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.

I can't even begin to wrap my brain around it being anything but rape, but then, I hate that book for Scarlett, the rape, the jacked view of slavery and reconstruction, and that that's usually the book that pops in people's minds when they think of the south and not stuff like Tennessee Williams, Faulkner and O'Connor.

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.

Not in the book. At least, not in the same way as in the movie. In the book, Scarlet wakes up, he's gone, and after a bit of "wow that was amazing," she gets to

Rhett loved her! At least, he said he loved her and how could she doubt it now? How odd and bewlidering and how incredible that he loved her, this savage stranger with whom she had lived in such coolness. She was not altogether certain how she felt about this revelation but as an idea came to her she suddenly laughed aloud. He loved her and so she had him at last. She had almost forgotten her early desire to entrap him into loving her, so she could hold the whip over his insolent black head. Now, it came back and it gave her great satisfaction. For one night, he had had her at his mercy but now she knew the weakness of his armor. From now on she had him where she wanted him. She had smarted under his jeers for a long time, but now she had him where she could make him jump through any hoops she cared to hold.

Which is interesting both in terms of Scarlet's view of Rhett and in terms of Scarlet's view of love. Love, to her, is surrender. It's giving up control, putting yourself in someone else's hands. And that's the one thing that Scarlet is terrified of doing. She absolutely will not do anything that makes her give up any sort of control. Every time she tried relying on someone else, she was let down, kind of constantly through the burning of Atlanta scene: Melanie went into labor, and Prissy, who had said she could deliver the baby, admits she doesn't know how. Everybody, including all the people she usually relied on, is fleeing the city. Rhett helps them all get out of the city, but as soon as they're out of immediate danger, he hands her the reins and tells her he's going off the join the army. She spends the entire ride back to Tara thinking that when she gets home, she'll be able to lean on her mother and her mother will somehow make everything all right, but when she gets there, her mother is dead and her father is so drunk that he's useless. By the time she gets to "As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again," she's also decided that she will never depend on anybody else again.

But anyway. Back to the scene in question. Rhett doesn't come home for two days. When he finally does come home, he says that he was at Belle's house (the prostitute), and it was raided and he was arrested. Scarlet is indignant. He pretty much tells her that she's an idiot if she didn't know that he was sleeping with Belle, and then she's indignant that he went to a prostitute after their wonderful night together, and he responds,

"Oh, that." He made a careless gesture. "I will forget my manners. My apologies for my conduct at our last meeting. I was very drunk, as you doubtless know, and quite swept off my feet by your charms -- need I enumerate them?"

Then he's sarcastic and insulting for a while longer, then tells her that, if she wants a divorce, he won't contest it, as long as he gets custody of Bonnie.

Hmm. A page or two later, he warns Scarlet that, if she tries to take Bonnie from him, then what happened the other night would be nothing compared to what he'd do to her.

I read that book when I was 15 , but even the romantic soul that I was , I didn't think much of Rhett or Scarlett. Never re read it . Only watched the movie because my whole family was watching it.

But I end up on Erin's side of the story. Not only did scarlet not have the voice to say yes -- in MM's time ( 1936) woman still had the lack of vocabulary to say yes. And love was surrender. So from an historical perspective , it was the culture.

and I am guessing if Scarlett and Rhett ended up happily every after I might have bought it at 15 . I think even then I assumed mutual surrender.

(coming in late) Also, considering the culture Scarlett was from, it was considered totally inappropriate for a woman to want sex ... it was inappropriate for a woman to actually WANT things, serious things.

But, yes, the scene skeeves me (from the book ... I've never actually seen the entire movie).