Recently I watch “˜Hathor’, a season one episode of Stargate which, the more I watched it, the more it shits me. Basically, Daniel gets drugged and raped by a Goa’uld Queen, Hathor, and no-one is the least bit concerned. Because, you know, men don’t get raped by women.
At one point after she’s drugged him once and he cottons onto what she’s got planned – namely, to get him to impregnate her and create a whole new species of Goa’uld – she drugs him again to get him to have sex with her. If the sexes were reversed, pretty much everyone (except our favourite right-wing loonies) would consider this rape. But hey, when it’s woman-on-man, the guy should consider himself lucky to get laid.
At the end of the episode, when they’re scraping the DNA of Hathor’s Goa’uld larvae off the floor, Daniel popes up “˜most of that is mine’ and Jack goes “˜Ewww!’. Dude, your best friend just got raped and the best you can do is “˜ewww’. Never mind that Daniel might be deeply traumatised, because I’d be pretty traumatised if someone had just drugged me and raped me to create a new parasitical species.
And Daniel never appears the least bit traumatised. Hathor seems to be nothing more then a bad, manipulative lay – someone we’ve all known. But there’s a difference between being manipulative and a bad lay and being a rapist, something SG1 (never a beacon of light in gender affairs) has never been able to distinguish between. In season two’s Need, a woman manipulates Daniel into a relationship by getting him addicted to the sarcophagus. When it’s over and he’s recovered he’s all “˜I understand why you did it’ and goes on his merry way. Because men aren’t the least bit traumatised by being used for sex, apparently.
And the thing is, Daniel hates the Goa’uld. His wife and brother-in-law were made into Goa’uld hosts. In future episodes, he shows no hesitation or remorse in killing a tank full of larvae Goa’uld who couldn’t fend for themselves; basically, he wants them wiped off the face of the universe, and any other universe they might be inhabiting. If anyone should feel deeply violated after impregnating a Goa’uld queen, it would be him. But no, just most of that would be mine.
The Hathor storyline continues in a season two/three cliffhanger, Out of Mind/Into the Fire. When the team meet up with Hathor again, Daniel’s reaction to her is one of contempt, of a scorned lover who was manipulative and a bad lay – but not a rapist. Hell, I have exes who were manipulative and bad lays; but they didn’t rape me. If I were to meet these men again, I would treat them with contempt; if I were to meet a man who rape me again I would (I hope, at least) unleash on them every bit of feminist fury I have. Hathor conveniently dies at the end of the episode, and they never bother to address with the fact of her raping Daniel.
Now, Stargate is notorious for it’s inability to address issues of gender and sexuality; you just have to have a quick check both on this site and the web to see how many people hate Carter (and, to a lesser extent, Anise and Vala) to know that. But it also seems to me to be the most obvious of symptoms of the media industry’s inability to address male rape. Apart from Law and Order: SVU, movies like Sleepers and a single All Saints storyline – which, interestingly, primarily deal with male-on-male rape; SVU is the only source I’ve known to do a female-on-male rape storyline – the media is absent of male storylines.
What is it about the mainly male writers that they cannot deal with male rape? Is being violated ultimately a male-only thing? Is masculinity so intrinsically tied up with this idea of being the violator and the conqueror that to be the violated, the conquered, has them shitting in their pants and writing rape scenes as nothing more then violent sex?
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I am not really interested in watching graphic rapes. I prefer all things of this sort to occur off-screen. The psychology of the thing is what interests me, so I really don’t need to see it. For example, in the L&O:SVU episode “Ridicule,” we do not ever see the rape or the murder, and I find it a very compelling story.
In any case, how people feel about graphic portrayals of rape does not necessarily have anything to do with why there are not more males as rape victims on television, as such issues can be dealt with without actually portraying the rape.
Glaivester(Quote) (Reply)
We are very conflicted and, in many cases stupid, about ape. We also hold men to a much higher standard than women, always have. Women are weak andd must be protected andd men re big tough and evil.
Case in point: a babysitter raped one of the boys she was babysitting, got pregnant had a baby and sued the boy (now 12, 13 or so) for child support. The juddge ruled that the boy must pay.
Imagine an 18 year old male babysitter raping an 11-12 year old girl ,getting her pregnant, taking the baby and demanding in court that the girl, now 13 or so, pay him child support. Different, right?
Anybody who expects equality between men and women, who expects equal treatment on TV or real life, is kidding themselves. Welcome to the real world … and watch that babysitter like a hawk.
Big Bill(Quote) (Reply)
Was the woman in that scenario actually charged and found guilty of rape? I find it incredibly unbelievable that the boy should be made to pay child support in that situation. (And, incidentally, with what? His newspaper round money?) I would have thought that, at a stretch, a good lawyer could make a point about those ‘non-profit’ laws.
Secondly, and we brought this up in another post, as far as issues such as sex crimes go, men are largely ignored because it is predominantly a women’s issue. I mean, even if you look at the fact that (I think) 3/4 of rape victims are women, which in itself is a pretty glaring statistic, once you get down to how many MEN are victims of female-on-male rape to how many WOMEN are victims of male-on-female rape, without belittling anyone’s experience, it’s almost neglibile.
As I said, I’m not belittling anyone’s experience. I’m sure rape is incredibly traumatising, regardless of the gender of either rapee or rapist. But female-on-male rape is so uncommon (not to mention the social conditioning that if a man got an erection, he must have wanted it)that it’s largely overlooked as a crime.
But fair being fair, if, after being charged and found guilt of rape, the babysitter could still extract child support money by the boy she raped, then I’m even more disgusted with the American law system then i was five minutes ago.
scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
Which is why I love fanfic. There are a few goof stories addressing Daniel’s rape. But Stargate (though I love it) has a history of leaving deeper issues hanging.
Kateydidnt(Quote) (Reply)
I could count SG-1, but since the writers don’t like deep subjects I won’t.
Two show dealing with a man raped by a woman-the only ones I can clearly recall- Farscape (Grayza raped John) and SVU, Ridicule. That’s it.
In Farscape, 4th season What was Lost, John was visibly traumatized and hated Grayza- he outright said “raped” to her.
cat(Quote) (Reply)
I absolutely agree with this article. I’m late to Stargate, and I’m watching through the show on DVD. This article says everything I was thinking.
Also, no one in the comments mentions “The Broca Divide”, a season one episode in which Carter tries to rape O’Neill. She gets Touched (i.e. gets a virus that transforms her to a primal state), and then assaults O’Neill in the locker room. He fights her off, straps her to a bed in the infirmary, and then tells Daniel she tried to seduce him.
Dragonclaws(Quote) (Reply)
Good point, Dragonclaws. I always took that phrase as *Jack* struggling for the words to describe what happened rather than the writers classifying it as “seduction”, and felt that Daniel’s sarcastic “You poor man” meant that Jack hadn’t found the right word after all. But knowing what we know of the writers from future seasons, um… yeah.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
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