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snacky
2011-02-03 08:27 pm UTC (link)

While I admit to recoiling in disgust over this, I also have to admit I am a bit leery too, because there's a lot of underage (and rape, and incest) stuff in fanfic. Then it's all, "It's just fiction! We're just exploring it in FICTION! We don't actually want it in real life!"

Never mind me, I'm just working out where to judge and on what criteria and how much of a hypocrite I am.

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	sorchar 2011-02-03 10:04 pm UTC (link)
	I think it's the tone of the discussion that makes the difference to me personally. I thought about it long and hard for that very reason. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	snacky 2011-02-03 10:30 pm UTC (link)
	Right, I see what you mean, but then I also wonder, if I had overheard the discussion, would the actual tone sound different than what I'm reading into it? Like I said, I'm just trying to work out what I think about it - certainly not saying you were wrong to post it. :) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

sorchar
2011-02-03 11:15 pm UTC (link)

No, I totally get you. I had the same thoughts after posting. I think it's some hard-to-explain difference - the same way one fic with a fifteen-year-old and an adult might be skeevy, while another one won't. It's hard to pin down, for me at least, but it does give me the creeps. Maybe it's the whole "heh heh she was promiscuous and came onto him" when she was TWELVE. As if her being promiscuous that young (and I do know that it happens) meant that she was somehow able to make responsible adult decisions about sex and thus it would be okay for Indy to take her up on it instead of saying "No." (To quote Hailey in "Hard Candy", "Just because a girl can imitate a woman doesn't mean she's ready to do what a woman does.")

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sorchar
2011-02-03 11:17 pm UTC (link)

Oops, hit "post" too soon. Anyway, I think especially given that the thing with Roman Polanski had been all over the news in the 70s and has been again recently, putting forth the idea that an adolescent girl is able to consent to and even pursue sex with an adult in a mature, responsible way, and thus it's okay for him to do it (or you know, RAPE her in Polanski's case) is what really skeeves me. Maybe. I'm still working it out myself.

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snarkhunter
2011-02-03 11:54 pm UTC (link)

the idea that an adolescent girl is able to consent to and even pursue sex with an adult in a mature, responsible way

I don't believe this should ever be used as a foundation for policy or anything, but depending on how you define "adolescent," that can be true.

Do I think a 12-year-old can do this? No. But 16? 17? That's an adolescent. (Of course, technically so is an 18-year-old.) And I think it's insulting to the intelligence of older teens to assume that every single one who consented to sex with an 18, 19, 20, even 21-year-old (or maybe even older) has been abused, raped, whatever. I know there are Romeo & Juliet laws for this exact reason, but not all states have them, and the notion of a bright line between 17 and 18 is positively absurd.

Even 17 and 20...still not a problem for me if everyone's consenting. (I speak from the perspective of being the child of a couple who married at those exact ages.)

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sorchar
2011-02-04 12:12 am UTC (link)

Perhaps I should have been clearer that I mean younger adolescents, but I thought that was implied by the context of the post. No one, as far as I can see, has said anything about older teens, or sex between someone who's just under the age of consent and someone who's just over it.

And there's a huge difference, IMHO, between a fifteen-year-old having sex with, say, an eighteen-year-old, and having sex with someone who's in their thirties.

In the context of this discussion, we're not talking about older adolescents - Lucas found that uninteresting. We're talking about a twelve-year-old. We're not talking about teenagers on the verge of adulthood - we're talking about a character barely out of childhood. There's a big difference.

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	snarkhunter 2011-02-04 02:50 am UTC (link)
	Oh, I know what you meant, but I was just thinking out loud about something else that bothered me. And I agree completely that there's a HUGE difference between two teens (even one over 18) and someone who is in their 30s. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sorchar 2011-02-04 04:00 am UTC (link)
	Gotcha, and I get where you're coming from. When you read about some seventeen-year-old boy being prosecuted for having sex with his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, it's ridiculous. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

silrana
2011-02-04 04:35 pm UTC (link)

Back when I was in college, I was pleasantly surprised to find out in a law class that my home state had a provision that statutory rape had to involve at least a two year difference in ages between the participants, to prevent just that sort of thing. I wish more states had it. Of course, since I haven't lived there in twenty-five years, it may have changed, but I hope not.

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	snacky 2011-02-04 01:36 am UTC (link)
	Yes, it's the Polanski thing that I keep associating with this, especially with the "she pursued him" bit. And describing a twelve year old as "promiscuous!" And then I'm very glad they didn't make this an overt plot point in the film. Sigh. (Reply to this)(Parent)

kelmendi
2011-02-04 02:23 pm UTC (link)

I think I may be the only one, but reading it, I thought Spielberg was disagreeing with Lucas.

First there was the "She'd better be over 22" line, which I interpreted as arguing with Lucas - "She had an affair with Indy 10 years ago? She'd better be over 22 then." I thought the "She came on to him" line was sarcasm - "Right, yeah, sure they had a consensual relationship when she was 12. In fact, she came on to him! Are you nuts?"

Then I read the comments here, and no one else read it that way. Tone is a tricky bastard.

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	jaseroque 2011-02-04 02:30 pm UTC (link)
	Hm. I hadn't considered that myself, but Lucas does immediately boot the age up three years after the 'promiscuous' comment. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	silrana 2011-02-04 04:39 pm UTC (link)
	Hmm. I wouldn't discount the possibility. I know I've said things plenty of times that if you removed the eye roll or the sarcastic tone and quoted just my words, I'd sound like a complete monster. (Reply to this)(Parent)

sisterelwood
2011-02-03 10:05 pm UTC (link)

Yeaaaah. I'm kinda there with you. I'd also like to hear from these folks today regarding this. Yes, this is wrong and it's awful but we're looking at these comments from our current societal perspective. Yes, this kind of thing is wrong ALL THE TIME but I actually would like more of the context that the comments were made in - i.e. I would want to read more of the conversation surrounding the comments we have sampled in the article.

It's still really, really scummy no matter how you look at it but I just don't even know.

Never mind me, I'm just working out where to judge and on what criteria and how much of a hypocrite I am.

That is exactly where I am here.

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	snacky 2011-02-03 10:33 pm UTC (link)
	Right? It sounds completely sleazy to me, reading it, but then I'm like, "well, they make fiction, they wanted to throw in this dynamic and see what it did to the relationship, no actual minors were harmed".... and, yet, even with that in mind, they still sound completely sleazy to me. So. Just a thought process for me. (Reply to this)(Parent)

snarkhunter
2011-02-03 11:46 pm UTC (link)

we're looking at these comments from our current societal perspective

This, exactly. "It was a different time" is not an excuse for bad behavior, but we're not talking precisely about bad behavior, here. We're talking about the idea of bad behavior expressed in fiction.

However, I do agree with

sorchar that there's a certain skeeviness about this given its closeness to the Polanski situation, etc. OTOH, I think what we're seeing is less about these men in particular and more about a widespread cultural assumption regarding young women's (and, to a certain extent, young men's) sexuality.

(Of course, I also think that we need to be able to have open discussions about the reality of young teens having sex without necessarily assuming they are victims. Some of them are. Not all of them. And I say this as a person who is massively squicked by the idea of anyone under 15 having sex.)

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ekaterinv
2011-02-03 10:26 pm UTC (link)

There is a huge difference between openly acknowledged kink, written as a hobby, which is explicitly fantasy kink, and a couple rich and powerful directors saying it's not "interesting" if it's not rape and that the victim "seduced him" and she was "promiscuous". And having their extremely popular mainstream hero be a rapist, but not even acknowledging that it was rape, because the victim supposedly came on to him and was "promiscuous".

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snacky
2011-02-03 10:39 pm UTC (link)

Right, of course, and I guess I'm not expressing myself well-enough if you think I'm defending child rape, and blaming the child for the rape.

I'm just questioning where I stand on it, because I personally have enjoyed fiction with a big age difference between the characters, and while I'm not sure I'd characterize it as an "openly acknowledged kink", since I'm not getting off on the sexual nature of it, but more on the dynamic of the relationship.

In any case, my comment should not be read as a defense of child-rape, and I'm sorry it came across that way.

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ekaterinv
2011-02-04 03:53 am UTC (link)

I didn't think you were defending child rape, but I do disagree that what Lucas and Spielburg are saying is anything like the kind of kink often found in fanfic. (Except for creeptastic fanfic that tries to justify pedophilia and rape.)

If it were that the woman were twenty and the man were sixty, I'd go, "meh, whatever." If Indy was supposed to be a dark, selfish, creepy type who made big huge horrible mistakes and was trying to redeem himself, and Lucas and Spielburg were addressing this as such, I'd be okay with it. But Indy's basically a Big Damn Hero who's sometimes snarky. Making that kind of character a rapist means you're saying rape is not a big deal, because even a Big Damn Hero can be seduced by some slut, and hey, it's not HIS fault, obviously every female has magic powers over the penis which they wield with knowledge aforethought and men are helpless to resist.

I probably sound more argumentative than I mean to be. Just, no, I don't think it's at all hypocritical to condemn what these dudes said and still enjoy certain kinds of fiction that the authors realize, and present as, that kind of fiction.

A big age difference between characters can be a really fascinating thing to explore. I'm writing some fanfic now in which one of the characters is over 2000 years younger than her lover, and it's not even kink -- they're just a really really really long-lived race. (The woman is over one hundred years old.)

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	sorchar 2011-02-04 04:05 am UTC (link)
	And to justify the whole thing by saying "She's promiscuous heh heh heh" really sickens me. She's TWELVE. If she's promiscuous, you should be trying to talk to her parents about getting her some counselling, not taking her up on it if she throws herself at you. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	amy_wolf 2011-02-04 09:53 am UTC (link)
	Interesting question. I know I've got fairly consistent standards for what I feel okay with (nothing explicit and nothing portraying adult/significantly underage sex as a good thing), but those are long way from general fandom standards. I think the whole bit about her being promiscuous and coming onto him makes it a whole lot worse. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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