Episode Discussion Buffy, Spike, Seeing Red and The Me Too Movement

[WillowFromBuffy]

Within the fiction world of BtVS, Faith commits a clearly literal rape of Buffy. She takes possession of Buffy's body and deliberately seeks to do things to it that would upset Buffy. She says to Riley: "What do you want to do with this body? What nasty little desire have you been itching to try out? Am I a bad girl? Do you wanna hurt me?" Faith is inviting Riley to go beyond the boundaries Buffy has established for herself so far, and she is deliberately daring him to try out acts that are "nasty," "bad" and painful.

However, I don't think it is an allegory for rape, as it does not point to the way rapes happen in the real world. Therefore, I see this episode as dealing with psychology, rather than actual events. Faith's psychology is pretty messed up. She wants Buffy to experience the same shame she feels about herself, and so she deliberately seeks to punish Buffy's body in ways that would upset Buffy. At the same time, she is punishing herself, making Buffy the victim of her own self-flagellation.

The assault in Seeing Red is less complicated. It is both a literal assault in the fiction world and it mimics the way a sexual assault may happen in the real world. The aftermath is a bit more muddy. In the fiction world, Spike gets a soul, which gives him the moral agency he lacked before. This serves as a metaphor for some kind of moral epiphany, where an abuser suddenly realises the magnitude of his crime. I am sure most sex offenders are capable of feeling shame about their actions, but Spike's story simplifies and trivialises this issue. If we follow the logic of the show, then Spike deserves to be forgiven for his past crimes, because his vampirism made him incapable of being better than he was. We would be very unwise to be so generous to sex offender in the real world and it would be criminally unfair to their victims.

Sometimes I feel BtVS paint itself into a corner with the issues between the elaborate mechanics of the internal fiction world of the show and the complex way in which the events in the fiction world allegorically comments on real world problem. As I've said before, I think it is up to us as viewers to make sense of it all. BtVS can be challenging, provocative, inspiring, confusing, morally bankrupt and puritanical all at the same time.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

I was only talking about her anger at her perpetrator- Faith- and she's on a different show.

And I'm saying hat Buffy shouldn't have to travel from her own show onto Angel's just to resolve that plot point that occurred on her own show. Faith is the one that should move, not Buffy.

*slowly* I know for definite what I was shown and that's about it. I can't know what was going to happen because I didn't see it.

You know we can all read. There's no need for the "slowly", it just comes off as patronising. You say you can't know what was going to happen because you didn't see it, by the same token then you can't know what wasn't going to happen because it was cut short.

We never saw characters using the toilet, doesn't mean they didn't.

See, I blame people for what I see them do not what they might've done but didn't.

Well Faith did rape Buffy and Riley, she did sexually assault Xander when she was kissing him and he was telling her to stop.

When did I say this? I merely said that in this scenario the 'man' was Faith because she is the physically stronger, more sexually aggressive person. Of course women can commit rape; Willow does it to Tara for one; denial of consent by removing memories is the real world equivalent of roofie-ing somebody to go to bed with them.

So basically you're saying men are stronger and sexually aggressive and women aren't, and that if a male character is not stronger and more sexually aggressive than a female character, then he becomes the woman and she is the "real" man.

 

[DeepBlueJoy]

I value family friendly, but sometimes i wonder what the target audience for this board is. The show itself was very adult, very transgressive, and you only have to look at the conflicts that last to this day to know that people are disturbed by what they watched.

I value civility and won't be anywhere that isn't.

That said, sometimes I feel unsafe here *because of* the constraints. I fear that by speaking honestly & to a young but basically adult audience, I may run afoul of the content monitors.

We are talking about adult and vitally important topics for teens - none of whom are strangers to far worse things than are discussed thoughtfully here. This is a great, safe place for such discussions.

Can we be 2nd grade appropriate and Buffy appropriate too? Which matters more?

Perhaps some threads should be flagged as 15+ 17+ or 21+? People could then choose to avoid threads that might offend, but the person who needs a frank discussion of sexual consent issues could choose to read it. No, I don't want age verification. That would be even worse.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

Do people still see Dirty Girls as a trap? Why? Buffy went there expecting Caleb & the Bringers. They got there and it was Caleb & the Bringers. She talked to Wood about the Potentials needing to be tested more in battle before the big war and he said "then maybe you should test them." They just lost a battle. That doesn't make it a trap. Angel was knocked unconscious by Caleb. Does that suddenly mean Angel fell into a trap? No. They were eventually going to have to confront him in order to know how to fight him. Buffy lost her first fight with Glory. It doesn't make it a trap.

Now kidnapping a Bringer, torturing him until he gives you information, and then believing that info and getting blown up, that's a trap. They went in expecting a secret weapons cache. That was their sole reason for going there, to retrieve it.

I think the first trip to the vineyard was a trap but not in the way people think. The vineyard itself with Caleb and the bringers wasn't the trap per se, it was the repercussions that it led to. The First wanted the group to turn against Buffy. It's standard divide and conquer. Without Buffy watching their backs, the potentials are vulnerable and consequently nearly got blown up.

I don't know why The First didn't send the bringers to Buffy's house en masse or the uber vamps to massacre the potentials. They were all crammed into one little house, it's not like they could've escaped quickly. The scoobies would've been better off taking over the two neighbouring houses on either side, building a massive fence around the 3, then distributing he potentials amongst the houses with a Scooby in each.

The Potentials going clubbing makes no sense because they acted so terrified of fighting Caleb & the Bringers and yet they all left the house in the middle of the night without weapons and without the most powerful members in the group in order to "let off steam". They were in Sunnydale because Potentials were being hunted and stabbed to death all throughout the world. Which they all seemed to forget while out getting drunk.

Agreed. One of them should've at least gotten killed off, if only to prove that the potentials aren't safe from the First anywhere.

 

[Buffy Summers]

This isn't the place for this discussion, however...

Can we be 2nd grade appropriate and Buffy appropriate too? Which matters more?

We're not asking anyone to be second grade appropriate. We're asking that it's PG13.

It's not the adult topic that is the problem. There is no reason people cannot discuss adult themes in a non-vulgar way. I don't need to read

Spoiler

"Faith spreading Buffy's thighs and feeling Riley's dick penetrate and thrust into Buffy's vagina"

to get someone's point. Everyone should feel comfortable reading and discussing on the board.

We rarely edit posts for content here. Very rarely. But I don't think a little appropriateness is too much to ask.

 

[thetopher]

And I'm saying hat Buffy shouldn't have to travel from her own show onto Angel's just to resolve that plot point that occurred on her own show. Faith is the one that should move, not Buffy.

The 'plot point' was resolved with Buffy and Riley getting back together and working through their issues; that's the drama.
The other stuff is merely a nice bonus that Buffy doesn't always get.

In an effort to get back to the point of the thread; in this instance Buffy's voice- the voice of the victim- is heard, recognized and dealt with. In the aftermath of her encounter with Spike, it never is; quite the opposite.

You say you can't know what was going to happen because you didn't see it, by the same token then you can't know what wasn't going to happen because it was cut short.
We never saw characters using the toilet, doesn't mean they didn't.

Oh, this is a fun game. We can now make crap up about characters even though we didn't see them do it; lets try that with all the characters and see how that works out.
The reason we don't see characters going to the bathroom is because it's trivial and not important as to how a character develops in terms of their actions, morality or character development.

We see Faith's devolution over S3; she kills a human by accident; they she kills a demon-type in a fight, then she kills a human in cold blood because she's asked to; the actions are shown because they show a devolving pattern of evil behavior.
Same with Faith-in-Buffy during 'Who Are You?' she is dissociating from her former self and completely falls apart by the end of the episode because of the things she does and the realizations she has about herself.
Part of that comes from having an intimate encounter with Riley, not having sex with lots of random dudes.

Well Faith did rape Buffy and Riley, she did sexually assault Xander when she was kissing him and he was telling her to stop.

It's pointless going over this yet again, you clearly have your opinion and I have mine. 'Faith did very bad things that she attempted to make amends for'; lets leave it at that.

So basically you're saying men are stronger and sexually aggressive and women aren't, and that if a male character is not stronger and more sexually aggressive than a female character, then he becomes the woman and she is the "real" man.

Maybe stop telling me what I'm 'basically saying' all the time because it comes across as quite patronizing.
Oh, and men are physically stronger than women (on the whole) and I never said that women can't be sexual aggressive.
In terms of this specific scenario many say 'lets flip the gender and this scene is way worse' but it isn't, its the same because of the strength disparity and Faith's aggression.
In no way is Xander 'less' of a man because of the way he's treated, but I do think- as I have made clear before- that his aftermath (and that of Riley's) could've been handled better. Maybe that had something to do with their respective genders but not the scenes themselves.

 

[Buffy Summers]

Let's all take a deep breath here, and be careful about our tone.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

Same with Faith-in-Buffy during 'Who Are You?' she is dissociating from her former self and completely falls apart by the end of the episode because of the things she does and the realizations she has about herself.
Part of that comes from having an intimate encounter with Riley, not having sex with lots of random dudes.

Maybe stop telling me what I'm 'basically saying' all the time because it comes across as quite patronizing.
Oh, and men are physically stronger than women (on the whole) and I never said that women can't be sexual aggressive.

Your exact words were "in this scenario the 'man' was Faith because she is the physically stronger, more sexually aggressive person". You're equating strength and sexual aggressiveness to "man" as if a woman can't be those things too and still be a woman. By that same logic, if Faith being strong and sexually aggressive equals man then Xander being weaker and defenceless to stop her equals woman. Do you see the problem?

In terms of this specific scenario many say 'lets flip the gender and this scene is way worse' but it isn't, its the same because of the strength disparity and Faith's aggression.
In no way is Xander 'less' of a man because of the way he's treated, but I do think- as I have made clear before- that his aftermath (and that of Riley's) could've been handled better. Maybe that had something to do with their respective genders but not the scenes themselves.

Let's compare to scenes: the Spuffy AR and the Xander and Faith scene.

Spike pins Buffy down as she tells him to stop

Faith pins Xander down as he tells her to stop

You're right in that the fallout of these two scenes (and that of Riley) could've been handled a lot better than it was, but people still consider the Spuffy AR the more shocking of all three. That could be because it was played straight (though the real life version had the genders reversed) whereas the other two were more murky, but the point is Faith is guilty of sexual assault at the very least, if not rape, yet because she's female, Riley and Xander are not treated as victims in the same way that Buffy was. Riley and Xander's ordeals get shrugged off, at least Buffy gets some recognition of victim status (even if it was then ignored for the rest of season 7).

Basically the way this show handles the aftermaths of sexual assaults is terrible.

 

[thetopher]

Last time and then I'm out.

Your exact words were "in this scenario the 'man' was Faith because she is the physically stronger, more sexually aggressive person".

I'll admit that my phrasing was clumsy but the point remains the same; the gender- in this case- should not matter because of Faith's 'slayer-ness' and behavior.

You're equating strength and sexual aggressiveness to "man" as if a woman can't be those things too and still be a woman.

No, that's your interpretation; I never said a woman couldn't be these things but in this type of scenario its usually gendered a certain way; men commit the vast majority of sexual assaults on women; statistical fact.
It doesn't preclude the opposite ever happening- that's the entire reason we have the AR scene; female writer's personal experience.

By that same logic, if Faith being strong and sexually aggressive equals man then Xander being weaker and defenceless to stop her equals woman. Do you see the problem?

I really don't I'm saying that in this scenario gender doesn't matter because of the supernatural component.

Let's compare to scenes: the Spuffy AR and the Xander and Faith scene.

Okay:
In the case of Faith/Xander she throws him on the bed and starts kissing him, clothes remain on throughout, Xander is confused/reluctant and then tells her to stop but she doesn't. Then Faith begins to chokes him.

In the Spike/Buffy case he violently grapples with her and pushes her to the floor so she is in pain/injured, she's screaming, crying and begging as he begins tearing off her clothes making his intentions plain.

One is assault (you could say 'attempted murder if it had gone far enough), the other is definitely and categorically a violent attempted rape. Xander might be ignored but Buffy is almost out-and-out blamed by some; including Spike.

You're right in that the fallout of these two scenes (and that of Riley) could've been handled a lot better than it was, but people still consider the Spuffy AR the more shocking of all three. That could be because it was played straight (though the real life version had the genders reversed) whereas the other two were more murky

The AR scene is the most shocking/problematic for many reasons that go to the heart of fandom; the victim blaming and denial for one; the fact that Buffy is made to feel like SHE is to blame for the entire relationship for another.
She never gets to confront the thing that hurt her instead she must take care of the man who looks and acts very much like him as he professes his love for her and telling her that she is basically responsible for his torment.

How is this supposed to make Buffy feel? I think it compounds her pain and trauma from the year before as she must believe that -out of all the hurt and using that 'she' did then some good must come of it. That's the reasoning- I suspect- why we have all of Buffy's testimony about 'feeling' that Spike has fundamentally changed and how he can better/is so 'strong'.

but the point is Faith is guilty of sexual assault at the very least, if not rape, yet because she's female

I think the gender of the perpetrator is irrelevant in this case- its because the victims were male- that was the problem; but then Riley and Xander still get treated better than Buffy by the writers in the respective aftermaths. Getting ignored is much better than getting basically blamed for 'using' the rapist.

Riley and Xander are not treated as victims in the same way that Buffy was.

I agree to an extent but its also a matter of degrees. Buffy & Riley (eventually) both get an apology from Faith about a problematic event; its badly written but no worse than some I've seen.
Buffy never gets that from Spike and its harmful, and not just to her character but to people trying to garner any meaningful lessons from it; the 'moral of the story' is toxic.

Oh, and two other victims who were poorly treated even though they were both actually physically violated: Angel by Darla in S2 and Tara by Willow in S6; both had a complete lack of consent/agency and are either ignored (in Angel's case) or glossed over (in Tara's case).
So maybe the gender of the victim really doesn't matter.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

as he begins tearing off her clothes

Wasn't her clothes already off? I thought she just had on a bathrobe.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

I agree to an extent but its also a matter of degrees. Buffy & Riley (eventually) both get an apology from Faith about a problematic event; its badly written but no worse than some I've seen.
Buffy never gets that from Spike and its harmful, and not just to her character but to people trying to garner any meaningful lessons from it; the 'moral of the story' is toxic.

Oh, and two other victims who were poorly treated even though they were both actually physically violated: Angel by Darla in S2 and Tara by Willow in S6; both had a complete lack of consent/agency and are either ignored (in Angel's case) or glossed over (in Tara's case).
So maybe the gender of the victim really doesn't matter.

The AR was a poor choice of scene to use for so many reasons regarding both Buffy and Spike as a pairing and as individual characters. It's one of those things where if you're going to do it, you have to do it right and not half-arsed.

Wasn't her clothes already off? I thought she just had on a bathrobe.

Yes, but a bathrobe still counts as clothes.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

@crazysoulless Completely agree. There's a big difference between trying to get someone out of their clothes and trying to take off their bathrobe.

 

[crazysoulless]

The heart of the matter is that what Faith & Spike did to Buffy is so heinous just reading the description is triggering and yet those two characters were immediately given redemption arcs and are adored by the writers and fandom.

Buffy, the title character of BtVS and Buffyverse, literally the central character in the multiverse all of the characters exist in, was sexually assaulted as a catalyst to bring the fan favorite bad boy and bad girl completely on the good side. Faith realized the error of her ways because of how she felt in that dorm room. It was probably the first time she heard 'I love you" or was made sweet love to instead of "screwing" and Five by Five was hitting bottom after the realization. Spike realized he needed a soul while in his crypt thinking about the bathroom scene, it was the first time he felt that kind of remorse, although, like Faith, it was tempered with resentment.

We don't know if either character would have "redeemed" had they not sexually assaulted Buffy. Sanctuary tells us Buffy should forgive Faith and S7 tells us Buffy should forgive Spike.

Faith had Angel defending her. Spike had the soul defending him.

 

[Buffy Summers]

Question: when Marcus is in Angel's body and picks up women (including Lilah), if they had sex, was that rape?

 

[Mrs Gordo]

Sanctuary tells us Buffy should forgive Faith

I don't ever get the impression that Buffy is ever put in a position in which she needs to forgive Faith. All that is asked of Buffy is that she not make Faith run again (maybe not kill her which I don't think Buffy would do anyway). Buffy tells Faith that she is the only person that has ever made her feel like a victim and that is a very important thing for me to hear from Buffy at that juncture because she should be allowed to confront Faith. Buffy tells Faith that she needs to pay for what she did and Faith does.

What I am incredibly grateful for is this: Buffy doesn't have to shoulder the burden of being Faith's "sponsor" (to use the AA metaphor) after the season 4 events, she is not put in the position to need to support her, protect her, motivate her, rescue her, etc. Faith goes off and pays for her crimes and leaves Buffy alone. She goes back to Buffy only when they need muscle in s7. Angel is the one who is put in the position to be Faith's "sponsor." The same cannot be said for the Spike/Buffy dynamic of s7.

 

[crazysoulless]

I don't ever get the impression that Buffy is ever put in a position in which she needs to forgive Faith. All that is asked of Buffy is that she not make Faith run again (maybe not kill her which I don't think Buffy would do anyway). Buffy tells Faith that she is the only person that has ever made her feel like a victim and that is a very important thing for me to hear from Buffy at that juncture because she should be allowed to confront Faith. Buffy tells Faith that she needs to pay for what she did and Faith does.

What I am incredibly grateful for is this: Buffy doesn't have to shoulder the burden of being Faith's "sponsor" (to use the AA metaphor) after the season 4 events, she is not put in the position to need to support her, protect her, motivate her, rescue her, etc. Faith goes off and pays for her crimes and leaves Buffy alone. She goes back to Buffy only when they need muscle in s7. Angel is the one who is put in the position to be Faith's "sponsor." The same cannot be said for the Spike/Buffy dynamic of s7.

I hated that Faith cut her off and then it switches to them working together to stop the Watcher's Council hitmen. That's like the zombies showing up in Dead Man's Party during the intense confrontation.

Faith gets to be sponsored and become "redemption buddies" with the love of Buffy's life. That because Angel loves Buffy more than anyone but Connor and Buffy loves Angel more than anyone but Dawn, they are forced to cut each other out of their lives while Faith, Buffy's rapist, gets to have surprise visits having uplifting talks with Angel throughout her 3 year stint and then live with him for a year in the AtS comics.

 

[RachM]

I hated that Faith cut her off and then it switches to them working together to stop the Watcher's Council hitmen. That's like the zombies showing up in Dead Man's Party during the intense confrontation.

Faith gets to be sponsored and become "redemption buddies" with the love of Buffy's life. That because Angel loves Buffy more than anyone but Connor and Buffy loves Angel more than anyone but Dawn, they are forced to cut each other out of their lives while Faith, Buffy's rapist, gets to have surprise visits having uplifting talks with Angel throughout her 3 year stint and then live with him for a year in the AtS comics.

So, is your issue with the fact that Faith got redemption or that Angel was the one who "sponsored" her?

Also, calling Faith 'Buffy's rapist' is quite extreme, there is no real world equivalent of body swapping, therefore it's not really fair to say that Faith raped Buffy, especially considering Buffy was not in her body at the time of the alleged rape, which means she suffered no trauma as a result. Was it a violation of Buffy's body? Yes. But I don't think it's cut-and-dry rape.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

So, is your issue with the fact that Faith got redemption or that Angel was the one who "sponsored" her?

Also, calling Faith 'Buffy's rapist' is quite extreme, there is no real world equivalent of body swapping, therefore it's not really fair to say that Faith raped Buffy, especially considering Buffy was not in her body at the time of the alleged rape, which means she suffered no trauma as a result. Was it a violation of Buffy's body? Yes. But I don't think it's cut-and-dry rape.

Don't be so sure about body swapping. Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder as of DSM 5) provides a real-world duplicate of this. Not being in a body does not mean there are no consequences. Faith could have gotten pregnant or an STD that Buffy would have had to contend with after the swap. The only reason Faith did not do this is she had every reason to believe the swap was permanent.

The major plot point with Faith and Riley is that once she heard about love, she was revulsed and pulled away. At this point she realized that you can take the girl out of the streets but you can't take the streets out of the girl. The body swap was never going to do what she wanted.

 

[RachM]

Don't be so sure about body swapping. Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder as of DSM 5) provides a real-world duplicate of this. Not being in a body does not mean there are no consequences. Faith could have gotten pregnant or an STD that Buffy would have had to contend with after the swap. The only reason Faith did not do this is she had every reason to believe the swap was permanent.

I can kinda see where you're coming from but Dissociative Identity Disorder doesn't really work for me as a real-world comparison. When someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder has one of their other personalities take over, that doesn't remove the "real"/primary personality (which is what Faith does with Buffy, she completely removes Buffy's consciousness from her body), it just suppresses it.

Also, I never argued that there wouldn't be consequences to the body swap, I was saying that I don't believe that it's 100% accurate to say that Faith sleeping with Riley while in Buffy's body was Faith raping Buffy.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

DID is a highly controversial diagnosis which is constantly being debated. But ultimately the change from MPD to DID is to distance the diagnosis from the Hollywood stereotype of movies like Three Faces of Eve, Fight Club, or Identity. I’m fact, “alters” in DID are fractures of one personality. There are memory problems associated with this disorder but it is no different than someone experiencing a fugue state and having sex with someone and never remembering. I can imagine it a terrifying experience but despite what Hollywood would have you believe, it’s just the one person, in one mind, that is suffering from severe mental illness.

So I’m not sure the comparison works.