I think it was this:

Guy: We said no strings.

Unknown Imprint: We also said no ropes. Remember how long that lasted?

And there's a flash during the wipe process which seems to be the aforementioned rope-involving sex.

But I think Dollhouse could (and wouldn't, merely because of profit reasons) imprint an Active that would have sex in that situation. Does it still feel consensual?

Actually, it does. It might well be an extremely fucked-up personality which does not have her own best interests at heart, but if the personality consents, it sounds consensual. Unless the personality is psychologically unable to form consent, in which case it would be rape. (And yes, I believe the Dollhouse could construct such a personality. But then again, and I do wish I hadn't gone here, they could also be complicit in the straightforward unequivocal rape of a personality which they then wipe. The show has not shown us that they would, but they certainly could.)

But that's maybe the exception that proves the rule, in fact -- there are situations which represent, in my mind, the rape of the constructed personality, and there are other sexual situations which do not.

I'm not making any judgments, again, about whether Echo or Caroline herself is being raped. I'm strictly talking about the personalities. I'm regarding them as individual beings, for the time being and until the show gives me more detail. I'm aware that this is reality-wise impossible, and that the show is implying that it's not as clean as they think it is -- I'm arguing the idea as the Dollhouse seems to envision it, not the more complicated, er, fictional reality that the show is constructing.

I think it was mentioned that she had slept with motorcycle race client, but I don't remember an actual sex scene.

It was during her mindwipe from that assignment.

My point is, I think the personalities, as presented, have free will.

Right now, based on what we've seen, I disagree. The clients are buying their perfect woman. So if their definition of a perfect woman is someone who has lots of wild sex with them, the imprinted Active IS going to have sex. The clients are paying, presumably, an ungodly sum to have these "perfect" experiences, so if the Active doesn't perform as agreed, the client would raise hell.

If, therefore, "hot chick who will have lots of wild sex with me" is part of the criteria, then there is no way the Active would NOT have sex.

Which, again, is total lack of free will. To me.

What about freakazoid woman-hunter? Well, when he bought Echo, he obviously didn't tell them he was going to hunt and kill her. Sex was, I think it's safe to assume, part of the package, based on a general mutual assumption of good will on his part (mutual assumption between British!woman!in!power and Woman-Hunter, not between Echo -- or the imprint -- and Woman-Hunter). (Er, "good will" meaning "I won't hunt and kill the property I just rented, and in return for that, she'll have lots of wild sex with me.")

Would she have had sex with him if he stopped hunting her and said "Just kidding! Let's do it!"? I don't think so, because my guess is that the Actives are imprinted to fill a very specific role, that's agreed upon in advance. Woman-Hunter basically voided the contract as soon as he got all freaky and woman-hunty. You void the contract, then the Active doesn't fulfill the Dollhouse's part of the contract, which means no more rock-climbing, no more rafting, and no more sex.

And Rick, is there a term (and, um, profile?) for trauma-induced personality change, like Phineas Gage?

I don't think that there is a special term, but there are many examples of personality/emotional change secondary to brain injury, depending on what is damaged. There is a huge increase in new research on this topic now because you can study it so well with functional MRI.

The "psychogenic" in psychogenic fugue was put there to rule out actual brain injury as a cause. Similarly the "dissociative" term is there to emphasize the selective loss of information about identity, although other cognitive functions are retained. Usually in brain injury you see additional effects on learning or memory or perception that are not specific to identity.

Even so, plenty of people have been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder or explosive personality or such who eventually turned up with a tumor in their amygdala, so it's mostly a fatasy that you can keep the psychological and physical separated.

To follow more of the general psychological thing, there's an amazing book called "When Rabbit Howls." Some have said it's fake, kind of like that guy on Oprah who faked his trauma, and if that's so, I'm bummed, but even if it's fake, it's a hell of a tale. Massive personality fracturing, with the personalities aware of each other to a degree and protecting the core identity, who was horrifically abused. (Part of me that hopes it's faked is because of the described abuse. I'm not yet that much of a cynic that I can accept those descriptions with a sad shrug.)

Even if it's fiction, there are parts of it that are achingly lovely and painful and worth the read.

As much as this feels like a cop-out, I guess it depends on what we mean by free will. It's the question I wonder about when I think about the possibility of God -- if all of me, moles and short-sightedness and dislike for olives and affection for Wildean humor etc., was created intentionally, do I still have free will? Being who I am, I cannot imagine that I would ever choose to, say, kill a puppy for fun. If that is innate in me, does that mean I don't have free will as it relates to puppy-killing? If you combine a bunch of non-puppy-killers into one personality, selecting specifically for that trait, and then put them in a situation where they could kill a puppy, then the outcome is a foregone conclusion. But the personality still has free will. I think. Although the idea of synthesizing a personality in the first place has major moral swirliness that I don't think I can parse at the moment.

I didn't rewatch, so this is definitely a paraphrase, but I think there was the very definite implication that she and Motorcycle Race Client had had sex

Oh they definitely had sex, but that wasn't my (very fine) point. Typo Boy said that the rapes in the first two eps were presented "as titillating as possible". Implying there was sex and/or showing it as a brief flashback during the mindwipe sequence hardly fits that description.

Keeping along with the "tv version of DID" argument. Isn't it less a question of "if the active personality consents is it consensual for the others?" and more of (again, with the tv version) deliberately triggering someone to shift from a personality who might or might not consent to one who will? Comparing it to DID alone removes a pretty critical actor from the equation. The actives aren't just randomly accessing personalities without conscious human intervention.

Hm. Although now I think about it, I wouldn't previously have said April from IWMTLY had free will.

In fact, I'm starting to realize that this is framing itself in my head as a question of the rights of the imprint, in which case I've usually been on the "if it's got a consciousness, then treat it like a person" side in science fiction. I'm trying to figure out if I'm letting that sway me too much.

But no, I still think there's a distinction. Even if the personality is manufactured exactly to find the client attractive, the personality still finds the client attractive. Even if we know what they're going to choose, they still do choose.

Hmm. I am still debating this in my own head, just so you know. I reserve the right to contradict myself later.

Comparing it to DID alone removes a pretty critical actor from the equation.

Point. But in fact here the main personality (TV science here!) has consented to the use of such a trigger.

Of course, I think your point was that it's a bad analogy, not that I should just complicate an already bad analogy. Good point.

(Wow! When did this become my main thread? I feel like we're back in the days of Faith morality arguments! Anyway, I have to go test-drive a car now. So long, imaginary people.)