I saw several complaints in this discussion and earlier about how Devin Grayson had described Tarantula's sexual attack on Nightwing, emphasizing the word "non-consensual" as if she had tried to excuse or downplay rape. But that word never appeared in the context of even a full sentence. That made me suspicious. I wanted to know what Devin Grayson had actually said because I know how memes can develop and spread, but my searches came up with nothing.
The interview contains this exchange: ++++++++ THE PULSE: ...Without giving too much away, the ending of #93 had rather a shocking event in Dick's love/sex life. Was this a one-time thing, a moment of weakness and disorientation, or is Tarantula something more to Dick?
GRAYSON: That particular moment was actually not consensual. Dick’s body sometimes has a mind and life of its own, and in this case, his heart was very clear (as were his words) about not wanting to be engaged that way at that time. But Catalina overwhelms him to some extent, both physically and emotionally. He feels responsible now for, essentially, the destruction of her soul, and as of issue 93 (and this continues into 94), he’s not yet sure how to redeem her or himself, so she’s really got an odd kind of control over him while he tries to catch his breath and figure that out. She’s crystal clear about what she wants to be doing and how she wants him to factor into it – utterly undaunted by recent events – and Dick is, at this point, basically being dragged around behind her (this actually becomes literal in 94). Through a combination of shock and moral anguish, Dick has, to some extent, surrendered to her will. And in that particular situation, the sex itself was practically allegorical. I don’t mean it didn’t really happen, but rather that it was a final physical manifestation of an emotional violation that went much deeper.
But Tarantula is probably in for a rude awakening when Dick recovers his sense of self and purpose. His will is not something with which to be trifled. ++++++
That makes it clear to me that Devin Grayson used the words "not consensual" to correct the interviewer's description of what happened on the rooftop as an "event in Dick's love/sex life" followed by a question focused on, basically, whether Dick loves Catalina. (To be scrupulously fair, the interviewer was trying not to reveal much.)
Devin Grayson was explicit about the rooftop event being a "violation," about how Tarantula "overwhelms" Nightwing "physically and emotionally." She didn't use the word "rape" in this interview, but she didn't have to: clarifying that the sex was "not consensual" seems clear. Unless Devin Grayson made other comments elsewhere at the time, I can't read this as supporting complaints that she downplayed the seriousness of this moment.
Furthermore, it's also clear that she meant this as the low point of the story she was telling (with, of course, the approval of DC Comics). Dick's emotional recovery was crucial to how Devin Grayson imagined the arc, and to how we should read it. Perhaps the resolution was unsuccessful, but we seem to be treating this moment in isolation.