powers. Then she finds out from Damian that the master-servant bond can feel like love. So he was messing with her mind and free-will deliberately. That's a far greater violation than Micah's.

You think the only reason Anita lusts after Jean-Claude's body is because he "vamped" her with his incubus power? There's nothing in the text to support that. That's like saying that just because somebody has a gun, they must have shot somebody. You're just jumping to conclusions.

I think it's funny that you say the readers only like him because he's hot, but you refuse to believe Anita would lust after him for the same reason.

It sounds to me like you're just "translating" the text to support the conclusions you already made- that it's all Jean-Claude's fault, and Micah is totally innocent. I'm not going to go point by point on how much you've assumed and bent to support your argument, so I'll just say that I don't agree and that doesn't make me a "bad feminist" or whatever it is you're trying to imply.

I should also add that it has not even been established in canon that he CAN addict anyone to him sexually. Sure, the ardeur is addictive, but as poor London proves, that addiction extends to anybody who holds the ardeur. It's not personal to one vamp.

JC was presented as hot. There's a big difference between natural lust, which humans are aware of and somewhat prepared to deal with, and a supernatural power. She might have been attracted to him without the ardeur, but since she didn't like, love, or even respect him, without that supernatural ability he didn't have a real chance of getting someone who claimed to be waiting for marriage into bed without it.

It's really jumping to conclusions to say that a character who would blackmail a woman into dating him, and was desperate to possess her power would use his supernatural abilities to make her lust after him.

The arguments I made ARE based on the text and the behavior of the characters, unlike your assumptions that Micah acted deliberately, when the behavior of the ardeur and Micah's complete passivity in every other instance completely contradict that.

I never said that JC's addictiveness was personal. What difference would that make? He lied to her about his powers in order to make her think the lust was something between the two of them, not a power he could use on anyone. He wanted to addict her so she'd be less likely to leave him even if she did eventually find out.

I don't like Micah. I think he's a tool, partly JC's. But you and other people who claim to be feminists have said you like a character who blackmails and manipulates a woman, then infects her with an eternal roofie without even warning her so she could choose whether to take the risk.

Since Anita never punishes JC for his behavior, I guess it's just what she secretly wanted all along, but that's the case with all the so-called "heroines" in bodice-rippers, and the controlling creeps who supposedly love them.

She might have been attracted to him without the ardeur, but since she didn't like, love, or even respect him, without that supernatural ability he didn't have a real chance of getting someone who claimed to be waiting for marriage into bed without it.

I can see you've never been in lust. You don't have to like somebody to want to get horizontal with them. Sometimes it's just as simple as hormones.

It's really jumping to conclusions to say that a character who would blackmail a woman into dating him, and was desperate to possess her power would use his supernatural abilities to make her lust after him.

I'm glad we agree on that, considering there's no proof he even has any power to "addict" anyone to him.

Your entire argument amounts to: He's an incubus, therefore he can make her want him, therefore he did make her want him.

It's been stated repeatedly that what happened (Anita getting his ardeur) has never happened before. So how exactly was he supposed to warn her about something he didn't even think was possible?

Let's just drop it, shall we? It's obvious nobody is going to change your mind, and your convoluted arguments certainly aren't going to change mine.

Anita used to claim she needed a lot more than lust. He knew once he got her into bed she'd tell herself that she loved him. Lying about his lust-inducing power helped him get that far, Anita's screwed up psyche did the rest.

A character who handed over Robert, who he later claimed was his friend, to be raped and tortured by Raina for reasons far less pressing than losing a powerful tool, isn't such a gentleman that he wouldn't induce lust.

He told her that the ardeur had never been passed by giving the marks, but he knew that with the marriage of the marks they would be sharing more powers. He also told her he didn't know how many, since her power was so strong. As I said before, he knew the ardeur was one of his powers, he said the power-sharing would be unpredictable, he knew they were to be married at the groin chakra, so at the absolute minimum he knew he could infect her with something that would cause her to lose her sexual autonomy, and never gave her a choice intaking that risk. Was he also ignorant of the master-servant bond? Of course not. He wanted her to believe what she felt for him was love, just as he wanted her to believe her lust for him came entirely from within.

My arguments are perfectly clear. JC blackmailed and manipulated Anita through both threats and mind-altering powers. Micah is a doormat and the ardeur rapes both parties.

Yours are, that despite his established character, JC nobly refused to use a power available to him, and that despite the overwhelming nature of the ardeur, Micah's passivity in every other instance, and JC's dick-grabbing at the critical moment, that Micah is the guilty party.

Since the series is written in first person, and JC isn't likely to admit to using his powers on her, or knowingly infecting her, his character is all we have to go by. Since you haven't made any arguments in JC's favor other than hotness, it comes back to: JC hot. Micah not.

"He screamed, pushed her hands away, and tried to leave the room. She felt his fear through the mind link and ENJOYED it, the way a bully of a man would enjoy raping a woman he couldn't control.

Afterwards, he clearly feels violated, and instead of apologizing, or even asking if he was all right, she essentially blames the victim by telling him he never said no. "

That's really, really horrible.

Sorry LKH. When an abused person leaves their abuser, it's not considered to be hurting the abuser in the mind of a sane person.

You just hit on something that disturbes me about their "relationship"...I mean, besides the obvious. When someone leaves an abuser, the abuser does feel hurt. Not because they give a damn about the person, but because they have made their control of the person a huge part of their identity. The fact that LKH writes that mindset without even realizing it is pretty damn unnerving.

She's so twisted that every time Richard stands up for himself by trying to leave her in order to live his own life he's made miserable, and described as "self-loathing". The only respite he's allowed from his misery is when he gives in to her by going against his own character and doing what she wants. A perfect catch-22.

He leaves her after she horribly betrays him and is kept miserable until he agrees to a 3-way relationship with his blackmailer and betrayer.
He leaves her after she ardeur-rapes him and is kept miserable until he agrees to be part of the harem.
He refuses to watch her pick out other sex-toys in front of his face in DM and is punished by having her gang-bangs downloaded straight into his brain, then is made to apologize for having avoided the pds contest in the first place. He's not even allowed to have the refuge of his own mind.

She defines people as "well-adjusted" if they abnegate themselves in order to fit into her life at the cost of the loss of their personality, independence, and self-respect.