Wonder Woman 84 and Consent

Not academic, but that episode of Voyager when the EMH downloads into Seven’s body… It is uncomfortable to watch, on some levels.

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The new hotness in spammers is to make a couple on-topic posts.

The AI is always getting better at beating us.

It’s a movie, nobody cares?

Not a Dave Chappelle fan I guess

He has his moments.

Sigh, thumbnail.

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4 fingers ? ? ? ? ?

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I still would , does that make me gay ?

Well, she’s not quite 84. I think you’re safe.

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  • Most laws define rape as something like “nonconensual sexual penetration.” So if you’re penetrated against your will or penetrating someone against your will, sexually, that would qualify.

  • Sorry, I didn’t see the movie-- Was the guy dead, or unconscious? It seems like it matters here, for the same reason that it matters if someone is dead or unconscious when you light them on fire.

  • I’m not a dude, but I don’t know how a dude would argue that dudes can’t get boners unintentionally. But even if they couldn’t, it would still be possible to rape a dude. I really don’t want to go into further detail on that.

  • But I will happily go into further detail on spirit possession, because it’s fascinating and also entirely fictional.

  • Yes, it can be consensual and nonconsensual, and yes, it matters. Most people in body swap movies are not what you’d call pleased about finding themselves piloting somebody else’s meat suit mech without having given prior consent. And that especially applies to people who are possessed by the devil or some other malignant entity, but even Lindsay Lohan did not appreciate embodying Jamie Lee Curtis impromptu in Freaky Friday. On the other hand, you have entirely consensual possession (albeit it grudging, in Whoopi Goldberg’s case) which can even be enthusiastically consensual such as when a religious practitioner invites a spirit to possess them temporarily as part of a ritual. But even in those situations, it’s important that consent can be revoked, right? Even if you invite a Yoruba orisha in to sit down and smoke a cigar, eventually you’ve got to clean the kitchen and go to bed. The kids have school tomorrow. Even Josh Baskin finally got tired of being Tom Hanks trying to seduce a 30 year old woman while still internally a 12 year old boy (ewwwww…)

  • So yeah, there are similarities between nonconsensual possession and rape in that they’re both violations, but that doesn’t mean nonconsensual possession is rape. I suppose if you wanted to be really insistent and also crude, you could smirk “Well, you said it was about ‘penetration’…” but people already use the word “rape” to refer to being trounced in a damn video game. I don’t think we need to apply that word to an entirely fictitious event.

TL;DR: Yeah, possessing an unconscious person (if that’s what happened) or causing someone else to possess an unconscious person is bad. It’s a violation. But I don’t think the “rape” part comes in until you use that body to penetrate or be penetrated sexually.

And if the body’s dead, well…that’s just necrophilia. And if Steve re-animates as a dead guy, doesn’t that make him a zombie?

(Also, great point about Revenge of the Nerds. Both how if you pretend to be someone else in order to fuck somebody that’s not consensual, and also that you can write characters to be deliriously overjoyed while gored by a rhino, so the arguments that stress “She didn’t mind! She liked it!” are fucking stupid. Jessica Rabbit was just drawn that way, and she was just written that way.)

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Cognitive dissonance. Anyone that says otherwise has not been through childhood, puberty, or a prostate exam.

True.

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Rape has been strictly defined in a legal sense for various reasons, sometimes incoherently. But legal reasons aside, having intercourse with someone without their consent is the baserate definition of rape. And that’s exactly what happened in the film.

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Was the guy whose body was “used” aware it was happening?

I have not watched the movie.

Princess Diana of Themyscira is immortal. Mostly.

Batman called her “the best melee fighter in the world”.

Aren’t we all.

First of all, love the bullet points

Dead classy

My only criticism is the TL;DR was nearly as long as the article

I think the rape part comes in when the possesed party’s body is used for sex by the possesie, though like you say if they were already dead, less rapey, more unhygienic, though, depending on the jurisdiction, consent of the next of kin perhaps should have been obtained before any funny business

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No. He was possessed by the spirit of WW’s dead love interest vis a vis an evil artifact.

They take each other to pound town in Mr Body’s apartment using Mr Body’s body. She knew he was in someone else’s body. The elephant in the room is that a lot of guys wouldn’t exactly cry themselves to sleep if they woke up naked next to Gal Gadot and the knowledge she had unconscious sex with them.

That’s just not how men are wired. Still wrong, still bad, definitely unforgivable but I think the double standard has a strong basis in the behavior and biology of adult men.

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Are double standards really that bad ?

“Unforgivable “ is such a strong term , I’m not sure it would apply here .

I have forgiven worse and would happily swap this for somethings I have since forgiven.

“Wrong” yes
“Sexual assault “ certainly
“Unforgivable “ not so much

So we can blame the evil artifact for everything

IMO, the initial possession was the unconsented act

Once dead guy was in the driving seat it is his body to use as he sees fit and his consciousness that is able to give consent

WW is innocent!!!

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