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".
She physically resists, and pushes him away IIRC.
And lack of the actual spoken word "No" doesn't make it not-rape.
(What I think is most important -- and I don't mean in GWTW, I mean in general, in the real world of real people with complex and often confusing interactions -- is that there be an enthusiastic Yes, rather than merely the absence of a No.)
(Let me be clear: the parenthetical statement just above is NO LONGER talking about Gone with the Wind, in book or movie form. I veered off into a much bigger sphere, and if people want to discuss it, we could move it to another thread rather than hijack this one.)
She physically resists, and pushes him away IIRC.
Ok. But then she makes the conscious decsion to stop resisting and to participate. If there can be a physical "no" instead of a verbal one, surely there can be a physical "yes" instead of a varbal one, yes?
But then she makes the conscious decsion to stop resisting and to participate. If there can be a physical "no" instead of a verbal one, surely there can be a physical "yes" instead of a varbal one, yes?
In general, certainly.
I don't think that in the movie -- but I have to admit it's been a while since I've seen it -- she ever makes a demonstrable clear shift from physically resisting to physically participating (in the Oh Hell Yeah sense).
When Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs (surely he had back trouble later in life), the vibe I get is the "I have beaten down your resistance, foolish woman, because I am mighty," as opposed to a vibe of "Okay, so, you're cool with this, then? Let's get it on!"
But I think in the culture at the time the book was written, no DID mean yes sometimes, and that was something both parties playing the flirtation game knew. A "good" girl was supposed to say no even if she wanted to say yes, and getting overwhelemd by the man was the only way sex was going to happen. I think that was the standard sexual narrative in play at that time and that tension could add a frisson of excitement. I read a lot of old magazines and a LOT of the romantic stories in women's magazines of that time have that exact game play--and these are stories written for women about romantic love. They didn't want to be raped, they wanted sex to be something that happened to them since a good girl would NEVER, even after marriage, want it outright.
It was a fucked up and dangerous game and based on dishonesty. I am glad it's gone. I do think, however, that every time we see it at that time that it IS about rape--sometimes it is just about the accepted dishonest dynamic and both parties are in tacit agreement to play their parts.
When Rhett carries Scarlett up the stairs (surely he had back trouble later in life), the vibe I get is the "I have beaten down your resistance, foolish woman, because I am mighty," as opposed to a vibe of "Okay, so, you're cool with this, then? Let's get it on!"
In the movie, for sure. There was nothing that showed her internal change from "Drucken ass!" to "Do me now!" - only that weird humming and playing with her hair the next morning.
It was a fucked up and dangerous game and based on dishonesty. I am glad it's gone.
Well, going, maybe. I was informed in 1989 by an female friend that men should just know when "no" meant "yes," and that having someone shove me up against the wall and just have their way with me would be a wonderful addition to my life. And she was apparently a) serious and b) not aware that she was saying she though a bit of rape would do me good.
We're not friends anymore. Funny, that.
Now see, I believe that having an encounter up against a wall might be a nice addition to someone's life, but I wouldn't have expressed that exactly in the way that your now-former friend put it.
I'd love an encounter up against the wall, with the right person. But we'd be having our way with each other.
I see and can completely agree with all of the discussions, and I haven't had enough coffee yet -- weird insomnia night, ugh -but what I got now is agreeing with Aims:
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.
We're applying the lens of the 21st century redux to Scarlett and Rhett's actions -- Mitchell write Scarlett and being pretty completely a product OMG could it be more patriarchal and stifling society. How can she say yes? Scarlett's whole personality and character is that of a woman who has only been taught the word no, and there is no word for yes.
How can she say it, when she doesn't know it exists? She feels the meaning, but it's not in her vocabulary. It's all non, nein, nyet -- a oui or a si has been kept from her.
Frankly, my dears, she can't say "yes." Am I condoning Rhett's behavior in the modern world, is it sexist, is it brutal, is it date-rape, has the scene backed the whole no-means-yes thing? Good questions.
Damn, I don't even like Scarlett, but this scene just doesn't ping me. Scarlett can't ever say "yes" to anything she wants in that society -- is that wrong? Hell to the yeah! But is she without agency, even though she's without vocabulary? Er, no.
I just cannot read Scarlett and Rhett from a 21st century feminist perspective. She is so totally a product of the time -- how can you remove Scarlett from context? GWTW is ALL context. The antebellum South is, in some ways, the biggest character is the book.
