Ordinary Day

From reading your description behind the cut (I haven't read the book, and am not likely to, as I tend to not like male-written dystopia/utopia fiction), I don't so much have problems with the "she didn't call the cops" scenario, as that whole area is such a grey one, with so many freakin' nuances and sticky wickets. (From my own life--how do you tell a middle-aged rape survivor to kindly BUTT THE HELL OUT of how you're working on/with a minor possible/probable rape victim who is still in denial to themselves, and you're working on establishing trust, caring, and respect, so that when they do come out of denial (because likely will, eventually), they're likely to trust you? When middle-aged survivor's only response is 'fuck their trust, fuck their privacy, you MUST take them to the hospital, the cops, the crisis counselor.' The alleged incident is not recent, the possible victim in denial/is compartmentalizing-dissassociating about it to most people. I have enough respect for others' autonomy with their bodies, their selves to not want to force the issue and drive them further into denial--and I also have a part of me that wants to, yes, take them to the cops immediately. But that's not going to be helpful right now, as that's not where this kid is. It's 90,000 shades of grey, and I'm floundering.

No, to get back to the book, what I do have problems with is this raped-woman-goes-all-stockholme-syndromesque on a male who is an honorary female--that there's something so special about THEM that it cancels out anything that a woman has experience. (The worst cases of this are the "fall in love with your rapist" shit like on General Hospital with Luke & Laura in the 80s.) Honestly, I have a hard time when male writers decide to use rape as a plot device. Since most of them will never know the fear of being raped, of having your ultimate boundaries violated, they feel free to speculate the most bizarre reactions. Most of which seem to involved women being so crushed that they are beyond hope of ever relating to another man again, until their uber-sensitive alter-ego comes along and proceeds to ignore all her boundaries until she is forced to fall madly in love with him or commit suicide. At which point, they fall madly in love and boink like bunnies, and she wants to have his baby.

My ex had a story involving a rape that he wrote, and I really didn't have the heart to tell him that he was deluding himself that he could really KNOW how it felt, how someone would react. Didn't have the heart to tell him I'd seen a guy brought low by a sexual assault from another male, who didn't want anyone, male or female, coming near him, trying to help him/console him/support him. That he distrusted EVERYONE, male or female, for a while. That pretty much the only things I could say were "I *do* believe you" and "because I'm an RA, I can't leave you alone until I can be certain you're not a danger to yourself or others; but you don't have to talk to me, I'll just sit here if you want, but I have to do my job."

I do find it interesting that he posits almost the exact opposite of Jean M. Auel's Neanderthals in the Clan of the Cave Bear series. Neither one seems really believable--the truth lies somewhere in between, I suspect.