Geek & Misandry

Most people have some kind of violent thoughts, we can imagine a scenario where violence or robbery becomes not only just a survival mechanism but also a form of empowerment.

But that does not really exist for a lot of people when it comes to sex crimes.

Generally, I tend to see two main issues. The first one is the most common, which is lazy writing using sex crimes as a shorthand in some way. If you wanna make someone seem like a slightly less bad person? Have them stop a sex crime. Want a an often female character to go through rapid character change but do not want to develop it? You can put a sex crime on it.

That can be triggering to a lot of people because you get that exposure to the pain and turmoil of trauma, with no visceral power fantasy to buoy you through it.

The other is coming back to that power fantasy again. Because we can mostly relate to the idea of taking power through violence, we absolutely can feel more moral and chill about that.

But if you think someone would like to take power FROM someone else with sexual violence, that can be very upsetting. And I think people can often wrongly assume that someone writing about that is perhaps making light of, or is able to fantasise, about someone losing power through sexual violence.

It is not correct, I think all writing is more nuanced than that. But I do think it is more complicated than just immaturity. I think it usually comes from a deep personal wound and an inability to separate that wound from their media lens.