A light bulb joke, and LKH's rape fantasties

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

As some of you have seen, kippurbird has been flogging Danse Macabre something fierce. The flog is now on Chapter 33. While the whole thing made me laugh, there was a little joke that made me want to post it here, with Kippur's permission:


How does Anita Blake change a light bulb?

She holds it up and the world revolves around her.


This, I think, sums up everything about the Anita Blake books. As well as Hamilton's life, really. Or what she thinks of as her life. As Kippur said, the self-centeredness of both Anita and Laurell are starting to really grate.
The scene with London being forced to have sex with Anita actually scared me, especially considering London's obvious reluctance and outright fear. From what I got out of it, Anita essentially raped London, and didn't even care how it had affected him. I'd told Kippur that I'd once had a friend who had been a rape victim more than once, and one of her rapists had been an ex-boyfriend with a cocaine addiction. When my friend read that scene, she started having severe flashbacks to both the rape and watching the boyfriend's addiction, because she saw Anita's ardeur as a metaphor for a date rape drug as addictive as cocaine.
It's so frustrating -- and frightening -- to think that LKH writes this crap probably knowing full well that it could compare to such serious trauma.

Comments

[longtail.livejournal.com]

Wow. That sounds like something out of Something Positive.

My condolances to your friend, rape is bad enough without the victim being confused with pleasure.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

It does, doesn't it? Makes me think of how Kim have sex with Davan and he never actually said it was okay for her to do that, and PeeGee and Aubrey prepared to slaughter Kim.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

I think you've pointed out exactly what's wrong with LKH's understanding of the gray area between consent/rape. I sincerely doubt she would understand that. How could he gush about how wonderful it was, but still think of it as a rape? She doesn't understand the difference between sex and bodily/mental autonomy. It's not mutually exclusive. This woman did not ask your friend what he wanted, she just started manhandling him. Apperantly she was quite good at it and it probably fufilled a fantasy of his. But there is a major part of him seperate from the act that is unwaveringly NOT COOL with not being asked first. I don't blame him, either.

I think LKH's misunderstanding of that concept really showed up not only at the Micah shower scene in NiC with the not-rape rape, but also in CS. After Anita kicks Musette's ass, she and JC are discussing protecting everyone, and how Asher had enjoyed having sex with Musette in the past, and if Musette had sex with him that night without his consent, he'd still likely enjoy it. Then Belle Morte would not consider that harmful or rape. In what proved to be later irony, Anita muses that Belle Morte really doesn't understand the difference between love, sex, and rape. In later books, Anita does EXACTLY what she accuses Belle Morte of doing.

I think it'd be quite fun if Belle Morte was the reason Anita needs to "eat" so damned much and was making it impossible for her to control the ardeur like JC can. It'd be an awesome stamp of how truely horrific the "ardeur" is as a power and justify it being there as more than just a cheap "let's fuck!" excuse (though it still needed to be closed MANY books ago). It would also be a fun "gotcha last!" to show that yes, Belle Morte really DOES understand the difference between love, sex, rape, and blured it all like the terrifying master vamp of the high council that controls the world of vampires that she is. If she could be subtle enough to "puppet" Anita like that, and I may return to reading these awful books.

Alas, I hold no hope of this, except in fanfic. Nothing trumps Sueness as a the be all and end all of powers.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Apperantly she was quite good at it and it probably fufilled a fantasy of his.

That's actually what he said. He's not traumatized or anything, but he often uses his experience as a warning to other friends: Just because you like it, it doesn't mean you have to consent. If you don't consent, it's force.
It's a slippery slope, not only for LKH but for a lot of people. I had to come to terms with it when I was 18, when a guy friend led me into an empty campus building and proceeded to fondle me without my consent. I never said yes, I never said I wanted it, but I never said no, either. I didn't say anything. It took me years to realize that I could have and should have said no and pushed him away. I didn't realize that it wasn't right for him to touch me like that without asking.

What frightened me most about London's rape by Anita was that London clearly did not want it, was crying throughout it... and then suddenly it was okay. Oh, look, he's happy now, so it's okay.
Even if you've never been sexually assaulted, you'd have to find something wrong with that.

[kerame.livejournal.com]

I think the assault on London was more like a pusher forcibly readdicting a recovering addict. What he feared was the addiction.

What she did to Richard in NiC was more clearly a rape than anything else in the series including the Micah shower-scene, since she could feel his fear through the mind-link and enjoyed forcing herself on the one man who wouldn't allow him to control her, the way a bully of a man would enjoy raping a woman he couldn't control.

He told her before hand that he wouldn't feed the ardeur, when it started he screamed, pushed her hands away and tried to leave the room. He clearly felt violated, and Anita even blamed the victim by saying he never said no.

Afterwards, because he had enough remaining self-esteem to leave her, he's called self-loathing, and the fans agree with her, and blame him for hurting her? When an abused person leaves their abuser, it's not considered to be hurting the abuser by sane people, and no one would blame him, or side with her if the genders were reversed.

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Yeah, that's pretty blatant.

Jeeze.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Been there done that myself. Sex drive and conciousness work on two entirely different levels, that's why they say rape is not really about sex. That's also why so many sexual abuse victims get confused and ashamed about enjoying it and at the same time hating it.

As I said, this could actually be a very cool and interesting plot point to play with to make a truely scary idea...but...meh, it's LKH. She just wants to think about Teh Sexx0rs. >.<.