I'm with Steph, so I'm glad she's more eloquent than I am. I think the cuffing was dumbdumbdumb and Brandt's an idiot, but I think Brandt read consent where there was none, rather than intentionally crossing the line. On the other hand, since at the time we were believing Brandt was the perp, it wasn't at all clear.

Also, what does Unsub mean?

Unknown subject. Took me forever to get that one.

Is it sexual violence? I'd have to say no.

It was both sexual and violent. The fact that it wasn't malicious doesn't make it excusable.

I thought that Strong kidnapped him after Rebecca left..

That was what I got out of it too. But Web and Rebecca and Paul had no inkling of that at the time of the reenactment.

I side with Kristen here. Brandt is, what I'd call, a wanker. Toss pot. Who happens to like BDSM. It's not the BDSM which is his problem, it's more the fact he's a toss pot.

I had to look up what TOGoM meant. I remember watching TOGoM a while ago, shooting script to hand, thinking "This should be great". And then I watched it. And kinda thought, if I see Tim, I'll not mention that one - it didn't quite work out how I'd pictured it.

Not that I'm saying I can do better mind, to clarify. Hell, I write in the perspective of a cat sometimes.

It's not the BDSM which is his problem

Who's saying it was, though? The text didn't seem to, and I'm not reading anyone here doing it either.

It was both sexual and violent. The fact that it was accidental doesn't make it excusable.

I'm not excusing it, but I don't think it's in the same category as sexual assault.

I can honestly say that I've been with guys who I had no intention of having sex with, but I was flirty and made out with them, etc., and then they went for the zipper of my pants. It was an unwanted sexual escalation, you betcha. Was it sexual assault? No. It was poor judgement based on what was going on at the time.

Other than the hardware involved, I don't see any difference between that and Rebecca/Brandt.

What nobody's said yet in this discussion (this specific one, from today; not just discussion of the episode) is that Rebecca was a dumbass, too. She put herself in a stupid situation.

Does THAT excuse how Brandt behaved? Of course not. It never does. It doesn't *excuse* it, but it contributed to a situation with fuzzy boundaries and really bad assumptions.

An analogy to what I mean-- a guy reads a book about sculpture, buys a spot welder and welds together a bunch of scrap metal and calls it art. To him, it is art, he worked very hard at it, and it's legitimate. However, critics and dealers may call it junk.

And twenty years later it might be called art. Playing by the rules doesn't guarantee anything.

It can still be BDSM even if it's immoral or skirting the rules. Brandt got off on the power, the domination. Whether he was properly within the bounds of the culture or not, you can't say he wasn't into dominating. He was.

A better analogy is a pitcher who is throwing illegal spitballs. He's still pitching - he's just cheating. Brandt "cheated" - that doesn't mean he wasn't in the game.

ita, sorry, I wasn't infering anybody else was saying that. Which suggests I was actually thinking it in the back of my mind.

Shit, I'm Paul.

I best hide before Tim kills me off. In a Buffy cross over episode.

Unknown subject. Took me forever to get that one.

Thank you. I've been feeling dumb all week.