PMM, I wouldn't dream of downplaying how your experience has affected you. Please extend me the courtesy of not downplaying what has happened to me. Having everything I most cherished smashed by the person I most loved and trusted? And you mention triggers -- do you think perhaps that I don't flinch and have panic attacks and deeply fear whether love or trust are possible again?

Okay. Let's not do this. Let's not do this at all. Nobody is saying that infidelity is a trust maker. But let's not pretend that having a lover (spouse, whatever) cheat on you is the same as having someone rape or try to rape you. That doesn't downplay your experience. What it does is say that your experience isn't the same one as Buffy's experience in the story. That's not downplaying. That's an acknowledgement of fact.

Both are bad. They are different kinds of bad. Yes, both affect trust, but in very different ways.

Let's not go there at all. Please.

Cindy, I would rather you didn't answer on someone else's behalf. Also, I never suggested my experience was the same as Buffy's. What I have suggested is that one's own experiences and feelings and fears can colour the way one reacts to incidents on BtVS. I used a personal and traumatic experience for me to illustrate a point I was trying to make about the show. Maybe that was unwise of me. I made the point about myself and no-one else. But the two reactions I have got to that revelation seem, well, a little ``unkind'' to me.

Cindy, I would rather you didn't answer on someone else's behalf.

I wasn't answering on Plei's behalf. If I came across as doing so, I am sorry. I was responding to a statement posted on an open message board. I wasn't rifling through private emails or instant messages. When you put something up here, you put it up for all who come here to read. All who choose to respond are free to. You are free to disagree with, argue with, agree with, or ignore my responses to your posts. But I am not breaking any sort of message board rule of engagement by responding to something posted here.

Also, I never suggested my experience was the same as Buffy's.

No, you suggested your experience was worse than Buffy's. Here's an excerpt of your post:

I consider that betrayal to be a lot worse than a one-off incident of violence or sexual violence.

I didn't mention it when you first posted, because I understand you must be in great pain, and a real person's experience should, of course, trump a fictional character's story. So, because you are real and Buffy is fictional, your pain is more important than Buffy's.

However, rape and infidelity are both violations that take place in the real world. So let's take you and Buffy out of it for a moment. Both are painful. Both attack a person's ability to trust. Both are assaults on the emotions. Both can adversely affect the sexuality of the survivor. Rape is also an assault on the body. Infidelity is not. Your similar physical symptoms aside, I see that as the point that Plei was trying to make.

Although you are real and Buffy is not, there are other real people here besides you. Some real people survive rape and/or infidelity. Since it is impossible for you to know about all the real life experiences of your readership here, as a whole, I find it distressing that you would first decide Violation A that has happened to you, is worse than Violation B that happens to others. That's where I see "downplaying" in this thread

When someone here (in this case, Plei (PMM) ) calls your attention to the fact that your statement sounds as though you've never experienced Violation B, all she is doing is responding to an argument you presented in making your case about your opinion on a TV show.

(Hey, UTTAD? Would you mind using > at the beginning of a line to quote things instead of using the teeny-tiny font? It's a huge readability issue, and I'd really like to be able to follow the points everyone's making, especially in a more serious discussion like this one.)

I was just about to post exactly what Cindy said. But then she posted it, so I'll just point and nod.

The thing is, I think that in "Tabula Rasa" Spike did go back to his basic self, albeit his basic human self. His "vampire with a soul" speech proves this as he is clearly in romantic idealist/pretentious wanna-be poet mode at that point

As an interesting parallel to that, remember that when Angel lost his memories in "Spin the Bottle", he reverted to Liam's personality (though thankfully without the accent).

So beating someone's face to a pulp ISN'T taking power over another person's body?

Not when it's consensual, no.

amych: Okay dokey.

Lady O' Spain: Good point.

(UTTAD - Bronzer-my-Bronzer, it's really easy. Okay, granted, we learned HTML for the Bronze, and then iB for the haven. Learning yet a new code at first feels like the first step in a journey that'll probably take you elsewhere in the long run. But it doesn't have to.)

(Quick-edit code (which is linked right above the posting box, and when you click that link, you get a pop-up with the quick-edit codes, but don't lose your post-in-progress) is easy. And in this instance, if you put a greater-than carat ( > ) ahead of the section you're quoting, it both indents it and sets it in different font, and you don't have to close the tag. Hitting the return key (enter key, whatever, I'm a typist in a PC world) will close the quick-edit code all by itself.)

EDITED for the right, damned carat.

t /mathphobe

And in this instance, if you put a less-than carat ( < ) ahead of the section you're quoting, it both indents it and sets it in different font, and you don't have to close the tag.

(Pssst, Cindy! Wrong carat!)