In Contemporary Moral Problems we’re in the middle of a unit on ethical issues relating to sexuality. Our reading for today was Thomas Mappes, “Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using Another Person.” Mappes’s basic claim is that sex is immoral when it involves using someone as a mere means, or without their informed consent. His actual formulation is:
A immorally uses B if and only if A intentionally acts in a way that violates the requirement that B’s involvement with A’s ends be based on B’s voluntary informed consent.
Mappes says there are two major types of using: deception and coercion. Deception can include lies, like “I’m on birth control”, “I’m single.”, “I’m clean”, “Yes, I love you.”, omissions, equivocations, etc. Coercion can be “occurrent” or “dispositional.” Occurent coercion is basically the use of force (physically forcing someone, as in tying them down and shoving something somewhere), and dispositional involves the use of threats of harm (for example, raping someone at knifepoint).
But, Mappes adds, there is a third type, a kind of coercion that seems problematic yet does not involves the use of force or the threat of harm. It is the coercive offer. To get at this concept, Mappes distinguishes a threat from an offer:
Gesturing to a rough and ready distinction between “wants” and “needs”, Mappes then gives an example of a coercive offer, which I will paraphrase as follows:
Mr. Troubled is a widower with three young children. He wants to stay in his home, in his town, where his extended family lives, but he has lost his job and cannot make his mortgage payment. No one can help him. Ms. Opportunistic is sexually attracted to Mr. Troubled. She offers to make his mortgage payments if he agrees to an affair. Mr. Troubled is not attracted to Ms. Opportunistic.
Mappes claims that Ms. Opportunistic is attempting to use Mr. Troubled in the immoral manner defined above. Mr. Troubled has a genuine need, and Ms. Opportunistic is attempting to exploit it for her sexual gain. She is making a “coercive offer.” To be precise, it is not so much that she coerces him (and nothing hangs on our use of the word “coercion” here), but that she takes advantage of the fact that he is already “under coercion.” If Mr. Troubled accepts, he is likely to say something like, “I had no choice.” and that response would, Mappes asserts, make some sense to most people. Ms. Opportunistic is taking advantage of Mr. Troubled’s desperate situation, a situation in which his consent is so constrained by his desperate need, that it would not be fully voluntary.
Contrast this with another case (from Mappes), one in which a movie mogul offers a starlet a big movie part for a sexual favor. There may be other immoral aspects of the offer (perhaps the mogul is married), but the offer itself is not coercive. It is the starlet’s want, but not her need to have the big part. Her acceptance, if it happens, is voluntary.
My students had a good discussion of the question of whether it is fair to say Mr. Troubled has a “need” while The Starlet only has a “want.” Many of them seemed to want to say either they both have wants, or they both have needs.
At any rate, being a romance reader, I was sure I had seen a plot like the Mr. Troubled/Ms. Opportunistic one, only way sexier, and it took about .0008 seconds to find several Harlequin Presents that fit the bill. I chose The Italian’s Mistress, a 2005 Harlequin Presents by Melanie Milburn.
Here’s the blurb:
Back in his bed…with a vengeance!
When it comes to Anna Stockton, Lucio Ventressi knows he has an offer she can’t refuse….
Anna needs money — Lucio has it! His deal? Become his mistress for three months and he’ll pay for her son’s operation. Anna has no choice but to agree to being bedded by Lucio. But she finds that his passion is sweet — even if it is born of revenge….
Now, knowing that sometimes the blurb is misleading, I actually purchased and read this book. And … it is not misleading.
Here’s how it all goes down: Anna is in her native Melbourne, working a day shift as a hotel housekeeper (and a night shift as a dishwasher), and Lucio, who normally lives in Rome, is occupying the penthouse. Anna had been engaged to Lucio years ago, but ended up in bed with his brother, who took pictures to prove it. Anna was kicked to the curb, pregnant. She now lives in poverty with her gravely ill son and her deaf sister. Anna, in housekeeper mode, happens to walk in on Lucio, and they have this exchange.
‘Sammy needs…an operation,’ she said. ‘I don’t have private insurance but if I wait until it’s his turn on the public waiting list…it might be too late.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He has a heart condition.’
‘Serious?’
She took a painful breath. ‘He needs the surgery to survive into adulthood.’
He swore again. ‘How much is this…operation?’ he asked after a short pause.
She told him and he didn’t even flinch, which somehow annoyed her. It was such a pittance to someone like him, pin money really, and yet it could save a child’s life. Her child’s life. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was thinking…no—calculating…planning.
‘I might be able to help you,’ he said after another one of his strategically timed pauses.
‘Why would you want to do that?’ Suspicion crept into her tone as she lifted her eyes back to his.
‘I have my reasons.’ His expression gave nothing away.
‘A loan, you mean?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘What, then?’ Her stomach tightened.
‘I will pay for Sammy’s health care, but I have some conditions on the deal.’
‘Conditions?’ She swallowed the restriction in her throat. ‘What sort of conditions?’
His eyes held hers determinedly. ‘You can save your son’s life but you must agree to do something for me in return.’
‘I will do anything to save my son’s life,’ she said. ‘Anything.’
The corner of his hard mouth lifted in a slight smile. ‘I’m very glad to hear that as I was expecting much more resistance on your part.’
The fingertips of fear tickled along her spine. ‘What do you want me to do?’
He gave her another contemplative look. ‘I thought you would have guessed by now, cara.’
His eyes burned as they came back to hers, the line of his normally firm mouth now so tight it hinted at cruelty.
***
‘I will pay for my nephew’s surgery but in exchange I want you back in my bed.’
Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘No!’ ‘
No?’ The eyebrow rose once more. ‘I didn’t think that was a word you were accustomed to using a great deal.’
She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see his derision. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘All right.’ He dismissed her with a step away.
‘Finish the room and get out.’
He was halfway out of the door when she came to her senses. This was about Sammy, not her.
‘Lucio…’
‘Yes?’ He turned to face her, his expression one of extreme boredom. She found it hard to hold his gaze and lowered her eyes to the floor at his feet, the collapse of her pride making her shoulders slump in defeat.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said hollowly. ‘I’ll do what you ask.’
‘Good.’
Giving Lucio the benefit of the doubt — because he so clearly deserves it — I read on, to see if he indeed would exact his sexy revenge. Maybe it’s an idle threat, and he’s really a big ‘ol softie? But no, he does. Over and over and over. Lucio is obviously a complete fucking asshole making a coercive offer here. But what makes this situation different from Ms. Opportunistic and Mr. Troubled is that Anna is sexually attracted to Lucio, and still kind of in love with him. Well, ok, Anna’s mind hates him, but her body — oh treacherous flesh! — can’t resist him.
So, it makes a good case to discuss on the topic of immoral sexual coercion.
Now, for romance readers curious about this book, I do understand the allure of the over the top Presents line, but even so, I can’t recommend this one. To take just one example, Anna and Lucio are both convinced the child is his brother’s (because Lucio always wore a glove). Despite this, a nanosecond after the above chat, with absolutely no discussion of how they are going to present this little arrangement to the child, here is what happens (click to enlarge):
There is no development whatsoever in the relationship, Anna is a doormat, Lucio is a complete jerk, and the whole thing is based on a Big Misunderstanding which gets resolved in the last paragraph. See, Anna did not actually have sex with Lucio’s brother. The brother just gave her a roofie, stripped her naked, and took pictures, to make it look like they had sex. Why? Don’t ask stupid questions. They are Italian magnates! This is what they do.
Related posts:
I laughed when I saw this post after our conversation on Twitter yesterday. Too funny! I think @Vervos mentioned that Lynne Graham has some Greek heroes like this. Apparently the heroines are completely ruled by their hormones and unable to reason for themselves, because I can’t imagine being so overwhelmed by lust that I’d toss myself at such a jerk. This is such a common theme with category romance that I tend to avoid them.
My peeve would be that in Australia, a child with a life threatening illness gets moved to the top of the operating list if their condition deteriorates so the set up is fallacious. What am I thinking in quibbling about such a story?
I think the muddling of wants and needs in the discussion you report is really interesting because for me, wanting has a sense of being about what we feel we are entitled to and needing is more about resourcing what is needed to help us survive. I also think the examples have a utilitarian sense – what am I willing to give up and do in order to receive something? In both instances the coercian is about handing over the power in a situation to someone else and I always wonder ifonce given away can power ever be reclaimed.
As always you share something interesting with us.
I was thinking pretty much the same thing as Merrian: is this some kind of coded political screed against a publicly funded health care system? Maybe you can get a whole other lecture out of this book! I think I have a couple of Milburne’s Medicals in my TBR because they are part of series I’m following. A lot of her presents seem to have these revenge/coercion themes, so now I’m curious about whether/how the Medicals are different.
Do you think Milburne’s hypothetical is more or less realistic than Mr. Troubled and Ms. Opportunistic? None of these seem like the kinds of sexual coercion actual people (like college students) are very likely to face.
@Merrian:
I live in a country with a public health system and that jumped out for me, too. Elective surgery can require a lengthy wait, but anything urgent and life-threatening would be treated very quickly. OTOH, some medications and treatments are not subsidized here, and I assume in other countries as well (e.g. funding for Herceptin for breast cancer patients was the subject of a lengthy debate), so an expensive, unsubsidized treatment may have made for a more realistic setup – of course, Lucio would still be a jerk.
I liked the choice of a Harlequin Presents to highlight issues related to ethics and sexuality, and I imagine it would make for a very interesting discussion; certainly it’s more fun than Ms. Opportunistic and Mr. Troubled, but I agree that these do not seem like the types of sexual coercion college students (and real people) are very likely to face. Jessica, did you ask them to come up with equivalent examples more relevant to their own experiences?
I agree that these scenarios are unlikely. However, they work well to delineate a certain type of coercive situation. I would have liked to explore more likely scenarios, but I have 100 students, we are already behind, and we had 50 minutes! Maybe Friday… We did spend more time on deception (“I love you”, “I’m clean”, etc.) which I also think is a more likely scenario.
As for the health system issue, in her bio, Milburne says she is married to a surgeon (and is also a marathon runner and nationally ranked Master’s swimmer!), but I dearly hope this type of doctor-patient interaction is a complete fiction:
This bit of equivocation kind of melts away, and for the rest of the book, Sammy is in life-theatening danger.
Luckily, the Australian health system apparently has zero interest in privacy rules or the rights of parents to dictate the course of their children’s care, because before Anna even agreed to Lucio’s proposal, Lucio had contacted the hospital and scheduled the child’s surgery!
I have a question: what happens when the initial offer is made by the person on the receiving end of the coercion? I’m thinking about the kind of scenario that comes up in Robert E. Howard’s “Vale of Lost Women”, where a woman offers Conan her virginity if he saves her from slavery.
Unlike Italian magnates, however, Conan decides the initial bargain was “foul” and says he shouldn’t have accepted it, because it would have been equal to rape, making him no better than the thugs he’d saved her from. (In case you’re wondering, I’m currently working on a collection of Howard’s, so Conan comes to mind quickly.)
Aren’t more types of coersion? For example: feeling obligated to have sex even when one isn’t in the mood or perhaps engaging in foreplay, changing one’s mind but going through with it anyway because one doesn’t feel like they can say no at that point, the phrase ‘finish what you started’ gets bandied about or there’s direct physical umm convincing, etc. (One can be held in place without knifepoint or fearing for one’s life/body.) And, then of course, there’s alcohol and drugs be they legal or otherwise…
The HQ stuff. Sometimes I can read them, sometimes I just can’t. When they work they are quite potent but boy when they fail…
I read a Melanie Milburne with a surgeon hero. Marcolini Marriage? I’m sure it had some classic HP hate-lust (which means love!) and sexual coercion, but no children’s lives were bartered. I enjoyed.
Hmm. Just looked at her backlist and saw: Innocent Wife, Baby of Shame. I haven’t read that but remember the title being criticized.
I can accept a lot of the over-the-top alpha silliness, but when children are dragged in and manipulated like doormat heroines, it seems more distasteful to me. Just mistreat the heroine, Mean Hero! Leave the children alone!!
All I can think of is,
“Lucio! I AM YOUR FATHER!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!”
@RebeLovesBooks: I am no category romance expert, but I have read a good number of Blazes (had a subscription for a year), some Harlequin Historicals, some Suspense, and some Presents and I not only think Lucio would rarely be found in the other lines, but I even think he is at the far end of domineering jerky heroes within the Presents line, which is kind of known for really significant power differentials between hero and heroine, and, indeed, is an aspect that draws its fans.
@Milena: Good question. In my mind, Lucio has behaved immorally. He has used Anna, and no amount of lust or desire on her part changes that fact, because her circumstances would have led her to agree to it even if she did not desire him.
The question for me, is what happens next? What made this book so unsatisfying to me as a romance reader is that the balance of power was never altered, Lucio made no strides in seeing his behavior as abominable (and forgave his brother in shocking haste, given the 4 years of hatred he nursed for Anna) and Anna never gained a sense of righteous outrage (instead, every time she enjoyed sex with Lucio, she came to agree with his assessment of her as a slut).
@AQ: I don’t think agreeing to have sex when one isn’t in the mood counts as coercion unless the situation is like the ones described in the post: B will be worse off for refusing the sex, and B has real needs that can only be met by A, and onyl is s/he has sex with A.
But I agree the line between voluntary and coerced gets gray, as does the line between an offer and a threat.
@Jill Sorenson: For me, too, the child aspect was awful. When Lucio announced “I am your father”, I just kept thinking of the years of therapy this kid was going to need if he walked off after 3 months which was his stated plan.
@Victoria Janssen: LOL!
Milena: does Conan think he should have saved her for free, or that he should not have involved himself in the situation at all?
Is the fact that he scheduled the kid’s surgery an indication that he would have paid for it whatever Anna decided? If so, does that change the moral equation for anyone? (I don’t think it does for me, except that he seems slightly less jerky vis-a-vis the kid, though not as to Anna.)
And why exactly is Anna living in poverty in Melburne rather than suing the brother for child support? Or, for that matter, for rape? Can you not do that in Italy? Surely she must know she didn’t consent to have sex with him. All in all, this sounds just awful — even worse than Gold Ring of Betrayal, another Italian-hero-wrongly-believes-someone-else-fathered-his-child book, which had similar elements of lust-conquers-all (I really, really hate this trope) and too-easy forgiveness of the lying bastard who caused all the trouble.
I meant to add: Doesn’t Lucio have a moral obligation to his supposed nephew, if not to pay for the surgery, at least to attempt to get his brother to pay for it? And doesn’t that make it all the worse that he’s using paying for the surgery (which he should be doing or arranging anyway) to coerce Anna?
@etv13: He says, “After I thought awhile, I saw that to hold you to your bargain would be the same as if I had forced you.” So yes, he thinks he should have just agreed to save her for free, and that’s actually what he does.
Which really makes it interesting, because I also feel that it’s a form of coercion, even though the offer came from Livia, and not from Conan. The power balance is so skewed in his favour — he’s a strong and experienced warrior with a whole band of mercenaries to back him up, she’s a young city girl lost in a place she doesn’t know and enslaved — so it’s clear that she didn’t make the offer because she wanted to have sex, but simply as the only payment she could offer.
@Jessica:
So you don’t think it’s possible to have sexual coercion in say a long term relationship? Or would you use a different term in that case?
Withholding sex may be in a similar vein to the type of coercion that I’m thinking of. Again my use of the word coercion here might be incorrect.
Sorry, a couple more additional thoughts.
What if the partners don’t have similar sex drives or interests? Say one partner is GGG and the other not so much.
@Milena (and everybody, really): so is it coercion only in a sexual context? What if instead of sex, she had offered him the really valuable heirloom she happened to have kept hidden in her ponytail? (I won’t mention the name of the book from which I got this idea, because that would be a spoiler.) Would it have been coercive for him to expect her to hand it over? Does the notion that accepting her virginity would be coercive tie into broader notions that sex is something that should only be given, not bought and paid for? Does Conan have a view on prostitution?
@etv13: I think the coercion lies in the power situation – who has it and in what degree are they able to exercise it in a way that aids their personal autonomy.
So Conan’s view of prostitution could be contextual i.e. a prostitute has the right to bargain with their body and if they get to retain the earnings that is not coercion. Yet I would think that a prostitute who is effectively a slave might garner a different response. Of course this doesn’t get into how a society can set up people to be coerced because of the way that it is organised.
From what I know, I’d say that he would have considered it immoral to take the family heirloom as well, exactly because of the power imbalance. Conan has been known to use the services of “tavern wenches” or camp followers, but never slaves.
In “Red Nails”, for instance, he falls in love with a female mercenary, but when she kills a soldier who tried to sexually assault her, he helps her without asking for any kind of quid pro quo, even though he obviously does hope it would get him in her good graces.
[...] I’ll finish with a link to a post by Jessica at RRR, who is not a literary critic. Did Jessica take “great care in choosing [...] study texts”? Probably not, by Regis’s standards: “it took about .0008 seconds to find several Harlequin Presents that fit the bill. I chose The Italian’s Mistress, a 2005 Harlequin Presents by Melanie Milburn[e].” And what were those purposes?: “to Use a Harlequin Presents to Teach Sexual Ethics.” [...]
So I talked with a friend last night to try to hone my thoughts down. (Didn’t work as well as I’d like.)
What we talked about had to do with why one isn’t in the mood and my personal belief (in an ideal AQ world) that the only way one can truly consent to sex if by being actively and enthusiastically engaged. I’m not a big proponent of no means no because of the implication that a no can be changed into a yes.
So not being in the mood. There can be many reasons but what if the long-term are married and the marriage is breaking down. The intimacy and emotional connection just aren’t what they used to be and yet one of the partner’s feel obligated to have sex with the other regardless of whether or not she/he really desires to have sex because otherwise the other partner might a) leave the marriage, b) extract ‘revenge’ via finances or the kids or…
Or one of the long term partners says I love you, claims to be monogamous and yet is having sexual relations in addition to the monogamous commitment.
Marriage itself within the sexual arena might even be a form of coercion if it’s seen as an exchange. From the I can’t have sex until I’m married or now that I’m married I don’t have to do those dirty sexual things…
Or am I going in a completely wrong direction here?
@AQ: I think it is a mistake to equate consent with active and enthusiastic engagement or to equate coercion with exchange. I think people can be in a good, loving relationship but have different sex drives, and it is not coercive if the lower-sex-drive partner consents to sex when not feeling particularly horny because he or she wants to make the other partner happy. People in good relationships compromise and do things for each other in all sorts of areas, and I don’t see any compelling reason why sex should be exceptional in that regard.
@etv13:
Sure but where are the exact lines. When is it compromise and when is it coercive? And what exactly is a good relationship? And can the person involved in a relationship always know whether or not that relationship is good and healthy?
—-
I also happen to think culture can be coercive and I do think culture plays a major role in all things sexual. I’m just not sure where the lines are between psychological vs. cultural coercive in the sexual ethics are. Or have we been using the term coercive in this conversation to mean more directly predatory and I’m off in la-la land?
If so, I personally find that a little too limiting if only because I don’t think most people are subjected to such black and white choices.
HQ Presents may present these coercive elements in stark black and white clarity but I think the underlying themes of the story and their readership get bypassed somewhat.
What’s the difference between an HQ Present story that works with these coercive elements (blackmail, revenge, etc.) vs. one that doesn’t work? Could studying these stories and looking for patterns tell us anything about sexual ethics or is it too much a personal or perhaps cultural self reflection? Is there a gender bias in character portrayal and does that effect how our view of the sexual ethics involved?
Who gets more blame the predator or the victim? Or is it equal?
@AQ: I don’t think I agree that the Lucio/Anna situation is one of black and white clarity; in the original post, Jessica presents it as an example of a “coercive offer,” which itself is kind of a gray area. I mean, I think it’s fair to say Lucio is a complete jerk and behaves immorally, but I don’t think he’s a rapist (even given my belief that he has an independent obligation to see that his nephew/son has the operation). I think Conan is a very stand-up guy in his treatment of the slave girl, but I don’t think it would be unforgivable of him to have held her to her offer — in my view, he would still be miles and miles ahead of Lucio, though I can’t quite articulate why I think it’s important that it’s the slave proposing the bargain and not him.
It seems to me we’ve been talking about this mostly from the perspective of the person who doesn’t want to have sex rather than from the viewpoint of the person who does. Maybe it would be fruitful to ask some questions from the latter perspective, such as What state of mind do I want my prospective sexual partner to be in when he agrees to have sex with me? or Why would you want to have sex with someone who’s only agreeing to save her son’s life or pay his mortgage or escape from slavery? How can that possibly be good for your ego, or give you any real satisfaction? Lucio’s motivations seem particularly opaque to me, since Anna’s having sex with him can really only satisfy his desire for revenge if it’s a bad experience for her. From the perspective of the person who wants sex, really-wants-to-have-sex-with-me is a desirable state of mind in the prospective partner, and so, I think, is loves-me-and-wants-me-to-be-happy, and although I personally draw the line about there, I wouldn’t condemn anyone for also accepting is-grateful-to-me-for-saving-her-from-slavery/poverty/obscurity (in the case of the would-be movie star)/etc. as long as the underlying condition wasn’t created by the person wanting sex.
If you start talking about social conditions being coercive, I’m not sure how to apply that to evaluate the sexual ethics of individuals. If you posit a society in which women really need to be married (which, historically, is not especially far-fetched), do you then say that Mr. Doe can’t ethically marry Ms. Roe? Are you foreclosed from employing a prostitute if he has no other way to feed his family?
h@etv13:
In Australia up until the early 1970′s a wife leaving her violent husband was called ‘constructive desertion’ and only barely legal. It was not until the introduction of benefits for single parents that many women had the option to leave a marriage that wasn’t working. I still remember the language of ‘conjugal rights’ being commonly used as a right of a husband to his wife’s body and even into the 1990′s a husband was allowed to use (there was a law case) ‘rougher than usual handling’ (the Judge’s words) to have sex with his wife who had refused. We now have rape in marriage laws that allow a partner to be charged with rape when coercion or violence are used. The social conditions enabled those people who wanted to, to act un-ethically. It took a change in social condition/community expectations to address the behaviour of individuals.
I go back to the state benefits as an example of supporting a person who then does not have to turn to prostitution to feed their family. In your example it isn’t ‘wrong’ of the person selling themselves – they are doing their best in difficult circumstances but the wrong does lie with the purchaser because they are taking advantage of the circumstances which give them power over someone else. These are the very circumstances that have young women trafficked from Asia to work in brothels here in Australia. To me this is also about seeing other people as objects to be used to meet our immediate needs. As objects they are shorn of all the social connections that let us see their circumstances and which can hold us accountable.
@etv13:
My interpretation of that scene is that real life that man would be seen as a predator. He is not a predator in the book because we know that there was some big misunderstanding and that he really loves the heroine and further that because he is the hero that he will be redeemed by admitting that love and uncovering the truth about the heroine. It’s also helpful if he admits his love before the truth is discovered.
This is the ultimate shortcut of genre conventions combined with the HQ Presents line. If I read a scene like that in any other genre, there is a very high probability that this character would be the villain or one of the villain’s helpers.
So for me the story is very black and white because I see the actions of the hero as a predator in real life, even if I can excuse them within the story. (can’t excuse them at all if the story doesn’t work for me and even if it does I’m always aware that I’ve purposefully moved something that’s black and white into a dark grey zone to do so.)
Sorry, I haven’t read the story with Conan and the slave girl so I can’t comment.
But in most of the Presents stories I’ve read, the heroine wants to have sex with the hero or at least her body does. It’s an understood part (shortcut) of the genre/line conventions even if it’s not explicitly stated on the page but there must be some big obstacle standing in the way that must be overcome for them to actually have sex.
I can only think of a few books that I read within the line that the heroine wanted nothing to do with the hero sexually and that was explicitly stated within the story and reinforced by her actions/thoughts.
Really good questions on the power dynamics between Lucio and Anna. Again haven’t read this particular story but I’d be curious how the reader interprets Lucio’s actions. Does the reader give any real thought to what Lucio’s motivations would have to be in real life for him to blackmail a female into a relationship? I’d be curious to know how/if ‘class’ would play a role in how we interpret his motivations/actions?
Here’s what I know about the story based on the brief descriptions.
Brother was a sexual predator because he drugged heroine and took sexual advantage of her even if he didn’t penetrate her.
Heroine isn’t the smartest bulb because she can’t tell whether or not she’s had sex or been drugged. Probably doesn’t seek counseling, medical assistance or law enforcement (now admittedly in real life not all victims would do this either but here it is frequently a requirement for the big misunderstanding trope and its denouncement).
Heroine is also a martyr. Doesn’t seek paternity test or child support and works as a hotel maid thereby proving that a) she must love hero because she’s not after his money and b) puts herself in a victim role where only the hero can rescue her. (Socialized medicine can’t save her son. No personal community resources be they friends, family, church or neighbors. Cuz the heroines in these stories tend to be story orphans even if their characters aren’t actual orphans.)
Heroine is not world savvy or a publicity whore because she seeks no legal counsel or media attention given the big misunderstanding. She probably also has very low self esteem and might even think she deserved the treatment she received. This may or may not enhance the power of the denouncement.
Hero is also a sexual predator because he blackmails the heroine into a relationship with him (might also be a requirement of the big misunderstanding denouncement because if he did the next paragraph they’d be much more likely to ya know talk). This is true even if deep down the hero believes that he loves the heroine even if he isn’t willing to consciously acknowledge it and that this is the only he can ‘force’ her to accept him into his life again. (Note that the blackmail stories that are most likely to work for me have the hero consciously and possibly verbally acknowledging that he was lying to himself.)
Heaven forbid that he offers to pay all the medical expenses and moves them into close quarters and show her how mistaken she is about him.
The question I have here is what is the trope to the reader of these types of stories? Does this story and other like them serve a purpose beyond pure escapism? What are we looking to experience/workout/etc. as we read them? And, yes, I should be asking myself this question since I’ve read more than my fair share of stories with the blackmail/big misunderstanding trope. So when we look at the sexual ethics of the story what frame of reference should we use to measure the story? The characters actions or the reader’s experience?
BTW: I think thee ‘they didn’t have sex while she was drugged’ syndrome is part of the power of the denouncement / grovel scene. If the reader knows that the heroine is completely innocent of all charges against her. She’s pure, completely innocent of all charges against her in the big misunderstanding and therefore all white as opposed to even a hint of gray.
I would flat out say given what I know of the story that Lucio’s desire to sex with Anna isn’t about wanting sex at all, it’s about power. Stories like this one typically twist this power dynamic so that the hero is overcome by the moment and it ends up being about sex and desire (and ultimatly love) thereby redeeming the hero (if it’s possible).
Okay, I might have lost you here because we can never know other’s motivations so what would we use to make the judgment call on this one? Or is this from the examples that Jessica used above?
I’d love to go down this road but is this a tangent that Jessica wanted us to go down? I asked the question because I wasn’t sure about what we were trying to evaluate or how gray of an area the sexual ethics discussion was going into. I was also trying to get at the fact that not in the mood had the potential to something worth exploring.
I wasn’t positing about the historical marriage but modern marriage. I know many people who didn’t get married because they were ‘in love.’ And others who see marriage as similar to prostitution but with a longer term more costly contract. I started on the marriage / long term relationship track because I do believe that it merits attention when we talk sexual ethics and there is potential for coercion or maybe deception is a better term.
Sorry, I don’t understand this question.
@Merrian:
So true about rape within marriage. My friend who I mentioned in the what is sex post was raped on her wedding night and 40 years later she’s never really gotten over it. And when she left him, he insisted that he’d done nothing wrong and it was all her fault.
It’s scary how far we’ve come, how far we’re regressing in some parts and how we are have to go as a species.
Thanks for the post.
Thinking about this ‘they didn’t have sex while she was drugged’… I read this as rape-victm blaming and think we can also look at the story as perpetuating rape-culture: i.e. if while she was drugged and unconcious and non-consenting Anna was raped – she and Lucio believe and act as if she is to blame. By saying ‘hey it was all a set up and no sex occured’ the story implies that it is only at that point that Anna is not at fault.
@Merrian:
Even though I enjoy some of the HQ Presents stories I do find some of the underlying messages to be female (victim) blaming in how the stories are molded.
I rather like how succinctly you put that all together. I didn’t use the word rape but I should’ve based on everything else I was saying.
Well done.
Let me start by saying I’ve read neither the Anna/Lucio story nor the Conan one, and I’m going entirely on what Jessica and Milena have said about those stories in this post and comments.
@Merrian: My understanding of American law (and I’m an American lawyer in my 50′s, so I have some understanding, albeit limited) is that American law re marital rape in the 70′s and early 80′s wasn’t that different from the Australian situation you describe. If you’re saying the culture was coercive in that it tolerated and indeed enabled a lot of sexual coercion (0f w0men), then I certainly don’t disagree with you. I think where we may part company is when you say that it’s coercive for someone to “take advantage” of a situation he or she didn’t play any part in creating. I agree that we should have a social safety net that ensures that nobody has to sell his sexual favors to feed his family or get her kid heart surgery, but when we don’t have that safety net, I don’t agree that it’s coercive of an individual who didn’t create the underlying need to ask for something, even it it’s sex, in exchange for his or her help in addressing that need. You seem to think (although I may be misreading you) that it’s morally preferable for the wants-sex person to just not get involved with the needs-money person, but I don’t see how that does any good for anybody. Given systemic inequities, aren’t both parties better off the the wants-sex person gets sex, and the needs-money person gets money? Isn’t it just arguing with the question to say, “Yeah, but society should make sure the needs-money person’s needs are met”? That’s why I asked Milena whether Conan’s view was that he should rescue the slave girl for free, or just not have gotten involved. I don’t think not getting involved is morally superior to taking her up on her bargain. (I wrote and then deleted the phrase “holding her to her bargain” because there’s something about “holding her to” that connotes coercion right there in the wording.)
@AQ: We can never know fully or with perfect certainty what other peoples’ motivations are, or even what our own motivations are, but I think if you’re Lucio or Ms. Opportunistic, you’ve got a pretty good idea that Anna’s and Mr. Troubled’s motivations don’t arise purely from appreciation of your hotness or lovableness.
“Heaven forbid that he offers to pay all the medical expenses . . . and show her how wrong she is about him” — yes, exactly. When I read about something like this, it makes me appreciate that saying (St. Ambrose? St. Anselm?) that “Living well is the best revenge” all the more.
“Heroine is also a martyr.” I don’t think you mean this as a positive reflection on the heroine, but let me add that it shows her as a way sub-optimal mother. It’s one thing not to assert one’s own rights — it’s quite another to let your kid grow up in poverty and lacking adequate medical attention without even making an effort to get him what he needs from his very wealthy father.
I think I explained (at least I tried t0) my question about whether one is foreclosed to employ a prostitute because he needs the money to feed his children in my response to Merrian. It goes to the question: given an inequitable/coercive social situation, is the ethical response simply not to participate? My position is that in that situation, helping the slave girl to escape or the prostitute to feed his family without accepting anything in exchange is highly admirable, as is starting/joining a social movement to address the inequity, but there’s a lot of real estate between “admirable” and “objectionably coercive, and the slave girl may well be better off trading her virginity to a hunky barbarian than remaining in servitude.
“The heroine wants to have sex with the hero, or at least her body does.” I’ said earlier in the thread that I really hate this lust-c0nquers-all trope. From Jessica’s description, it sounds like at the time of the offer and acceptance, Anna doesn’t want to have sex with Lucio, at least not consciously (and what else counts?), but once they get started she gets carried away. That’s the setup in Gold Ring of Betrayal, the only Harlequin Presents novel I’ve read (at least, I think it was a Harlequin Presents novel). That’s the sense in which I meant that Anna was the needs-money rather than the wants-sex partner. I agree with you that what Lucio wants isn’t so much sex as it is power, or revenge. But whether the novel expresses it or not, it seems to me that when a man is objectively rich and powerful and hot (all of which are, as far as I can tell, defining characteristics of a romance hero in the Harlequin Presents tradition), and yet he is reduced to these kinds of coercive tactics, that shows that he has really serious emotional and psychological issues. Having such issues doesn’t necessarily disqualify a guy from being a romance hero (see Sebastian Ballister, Marquess of Dain, or Reginald Davenport), but it sounds like in this book, neither the characters nor the author acknowledges that the hero’s behavior is problematic.
@etv13:
Here’s where I disagree. It’s coercive but what I think I’m hearing you say is that there are levels of coercion that may or may not be acceptable.
In my book that’s very close to the discussion I once had on the different levels of evil. It turns out that many people think there are different levels of evil but they will never tag themselves, their community with that label regardless of what was done (sampling from the group discussion), therefore it made the evil label basically useless because it always described the other.
I won’t speak for Merrian but are we now portioning out blame or morality? If so, what if the person changed the crime about to be committed from prostitution to say robbery or murder, does the morality still hold or is it something that must be given of one’s self directly to the other person. What if it’s a man asking another man for sex? Does it make a difference if one man is hetrosexual and the other is homosexual? Or if one person is into extreme blood play and the other has no experience be it male or female? Is always morally okay or do we have different lines in the sand depending on it depends. Is there a difference between a wealthy typically white, western European male like the ones typically portrayed in the HQ vs. a hardened criminal who came up from the slums of wherever?
In romance genre terms I equate martyr with doormat of a human. All martyr heroines should have a special place in hell because typically it is a requirement of the story being told not any character needs. And many times that type of heroine is a helper character to the hero’s lead character. So she’s not even the star of what is supposed to be (is it really?) her own story.
I think we can both agree here.
I also agree here. Where we disagree is in what to call the man’s behavior. For me, he is a sexual predator. You’ve called his behavior immoral but not rising to the level of rapist. What would he need to do in order for you to label him with either the rapist or a sexual predator tags?
I also have to wonder if Lucio can do this under these extreme medical circumstances what will he pull out of his hat next? What other subtle manipulations will he be pulling on a daily basis because the entire relationship sounds like one of extreme imbalance and inequity. This woman will never really be his equal and therefore he never has to treat her like one.
@AQ: we may be arguing about (or just using different definitions of) the word “coercion” here, when Jessica said in the original post, “nothing hangs on our use of the word ‘coercion’ here.’” I think calling actions that would not be independently coercive but for the background of social inequity “coercion” bleeds all the meaning out of the term. I also am not willing to call the exchanges in the Ms. Opportunistic/Mr. Troubled scenario or the casting couch scenario “prostitution,” and I don’t think that even “prostitution” is a “crime” of the same sort that murder or robbery are. To answer some of your questions: if you switch the scenario from “wants sex” to “wants murder” or “wants robbery,” then even the offer may well be criminal, though it is not, in my view, coercive. In the gay man/straight man or blood play scenarios you posit, I don’t think it is wrong for the gay man or the bloodplay-desiring person to make the offer (again, so long as the offeror did not play a part in creating the offeree’s circumstances), and it is up to the offeree to determine if he or she is willing to strike that bargain.
I don’t know that I disagree that Lucio is a sexual predator (unless by “sexual predator” you mean “criminal” rather than “serious jerk”), though why I think he is and Ms. Opportunistic isn’t is a mystery even to me. I think it has something to do with the nature of his pre-existing relationship with Anna. If they were strangers and he was offering to help her child in exchange for sex because he thought she was really hot, I think I would feel differently about him. As portrayed in Jessica’s post, he is certainly not my notion of a hero, nor is Anna my notion of a heroine. As for what he would need to do for me to consider him a “rapist,” well, engage in what I consider to be actually coercive behavior, which I don’t think is limited to physical force, but could encompass threats to do something harmful to Anna or her family. Since in my view his proposal is an offer and not a threat (Anna could refuse it and no greater harm would come to her and her family than is already on their plate), he is not a rapist.
@etv13:
Fair enough.
I spent the afternoon wondering why Ms. Opportunistic didn’t bother me the same way. The answer is that I don’t know enough about the situation described. Ms. Opportunistic may very well be sexual predator but I can’t tell that from the description.
Lucio. Rapist does have some serious cultural connotations. But based on the description, Lucio doesn’t really want sex, he wants power. He may even want to humiliate Anna. Everything about the description sends up warning bells for me. If I met someone in real life like I suspect that the vibe I received from him wouldn’t be a good one but I would spend the next couple of encounters talking myself out of it. Telling myself he was a really good guy.
See, I don’t believe that no greater harm would come to Anna if she refused. I believe that this man would find some other reason to interject himself into her life. Probably by threatening to take away her son. And I was under the impression that Anna believed that her son’s condition was a little more urgent at the beginning of the story and it’s only later that we find out she MIGHT have had some leeway time-wise. (Socialized medicine priority list and doctor’s prognosis be damned!)
So for me, based on the description and genre shortcuts/expectations, he may not be a rapist in the story but he’s still a sexual predator (this isn’t him thinking something over and coming up with a plan, this is his immediate reaction before he finds a way to soften it or maybe seduce). I say that if he didn’t get his way, this character would have to up his ante.
This man may not have committed a chargeable crime but he’s more than a serious jerk in my book.
@etv13: Since we live in a grey world I think we are always compromising ourselves in our decision-making, no decision in this scenario will be straight forward but that also means it needs to be informed by our personal ethical frameworks and if we haven’t thought about things and what they mean we may end up doing something that we regret.
I think buying sex is not an act of charity towards the person supporting their family nor is it an exchange.The person buying sex has the power through money to fulfill their immediate want and that has to be acknowledged. I think coercion is a layered thing. It is made up of the immediate situation and power relationships and factors in social conditions and community expectations.
I saw a movie last night at a multiplex. Amidst the ads for coke and Henley shirts there was an Antislavery ad – not against slavery in 3rd world countries but anti-slavery in Australia.
I agree with AQ that Lucio is a sexual predator and his behaviour would not change during the marriage he would always be seeking power over.
Okay, I’m still working through things but Mappes examples have started to bother me now that I’m thinking about them instead of the HQ novel.
The starlet example. If you moves that to an industry that doesn’t have a casting couch cultural reference isn’t that flat-out sexual harassment in the workplace?
@AQ: If you’re concluding that Lucio is a creep and a predator from circumstances other than just his offer to pay for the operation in exchange for sex, then I am with you. I especially dislike his calling her a slut because she is sexually responsive, even though I dislike her responsiveness myself. I blame the author, not the character, for that — I don’t think it is realistic to suppose that a woman in Anna’s circumstances would find sex with Lucio enjoyable. I think we are supposed to believe that her response springs from her deep passionate love for Lucio, and indeed, that his actions are spurred by his deep, passionate love for her, that he was so madly in love with her that her apparent betrayal has driven him to a kind of madness that leads him to want to exact revenge by forcing her to have sex with him. If she were a woman who could fight for her son and her deaf sister, I might be able to swallow that, but since she isn’t, I can’t.
I agree with you that the Mappes examples are too lacking in context to tell much about Ms. Opportunistic — and the casting couch example might constitute sexual harassment even in the entertainment industry. Generally, though, requests for dates and such are only sexual harassment if they are unwelcome. (In my company, you would certainly be violating company policy if you asked someone you supervised out on a date, but you wouldn’t be breaking the law unless you persisted in asking after they’d made it clear they didn’t want to go out with you. Obviously, you’d also be breaking the law if your “request” was accompanied by a threat.) On the other hand, under California law, the offer of a quid pro quo to one employee may give rise to a cause of action for sex discrimination on the part of the other employees who didn’t get the same chance. (We have mandatory biannual sexual harassment training in California, and I have had the dubious pleasure of teaching that class.)
You could tell a story in which Ms. Opportunistic is a sexual predator, or has other evil motives, or you could tell it as a very melancholy story in which she is a lonely but wealthy woman who has loved Mr. Troubled from afar for years and would be happy to pay his mortgage for him, but knows he won’t accept her help without giving her something in exchange. Why exactly she doesn’t just hire him as her driver/handyman/research assistant instead I don’t know, but I’m sure some romance author could come up with a marginally plausible reason. By naming her “Ms. Opportunistic,” Mappes has stacked the deck against her a bit, but maybe she’s the widow of John Opportunistic, who made his fortune in real estate speculation. (I’m taking my cue here from Barchester Towers, in which there’s a lovely widow named Mrs. Bold who isn’t especially bold, but she had married Mr. Bold in The Warden.)
@Merrian: I agree with you that it’s a gray world and no grownup can live in it without being compromised. I also agree with you that buying sex is not an act of charity. But neither is buying a haircut, or a painting, or legal advice. I like my hairdresser, and I think she likes me, but I don’t think she’d be cutting my hair if she didn’t need to earn a living. I know I’d quit my job if I won a few million dollars in the lottery. Most people probably do things to earn a living that they wouldn’t do if they had a bunch of money. I’m open to being convinced that sex is different (after all, I’m 51, and I’ve had sex with exactly one man in my whole life), but I haven’t seen that argument yet. I also think it is better to regard Mr. Troubled and Anna and the casting-couch starlet as adult human beings with agency than to treat them as victims who for whatever reason can’t be left to act on their own preferences given the constrains of their circumstances.
I was thinking about this last night and wondered if I had some gender bias or if I wasn’t paying as close attention as I should have because was I was asking different questions and going down other tangents originally.
With the Ms. Opportunistic example, I actually went with the assumption that Ms. Opportunistic motivation was simply to have sex. Had the genders been reversed, I would’ve questioned that simple motivation. With the casting couch example I completely bypassed the cultural whispers even though I was aware of them right from the beginning.
I don’t know. We could very well be asking sexual ethics questions using sexual predators and/or ‘professional’ victims. The examples given in the post aren’t clear. Is this Ms. Opportunistic’s first time and she only wants sex or is this the only way she’ll have (or enjoy) sex? Does Mr. Troubled consistently put himself into situations where he has no hope and has to be bailed out or are these circumstances an exception? If Mr. Troubled loses his house will he actually be better off or is his self-worth (and potentially a lot more) tied up in who he thinks he is?
Casting couch. Does the mogul require this of all his potential stars, is it a one time thing or does the potential star hint around with sexual teasing until the mogul thinks it’s his idea? Does the potential star see the mogul as being able to make or break her career? Does she consider her career more of a vocation? Does…? etc.
And then there’s the threat. Mappes’s bullets seem to imply that the threat must be direct but the best threats are one where the consequences are left vague and the victim’s own mind goes down the worst road. There’s also tacit threats. Sexual predators do know how to spot victims and how to manipulate them. It’s why they are predators and why most people aren’t prepared to deal with them the first time they are exposed to them.
I haven’t had time to read all the comments – maybe I’ll squeeze some to be able to do so later, but I wanted to chime in about the Australian health care system too – that’s what struck me first. Given that the author is apparently married to a surgeon, it seems more egregious to me that the setup was so wrong. It’s by no means perfect but I don’t see life-saving operations as being “elective” and it is the elective surgery list which experiences delays.
Thx for posting about this topic Jessica. It’s fascinating!
Just stumbled upon your blog from a list of book-related blogs and wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed what I saw here on my first visit. Entertaining and intellectually engaging. Look forward to more in the future.
cheers,
MB
Thanks to everyone making comments. I put the thread up on my screen during class and told everyone to read it if they wanted to see how deeply one can think about this issue.
@Michael Borshuk: Thanks!