Meta: Angels and Demons: Thorns and Stings

[chasingtides]

Perhaps I was a little unclear in my last meta. Perhaps I fell victim to my English-major habit of needing to prove everything, even things only tangentially related to my topic. If I did, I apologise. Perhaps I wasn't talking about what you wanted to talk about. I don't apologise for that.

I talk about a lot. I talk about sexism, ablism, and Castiel and Ruby as counterbalances, among many other things. I even have a convenient list if you don't believe me. But I also talk about uncomfortable things and I'm getting the feeling that I'm treading on uncomfortable ground here.

To clarify my point, I'm going to copypasta from my previous meta:

Dean's fight with Zachariah, where he keeps telling him that no, he won't let Michael take him is both heart breaking and terrifying. It is one thing to think of a demon - Meg or Lucifer or Azazel - taking someone against their will, but the brutality of the angels is beyond cruel.

Zachariah says to Dean, "You're Michael's weapon or, rather, his receptacle... Michael's vessel. You're chosen. It's a great honor... I am completely and utterly through screwing around.... Now, Michael is going to take his vessel... You understand me?"

I think part of the terror is how easily Zachariah dehumanizes Dean. Dean isn't a person. His consent doesn't really matter (or, in Zachariah's words, the angels' god-given need for consent is "unfortunate"). Dean is an object - he is a receptacle and a vessel. Dean is empty until Michael fills him and uses him. Dean is nothing; he is empty until Michael rides him.

I really don't blame Dean for saying no to that.

Then Zachariah takes it a step further. He broke Sam's legs because Dean was mouthing off at him, but when Dean actually dares to say no - dares to assert himself as a person - Zachariah is visibly furious. He offers to heal Bobby, if Dean will say yes, but says that if Dean says no again, Bobby will never be able to walk. After Dean says no again, Zachariah gives Dean stage four stomach cancer, saying he will heal him if he allows Michael to take him. (Stage IV gastric cancers are usually metastasized tumors that have spread to other parts of the body - probably Dean's only hope of recovery is a miracle.) At another no, Zachariah removes Sam's lungs.

Unsurprisingly, Dean begs for death at this point. Zachariah has, after all, pretty much run out of people to hurt and Dean is in visible agony from his gastric cancer, while Sam struggles behind him. Zachariah, however, tells him, "Are we having fun, yes? ... Kill you? Oh no, I'm just getting started." Zachariah is ready to torture Dean into allowing Michael to ride him.

I want to talk about this.

I want to talk about how Dean is being victimized here. I want to talk about how we have a (manly man's man who drinks beer and listens to rock and roll and eats red meat and sleeps with women and drives a classic car and likes big guns) is having his choice - his consent, his ability to say no - taken away by a (should-be-trustworthy, older, authority figure) male. On a (mainstream, regular, not-special-interest) television show, Dean is being told that, regardless of his own desires, Michael is going to take him and Zachariah is going to have fun in forcing him to say yes to Michael.

Some brief information on assaulted men: Men are even less likely to report assault and rape than women. Imagine, briefly, how off that makes our statistics. Male rape, particularly penetrative rape, is associated with a loss of manhood, making it problematic on multiple levels. Like all rape, it is about power, not sexual desire. According to Wikipedia, the first successful prosecution of male-on-male rape in the UK was in 1995. According to RAINN, in 2002, one in eight rape survivors was male. Have some links.

Male sexual violence is also rarely depicted in media, especially mainstream media. The victim is usually a child, gay, or in prison. The media offered by Mankind Counselling fit these boundaries, almost exclusively features characters who are molested as children. I'm still looking for another representation that is like what we saw in Sympathy for the Devil (5.01), which, according to the information I have found, is fairly realistic in what male rape actually does look like.

As I said in my previous meta, I'm not sure what it means. I am, indeed, grappling with what it means that Castiel took (rode, possessed, was inside) Claire and then took Jimmy, when Jimmy was dying and desperate to save his daughter. I'm grappling with what it means that the men of the show - John, Bobby, Sam - who manly men and men's men and all-American men with big guns and fighting skills have been taken and ridden and filled against their will, except for Dean who was so clearly, visibly brutalised in a highly sexual manner.

It's one thing, as a friend pointed out to me, for Lilith to take little girls. It's one thing for Ruby or Meg-demon or Azazel to ride an unwilling victim. But it's a new line, a new violation for an angel to do this, even if we don't find angels to be terribly trustworthy. What does it mean that even angels will ride roughshod over consent with pleasure?

And what does it mean to have this representation of male rape in mainstream television and have it primarily - as I see it, correct me if I'm wrong - ignored by its normally highly rape-conscious, misogyny conscious fanbase?

I don't know which bothers me more, to be honest.

Comments

Re: 2/2

[ginzai.livejournal.com]

Honestly, you're really confusing me here. I brought up male on female violence, but you indicated that it wasn't the focus of your rant and thus it seemed to me that you didn't want to discuss its implications here. However, in terms of equality in horror, it simply doesn't make sense to me to separate male on male violence out from female on male or male on female, which I tried to indicate. I'm really trying to understand where you're coming from and what it is that you're trying to say, but at this point I'm completely lost.

I would never suggest that male on female violence is somehow unimportant nor do I think I was saying that you were saying so, but I do feel like I'm receiving mixed signals on whether it's appropriate to discuss it here, under the context of rape in Supernatural, or not. I'm lost as to why Zachariah attempt to coerce consent (essentially not consent at all) is significantly different from the demons who don't bother to torture their victims into verbal compliance first. I responded not to attack you or your views but because I was seeking clarification on your stances and because I think discussion helps awareness and that it's only through awareness that we can stop the violence.

I've read all of two meta posts by you, this one and the one you posted yesterday (which to be honest, I only skimmed) also on male on male rape. I don't know what your stances are in regards to male on female rape. I did not know that you were a survivor. If I have insulted you, then you have my sincere apologies. That was never my intent.

I hope though that you can see why I'm confused regarding what topics are acceptable for discussion and what ones are not.

Re: 2/2

[ibroketuesday.livejournal.com]

The way I understand it, this post is not intended to discuss what's most horrific or even all things that are equally horrific in terms of implied, actual, or symbolic sexual violence, but to specifically discuss the language of possession and the issue of consent (for angelic vessels) and how these parallel male rape. A post about male on female violence in SPN would make for an equally valid discussion, but this is not that.

:)

[ginzai.livejournal.com]

Thanks. In retrospect, I can see what you're saying and that I was reading her meta in too broad a fashion. I didn't take it as a desire to only only angelic possession as a parallel to male rape; the OP refers specifically to possession by demons as well and implies (to my mind) that it differs from angelic possession (with angelic possession seemingly the worst between the two - "It is one thing to think of a demon - Meg or Lucifer or Azazel - taking someone against their will, but the brutality of the angels is beyond cruel"). That was something I sought clarification on because I wasn't (and still am not) sure why angelic possession is more closely aligned with male/male rape than demonic possession.

As I told smallcaps as well, I didn't understand that the OP wasn't discussing sexual violence in Supernatural in general. To me, to touch on one aspect of it is to invite potential conversation on all aspects of it, particularly due to writers' bias when it comes to acknowledging male/male over male/female or female/male violence. That said, it's not my LJ and now that I'm aware that chasingtides doesn't wish to discuss it here, I'll definitely refrain from doing so.

Re: :)

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

It's not that angelic possession is more closely aligned with male sexual violence than demonic possession. It's that, right here, we have it made explicit in an episode we just saw and is fresh in our minds. So let us discuss this scene and its ramifications.