Polyamorous Vulpine

And then there's the fact of what he wanted to do to her, and she was spared from only by Bonnie's timely intervention; an act of complete bodily violation for his own personal gratification that she would never be able to recover from. Elena could not have gone back from the damage he wanted to deal to her, the way he wanted to hurt her so as to extend her physical availability to him. She could come to terms with it, she could make the best out of it, she could try to adapt, but she would never be able to undo what he wanted to do to her: to literally physically and wholly - bodily and mentally - remould her violently and forcibly against her will into what he wanted.

She is not a person to him, and she never has been. And his abuse is not, and never will be, love.

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Damon/Elena is unquestionably misogynistic. There is no way to deny with any kind of integrity or validity that creating a romantic storyline between a woman and a man who has violated her, tortured her, abused her, repeatedly sexually attacked her, denigrated and abused and manipulated her verbally and emotionally and never suffered real consequences for it, never even been forced to admit that what he did was wrong in any meaningful way, never changed his behaviour, instead shamed and abused and beat her into a slow progression of protecting herself less and less and believing in her own right to live unmolested less and less, because each time her self-defense it was less successful - he murdered her brother in front of her, taunting her with it, because he didn't get to rape her - and no one was there to support her -

Creating that romantic storyline, and without allowing her any kind of trauma recovery or inner reflection to be suddenly - after two seasons of steadfastly defending her right to make choices about who she became involved with, and her right to not want a man who wanted her - all about the 'feelings' for her rapist that the rapist himself and everyone around her have been knowledgeably informing her she possesses for what, a trauma-fraught year now? About her 'obvious' sexual desire for him, because everyone but the woman whose body it is gets to be the arbiter of what happens to a female body.

This. Is. Misogyny.

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It is simply staggeringly offensive on so many levels that the narrative supports Damon - that we are supposed to feel sympathetic - when he says ‘I love you’ to Elena. He abuses her.

Abuse. Is. Not. Love.

It’s disgusting and shameful that we have to remind full goddamn grown adults of this fact. It’s disgusting that when a woman tells a man no and he forces himself on her anyway, continuing a pattern of abusive and controlling behaviour, when she later reminds him that she isn’t grateful for his violations and manipulations, he throws a violent temper tantrum - that is narratively supported as a good thing because it saved somebody’s life - and she is made to feel ashamed for it.

She is made to feel ashamed for telling her attempted rapist she doesn’t want him.

This show, ladies and gentleman! This show.

I honestly think that rather than ‘this guy is treating her like shit and she’s finding ways around it’ we’re supposed to view Damon’s controlling abusive behaviours towards Elena and her rebellion as a morally or emotionally conflicted situation rather than a victim circumventing a rapist’s control. And that, in case anyone needed to be updated, is a huge damn problem.

Also Matt Donovan continues to treat ladies like shit. I'd give him a pass for it this evening if it wasn't a reminder of the way he treats all women he doesn't think he's gonna get something out of. (Or Caroline, his devoted emotionally fragile abused girlfriend, whom he knew that he would get something out of no matter how badly he treated her.)

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This show simply cannot give up on drumming in, 'hi, we're writing a shallow, insincere, exploitative and hateful show. Our text is misogynistic. Our characters are misogynistic. Our metatext is misogynistic and moreover it is trivializing on a staggering, mind-boggling scale towards rape victims (women? allowed to be react negatively to the men who hurt them? Not on this show! Tee-hee, not as long as said men are hot and white.) and simply flat-out, bald-facedly celebrates violent rapists who take pleasure in denigrating and brutalizing young girls, who revel in it, who brag about it to the young women under threat of such actions from them, and who are not even once remorseful for their actions and are never once punished for these actions. We think they're super cool and their behaviour is desirable and 'rogueish' and 'cheeky!''

(Do not even try to argue 'desirable.' They actively reward that behaviour, they actively support that behaviour as part of the personality of a character intended to be attractive and they never, ever narratively condemn it (hey, guess what, having a young woman brutalized, raped, violated, brain-washed, tortured and abused by this man get to push him once without ever actually naming what he did to her is not narratively condemning it) beyond a few rote 'that's bad!' with no repercussions that last longer than forty minutes, it is actively portrayed as part of a 'cool' personality, the list goes on. 'That's ~edgy~ and ~bad~ but so exciting!' is not condemnation.)

Like, constantly. It will not let up. It will not allow me to compartmentalize because it can't let an episode go by without inserting a scene of violated young women, probably victims of rape, posed in sexually available ways and tight clothing, magically forced to be subservient to our pleased and gloating heroes - women who will never be saved, narratively speaking, because I will never know what happens to them, I will never know how they recover, how they or their families process the trauma of at best missing memories, I will never know how they struggle with and process the pain they feel. Their story will be tossed by the wayside with utter, excruciating indifference.

And their audience says 'who cares about harm done to those living, thinking, feeling human beings as long as they have breasts! Here, let me pay you to further celebrate rape culture, that doesn't interfere in my enjoyment at all!'

This show's approach to its women is essentially as if there was a procedural show that involved a young woman being kidnapped and raped and beaten and locked in a cellar, and we're shown this gratuitously throughout the episode - or multiple episodes of an arc - while the criminal swans about being rewarded in every possible way with wealth and pleasure (and when he is thwarted by someone more powerful, someone he can't hurt, he opens that cellar door and he goes down and he hurts her some more to make himself feel better, but the screaming is insignificant because he cries a few pretty, pretty tears while he does so) and at the end of the episode he links arms with our supposed detectives or doctors or cops and walks off into the sunset.

Leaving her locked in the basement, terrified, agonized, victimized, and voiceless. And we aren't supposed to care.

And most horrifying of all, most awful of all, most evocative of how rape culture, abuse, misogyny and the worldwide epidemic of violence against women continues to thrive, their audience fulfills that expectation in every possible way.

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Okay, I'm not going to say this book made me forgive her for the problems in the earlier books, but the latter half of this book has single-handedly redeemed the entire series for me, when partway through the book I was stop and starting reluctantly, I found Christophe's presence to be so gross. (The narrative knows he's gross, like the narrative knows Dru's behaviour can be problematic. But it doesn't provide textual repercussions as heavily as I wanted. It was understandable given the context and characters, but I still did not enjoy any of his screentime. Except for when she threatened to shoot him.)

But I did love, so much, that while keeping our unreliable narrator as a PTSD-ridden teenage girl who feels very beholden to him and uses him as her touchstone - Dru's motivation for being unable to fully reject him is explicitly portrayed as the feeling of safety and indebtedness she retains towards him, and she's already begun to grow beyond it - she just lays flat-out exactly what is so wrong with him, and his behaviours toward her, and their relationship. It was intensely satisfying to read.

Oh my god Christophe you were almost bearable for a little while and then we hit the last scene where ( vague spoilers? the behaviour is nothing new )

Like, I veer pretty sharply off of calling pedophilia on immortal-to-teenage relationships, because I don't think it's remotely appropriate or respectful - there's an issue there but it's not that - but Dru is so devastatingly young and teenage and real that I don't hesitate to call looming threat of statutory rape because that would so obviously be what it would be in every sense of the words, and though I think Dru has enough self-esteem now to call a halt to it, but she would feel guilty as fuck for no damn good reason and his pressure on her - which he's shown he's not shy about using - would up the shame. But we didn't go there! Thank god.

I think St. Crow is aware of the kind of person he is and I think that she balances a line between realistic narrator in an abandoned, scared teenaged girl for whom - metatextually - he's a vitally useful line of defense that she depends on and the resulting emotional response, and making it clear that Christophe is not good for her, his behaviour toward her is not good, and ultimately Dru is going to grow up and be free of him to recognize that behaviour as what it is, even though most of the process through the series is emotional discomfort and baby steps.

ETA: Though not gonna lie, the whole 'inspire me to etc' didn't make me happy.

But in this cultural environment, that line can be uncomfortable to walk.

I'll try to talk about what I liked about it later, because I liked so much, and it was just so satisfying, and the end of the book with Dru's battle, and Dru and Graves working it out, and the battle surrounding Dru rescuing Christophe was just - UGH. GUT-PUNCH. Fiercely.


And for now oh my god.

Oh. My. God.

AWKWARD FUCKED UP TEENAGE MONSTER OTP 4LYFE

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I've always had a problem with Ilona Andrews' treatment of shapeshifters - as I always have a problem with fictional treatment of shapeshifters, especially urban fantasy, that uses a skewed and ignorant perception of the way animals function to romanticize and excuse abhorrent behaviour - but she was hardly the worst of the lot, and Kate Daniels made up for it. I could handle it.

However, her Edge novels are atrocious.

Beyond Declan's emotional abuse of Rose in the first book which he is never called on, in Bayou Moon not only is there a heavy dose of talking about the love interest's "violent jealousy" as romantic and exciting, there is this line. I'm quoting it in all its ugly, misogynistic glory:

"Don't send him the wrong messages and don't get yourself raped. William may not even know it's wrong to force a woman.""

Shall we enumerate how many incredibly ugly things are wrapped up in this one sentence alone? (Part of a speech delivered by an imartial observer set up as more enlightened as to his nature than the heroine, 'teaching' her the better viewpoint.)

First off all, it attempts to place the responsibility for a potential rape squarely on the victim's shoulders. Don't "get yourself" raped. A woman does not "get herself" raped. Never. Ever. A thinking, living, feeling person makes the choice to violate and hurt another thinking, living feeling person for their own personal gratification. There is no "sending the wrong messages" that results in rape. Someone's selfish, violent choice results in rape. (And even if it's drugs, or coercion, or not physically violent? I still count it as violent.)

Second of all, animals have empathy. Animals are fully fucking capable of recognizing that it's wrong to damage their own! A wolf does not attempt to tear out the throat of his pack mates for kicks, ergo he or she understands that you don't assault people, especially people you care for, for pleasure. And let's face it: among beings that are counted as sentient, rape requires malice, because I really do agree that rape is really about power, not merely sexual gratification.

So when you tell me "William may not know it's wrong to rape somebody" then guess what? You're telling me something about him as a person, not as a shapeshifter.

And if they aren't sentient enough, then not only is it genuine bestiality, they do not have the ability to give informed consent and thus any sexual congress with them is rape.

And let's just touch briefly on the fact that the dynamic that not only Andrews' but most of these authors set up is patently false; the physical disparity that human patriarchies exploit on top of societal imbalances the authors also attempt to pretend occur in nature largely do not exist. Female wolves are the best hunters. There is an alpha male and female, not the alpha male and his girlfriend. Do I even need to delve into the example of the famous mama bears? I should hope not.

The attempt to pretend that "animal instincts" which do not actually exist in that form excuse sexual violence is disgusting, misogynistic, loaded with and cheerily shoring up rape culture and guess what: a really terrible thing to tout in your products.

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