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.

(Sorry -- no point in saying it twice.)

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.

That would be the point. That it's the reader's fantasy acted out in a safe way. Nobody actually gets raped.

The bigger issue is the way scenes like that undermine "No, means, no." They accrete in the culture and there winds up being this unstated presumption that a man's passion should be all consuming and that women secretly desire to be taken.

But Betsy's point is that it's okay to have the fantasy of being taken forcibly and still have the right to say, "No" and have it respected.

Okay, I'll stop talking about Betsy's arguments in her absence. If I continue I'd probably end up misrepresenting her. But her point, as I understood it, was compelling and interesting to me.

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.

I'm not seeing where she does say "No".

Aims, it's been a while since I've either read the book or seen the movie, but --

I'm looking at the point when Scarlett first sees Rhett in the dining room. She pretty much calls him a disgusting pig. He isn't exactly suggesting sex at that point, but she's telling him she doesn't want to be near him. Which isn't exactly saying "no sex," but any sensible man who heard her say, "You're drunk" in that tone would write off any chance.