And what is that other button on the mouse for?

The other button is a thing of beauty. The hardest thing for me when using my G4 is remembering that I can't just right click to get to my freaking context menu.

But for me, Buffy could deal with it, understand that it wasn't her fault, and still be OK with calling Spike a "hottie" because...she's Buffy. How is that for wishy-washy circular reasoning?

In the first half of the season, before it all turned to crap, I saw it as her making peace with everything that had happened in S6. She's had a summer to recover, think it over, and admit to herself that she cared more than she wanted to admit, and that was part of the hurt with both the violation of friend/fuck barriers (Entropy), and the worse violation of the attempted rape.

But, then they stopped showing me, and just started telling me, and I got cranky. Asshats.

The implication I got from the deleted scene was that he planned on, umm, well, making her feel it, consent be damned.

Sorry for being so dense. I wasn't really paying attention to where Smashed occurred in the storyline.

The implication here (and I remember talking about this when we first heard about this outtake) is definitely that Spike considers a stun gun to be part of his normal romantic evening. This is consistant with both his line in Lover's Walk about tying up Drusilla and torturing her until she loves him, and the actual tying up and threatening he did when Drusilla returned.

This is what I think we can call Fury!Spike. But also the whole original conception of Spike and Dru as a perverse Sid and Nancy inversion of romance.

So...folks that think Spike is merely a misunderstood puppy would have had a canonical moment (not the only one, however) where it was made explicit that Spike was capable of rape.

See, that didn't mean that much to me because obviously Spike was capable of rape. Why would he have a scruple about that if he killed children on a regular basis? Except, I know plenty of Buffistas who had it in mind that Spike was not capable of the attack in Seeing Red, and saw it out of character. I never did though.

But I see your point, it was a mistake not to drop an anvil there because clearly the writers always thought that a soulless Spike was capable of every evil.

The other button is a thing of beauty. The hardest thing for me when using my G4 is remembering that I can't just right click to get to my freaking context menu.

You can get a programmable/setable multi-button mouse....

But, then they stopped showing me, and just started telling me, and I got cranky. Asshats.

You have me sold on this. It was hard for me to see at first. I knew I wasn't enjoying the middle part of this season as much as I had others. But this was my first season of Buffy where I, uhm, went over the edge a bit. It was the DVDs. I had never had access to that much Buffy at one time. (I wasn't a taper.) So I was in complete and total psycho-love with the whole show through a lot of this season. And reading the big end-o-season debate about telling but not showing really made me see why I didn't enjoy a good chunk of S7.

See, that didn't mean that much to me because obviously Spike was capable of rape. Why would he have a scruple about that if he killed children on a regular basis?

This is me. In that, as much as I loved Spike, I still thought he was evil.

Sorry for being so dense. I wasn't really paying attention to where Smashed occurred in the storyline.

Again with the PHBBT! (blinks sweetly). You obviously aren't one of us who wore out that portion of our tape. Because, of course, those last ten minutes? Still fucking hot. (As are: Faith torturing Wes, Riley staking Spike, and Wes shooting his hand out to grab Lilah's neck. Because bad things feel good.)

But I see your point, it was a mistake not to drop an anvil there because clearly the writers always thought that a soulless Spike was capable of every evil.

I'm still up in the air about the anvil. I mean, it was jarring in the context of the episode, makes perfect sense as part of the arc-as-a-whole.

So...folks that think Spike is merely a misunderstood puppy would have had a canonical moment (not the only one, however) where it was made explicit that Spike was capable of rape.

Specifically, of raping the person he loved, in this case, Buffy. It would have taken the affair into a whole new level of wrong. Hmm. Still not certain how I feel about that.

You can get a programmable/setable multi-button mouse....

Eh, I know. I just enjoy using the touchpad.

Why would he have a scruple about that if he killed children on a regular basis? Except, I know plenty of Buffistas who had it in mind that Spike was not capable of the attack in Seeing Red, and saw it out of character.

There are serial killers who have never raped, and serial rapists who have never killed, so to say that because Spike killed children, he must also have an inner rapist is just silly. I think Spike probably did rape a lot of his victims over the years, but it's not a logical conclusion you can draw from the girl-in-a-coalbin story. It's a logical conclusion you can draw from Crush, from Lover's Walk, from the fact that Angelus was his mentor, and from the vampire metaphor in general, but not from the fact that Spike killed kids.

And now, to pick a nit that's been picked countless times in the past year and a half...

"out of character" != "not capable of"

Not even a little bit. I argued that it was out of character -- I thought I was watching JM and SMG workshopping a scene from another show, I thought it was so out of character, for both of them. Not necessarily the act itself, but the anvilly After School Special, Rape Is Bad Boys And Girls So Don't Be Like Spike! execution. But I don't recall anyone saying they thought Spike was incapable of rape. I mostly recall people on the side of "it was in character" trying to make the point that evil = capable of rape --> in character, and people on the side of "I have no idea what show I just watched" pointing out the very nit I have just picked.

folks that think Spike is merely a misunderstood puppy would have had a canonical moment (not the only one, however) where it was made explicit that Spike was capable of rape.

Some, sure.

Here? I haven't seen it.

Not all evil people do all evil things to everyone.

In fact, none do.

Again with the PHBBT! (blinks sweetly). You obviously aren't one of us who wore out that portion of our tape. Because, of course, those last ten minutes? Still fucking hot. (As are: Faith torturing Wes, Riley staking Spike, and Wes shooting his hand out to grab Lilah's neck. Because bad things feel good.)

Heh. I've got surprisingly little porn value out of my BtVS and Angel watching. Vamp!Willow spun my number hard, so when she broke the fingers of that hench vamp, and absolutely when she tortured the puppy, and the infamous Menage a Chomp that Teppy is so fond of. After that...hmmm. Dru torturing Angel. Justine in the closet. I'm running out of kinky scenes I liked. See, my experience would've been very different if I were drawn by the sex appeal - as fans of Angel, Spike and Scruffy!Wes had.

It's a logical conclusion you can draw from Crush, from Lover's Walk, from the fact that Angelus was his mentor, and from the vampire metaphor in general, but not from the fact that Spike killed kids.

Fair enough. That was enough for me, and I think the writers felt that way about Spike. And as you note, there's other canonical evidence from which it would be a logical inference. Like I said, it was obvious to me that Spike would rape and had raped.

Favorite kinky/porny BtVS scenes:

Angel biting Buffy in Grad. Part II
Angel and Spike and the kiss on the head (is that kinky? it wasn't directly porny, so I'm counting it)
Xander and Buffy in the Pack (but that is mostly just Xander being hot)
Angelus and Buffy kissing in I Only Have Eyes... (again, not straight up kinky, but still very twisted)
Fuffy and Spike
Spike and notquiteafullslayer!Buffy in Superstar when he taunts, touches her AND calls her Betty.

The tearing-down-the-house-sex was great until I re-watched it and was just super unimpressed with JM's acting. It's the morning after scene in Wrecked that I think he nailed (pun so completely intended).

edited because he calls her Betty I think, not Betsy.