Which still doesn't make it any less rapetastic.

I'm not arguing otherwise. Rape fantasy IN FICTION = "would be rape in real life but written as a hot sex scene," no? It's not the same as rape roleplay.

Disclaimer - from here out I am speaking of the text, not the film. The film bungled the scene and that scene totally comes off as different from the text.

I went back and read the text that fell in between what Hil posted and what came after. And this:

Isn't that kind of the definition of date rape? The fact that we-the-reader know she's secretly enjoying it just makes it rape fantasy. It doesn't mean she has the ability to stop him.

But it changes when, at one point, Rhett starts kissing her and she doesn't *want* to stop him, she wants to feel consumed and bullied and loved by him. This is a woman who shot a guy and did all within her power to make sure that not only did she survive, but she did it well and better than those around her. I see Scarlett as insipid and conivving, sure, but also strong and capable of taking care of herself and those she loves. In the text, at no point does she say "No" during the scene, nor does try to fight him off other than in the beginning before he starts kissing her and she starts kissing him back.

And I don't think it's necessarily rape fantasy, either. That would, like Steph said, require some consent and role playing and such. I think it's just angry sex.

Like Amy said, I'm reading this through the eyes of my own experiences and quite frankly, angry sex is some of the best sex I've ever had.

Rape fantasy IN FICTION = "would be rape in real life but written as a hot sex scene," no?

Well, no. A rape in fiction is still a rape in fiction, no matter how the author/director tried to pretty it up. A rape fantasy in fiction would be the characters agreeing to act out the fantasy. Within the narrative.

If someone reads a rape scene and finds it all hot, perhaps that's fueling the *reader's* rape fantasies, but the scene itself -- the characters' actions and reactions -- is not a rape fantasy for them.

A rape fantasy in fiction would be the characters agreeing to act out the fantasy. Within the narrative.

I disagree, but I think at this point we're arguing over semantics.

I think at this point we're arguing over semantics.

Maybe I'm not explaining well. Within a narrative, what happens to the characters is "real," for them, not fantasy. (Unless it's clearly indicated that it's a fantasy.)

For a reader, sure, all of fiction is a fantasy*, because it and the characters aren't real in our world.

I'm not sure how else to phrase it to explain what I mean.

*(Not fantasy as a genre; fantasy as something that doesn't exist outside the covers of the book.)

Within a narrative, what happens to the characters is "real," for them, not fantasy. (Unless it's clearly indicated that it's a fantasy.)

It's not a fantasy for the characters, it's a fantasy for the reader. Scarlett being turned on by the rape makes it okay for the reader to feel the same way.

Within a narrative, what happens to the characters is "real," for them, not fantasy. (Unless it's clearly indicated that it's a fantasy.)

I don't think Scarlet specifically had a rape fantasy, no. And no, there were no safe words or consent. But given what I know about these characters, and the way they continually push at each other, the fact that their argument turned into sex didn't surprise me.

It didn't particularly push my buttons, either, although I know (at least with the scene in the movie) it looks like it *should*, because I don't get the sense that Mitchell is condoning rape. It reads and views differently for me because it's so closely tied into two characters I know well.

For a while, in my most Women's Studies period, I tried to deny that I ever enjoyed it, and, in truth, it is hard to enjoy with any kind of political sensibility whatever(that's what she said) But I still like Scarlett and Rhett a lot, even if they aren't my OTP like they used to be. Although I still love the Han Solo smartmouthed rogue hero, of course. I guess it was my "Twilight", although the cult movie everybody saw a billion times was,of course, Dirty Dancing, which, hey, at least the endearingly clumsy heroine gets to come in that one.

I think what the stairway scene illustrates is that Scarlett is not the complete proper lady she was raised to be. True ladies fall down and weep when the house is trashed and there's no food. Scarlett O'Hara weeps, wipes her eyes, and scrabbles in the garden for food. And shoots the Yankee who tries to rob her. And gets turned on by ungentlemanly behavior. She was quite willing to continue the new state of affairs the next day, until Rhett sort of apologized--in the movie, anyway, it's been a while since I read the book.

I saw the movie GWTW when I was about 12 or 13 (there was a theatrical re-release), and I read the book not long after.

A lot of GWTW is hard to enjoy with any kind of political sensibility. The attitudes toward race/slavery got harder and harder to overlook each time I re-read it.

I'm not sure Mitchell would have called the Scarlett-Rhett scene rape. But I think it encourages a dangerous attitude. At the beginning of the scene, Scarlett keeps saying no when she really means -- well, I don't think she knows what she means. But Rhett (persists? insists? ignores?) until she somehow realizes that she really wants to say yes.

Which means the lesson to young men is, a woman's "no" is, at the least, never the final word. (A lesson reinforced in the scene where Rhett proposes to Scarlett. As much as they're two of a kind in the way they favor getting what they want over obeying the rules, "I'll keep kissing you until you say you'll marry me" is the same attitude he shows later on.) In other words, the attitude that launched a thousand stalkers.