Yes all people see is a bad boy in a leather jacket , not the demon Spike is
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Morality: Vampire "brothel" in Into the Woods
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DeadlyDuo
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1. There's no evidence that Spike raped. There are indicators that suggest he didn't eg his horror at his actions during the AR plus him turning down Angelus' offer of the bride.
2. Spike seemed pretty monogamous to Dru. Therefore if he caught an STD via sex, it would've been from her. She in turn would've caught it from Angel. He of course slept with Buffy so could've passed it onto her in Season 2, long before Spike started sleeping with her. The same goes with the blood drinking.
3. Buffy could've been on the pill which protects against pregnancy but not STDs. She and Riley were going at it like rabbits, particularly in WTWTA.
4. Riley was visiting the vampire whorehouse and sleeping with Buffy. It wasn't his first time visiting when he got caught so he could've passed something on to Buffy, again before Spike started sleeping with her.
5. Point is that Buffy could very well be the one with the STD that she caught from Angel or Riley and she is in fact the one passing it on to Spike, not the other way around.
Also worth noting is that Buffy slept with Parker and he was putting it about like an alley cat so she could've quite easily have caught something from him (and he was the most likely one of her partners to have something)
It's not like the show would have a scene of Buffy getting treated for an STD though that could've easily have happened off-screen.
In conclusion, despit how much you hate Spike, BUFFY is more likely to have a STD than he is and SHE is the one more likely to pass it on.
1 Only on spike say he did ..... you don't know what I have done to girls dawns age leaving them just enough blood so they cry when ....what do you think he is talking about snap !! he does not mention boys, any other things he could do equally
2 Mmmmm well we do see just a snippet of Spike and Drus life together if not a STD certainly Aids is a great possibility through blood
3 It is shown in WTWTA that Riley is wearing condoms
4 Yes condoms was shown in WTWTA and buffy did not know what Riley was up to until Spike , (yes good old Spike) showed her
5 She had sex once with Angel and we know Buffy and Riley was using condoms for safe sex , as for Parker it was a one off and again they might have used a condom , somebody as experienced as Parker probably would
6 There was so much crap thrown at Buffy in season 6, STD would have been another ....probably MN didn't think of it because it probably didn't happen to her
Can we get back to the topic, which was not do vampires have STDs, feel free to open a new thread to discuss that.
The Bronze
Rogue Demon Hunter
Good idea, thought I'd stumbled onto the Love Island boards.
Anyanka Bunny Slayer
Satanic Panda
But the thing that really burns me up is that Riley totally cheated on Buffy. And with a vampire, of all things. Considering that Buffy IS the Slayer, that's really a slap in the face.
Doesn't matter only takes one gentle shag to pass on an STD.
And you're convientantly ignoring all of the times Spike proves he's more than. If we're blinkered we're not unique in that.
DeadlyDuo
Scooby
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Females can be victims of crime other than rape. Spike could just as easily have brutally tortured "girls Dawn's age", Here's a post I made 3 years ago on this very topic:
So because the victims are girls Dawn's age, they must automatically be victims of rape because they can't have possibly suffered any fate other than that? Spike could obviously get pretty nasty with his torture, earning him a reputation as the "most violent vampire in history, second only to [Angelus]". If Spike was raping like Angelus, then why aren't they on equal reputation? What did Angelus do that elevated him to number 1. IMO the answer is that Angelus raped alongside the torture which made him THE WORST whilst Spike only tortured people horribly which made him bad but not as bad.
Spike probably is horrified at how low he could go on the torture stakes. Imagine this scenario, he's got a girl Dawn's age, he's bitten her and drank from her but not enough to kill her. She's still alive and well aware that she's alone in a room with a monster. She's terrified. Spike then pulls out a railroad spike and sticks it through her leg. The girl screams from the pain. Spike then pulls the spike out and sticks it in again. He lets the girl know it's going to be a long night (the implication being he's going to be stabbing her with the spike all night). The girl is screaming for mercy and crying with pain as the railroad spike goes into her yet again, over and over, and not necessarily in the same place twice.. Spike is feeling pretty pleased with himself as the girl screams yet again because of the continuous impalement. The girl eventually begs him to kill her, wanting to die because she can't stand the pain, so Spike does exactly that, taking pleasure in the fact that he got someone to beg him to kill them (which he was going to do anyway) but he forced them to ask to die.
Also in season 2, Giles read out a passage about Spike that said he'd earned his name by "torturing his victims with railroad spikes". The main question there is what made that particular type of torture so noteworthy that Spike's reputation would be built around it. He was "William the Bloody" with a violent streak, so what was it about the torture with railroad spikes that was so significant that it earned Spike a new name? I think it was not only the viciousness of it but the type of victims it was inflicted on aka Girls Dawn's age.
Also by season 7, girls Dawn's age were the same age as Buffy was in season 1&2. In "School Hard" we saw Spike lure in Sheila (who was in Buffy's year) tie her up and gag her and give her to Dru to snack on. So although "Girls Dawn's age" kind of makes you think of season 5 Dawn, we're actually taking season 2 Buffy Dawn
Spike had been on Pigs blood for two years by the time he and Buffy started sleeping together. Riley on the other hand was still sleeping with Buffy whilst getting fed off by a vampire whore who would also be feeding off other victims. Given the state of the brothel, it's clear that the customers weren't high class clients but essentially junkies looking for a "high". If blood infection was going to occur, it would be via Riley, not Spike.
But given how incessantly non-stop Riley and Buffy were having sex during the party, that singular condom Riley is wearing isn't going to last, and it's not like they're stopping to change it.
See above about the condoms. Also Buffy not knowing that Riley is cheating on her with a vampire whore isn't going to protect her from anything Riley is carrying. Spike did her a favour by showing her what Riley was up to, even if he was selfishly motivated.
Once is all it takes to pass on an STD.
Also it would make more sense for Buffy to be on the pill as that would stop her periods. It was heavily hinted that she was on her period in School Hard and Spike could smell the blood, so obviously she wouldn't want vampires smelling her presence before she had chance to stake them.
Probably true. Point is though that it wouldn't have come from Spike.
Riley even tells her that he did it to "even the score" because she "let" Dracula bite her, even though Buffy made it clear at the time that it was against her will.
The vampires probably wouldn't have accepted Riley's custom if they knew he was in a relationship with Buffy because no good can come from a "brassed off" slayer.
Athene
Why does it seem hard for you to believe that Spike or any vamp would rape 16 year old girls. Not saying he definitely did but it's not unlikely.
AlphaFoxtrot
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Question, how many Vampires can Buffy take on in an unfair fight!? That brothel was pretty large, and if Vampires didn't prefer that one on one combat style, how many could she really take on?
DeadlyDuo
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@Athene Because you don't elicit sympathy for a character by having them admit to raping underage girls. The writers wanted the audience to have sympathy for Spike in Season 7. Given that Spike was soulless for the majority of time on the show, he doesn't get the same distinction that Angel gets from Angelus. Angelus raped, Angel didn't. If Spike raped then it means that Buffy chose to engage in a relationship with a rapist. If Spike had raped before, why was he so horrified by his actions during the AR? If the answer is supposed to be "because it was Buffy", why should Buffy get special treatment over other victims?
To have a character be a rapist is to make them irredeemable in the eyes of the audience (it's why Warren crosses the line in Dead Things with what he tried to do to Katrina). "Rape is a special kind of evil" is a trope used to show that a character has passed the point of no return and the hero needs to kill them. Why would the writers do that to Spike when they want the audience to feel sorry for him. His whole "I've got a soul now and it's torturing me" is reliant on the audience having sympathy.
As terrible as the writing is in Season 7, I don't think the writers would be THAT stupid. Admittedly the line is ambiguous so could be read a certain way, however from a logical standpoint Spike admitting to raping underage girl does not make one bit of sense and so it's quite easy to interpret it as him NOT referring to rape. Also the fact that Spike turns down Angelus' offer of the bride is an indicator that he doesn't rape because the writers have written a specific scene of a character asking Spike "would you like to rape this woman", and Spike turning around and saying "no".
To have a character be a rapist is to make them irredeemable in the eyes of the audience (it's why Warren crosses the line in Dead Things with what he tried to do to Katrina). "Rape is a special kind of evil" is a trope used to show that a character has passed the point of no return and the hero needs to kill them. Why would the writers do that to Spike when they want the audience to feel sorry for him. His whole "I've got a soul now and it's torturing me" is reliant on the audience having sympathy.
As terrible as the writing is in Season 7, I don't think the writers would be THAT stupid. Admittedly the line is ambiguous so could be read a certain way, however from a logical standpoint Spike admitting to raping underage girl does not make one bit of sense and so it's quite easy to interpret it as him NOT referring to rape. Also the fact that Spike turns down Angelus' offer of the bride is an indicator that he doesn't rape because the writers have written a specific scene of a character asking Spike "would you like to rape this woman", and Spike turning around and saying "no".
Athene
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Well I could look at the scene in which Spike tries to rape Buffy or many scenes in season 7 and think why would the writers do this if they're trying to elicit sympathy for Spike or if they ever planned on making Spike redeemable (Which they did plan on). But those things still happened so I don't consider that a reason to think they wouldn't have Spike mention raping girls in his past.
They didn't have Spike explicitly say that he raped 16 year olds because that would probably be too much. But it's pretty valid to interpret that he did rape 16 year olds or didn't from that line. It's obvious that the suggestion is he did but as it just suggests it doesn't force people into believing it if they don't want to believe that Spike went there.
DeadlyDuo
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The AR was meant to be something that would push Spike to get a soul. There were other ways of doing that, but the AR is what they went for and Spike is visibly horrified by his actions. Also Spike spent a lot of Season 7 under the control of the First so his actions during Season 7 kind of weren't his fault.
Rape is the point of no return, it crosses the "moral event horizon". If the writers want the audience to have sympathy for Spike, having him admit to rape is counter-productive to that goal.
The line is ambiguous so it could be interpreted a certain way if people think that just because the victims are female it must be rape. Logically, Spike admitting to rape does not make sense for reasons listed above. He could quite easily be referring to brutal torture. Given that he had a reputation for violence and got his name from torturing his victims with railroad spikes, brutal torture seems the more likely of the two in my opinion.
Athene
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I see why you would think that, in my eyes I wouldn’t be surprised if I learnt that Spike had done that as a soulless vampire so I don’t see it as a moral event horizon any more than some of the horrible things we’ve seen him do.
Well I think that @Dora had a point when she highlighted that Spike said “girls” and not “people”. Language can tell you a lot, if he had said “to people Dawn’s age” then I’d imagine it was torture but to specify “girls” suggests that there’s something significant about it being girls Dawn’s age which does suggest it was something sexual e.g. rape. I think I can see both interpretations as being equally likely.
DeadlyDuo
Spike wanted Buffy to kill him so saying "Girls" made it relative to Dawn aka it could've been Dawn. Also females tend to be seen as more vulnerable victims than males so there is that angle as well.
thrasherpix
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Pragmatically it should be at the bottom of her list of things to do (that she will probably never get around to). For her it was personal, not about duty.
That said, on the vampire's side, they don't have a court to appeal Buffy's attack on them. In cases like that I don't see it as automatically evil that they resort to street justice lynching. I'll say they're evil because they're vampires, but not because they sought revenge over what Buffy did. They did everything they could to stay off her radar (which must've been so hard given they're creatures of the id) and she still attacks them despite the vampires who are still full on predators out there. If I were a vampire, even with a soul, I'd be angry, too.
That said, on the vampire's side, they don't have a court to appeal Buffy's attack on them. In cases like that I don't see it as automatically evil that they resort to street justice lynching. I'll say they're evil because they're vampires, but not because they sought revenge over what Buffy did. They did everything they could to stay off her radar (which must've been so hard given they're creatures of the id) and she still attacks them despite the vampires who are still full on predators out there. If I were a vampire, even with a soul, I'd be angry, too.
gnarl
Potential
You are far less likely to catch a disease from a corpse than a living human because most parasites need the warmth and the cell-processes of a living body to survive and replicate.
In the case of vampires: there's some kind of magic at play that a) keeps them from decomposing and b) keeps them from changing or growing older.
My theory is that a vampires' body is kept in a state of stasis, neither growing, dying or changing and that when they heal they aren't growing new cells the way we do, just re-building their default body exactly as it was before.
If this is the case, vampires couldn't get infected by new diseases (because that requires living, growing tissue) but the diseases they already had when they died would be in suspended animation with the rest of them, until (as with Darla) their tissue comes back to life and continues to grow.
So I don't think Vampires could pick up diseases or spread them, but you could catch something in a bite house in a sharing needles kind of way.
(also not a medical professional
)
gnarl
Potential
On the topic of the thread, I don't think it was morally wrong for Buffy to dust those vampires (even ineffectual Vampires like Harmony are dangerous). But it wasn't heroic in the way her slaying normally is because she did it for revenge.