Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: disappointed
  • Music: Garbage, "Celebrity Skin."

Things I will not do to my characters. Ever.

I am not in the habit of cut-tagging my crankiness, but in this case, I will, because I'm going to be discussing the sexual abuse of women, and I try not to be triggery when I don't have to be. This is your notification, and your warning.

There are a lot of ways to reach me; I try to be accessible and responsive whenever possible. Sometimes, this leads to my being asked questions I would never dream of asking an author who wasn't a) a personal friend, and b) in the process of getting drunk with me. I try to answer them nicely, for the most part, assuming I can answer them at all (I can't, always; some questions simply can't be answered).

Last night, I was asked—in so many words—when either Toby or one of the Price girls was finally going to be raped.

Not "if." Not "do you think." But "when," and "finally." Because it is a foregone conclusion, you see, that all women must be raped, especially when they have the gall to run around being protagonists all the damn time. I responded with confusion. The questioner provided a list of scenarios wherein these characters were "more than likely" to encounter sexual violence. These included Verity forgetting to change out of her tango uniform before going on patrol, Toby being cocky, and Sarah walking home from class alone. Yes, even the ambush predator telepath with a "don't notice me" field is inevitably getting raped.

When. Finally. Inevitably.

My response: "None of my protagonists are getting raped. I do not want to write that."

Their response: "I thought you had respect for your work. That's just unrealistic."

Verity is the bastard daughter of Dazzler and Batman. Toby is what happens when Tinker Bell embraces her inner bitch and starts wearing pants. Velveteen brings toys to life and uses them to fight the powers of darkness. Sarah is a hot mathematician who looks like Zooey Deschanel but is actually a hyper-evolved parasitic wasp. The unrealistic part about all these characters? Is that they haven't been raped.

Needless to say, I was a little bit annoyed, and I still am.

Statistically speaking, one in six women will be raped in her lifetime. This is just the statistic we know; it doesn't account for the fact that right now, reporting rape is a minefield all of its own, and many women choose not to subject themselves to that process. I do not know how many of my friends have been raped. I know that five of them are safe because of me, if you trust statistics. So you know. There's that.

Rape in fiction can be a powerful and important thing. It can be used to make important statements, it can be used to drive important stories. I love Robin McKinley's Deerskin as much because of the discomfort it causes me as for the beauty it contains. There are authors I will always trust, or try to trust, and it's important to show uncomfortable things through fiction. I am not saying that no one should write about rape, ever.

But rape in fiction can also be a problematic and belittling thing, used to put cocky heroines in their places. When Janet goes to Caughterha despite being told not to, her punishment is rape by the eponymous Tam Lin. When a superheroine needs a deeper, edgier backstory, there's always some previously third-tier villain with a de-powering ray and an agenda waiting in the wings. I read a lot of horror, a lot of comics, and a lot of urban fantasy, and the one thing these three things have in common is rape. Lots and lots and lots of rape.

And I don't wanna write that.

I do not understand—I will not understand, I refuse to understand—why rape has to be on the table for every story with a female protagonist, or even a strong female supporting cast. Why it's so assumed that I'm being "unrealistic" when I say that none of my female characters are going to be raped. Why this "takes the tension out of the story." There is plenty of tension without me having to write about something that upsets both me and many of my readers, thanks.

Toby will not be getting raped. Verity, Alice, Sarah, Antimony, and the rest of the InCryptid girls will not be getting raped. Velveteen will not be getting raped. Rose will not be getting raped. If this makes my work unrealistic, then fine. There's a reason I write science fiction and fantasy.

But I do not write rape. And the fact that this somehow makes me "unrealistic," rather than making me an author who makes choices about what she wants to write...that's the part I find upsetting.

You know. In addition to everything else.
Tags: cranky blonde is cranky, don't be dumb
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james_nicoll

September 28 2012, 15:35:39 UTC 4 years ago

Permission to link?

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:37:51 UTC 4 years ago

Granted.

Nathan Helfinstine

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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bastets_place

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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amaebi

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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amaebi

4 years ago

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Betty Angleton-Halsey

4 years ago

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spectralbovine

September 28 2012, 15:39:11 UTC 4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:46:09 UTC 4 years ago

I agree with your icon.

autopope

4 years ago

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tandw

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Karen Ellis

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tashabear

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museclio

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scarybaldguy

September 28 2012, 15:41:03 UTC 4 years ago

Not enough *facepalm* in the entire godsdamn multiverse. Who the hell a) asks something like that, and 2) even thinks of it in the first place?

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:46:17 UTC 4 years ago

I do not even know.

nyxalinth

4 years ago

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jimhines

4 years ago

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missingvolume

4 years ago

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queenoftheskies

September 28 2012, 15:42:21 UTC 4 years ago

::applause::

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:46:24 UTC 4 years ago

Thanks.

jimhines

September 28 2012, 15:43:12 UTC 4 years ago

That question, and all of the assumptions (spoken and unspoken) that went with it, is one of the most ignorant, rage-inducing things I've heard in a long time.

"Respect for your work"? "Unrealistic"???

Fuck that.

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:46:51 UTC 4 years ago

Apparently, if people don't PUT THEIR PENISES in my characters AGAINST THEIR WILL, I don't respect my work. Who knew?

spectralbovine

4 years ago

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krfsm

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

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mrs_norris_mous

4 years ago

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jslinder

September 28 2012, 15:43:42 UTC 4 years ago

This is one of those times I feel compelled to apologize for members of my gender.

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:47:05 UTC 4 years ago

Not all members. Many of you are pretty damn awesome.

autographedcat

4 years ago

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4 years ago

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hoppytoad79

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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hoppytoad79

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hoppytoad79

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vixyish

September 28 2012, 15:44:55 UTC 4 years ago

Whoever asked that is a horrible human being. Period.

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:47:53 UTC 4 years ago

Agreed.

readingthedark

4 years ago

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fearsclave

4 years ago

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tylik

4 years ago

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readingthedark

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tylik

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tylik

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tylik

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tylik

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jennygadget

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readingthedark

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kalorlo

September 28 2012, 15:45:50 UTC 4 years ago

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:48:49 UTC 4 years ago

*pillow*

bearhand

4 years ago

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ravenrose

September 28 2012, 15:50:47 UTC 4 years ago

I think it is just as Unrealistic to assume that just because a female character is independent and bold, it is inevitable that she will be raped. Even if she is a loner. Why would this be anymore realistic than a male gettign raped? I know a lot of strong, outgoing women, many who are loaners... who have never been raped.
Don't listen to this idiot, Seannan... your ladies have enough trauma and drama to deal with... and we love them!

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 15:51:53 UTC 4 years ago

Thank you.

aliaras

4 years ago

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groblek

September 28 2012, 20:29:39 UTC 4 years ago

I think worry of that sort is a very reasonable reaction. That question would make me keep a close eye on the commenter and make sure he doesn't get someone alone in a corner or something.

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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braidedmane

4 years ago

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mouseycat

September 28 2012, 15:52:13 UTC 4 years ago

I need a clapping icon. Or a gif. Or a gifset. Something to say "I approve, this is awesome, have a sheet of gold stars" that's more than just worrrds.

Eh. I'm a writer. Words will do. I LIKE YOU AND HAVE SUBSCRIBED TO YOUR NEWSLETTER.

If not having rape in one's stories makes the stories unrealistic, I don't want anything to do with realism. Oh, wait, I've got this one story involving a space heist and a wise-cracking pygmy dragon that acts like a human-level-intelligence cat, I already have nothing to do with "realism". To say nothing of the fact that rape is an upsetting, dark topic to me, and when I write I write to get the hell away from that kind of messy stuff.

Also the assumption that rape will happen (Why? Why?!) and has to happen is... eugh. Upsetting's one word. Fragging disgusting is another. Just because it does happen in the real world doesn't mean it should, or that it has to in fiction. We're writers! We can make our own worlds, our own pictures of what a world could be like, and we can have whatever the hell we want in it and no one can tell us what should or shouldn't be in it. They can make suggestions, but we can also make suggestions as to which dock they can walk off of if their suggestions don't fit the stories we want to tell.

anne_d

September 28 2012, 16:10:36 UTC 4 years ago

Yes, all of the above!

nimbrethil

3 years ago

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anne_d

3 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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mouseycat

4 years ago

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tinchen

September 28 2012, 15:53:38 UTC 4 years ago

I've just finished reading Mad Ship by Robin Hobb, where a female cast member gets raped. I nearly put the book down. I know that it's horrid reality. I know that there is a lot character growth that can be gotten by such a story line... but I always love the characters in books (such as yours) too much as if I ever could ask for them to be raped. Yes, it's part of reality and maybe it makes your books a tiny bit unrealistic, that none of the women have to experience this but... I'm glad. And I wished so much that realtiy was more like fiction in this regard.

dornbeast

September 28 2012, 16:51:35 UTC 4 years ago

I know that there is a lot character growth that can be gotten by such a story line...

It's possible to get plant growth by using animal-sourced organic fertilizer. But there are other ways to make a plant grow.

For some reason, female characters seem to have rape, pregnancy, and miscarriage in their top five choices for character growth. In my opinion, that's bovine-sourced organic fertilizer.

lysana

4 years ago

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full_metal_ox

4 years ago

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4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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dragonsally

4 years ago

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4 years ago

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ex_naomi_ja

September 28 2012, 15:53:41 UTC 4 years ago

I just don't know how I would have responded to that. The idea that a female character must be raped is so disheartening and awful and upsetting. I've just had a flashback to my old writers' group, where one of the men asked me if the character in my WIP was a drug addict because she'd been abused. When I said no, he suggested I make her an abuse victim to make her addiction more reasonable. I was floored. I'm still floored when I remember it. Rape should never, never be an expected element in a woman's life, be she real or fictional, and it saddens me immensely that anyone would think it should be.

estelendur

September 28 2012, 20:20:52 UTC 4 years ago

... wow. WOW. Not only is that tremendously sad, it's also incorrect. Most recent science, afaik, says that potential for addiction is genetic, not circumstantial. Multiple kinds of wrong.

tylik

4 years ago

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kangaekaeru

September 28 2012, 15:55:33 UTC 4 years ago

... yowza. *facepalm* What a toolbox.

Thank you for that response, and I am SO SO GLAD that you're not into writing rape scenes for your characters.

Toby deals with the intersection of hostile mythology and hostile modernity; what part of that lacks tension?

And you know what?
It's really nice to be able to pick up one of the Toby books with the solid knowledge that in these pages, the heroine will not be subjected to sexualized violence for giggles.

(Full disclosure: I have not read InCryptid. This is not due to lack of desire. When I do read those books, I will be glad of the main characters not being raped.)

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:19:03 UTC 4 years ago

Disclosure not needed: just means there's more waiting for you in the future. :)

hazelchaz

4 years ago

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hoppytoad79

4 years ago

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ironed_orchid

4 years ago

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bercilakslady

September 28 2012, 15:57:14 UTC 4 years ago Edited:  September 28 2012, 16:05:20 UTC

"None of my protagonists are getting raped. I do not want to write that."

Thank you. I don't want to read that, though if you did, I would trust you to do it well.

I have no idea at all how I would respond to such a thing, and am saddened by the existence of this person's attitude.

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:19:13 UTC 4 years ago

As am I.

wldhrsjen3

September 28 2012, 15:58:20 UTC 4 years ago

THANK YOU. For choosing to allow your heroines to kick ass in their own special, sexy ways without needing male permission. For choosing to allow them to exercise their powers without apology, without being "set in their place" by rape. And thank you for writing about why, for pointing out the sheer WTFuckery of those assumptions.

(I had a similar conversation with a male friend a while ago, about being willing to take our characters to dark places. And he told me I couldn't be "a real writer" until I'd written the rape of a female character. I told him there's a difference between flinching away from the story that needs to be told and resorting to gratuitous violence, especially gratuitous sexual assault of a female character. He disagreed and I decided I didn't need a friend like him anyway. :<)

schmot_gurl

September 28 2012, 21:15:00 UTC 4 years ago Edited:  September 28 2012, 21:33:46 UTC

Wow, can I punch that ex-friend for you? I really really want to.

Also, I wonder why he said female characters specifically. Not that I'm encouraging the requirement to write the rape of -anyone-, but the need to make this requirement gender-specific is extra-disturbing.

dogmatix_san

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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nomadmwe

September 28 2012, 15:58:51 UTC 4 years ago

Yeeeeeah, in a book about teleporting blood magic shadow walking transforming fae, the fact that a character will not ever be raped is what's unrealistic. Rolleyes.

More seriously, I do not understand what the hell that bullshit thing argh. What the hell, people. Argh,

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:20:10 UTC 4 years ago

Agreed.

beccastareyes

September 28 2012, 15:59:13 UTC 4 years ago

You know, after Toby gets turned into a fish against her will for fourteen years, completely screwing with everything in her life... it shows that you don't need to write rape to show that Toby's universe is a place where powerful assholes sometimes violate the powerless. And that the fae can be mean.

(Also, if I recall correctly, most rapes happen not by violent assault by a stranger, but by someone who is at least known to the victim and can manipulate them into a situation where they're alone or less likely to fight back (or report any foul play). The scenarios strike me as 'punishing' Toby, Verity, et. al for being confident and unafraid in their environment.)

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:20:29 UTC 4 years ago

Rape would be the lazy narrative tool here. Seriously.

beccastareyes

4 years ago

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starcat_jewel

4 years ago

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Sidney_Bristol

September 28 2012, 16:01:15 UTC 4 years ago

I'm so beyond baffled at this person's logic. It hurts my head and makes me sad. Rape is a horrible thing. It happens, but that makes it no less horrible. A writer's group I was in had much the same mentality, that if you had a woman in the story she should at some point have a brush with or experience rape -- and no! Not just no. Not just hell no. But fucking never no. There are amazing, powerful women out there who have gone through terrible ordeals at the hands of others and come out of it stronger, and there are women who are equally bad ass that have never had to experience brutality to be who they are. It doesn't make one better or worse than the other.

I loved Deerskin, but didn't understand it when I first read it. The whole idea of rape was beyond my innocent little mind. Rereading it as an adult made it so much more powerful.

I need to go cuddle cats now. That will make part of the world right at least.

Keep writing kick ass heroines, please? Not that I think you won't but still. They are awesome because they are.

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:22:01 UTC 4 years ago

I promise to keep writing what I'm writing.

taldragon

September 28 2012, 16:06:28 UTC 4 years ago

what
the
fuck.

please do carry on not writing about rape. pretty please? :)

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:22:10 UTC 4 years ago

I promise.

onefishonly

September 28 2012, 16:06:33 UTC 4 years ago

Wow. Thanks for writing this, though sorry you had to deal with the experience that prompted you to write it.

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:22:27 UTC 4 years ago

Being a girl is AWESOME.

...I clearly ticked the wrong box during chargen.

archangelbeth

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:22:35 UTC 4 years ago

Agreed.

apocalypticbob

September 28 2012, 16:07:18 UTC 4 years ago

I am very sorry you were asked such a question, and very glad of your answer. That said, the idea of what would happen to someone foolish enough to TRY to rape Verity or Toby or Sarah is enough to make my rape survivor heart a little lighter. In my head, they fight back for all of us who couldn't. I'm not asking you to write such a scene, not at all, but I will say that my imagination gleefully filled in the look on a would be attacker's face when Verity slapped his own dismembered penis neatly into his palm, and it was a thing of awesome. That girl has knives hidden EVERYWHERE!

beths3

September 28 2012, 17:23:03 UTC 4 years ago

This

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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elizabby

4 years ago

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tal125

September 28 2012, 16:08:29 UTC 4 years ago

wldhrsjen3

September 28 2012, 16:12:37 UTC 4 years ago

/\ That? Is AWESOME. :D

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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hoppytoad79

4 years ago

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anne_d

September 28 2012, 16:09:19 UTC 4 years ago

Words fail me. *tamps down rage*

Well put, and how dare anyone tell a writer what to write and what is and isn't realistic in that writers universe(s)?

*growls, snarls, charging up of Mr Bolty...*

seanan_mcguire

September 28 2012, 22:23:29 UTC 4 years ago

Just be careful where you aim him, he's angry.

anne_d

4 years ago

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