But this modern reader does not have time for casual rape. Most people still hold a limited understanding of rape: a crazed man jumping out of the bushes and attacking someone. But there are other, more subtle forms of rape. There’s date rape, where someone you know makes sure that you get too drunk to consent and then takes advantage of you. There’s raping someone who is already unconscious. There’s begging and threatening someone until they relent and let you have sex with them. And there’s casual rape. This is a term I coined to describe surprise penetration from a familiar partner. Because it’s someone you trusted and you’ve been intimate with, because there was no violence, it’s hard to immediately understand that you’ve been violated. But it comes down to this: do women get to decide when they are penetrated?
Seriously, do they?
As #MeToo has brought sexual assault into everyday conversation, some people have expressed confusion about how to know if your partner wants sex. After all, women are mysterious and finicky creatures who are incapable of human communication, right? Do we need to always ask, wonder these naysayers, for every single thing? If you suck that much at human interaction, then yes, you do need to ask. Inviting someone back to your room, taking off their clothes, etc. are all indicators that they are interested in some sexual contact. However, they may change their minds at any time. They may want sex but not at that very moment, they may want sex but not in that way. Maybe she did want to have sex, but after talking or cuddling or kissing for a while, or whatever she needed to want penetration. If you penetrate someone when they are not ready or expecting it, you just put your desires above her needs. And I’m not talking about her need for cuddling, I’m talking about her need to determine what goes into her body and when.
Here's the scene in question. Hatsue and Ishmael are two teenagers in the 40's conducting a secret interracial affair. Hatsue is about to leave for an internment camp, and had been feeling guilty about doing something that she has to hide from her family. It describes their foreplay, in which Ishmael's hands and genitals do all kinds of pressing and traveling, and Hatsue "lets" him. She does take some action but it is primarily Ishmael who moves things along.
"Let's get married," he said again, and she understood what he meant. "I just... I want to marry you."Ok, so to recap: girl is crying, boy penetrates girl, girl is “shocked” and moves away, girl reminds
She made no move to stop him when he slid his hand inside her panties. Then he was peeling them down her legs, and she was still crying silently. He was kissing her and pulling his own pants to his knees, the tip of his hardness was against her skin now and his hands were cupped around her face. "Just say yes," he whispered. "Just tell me yes, tell me yes. Say yes to me. Say yes, oh God say yes."
"Ishmael," she whispered, and in that moment he pushed himself inside of her, all the way in, his hardness filling her entirely, and Hatsue knew with clarity that nothing about it was right. It came as an enormous shock to her, this knowledge, and at the same time it was something she had always known, something until now hidden. She pulled away from him --she pushed him. "No," she said. "No, Ishmael. No, Ishmael. Never."
He pulled himself out, away. He was a decent boy, a kind boy, she knew that. He pulled his trousers up, buttoned them, and helped her back into her panties. Hatsue straightened her bra and clasped it again and buttoned up her dress. She put her coat on and then, sitting up, began meticulously to brush the moss from her hair. "I'm sorry," she said. "It wasn't right."
"It seemed right to me," answered Ishmael. "It seemed like getting married, like being married, like you and me were married. Like the only kind of wedding we could ever have."
"I'm sorry," said Hatsue, picking moss from her hair. "I don't want you to be unhappy."
"I am unhappy. I'm miserable. You're leaving tomorrow morning."
herself that boy is good, boy is shown to be good by “helping” her get dressed as if it’s easier for two people to put underwear on than one, girl apologizes. Cool.
To be clear, I’m not against rape in literature. Rape has been a common part of life, although it doesn’t have to be. What I’m against is including a casual rape and then acting like everything’s OK. This is exactly what normalization looks like. These are the instructions for boys: no means no, but silence, other words, crying mean yes. These are the instructions for girls: at some point a boy will surprise penetrate you, and you should do whatever mental gymnastics are required to accept that he has control over your body and you don’t; and no matter what don’t let his feelings get hurt.
Casual rape was the most unacceptable part of this book. But there were other little bits and bobs of misogyny. Here’s 3 more BONUS packs of bullshit.
- Ishmael stalks Hatsue. He literally watches her house and follows her around. Because he “likes” her. She never finds out. He never thinks about whether his actions might be problematic.
- A female character gets introduced, and the author tells us all about how she hit puberty and got boobies, and what her boobies were like, but even though she was a naughty girl who could “shape the behavior of men,” she “never flirted.” And then, her boobies changed after breastfeeding her kids, and it was a little sad. Can you imagine a female writer introducing a character’s backstory with “SHE GOT TITTIES!”?
- After the war, Ishmael still has a thing for Hatsue even though she broke up with him, went to an internment camp, got married, and had kids. He longs to have physical contact with her, which she rebuffs when he’s stupid enough to say something about it. After Hatsue’s husband’s murder trial, Ishmael finally reveals the exonerating information and sets him free. Hatsue tells him she’s grateful and kisses “him so softly … like a whisper against his cheekbone.” So, in case you missed it, the lesson is that if a woman says no to you, rescue her from something and then she’ll give you what you want! Because she OWES you.
I understand that heroes can be complicated-- when they’re male. Ishmael can be the hero even though he was garbage. Fine. But women protagonists never get to be complicated. The patriarchy cannot tolerate a women it doesn’t like or doesn’t understand according to its concepts about what women are. Don’t believe me? Look at Hillary Clinton. People lost their minds at a female politician who made hard choices in her career. Male politicians are seriously considered even if they’ve said or done the wrong thing before. But female politicians must be some hybrid superlady of motherly benevolence but not remind anyone of their sexless, nagging mother. Part of the reason, as Rebecca Solnit says, is the stories we tell. Complicated male heroes are in all our stories--the Bible, the Odyssey, Snow Falling on Cedars. But complicated female heroines are absent. This reinforces the patriarchy.
I found Snow Falling on Cedars in the English department bookroom at my school, which means someone used to teach it. And I’m sure it’s still taught at other schools. But in the era of #metoo, it’s time to take a second look at what we’ve accepted as literature. If we want the children to grow up in a less-rapey world, we need to change the stories we tell them; or at the very least revisit them through a feminist lens. It makes my skin crawl to think of students reading and discussing this text without taking a hard look at the male creepiness and sense of entitlement therein; teachers who glossed over the problematic passages, inadvertently teaching the students that this behavior is unremarkable, expected, mundane. I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach any controversial, problematic, or complicated texts. I’m saying we shouldn’t teach texts that reinforce systems of oppression rather than challenge them. “Doesn’t encourage casual rape” seems like a pretty low bar moving forward, but it’s a good place to start.
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