Thanks, Sumi. Fortunately they both are aired several times. Yay Cable! But when MI-5 premiered last week it was on at 9 which I thought would make a nice night o' tv, watching that followed by Queer Eye.

I think if the rapist was someone that the person was in love with, married to, in a mutually loving relationship, and the rapist fell down a drug well, was under the influence of some mind-altering substance for some time

That might apply in some relationships (none I've ever seen, but I ain't seen every thing). I think it might explain Willow/Tara to some extent. But it doesn't really have any bearing on the Buffy/Spike relationship. That wasn't a loving caring partnership that devolved; it was an abusive mindfuck that devolved. It started out in a sick unhealthy place & got unhealthier. Again, that's one of the reason that (to me, anyhow) that the AR was a "logical" action for Spike to take, given Spike's personal romantic past (I'll just torture her till she loves me again) and the Buffy/Spike history.

My post got all jumbled and fucked up in the sending, or in the cut and paste from my text editor. Weird.

But the gist was, "the relationship would have had to have been long and loving, followed by a really shitty trigger like drug dependancy, followed by a long road of recovery and forgiveness, in order to restore the relationship...and even then? It'd be forever changed, due to both the attempted rape, the drug abuse, the recovery."

And that's just a theoretical way that maybe I'd accept that as an audience member. Mutant Enemy needed a refresher course in time management last season. It would have taken more than one season to recover, even if they were at the top of their game. The attempted rape was a bad move.

I think, if he had tried to turn her into a vampire, I would have bought it as a desperate act, and more in tune with the character, and also as a catalyst for him saying, "If I can't change her, I need to change me."

What is MI-5?

lisah - -I thought the same thing!

I think, if he had tried to turn her into a vampire, I would have bought it as a desperate act, and more in tune with the character, and also as a catalyst for him saying, "If I can't change her, I need to change me."

My god. Allyson is me.

It's a British show about spies that is on A&E.

Jenny, I thought we weren't talking about Buffy and Spike. We were talking in general terms, if there is ever a way that an audience could accept the victim of an attempted rapist to have a decent romantic relationship with the attempted rapist, and what those parameters would have to be.

But forgiveness is an utterly subjective thing in these circumstances. So there's no real answer. Everybody brings their own burgers to this BBQ.

But it's ME's job to give us something we can buy. If they tread onto something so subjective they leave behind a bunch of loyal fans, and have it be important, it's probably not a wise choice of subject matter.