Double Standard Rape (Sci Fi)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

If someone is raped in a way that can only happen in a science fiction or fantasy setting—mind control, shapeshifter impersonators, etc. -- it is often treated much less seriously than a rape that could happen in real life. The intention is that, when the circumstances surrounding the scene are sufficiently removed from reality, the viewer feels significantly less guilt for being entertained by it, since the scene as it plays out cannot possibly be reproduced in real life. (Obviously, your mileage will vary depending on your tolerance for such things.) In some cases the fact that it is rape is completely ignored by the storyline, and only the fanbase notices.

This can happen if the science-fictional element is just treated as Applied Phlebotinum to serve a specific role in the story, without doing a full exploration of all its implications. The audience might only realize the story is about rape via Fridge Logic.

Common elements of this trope include:

It is entirely possible for authors to undershoot the mark if they are applying the trope intentionally. Too few fantastic elements, and the scene becomes realistic, and therefore not entertaining (except to actual potential rapists).

Can frequently occur in variants of Aliens Made Them Do It and the Bed Trick. Fridge Logic points out that Love Potions that lead to sex may fall under this. Compare Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul for manipulation that can be used in this way. Contrast Safe, Sane, and Consensual as well as Free-Love Future and Ethical Slut. See also Double Standard Rape (Divine on Mortal).

No real life examples, please; First, this is a rape trope, and All The Tropes does not care to squick its readers. Second, Real Life is not speculative fiction.

Examples of Double Standard Rape (Sci Fi) include:

Anime and Manga

  • The entire reason Naughty Tentacles were infamously used in Urotsukidouji was to bypass censorship laws restricting the portrayal of male genitalia in Japanese pornography.
  • Tenchi Forever is awfully sympathetic to a woman whose lonely soul just couldn't help remembering her lost love... by making his grandson Tenchi think he's married to her.
  • Pucca: It's not rape since there is no sex (at least, not explicit), but it's kind of close considering it's a children's TV show (kissing). Pucca always try to convince Garu to kiss her, but he is totally against it. In more than one ocasion she tried to use magic means. This was played for laughs.
  • In Mahou Sensei Negima, a Love Potion incident early on is Played for Laughs. Later arcs backtrack on this, mentioning the rather severe problems that could arise from a magical uncontrollable love. Indeed, it is stated several times that even temporary Love Potions are actually illegal in Magical society, probably due to how effective a date rape drug they would be.
  • Love Potions are also illegal in the magical society of The Familiar of Zero, for the same reasons as in Mahou Sensei Negima.

Comic Books

  • The rape of Ms. Marvel, which involved mind control and the villain impregnating Carol Danvers with himself to escape his dimension, wasn't originally written to be a rape, and led to lots of fan backlash, including a later X-Men issue by Chris Claremont that had Carol calling out the Avengers for not helping her.
  • A partial use and partial aversion in She Hulk where Starfox is tried for rape, being accused by a married woman who had sex with him while under the influence of his psychic hormones. He is also accused of doing this to She-Hulk although it turns out he didn't. May not fully count because there's not much sign that he actually uses pheromones like that prior to this story.
    • It was eventually resolved by having a reveal that Thanos had brain-damaged him so that he lost conscious control of his powers, but that he never consciously used his powers that way on anyone who wasn't already looking for a casual sex partner.
  • In an issue of Spider-Man, the Chameleon pretends to be Peter Parker and has sex with Peter's roommate. The resulting Internet Backlash lead the writer to hastily Retcon it into just making out but it still left a bad taste in the fans' mouths.

Literature

  • In the Anita Blake series, there's a scene between Anita and Micah that is not supposed to be rape. Even though she said, "No," several times, and Micah didn't stop. Anita and Micah are destined mates because of the ardeur, which gets this sort of treatment regularly, due to forcing Anita and whomsoever close to have sex, occasionally forcing rape on both parties.
  • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, this is referenced but ultimately averted. Merope, Voldemort's mother, forces his father into their relationship via a Love Potion. And the only moral problem with this is that she's having sex with a Muggle... Or so it seems, at first. However, this way of looking at the morality of her actions turn out to be limited to the views of Death Eaters and similar pure-blood advocates. Of course, the muggle himself acts with utter revulsion once the potion wears off, and Dumbledore refers to what Merope did as enslavement by magical means. The reader is left with an impression that Voldemort's refusing to see his mother as a rapist (instead blaming his father for refusing to succumb to the mind-control — and thus abandoning his son) is a big part of why he became so hateful toward muggles.
  • Averted in the Sword of Truth series. The glamor spell, the series' equivalent of this, is seen by characters as tantamount to rape. Sorceresses who use it are either executed or expelled from the Palace of the Prophets (the Palace has a spell which slows down aging to about 10%, so there is little difference between the two for the exiles).
  • Averted pretty hard in Stationery Voyagers, where rape by Eros gas is something only the most depraved of villains even consider. Its effects on its victims amount to pretty much numbing most higher brain functions while amplifying sexual desire, like taking Viagra and drinking tequila at the same time, but not quite as dangerous.
    • The Yehtzigs use it on random civilians in the nation of Stato, in what could best be described as a double-rape. This is in the hopes of inducing an unsustainable baby boom. Because they make getting married an offense that can get you killed, their victims are often scared to get married when the girl finds herself pregnant. This is intentional: make the idea of marriage unfavorable and encourage men to abandon the woman and her child if he wants to live. From there, the welfare system would collapse under the unsustainable baby boom, and would cause infighting amongst politicians on how to balance the budget. This would weaken the economy, and lead to military and defense budget cuts that would produce a weakness for the Yehtzig's al-Qualda operative to exploit.All that, just so they can hopefully enslave the entire planet.
    • Wizard Lamdock uses it less elaborately. In an effort to make the Voyagers, while trapped in a mall clothing store, easier to capture, he poisons them to make them helplessly horny. Since Cindy's not around, there is nobody for Liquidon to cling to. So Liquidon finds a way to smash a window and ventilate the place.
    • As well as using Drismabon-manufactured weapons, the Crooked Rainbow uses Reverse-Eros gas to try to turn Oceanoe gay. He resists and overcomes, but it exhausts him.
  • In Dragonriders of Pern, whenever dragons mate, their respective riders are irresistibly compelled to do the same. The first book even has F'lar considering that if their dragons weren't involved, his relationship with Lessa would have to be considered rape. Since it was written in 1968, there's major Values Dissonance going on (and that's not even getting into how much he slaps her and shakes her around to show his concern about her putting herself in harm's way).
  • Generally averted in The Dresden Files, where just about all forms of supernaturally coercing sex are considered bad mojo, whether it is shapeshifting, faerie glamors, or the White Court's mental whammy. Mortals using mind control to coerce sex gets the death penalty from the White Council, though this falls under the general blanket Laws of Magic, one of which states that using magic to control minds is illegal. Love Potions technically do not count under the Laws, as the recipe used involves creating a strong aphrodisiac instead of outright mind control. Later in the series, the revelation that Luccio was only in a relationship with Harry due to being mind-controlled into doing so by the Black Council is treated as disturbing for both of them.
  • In People of the Wind we are told that the Yrthian sexual cycle is seasonal. In most of the year there is no sexual desire but in mating season anyone from a tribe outside a given Yrthians home is in peril. This is recognized by making the penalty for rape between tribes to be compensation as it is assumed the perp is effectively under extenuating circumstances by reason of insanity (or whatever lawyers would call it).
  • In the Twilight series, a vampire biting a human is a parallel for sex (hence why Edward refuses to bite Bella until after they are married). It's revealed that Carlisle bit Esme (his future wife) while she was unconscious and unable to give consent. He also bit Rosalie (again when she was unable to consent) after she was gang raped, with the intent of giving her to Edward as a girlfriend. In the former case, the two are Happily Married and the implications are ignored. In the latter case, it's treated as disappointing that Rosalie didn't take to Edward, and again the implications are not brought up.
  • In Hush, Hush, Patch does a number of things to Nora, including possessing her body and putting words and images in her head. These incidents range from being played for laughs to being romantic moments, even though Nora usually is disturbed or upset by them.
  • In the Anna Strong Chronicles, the eponymous heroine gets raped by a vampire, who mind controls her into compliance. When she recalls the incident, she argues that because she was a willing participant (even though, you know, mind control) it couldn't have been rape.
  • Subverted in Tithe Roiben kisses a charmed girl and during the kiss he realizes what he is doing, and is horrified by it. He then takes comfort from the fact it was only a kiss.
  • In Vorkosigan Saga Sergeant Botheri was a batman of Prince Serg. Sergeant Bothari was mentally disturbed and Prince Serg and his friend were both sadists. He treated Bothari like a slave including commanding him to rape several female prisoners (one he did on his own though he did not exactly know he was doing so and would not have done so if he hadn't been manipulated before). Bothari is acknowledged a rapist in the plot, indeed acknowledges himself as one. What is not mentioned is that he is also a rape victim at the same time as it is hard to interpret pressuring an insane person into raping someone by the use of overwhelming authority as being anything else. In this case it is something that could (unfortunatly) actually happen in real life though as it happens it takes place in a sci-fi.

Live-Action TV

  • The episode "Irresistible" on Stargate Atlantis, where a man who gets what he wants using pheromones—and has six wives as a result—is treated far too nicely by the team, and the episode itself is mostly a comedy.
    • In the episode "Duet", a female marine ends up sharing McKay's body by accident. After they argue a bit about who's in charge, she simply takes over after he falls asleep, takes his body for a run, then showers and sleeps naked. Later she wrests control from him to force him to kiss his girlfriend (which he'd been too shy to do), and then to kiss Dr. Beckett against the man's will. She did all this without ever asking McKay's permission, and while ignoring his protests. Again, it's a comedy episode and we're supposed to side with the woman during all of this.
  • Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows nearly controlled Victoria into thinking she was Josette and marrying him. The story doesn't treat him as an attempted rapist at all.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
    • Deconstructed when the nerd villains "The Trio" honestly don't see the ethical implications of their plan to brainwash women into sex slaves, until the girl they victimized spells it out for them and they murder her as she tries to escape, providing the Moral Event Horizon for what had been played as Harmless Villains.
    • Buffy has played it straight, however, when it overlaps with Double Standard Rape (Female on Male). For instance, consider Faith in Buffy's body having sex with Riley and compare it to, say, Warren raping Katrina using mind control.
  • The episode "Unexpected" of Star Trek Enterprise. Tucker becomes pregnant when an alien tricks him into activity which would be the alien equivalent of sex, impregnating him. Played for humor because of the male pregnancy, and the fact that Tucker didn't give meaningful consent is ignored.
  • Star Trek the Next Generation
    • In the episode "The Child", Counselor Troi is impregnated by an alien, and she gives birth to him. Troi later insists on carrying it to term, and once he's born he reveals that he only did it to explore human existence, and he may not have realized the implications of what it was doing.
    • In episode "The Host", a Trill (at that time implied to have all personality in the "parasite" part rather than a shared consciousness) who was having a sexual relationship with Doctor Crusher temporarily takes possession of Riker's body (with consent) to continue diplomatic negotiations. Doctor Crusher has trouble reconciling her romantic feelings for the Trill-personality with Riker's body—but the issue of whether Riker would consent to her having sex with his body is never even mentioned.
  • Supernatural
    • Narrowly averted, probably by Author's Saving Throw, when Sam is implied to have had sex with Ruby, a demon—but it has been established that demons possess the bodies of living people, so Sam would be a rapist. Fan backlash was immediate and soon a flashback scene was written showing that Sam refused to have sex with Ruby until she explained that her body had just flatlined in the hospital when she took it over and there was nobody else in it.
    • In the Supernatural episode "The French Mistake" where Sam and Dean get sent to the real world and it is implied that Sam gets intimate with his actor's wife. The Reality Subtext makes this merely amusing, but purely from an in-story perspective, Sam is a rapist.
  • In Torchwood, Owen uses a love perfume to make a woman go from disgusted by him, to gagging for him, and when her boyfriend shows up enraged, Owen appears to use it again to get himself a threesome. This example of Date Rape is never commented on again in the show.
  • Jack's story in the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor Dances" about waking up in bed with the jailers who were supposed to execute him after he got blindingly drunk as part of his Last Meal and blacked out is a bit iffy, too, even if he seems to view it as a pleasant memory. One can only hope they helped him escape before he propositioned them, and it wasn't about them taking advantage of their prisoner's desperate situation and drugged state.
    • A PG version of this trope happens in "New Earth". The villain, who had previously murdered a bunch of people, possesses Rose's body, gropes Rose's body, and then uses it to kiss the Doctor forcefully. It's all played for laughs and the Doctor doesn't seem to have a problem with it even after he finds out that he was sexually harassed, and only objects to Rose's possession in general, not to the fact that her body was used to do sexual things against her will. Later he lets the villain possess his body, and she uses this opportunity to make salacious comments about his 'parts' and imply that she was reading Rose's private thoughts while possessing her. Again, all played for laughs and none of the victims seem to mind. At the end, the completely unapologetic villain is forgiven for everything.
    • No sex involved, but "The Doctor's Daughter" features the Doctor being forced at gunpoint to donate genetic material to create a clone, who later proceeds to call him dad. The Doctor is pissed at first, but the show dismisses this as 'dad shock', instead of acknowledging that he was forced to father a child against his will.
  • Alternate Olivia in Fringe having sex with Peter. Rape by fraud. No-one is really okay with this except Walternate, so it's more of a subversion. Olivia apologizes to Peter for not thinking about how it affected him, and Broyles is reluctant to let Peter and Olivia read Fauxlivia's files because of "what they've been through".
  • Subverted in Battlestar Galactica, where a female humanoid robot is viciously abused and gang-raped by several human crew members of the ship she had previously served on while disguised as a human. When other humans from another ship discover that a rape of another humanoid robot was about to occur, they attack her would-be rapists, killing one of them. This leads to serious arguments between characters on the morality (or even possibility) of raping a machine.
  • While Damon on Vampire Diaries often has consensual sex, he's also shown mind-whammying girls (especially Caroline) into it, drinking their blood, and then making them forget it. Including a group of college girls, in a scene meant to highlight his own angst.
    • In the second season he starts "dating" Andie, heavily and repeatedly compelling her and feeding on her. One time she goes off-script when he's in a bad mood he attacks and threatens her, so even you ignore all the supernatural aspects he's a Domestic Abuser. No one appears to care about all this in the slightest. And when she dies, the show has the audacity to play it as a source of angst for him, despite her obviously being every bit as much his own victim as Stefan's. This guy is one third of the show's main love triangle.
  • Averted in the short-lived Century City. One episode deals with a nanotech drug that allows a person to "ride" someone else's experiences. As the person introduced to the drug was a man about to have relations with his girlfriend, the girlfriend later brings charges of rape against the third partner, as she certainly didn't consent to him getting involved.
  • In True Blood, Tommy becomes a "Skin Walker" (shapeshifter than can shift into other people) early in season 5. He uses this power to have sex with Sam's girlfriend. This is treated pretty seriously... for about an episode. No one ever mentions the word "rape" and all is forgiven shortly afterwards.
  • Bizarro on Smallville pretending to be Clark and having sex with Lana. Lead to an awkward moment, but wasn't really treated as a rape.
    • In a Freaky Friday Flip episode of Farscape, it's to be expected that characters will effectively see each others' bodies when they change clothes. Both Aeryn and John, who have swapped minds, are implied to take advantage of the situation to explore their new bodies, and while both are disgusted the R word never raises its head.
  • In the Eureka episode "Maneater", a mysterious spore causes all the women in town to become sexually disordered and obsessed with some of the men, especially Sheriff Carter who they stampede after. Somehow this is hilarious. Ok, it kind of is. No one is actually raped but it is obvious what the intent is. Fortunately they solve the problem before anything bad happens.

Music

Tabletop Games

Video Games

  • In the World of Warcraft comics, Katrana Prestor/Onyxia magically enthralls Varian Wrynn and sets herself up as his lover. What he thinks of it after he breaks free is never touched on.
    • It's worth pointing that he did get to kill her shortly afterwards, which may have helped. Closure, and all that.

Web Comics

  • This has been stated by Word of God as a big part of the humour in Ghastly's Ghastly Comic. The artist said he's iffy about rape jokes involving realistic situations, but since nobody in real life has ever actually had their life ruined by Naughty Tentacles, he feels okay joking about it. It helps that the tentacle monsters have human-level intelligence and understand things like consent, so nobody in the comic actually does get raped, outside of fantasy sequences.
  • A possible in-universe case occurs in Drowtales, where Snadhya'rune Vel'Sharen has her friend Wiam Val'Jaal'darya get one of her lover Mel'arnach's eggs under false pretenses (Mel was under the impression it was for an experiment, which while technically true was still deceptive), and uses it to make their daughter Kalki without Mel knowing until years later. Of course try telling that to Snadhya's fans, or Mel'arnach for that matter, who seems to realize on some level what Snadhya did but decides to ignore the implications.

Web Original

  • Averted in Chakona Space when Malena uses an overdose of pheromones to get her brother (and mate) Garrek to impregnate her. Both are deeply traumatized (Malena because Garrek went feral) and Malena is ostracized to the point where she has to leave her home village. However, she is forgiven fairly quickly because: a, she didn't know that her pheromones would have that kind of effect, b, she became pregnant with triplets, and c, it was discovered that her mother had actually done the same thing to her father and was covering up her shame by kicking her out (also why she didn't know better).


Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Double_Standard_Rape_(Sci_Fi)?oldid=2027044"