Scarlet had told Rhett a while before that scene (like, months before, if not years) that she didn't want to have any more babies, and therefore she didn't want to have sex with him anymore. She said she'd be locking her door at night, and he said something like, "If I want you, no lock can keep me out." And they hadn't had sex since then. There had been an earlier scene, when she found out she was pregnant with Bonnie, she said that she knew there were ways to get rid of a pregnancy, and Rhett was horrified and said absolutely not, because he'd once seen a young woman die from complications from an abortion.

I'm not sure what this means in terms of consent within that scene. I can kind of argue it either way.

It's not clear in the movie, but I think it's pretty clear in the text that the point where she stopped resisting and started enjoying it was on the stairs. I'm not sure whether it can be called rape, then, since there's no indication that she was resisting by the time they actually got to the bedroom.

On the "good girls say no" thing, I've had several discussions with my mother where she said that "no means no" isn't really a good rule, since plenty of girls will say no just because they think they're supposed to, when they really do want to have sex.

I've had several discussions with my mother where she said that "no means no" isn't really a good rule, since plenty of girls will say no just because they think they're supposed to, when they really do want to have sex.

That's why I think an enthusiastic yes is much more important than lack of a no.

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.

I wish I could agree, but I can't.

Steph, do you think that Scarlett and her contemporaries had the agency to say an explicit yes?

Sex = babies to Scarlett. No other meaning to it, for her. Again, she has no vocab for it.

Doesn't make it right, just what it is. Rhett's a bullying caveman, for sure. But Scarlett couldn't say yes to desire, because not only did she not have the vocab to say yes...even if she did, how can you say "yes" to something you don't know exists?

And I sound like rape-enabling tool which is not my intention. It's a fucked up scene between two fucked up products of a fucked up society. This scene's never going to be clear-cut -- it CAN'T be.

We're applying the lens of the 21st century redux to Scarlett and Rhett's actions

There's something there, but I think it may be more significant that, in Scarlett's (and Mitchell's) time, a husband didn't have to take "no" from his wife. The concept of marital rape is pretty recent.

Steph, do you think that Scarlett and her contemporaries had the agency to say an explicit yes?

If I say that they didn't, does that mean that any "rough sex" could never be rape, because they secretly wanted to be taken forcefully but had no way to say it?

I think that women generally have very little agency when it comes to sexuality. Things are less repressive in 2009 than during the Civil War, but we're hardly a liberated society these days, either.

I think that, even if Scarlett had virtually no agency to express her desires, lack of the agency to say "yes" doesn't mean that every "no" is false. Particularly when she's physically pushing Rhett away.

in Scarlett's (and Mitchell's) time, a husband didn't have to take "no" from his wife.

Uh, that doesn't actually make it not-rape. Legally, sure, there was no concept of marital rape. But a codified law isn't what makes an act of sexualized violence into rape. So if a husband didn't have to take "no" for an answer, it was still rape.

If I say that they didn't, does that mean that any "rough sex" could never be rape

Not at all, not to me. It just means you think she didn't have the agency to say yes. I'm interested in what you see as the way to say yes when you can't say yes.

If you dressed Rhett and Scarlett in anything resembling contemporary clothes, I totally agree on the criminality of the act. But I need to work out what a non-explicit yes looks like in that time period. From what Hil cited, she had changed her mind before they slept together, and an enthusiastic yes was probably out of her ability.

He's still an ass, if he doesn't care if it's consensual, but that doesn't make it non-con.

If I say that they didn't, does that mean that any "rough sex" could never be rape, because they secretly wanted to be taken forcefully but had no way to say it?

I don't think it's an either/or. I think here WAS rape because of the no-means-yes ethos, but that doesn't mean every time we see no-means-yes in a work of fiction of the era that it IS rape. Sometimes, in this era, no actually does mean yes for both characters.

What makes the scene even more confusing to the modern reader is that, clearly, the next morning, Rhett operates as though the act was non-consensual. HE knows the word "no" and "yes," HE knows desire...she doesn't.

He's speaking Latin to a woman who not only doesn't know Latin, she can't fathom the abstract IDEA of language. But she can speak.