Warning: Potentially Offensive Content.

People, myself included, have been a bit upset about some recent depictions of rape in comic books (to say the least). Using rape as a story element smacks of sensationalism, most likely because it generally is.

You know what’s still fairly rare though? Male protagonists who get raped by female antagonists. I can think of two off the top of my head — Namor and Jack Knight.

I’ve recently added a name to that list.

That’s from Thor #358.

This is not something I’m taking out of context btw. Thor is drugged and then Lorelei has her way with him.

Can you imagine if this happened today?

IN THIS ISSUE! THE GOD OF THUNDER VS DATE RAPE!

WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?


Posted

in

,

by

Tags:

Comments

35 responses to “Warning: Potentially Offensive Content.”

  1. Comixbear Avatar

    “Methinks thou doust slip a Mickey Finn in my mead!”

    http://comixbearbarecomix.blogspot.com/

  2. Palladin Avatar

    I recently watch the 3rd season of Buffy TVS and there is an instance of an almost rape there. Xander goes to talk with Faith and she throws him on the bed and begins grinding on him while using her Slayer strength to hold him down, he begs for her to stop, she starts choking him, Angel knocks her out and the scene is over. No comicbook but in the family of geekdom.

  3. HellRazor Avatar
    HellRazor

    “You know what’s still fairly rare though? Male protagonists who get raped by female antagonists.”

    That’s because you can’t rape the willing.

    “I can think of two off the top of my head Namor and Jack Knight.”

    Didn’t Nightwing get raped too?

  4. corando gallegos Avatar
    corando gallegos

    Don’t forget Jack Knight-Starman was drugged and the daughter of the Mist had her way with him. That is how Jack’s daughter was conceived.

  5. LurkerWithout Avatar
    LurkerWithout

    This is actually like the THIRD occurence I can think of off the top of my head where some Evil Hottie puts the whammy on Thor to get in his pants. Lorelei, her big sister the Enchantress and Moondragon…

  6. Shiai Avatar
    Shiai

    “Officer, she did drug me and have her way with me! I am innocent!”

    “Save it for the judge, longhair…and he isn’t going to be too thrilled that you were smokin’ weed and doing it with a sixteen year old.”

    “Forsooth!”

  7. Dierna Avatar
    Dierna

    Technically tho what Lorelei was doing was not rape. She was seducing him using magic…and it worked.

  8. Seraph Avatar
    Seraph

    Dierna –

    “Seducing” him with magic *is* rape.

  9. Casey Avatar
    Casey

    “That’s because you can’t rape the willing.”

    Pfft. That shows a distinct misunderstanding of biology under duress. The body can react to rape in a way that culture usually indicates as “willingness”–a female rape victim may juice up, a male rape victim may become hard–because it’s the body trying to defend itself from harm, not an actual sexual desire.

    “Technically tho what Lorelei was doing was not rape. She was seducing him using magic…and it worked.”

    No. No, robbing someone of free will doesn’t mean seduction. He had no real choice in the matter. Magic, drugs, substances, whatever, do not NOT make it a rape.

  10. Adam Avatar
    Adam

    Add Green Arrow to your list. Shado raped Ollie while he was drugged and eventually bore his child (remind anyone of Starman?)

    As an odd tidbit, he called out Black Canary’s name from his drug induced haze.

  11. Dierna Avatar
    Dierna

    Not in comics but in the sequel to the Merlin movie mini-series while Merlin is asleep for like 60 years the lady of the lake rapes him and has is child. He doesn’t find out till after he wakes up…. 20 years later….Can’t believe that was on the Hallmark channel….

  12. Shiai Avatar
    Shiai

    Well, this isn’t in the comics (unless Max Gaines showed it in one of his religious comics in the 40s), but in the Book of Genesis, there’s the heartwarming tale of Lot’s two daughters getting him drunk and then forcing him to have sex with them so that they could both get pregnant.

  13. typolad Avatar
    typolad

    HellRazor – yeah, that was disturbing for all the people saying “hey no, it wasn’t rape.”

    For a real WWTT experience, read Devin Grayons’s DCU Novel. It’s slash-tastic.,

    corando – I mentioned Jack actually. That one wins big points for actually portraying Jack as freaked out.

    Re: you can’t rape the willing. As Casey says, this is a big fat falsehood.

    I did carefully prefix it with “date” though.

  14. Noah Brand Avatar
    Noah Brand

    Add the Hulk and Tom Strong to your list. There’s even a good page out there of the Hulk talking about his rape trauma with Doc Samson.

  15. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    “‘I say thee nay’ means ‘I say thee nay!’”

  16. Scott Haley Avatar
    Scott Haley

    One time Ka-Zar got forced to perform by an evil AIM lady. I don’t think Moondragon really went “all the way” with Thor–I think that she made him think that they’d just spent the night together as a way to control him.

  17. HellRazor Avatar
    HellRazor

    That’s because you can’t rape the willing.”

    “Pfft. That shows a distinct misunderstanding of biology under duress.”

    Nah. It’s the psychology I’m talking about. I suspect that a good percentage of the male population would have no problems at all with being “taken” by a hot chick. We’re horndogs by nature.

    And besides, that’s just how Thor’s hammer swings.

  18. Gloria Avatar

    If Lorelei seducing Thor counts as date-rape, I think we could add Foggy Nelson to the list as he was seduced/drugged/framed by proxy law firm customer Lidia Mckenzie (with a little help from Mysterio)… Incidentally, little is said about the time of Foggy’s subsequent stay at Ryker’s save a fleeting comment about trying to avoid becoming “Mrs. Terrence Flanagan” which makes one’s spine chill for poor Foggy.

  19. david Avatar
    david

    Oh this counts as date rape all right. Subject A induces subject B into a state where they are unable to resist Subject A’s advances. That’s date rape, male to female or female to male.

    An interesting question then arises however, regarding how significant the level of trauma suffered by the victim is to the severity of the act. I’d suggest that Thor would be angered by the actions of ‘subject A”, but not on the whole traumatised, given what we know about the character. What happened to the Hulk however, was a truly traumatic experience. The emotional scars he suffered from his rape added to his already fraying sanity at that time.

    I’m not petitioning for date rape to be judged purely by how traumatised the victim is (how would you even measure that?) Just merely interested to hear other peoples views.

  20. Jenny Avatar
    Jenny

    Anyone remember the comic Largo Winch? Largo was drugged and raped by a lonely old woman. And ended up on the front page of the newspaper in the process.

  21. Visaman Avatar
    Visaman

    “Rape” is such an ugly word. I don’t even think it’s a legal term anymore. It could be sexual assault (but only if the man is gay).

    Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker!

  22. travestymcgee Avatar

    If anyone’s looking for hero archetypes, young King Arthur is seduced/raped under an enchantment by his sister Morgause, who then conceives Mordred and sics him on Camelot. By King Lot, she’s also the mother of Arthur’s nephews Gawaine, Gaheris, Agravaine and Gareth, at least one of whom is more devoted to Arthur’s cause than his own son.
    According to TH White– does anyone know if he got this from Mallory?– Morgause wowed Arthur by wrapping him in a ribbon made by flaying a human being in one continuous strip. Frank Miller will want to include that if they ever retrofit Lorelei’s “magic vapors”.

  23. Recycled Epson T032320 Magenta Ink Cartridge…

    People myself included have been a bit upset about some recent depictions of rape in comic books to […]…

  24. cmonguys Avatar
    cmonguys

    Just because a man is straight, doesn't mean he can't be raped by a woman… It may be hard for some of you to believe, but sometimes a man does refuse to have sex with an attractive woman, for various reasons.

    No shit “Rape is such an ugly word”… I mean, seriously… it is rape. How is it supposed to not be an ugly word. There is a difference between rape and sexual assault. They are not equivalent charges.

    This scene is rape. No matter how you cut it. Although, I would be interested in seeing how anyone can logically think otherwise, as long as it isn't the “As a horny, lonely guy, I assume all guys are as horny and lonely as me” argument…

  25. cmonguys Avatar
    cmonguys

    Just because a man is straight, doesn't mean he can't be raped by a woman… It may be hard for some of you to believe, but sometimes a man does refuse to have sex with an attractive woman, for various reasons.

    No shit “Rape is such an ugly word”… I mean, seriously… it is rape. How is it supposed to not be an ugly word. There is a difference between rape and sexual assault. They are not equivalent charges.

    This scene is rape. No matter how you cut it. Although, I would be interested in seeing how anyone can logically think otherwise, as long as it isn't the “As a horny, lonely guy, I assume all guys are as horny and lonely as me” argument…

  26. cmonguys Avatar
    cmonguys

    Just because a man is straight, doesn’t mean he can’t be raped by a woman… It may be hard for some of you to believe, but sometimes a man does refuse to have sex with an attractive woman, for various reasons.rnrnNo shit “Rape is such an ugly word”… I mean, seriously… it is rape. How is it supposed to not be an ugly word. There is a difference between rape and sexual assault. They are not equivalent charges.rnrnThis scene is rape. No matter how you cut it. Although, I would be interested in seeing how anyone can logically think otherwise, as long as it isn’t the “As a horny, lonely guy, I assume all guys are as horny and lonely as me” argument…

  27. Ty Avatar

    Thor got loli-raped

  28. Ty Avatar

    Going back further, look to the way Arthur is conceived in the “Excalibur” movie portrayal.

    Uther is disguised by Merlin to look like Ygraine’s husband, she consents thinking it is her husband, but Uther had his soldiers kill the husband and appear in his stead.

    Oh wait, but that’s a woman getting raped.

  29. Jack Avatar
    Jack

    Wrong, that is rape.

    Is the same as drugging and having sex with them. Thor didn’t consent, so it’s rape.

  30. Kaz Avatar
    Kaz

    And you’d be greatly mistaken. You clearly don’t know a thing about what you are talking about.

    It’s still rape and most men would mind.

  31. GOD Avatar
    GOD

    Just call it what it is. RAPE.

  32. Aurora Moon Avatar
    Aurora Moon

     I agree with you on this, although I don’t know Thor and Hulk all that well… more of a DC fangirl than I am of Marvel. ah well.

  33.  Avatar
    Anonymous

      I agree completely.

      I think those people who are arguing against it being rape maybe read way too many “dubious consent” fan fiction? You know those kinds of stories where the male/female is caught by surprise, and they struggle a little bit at first but then they realize that it feels too good for them to put up a struggle anymore, so they just get into it instead.

     If that’s the case, then I have this to say to them:
     “I hate to break this to you, people… but real life usually doesn’t work that way. Even if the lady’s hot and the man normally wouldn’t mind having sex with her… if you take away free will or choice it’s still rape.

     For example… let’s just say you’re not into strap-on sex. You just want the normal vanilla stuff. But this hot woman you’re seeing is into strap-ons in a big way, and keeps on trying to pressure you into doing it with her.
      You have your mind made up about not trying it, ever.
      She thinks that if she can just get you into an situation where you don’t have any choice, that you’ll end up liking it. Because after all, her last ex-boyfriend liked it! So She drugs you, and then ties you up. When you wake up, you’re stuck in this situation where she’s attempting to make you like it.
       She basically took that choice away from you, and forced this situation on you. Wouldn’t you feel angry, upset? Maybe you feel too upset to even feel any arousal…. yet she keeps on simulating your body so that it reacts against your will.

      THAT would be classified a rape. And the Guy doesn’t even need to be tied up or peperated with a strap-on in order to be raped.
      A lot of guys have certain things that they wouldn’t ever do in the bedroom, because it’s just a turn off for them. It can be mild things like disliking anal sex, or hand-jobs. If a hot girl uses substances to remove a guy’s free will so that she can do things that he’s normally against… then yes, that would be a form of rape.

     Hopefully detailing out situations that some horn-bags actually might object to clears up the concept of Female on male rape for you guys.”

  34. Mark Avatar

    If anyone has seen the Ed Wood movie, The Violent Years, it depicts the rape of a young man by four teenage girls. This is presented about as skillfully as anything else Ed Wood ever did.

  35. SteveAsat Avatar
    SteveAsat

    I find it awfully hard to believe that if Loki had access to a mystic vaporizer full of Love Potion #9 that he would allow anyone else to use it on Thor. If he’s gonna wreck Thor’s marriage I think he’d want to do it personally.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *