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

Absolutely. My whole argument is based on the premise that if/since they planned to continue on with Buffy's feeling for Spike in season 7, yet weren't going to give the story the time it needed to address it beyond a point where she comes off as a victim who blames herself for the attack, that they should have picked another device. I've never argued** the attempted rape was wrong within the context (only) of Seeing Red, or even most of season 6.

I feel this way because of the stance on Spike, that the writers gave Buffy for season 7. That's my whole point. They had her want to have him stick around, for emotional reasons. They had her risk her life to enter the FE's lair, to save him. They had her calling him a hottie. They had her endangering the potentials and herself - the whole known slayer line, by insisting he live in the Summers' home. They had her remove the chains before it was known whether or not Spike was free of the FE's trigger.

When Spike realized his chip didn't hurt him when he attacked Buffy, his very next step was to find tasty young morsel to feed on. When his chip kicked in at that time, he realized the chip wasn't working with Buffy only.

Yes. I didn't mean to call that scene into dispute, but rather compare his season 6 self to his season 4/post-chipping self. At the beginning, Spike was consumed with blood lust, moped outside windows to watch nests of vampires share a victim, and used much of his screen time plotting on ways to rid himself of the chip. He started to come to terms with it in season 5, and by season 6, although we see him vicariously enjoying the chaos the biker-demons caused in Bargaining, we don't see him yearning to get the chip out.

I think it's natural that he'd try to kill someone when he thinks it's not working. But he had to talk himself up in that alley scene, and after he realized he couldn't bite that woman, what did he do? He went to Warren. Did he go to Warren to see if he could use his technological resources to deactivate the chip? No. He didn't give a damn about the chip. And getting back to killing wasn't only not his first priority. It didn't seem like it was a priority at all. For a vampire, that's progress, big progress. YprogressMV. ** edited for word choice

My initial reaction to the rape scene was "What the FUCK -- did I accidentally change the channel???" I thought the scene was so poorly executed from a production standpoint that I couldn't even think about it in terms of character motivations for a long time afterwards. I found the nat-sound/handheld camera to be waaaaaay too overtly manipulative to have any emotional impact, and it pissed me off that ME thought it would.

Oh, I thought it was a fabulous scene. I thought it had a much greater impact for exactly th reasons you thought it was poorly executed. It was so stark, and so clear.

And I think that is why I was so annoyed that people said it wasn't an attempted rape, just attempted sex (whatever the hell that is).

Cindy Ah right, I see where you're coming from now. It's because of what happend in S7 that you would've preferred they went with vamping.

Rape is all about power, and S7 was all about "the power", Buffy getting it back, sharing it, etc. However I get the impression that rather than dealing with Buffy dealing with the attempted rape in the grand over riding "theme" of S7, you would've liked to have seen it dealt with at a more emotional, "gut" level?

Lady o' Spain said all the things I wanted to say, but oh so much better.

And I think her point is supported by the discussion of how the attack was filmed; it was made as realistic as possible, and whether you as a viewer responded to that by getting hit in the gut (as I did, and Cindy did) or by feeling manipulated, it definitely stood out as Different From the Rest of BtVS, just as The Body did. But they didn't follow through. And that irks.

UTTAD - I don't see how she dealt with it on any level.

She shrunk from his touch in Beneath You. She was using him as her guide dog the next episode. Soon, he was living in her house.

Argh. I have to go. Scott stayed home today so we could get things done, and we're not (especially not the "me" part of "we"). Later gators.

Well, not only different from the rest of BTVS but different from the rest of the episode. If they'd filmed the rest of the episode the same way -- it might have felt slightly less manipulative.

Cindy Sorry I meant Buffy as a TV show, not as an individual. They dealt (or tried to deal) with it, as the over-riding theme of the season, her getting her power on.

In much of S7, people had to really struggle to take their power, and had to go through a lot of emotional & mystical crap to get there - whether it was Anya's confrontation with d'Hoffryn, Willow's invisibility, Buffy's face-off with the African guys, or Dawn's realization that she's valuable even if she's not a potential. Buffy's way of getting her power back from Spike seemed to be to simply ignore that they had ever had an unhealthy relationship that culminated in a rape. That's a cop-out.

Nice article in the LA Times about AH here.

She has some awfully nice words for BTVS fans:

" 'Buffy' fans know my name and are really sincere and articulate in how they talk about the show. You can feel the work has touched them in some way or that my character has helped them in their life. You walk away from a fan experience like that and just feel so proud to have been a part of something that could have been such a part of people's lives."

Buffy's way of getting her power back from Spike seemed to be to simply ignore that they had ever had an unhealthy relationship that culminated in a rape. That's a cop-out.

Yes. Yes it is.