That's interesting, because I recall that, other than the attempted rape, Buffy initiated most of the contact. She was the one who went after him & initiated the kiss in OMWF; she went after him (and presumably initiated the make-out session) in Tabula Rasa, and she certainly drove the action in Smashed, making the choice as to when they went from hitting each other to necking & back again.

Actually, you're right here. I worded my point very poorly. Usually, he went to her. That's all I meant. But also usually, if there was intimate contact, Buffy initiated. It seems to me that seldom did she go to him.

He called her in "Smashed". When she didn't show, he hunted her down. He went to the Doublemeat while she was working. He confronted her on the lawn on her way home from work. I could be wrong, but it seems like more often, he went looking for her, than the other way around.

I don't think that it's necessarily anyone's sole fault that the relationship was so unhealthy - it was the interaction. And the fact that it was fostering this toxic situation and taking Buffy away from her friends & herself is the reason it should have ended. Not because of any specific event - although many of the events would be enough to justify the end of a relationship in and of themselves.

I agree with this, too. But because Spike did try to rape her, and because Buffy is the hero of a girl-takes-back-night series, I have a problem with her continuing to have an emotional desire for him to remain, and continuing to describe him as a hottie (as that term, to me, implies she retains some sexual desire for him), after he tried to rape her. The reason I have these issues, apart from Buffy being the hero of such a piece, is because it feels like the writers left out the middle, left out the story part of the story.

A) Spike tries to rape Buffy.

B) Stuff happens

C) Buffy has already comes to terms with the attempted rape and still wants him around and wants him.

Where "stuff happens", is where we could have had a story. Instead, we had endless repetition of "he has a soul now" and all that static of the potential slayers. Had this been a really tight season, pacing-wise, I'd be more over this. I'd accept that stuff must have happened off screen that led Buffy to this serene emotional place with regard to Spike. But it wasn't and I haven't.

But aren't you left with the same problem? If it's a metaphor for rape, how can Buffy forgive him? Or is it a metaphor for something else? Or is it just better to dress the rape up as something else?

I think it's the level of remove we're talking about. For example, there are plenty of guys who don't call/"go bad" after you sleep with them (see; Abrams, Parker). But IRL, they don't lose their souls. Angel did, and that's why it's easier to forgive Angel for what he did as Angelus.

Also, many women in the audience have their own memories of an attempted assault or actual assault. If you bring that to the table, it's much harder to forgive Spike because you look at the scene in the bathroom, and you see your ex or date or stepdad or some random guy at a party or some jerk in an alley, and you know how it affected you. With the metaphor of vamping, no one automatically makes that leap.

On a plot level, I don't think Spike would have legitimately wanted Buffy to beciome a vampire (at least in S6: S2-S4 Spike would have been like, "Heh, a *real* vampire slayer. Cool."). But I don't think he ever consciously said to himself, "I want to rape her," either. I think he was angry and rejected and hurt and did the first thing he thought of. On *that* level, vamping would have worked.

Yeah, I can definitely see how having it one step removed would be easier, but isn't better that they tackle these things head on? I don't know. My personal jury are still out the back.
However, from another angle, as I said up thread -

I think if they had Spike try to vamp Buffy it would have negated his entire story since he got chipped. The irony of the attempted rape was that it was because of the "progress" that he'd made.

Is it just me or would it have been far more entertaining if Spikes trigger song was not "Never Leave Me", but instead "Saftey Dance", by Men Without Hats.

Although the believability when it comes to continiuty on the show may perhaps be in jepoardy considering the song did not exist quite yet for Williams mother to sing.

I think if they had Spike try to vamp Buffy it would have negated his entire story since he got chipped. The irony of the attempted rape was that it was because of the "progress" that he'd made.

Do you really think so? Because all season long, he wasn't trying to rise to her level, as much as he was trying to convince her that she'd come back wrong, and belonged in the dark with him, that they were "different", etc. A lot of the progress he made in the first place, was made because he had little choice that didn't involve severe pain to himself.

And he did make a lot of progress in that not only could he not kill humans, but he seemed to overcome much of the obvious desire to do so, had become fairly accustomed to the chip (although still frustrated, like when he couldn't help Buffy fight the demons that just turned out to be human muggers). But it seems the point of having a catalyst was to show Spike that without a soul, he was still an evil thing - he was still someone who couldn't be a monster and couldn't be a man. Would it have taken away from his story to have that revelation come out of a more vampyric act? Not for me. Or, put it this way, I think it would have taken away less from his journey, than having Buffy call her attempted rapist "a hottie" took away from hers.

What I meant was that it would've been really illogical to have Spike try to vamp Buffy in Seeing Red. However if the writer's intention from the get go was for Spike to do that then they could've played out the season to make the vamping make sesne, if you see what I mean.

It's not so much me having a problem with the vamping as opposed to the attempted raping, it's that it wouldn't have made sense within the context of the season that we've seen.

Some people aren't charming or attractive enough to deserve a date in the natural order of things

I'd like to be clear when I say that the men I don't want to date are not being judged on any sort of objective "you'll never know the love of a woman" scale. Dating is subjective. As I said, there are wonderful beautiful charming men ... that I'm not attracted to. And you know what? They deserve someone that's attracted to them.

Otherwise, I might just be using them.

Michele: attempted rape, attempted rape, attempted rape, attempted rape, attempted rape, attempted rape, attempted rape, attempted rape, attempted rape, attempted rape.

If I had a macro for it, I'd use it. But just like IJS, NSM, ITA, AFAIK, IIRC -- why bother? I am that lazy. But it's not dismissive. When I say AFAIK, I don't mean a diluted version of "as far as I know". I mean precisely that, just as AR means precisely "attempted rape" and "SMG" means precisely Sarah Michelle Gellar.

UTTAD --

But in a season where Spike was constantly telling Buffy that she was a creature of darkness (or whatever) just like him, and that she didn't belong with "them", and when she rejected him because he was an evil, souless thing, but when he was convinced that she came back wrong (and add in here a chunk of his dialogue from Normal Again, that I can't remember), I do think an attempted vamping would have made as much sense in the context of all of the season 6 stuff. He felt she was wrong, martyring herself to a self she no longer was. He felt she was rejecting her own darkness, and that's why she was rejecting him.

I don't think Spike would have been happy with a vamped Buffy, but him doing it out of frustration would have made as much sense as the attempted rape (which did make sense), but would have (to my eyes) compromised Buffy's integrity less (and hamstrung their story less) in season 7.

In short I think haveing the AR was a mistake, but not inconsistent with the characters. It was a mistake because to deal with it properly would required more energy, and probably more story bandwidth than they were willing to spare.

I agree with this. Part of the problem with the writers' decision to use rape as a plot point is that rape is very much a real-world threat, in the way that vampires and memory spells and demon cyborgs aren't. In a show like Buffy, where the violence is generally on a supernatural or allegorical level, bringing in realistic violence is very jarring. It can be done well on Buffy. Look at "The Body", which took a normal [non-supernatural] character, gave her a real-world death, and beautifully portrayed a real-world reaction by the other characters. They spent a lot of time and effort on that episode, and it payed off.

In "Seeing Red", on the other hand, they took a real-world violent act (the rape), an act that would carry a good deal of emotional meaning for a good-sized chunk of the audience, and they treated it like just another plot point. They picked a true realistic threat, portrayed it distubingly realistically on screen, and then gave it very non-realistic consequences.

I understand that they wanted to show that Spike and Buffy's relationship had hit rock bottom, to give Spike a motivation to seek out a soul, but they chose the wrong plot device. You want to do a rape episode? Fine. Take the time to do it right. You want a quick plot device? Fine. Don't pick an issue as deep, complex, emotionally charged and as serious as rape.

Cindy Yeah, I see what you're saying, it's just a gut level thing for me. The attempted rape made more sense than him vamping her. At that point.

Is it possible your view of it has been coloured by what happens in S7?