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drsevarius (drsevarius) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-09-13 16:48:00

Entry tags:

char: chameleon/dmitri smerdyakov, char: michelle gonzales, creator: fred van lente, title: amazing spider-man

Fred Van Lente update on the Chameleon controversy

I got another e-mail from Fred Van Lente, that he's asked me to post.

First off, while I believe he had the best of intentions, the poster "DrSevarius" wrote me under his real name and asked me a question I thought I was answering in private, to him. He posted my response without my permission and without telling me beforehand it was supposed to be for public consumption.

If he had told me that, I would have, first off, made it clear that I am not a Marvel employee. I am not a Marvel spokesperson. I am a freelancer. I speak only for myself. That is just as true for the following statement as the previous one.

Also, if he had told me that, I may have been less coy about the following "Spoiler Alert". Anyone who cares not to have stuff that's in ASM #605 revealed now should avert their eyes.

Amazing Spider-Man #605, which went to the printer weeks ago, makes it clear that Michelle and Chameleon did nothing more than make out in the kitchen scene in #603.

There was no sex, and therefore no rape.

And I'll simply point out that in the scene in ASM #604 when Peter comes home he has no idea why, exactly, Michelle is treating him differently, only that she is. He learns why-- at least partly -- and he responds, in #605.

Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.

Best,
Fred Van Lente

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	scottyquick 2009-09-13 10:13 pm UTC (link)
	Way to make me curious, jerk. No amount of Diane Lance can save my brain from "this is the same thing as James Bond". (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

zordboy
2009-09-14 12:13 am UTC (link)

That is a point though.

If lying to get sex counted as rape, all those women Bond *didn't* tell that he was a secret agent -- would that make him one of the greatest serial rapists in the history of fiction? You're talking dozens of women here.

It's why I'm having trouble agreeing with "lying to get a woman in bed" should be just out-and-out rape. Because there's just too much wild interpretations to go along with it. Gaining sex through dishonesty is still morally abhorrent, but the James Bond thing is a good point. When is it rape and when it just a guy being a jerk?

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bluefall
2009-09-14 12:32 am UTC (link)

The question is, why is that even the question? How sick and wrong is it to have a discussion that basically amounts to, "but can I still get away with this - how about this - how predatory am I allowed to be"? How fucking warped a perspective is that to have on sex? Making it about victory and conquest and some kind of battle between the involved parties, where one's trying to get it and the other's trying to keep it? Consent should never be a question. If you have any reason to think that your prospective partner might not want to have sex with you, why are you trying to get it anyway? Why should the lies even come into it?

That said, there's a huge difference between "withholding personal information from a sexual transaction that does not involve that information" and "relying on false information to get someone into bed." If Chameleon had tried to pick up an anonymous stranger in a bar while wearing Peter's face, no, that's not a particularly rapelike act. He's withholding information, but it's not relevant information. Whoever he goes home with consented to sleep with *him*.

This woman consented to sleep with Peter Parker. Someone she knows. For reasons that involve, very clearly, who Peter is as a person, and not who Chameleon was when they met. That is very different, and very much rape.

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zordboy
2009-09-14 12:54 am UTC (link)

And I understand that difference. At no point would I agree that lying to get sex is okay. But I still would be very hesitant to call it rape. Going down that road, has there ever been a time when Kal-El consumated his relationship with Lois (in either identity) and didn't tell her about said double-identity?

Because that logic tells us that Superman raped Lois Lane. Anyone in the audience going to argue that? And that also makes Bond a serial rapist.

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bluefall
2009-09-14 01:20 am UTC (link)

No, it doesn't. Because again, Bond is not getting people into bed on anything other than his own charisma. The women he sleeps with have consented to sleeping with the person they're with. That's manifestly unlike consenting to sleeping with a different person than the one you sleep with, which is not consent at all.

It's not about "going down that road," there's no slippery slope argument here, there is quite simply no relation between consent on little information and total failure of consent. Superman and his double identity don't even begin to come into it, they have nothing to do whatsoever with this argument. There is no question of consent there. If Lois agreed to sex with Clark Kent, and slept with Clark Kent, how is that even in the same universe as agreeing to have sex with Peter Parker and actually having sex with the Chameleon?

This isn't a fantasy scenario, by the way, some metaphorical extension of typical "pretend to be rich" barfly deception. This is something that translates directly to real life. Imagine a committed couple, Dick and Jane, and a third party, Joe. Joe thinks Jane is hot. Dick and Jane go to a costume party, and Dick wears a full-body knight costume. Joe buys the same costume. At some point during the night, he uses that costume to present himself to Jane as though he were Dick, and has sex with her. Are you really going to argue that's not rape? That that, in any way, meets the criteria of "informed consent"? That it is remotely comparable to not telling a one-night stand that you have an interesting day job?

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zordboy
2009-09-14 01:47 am UTC (link)

"There is no question of consent there."

Lois didn't agree to have sex with her nerdy co-worker she doesn't like that much. She was consenting to sex with someone else, the tall studly guy with the red cape. But that's okay?

The reader knows Clark's a decent guy and we know the Chameleon isn't, but if that's the only difference, then consent isn't coming into it is it? "Chameleon and Peter Parker *aren't* the same person" -- well, Lois thought Clark and Kal weren't the same person.

Same idea. I mean hell, wouldn't some of Bond's conquests offered a different decision knowing the disturbing high mortality rate his girlfriends tend to have, and the enemies his interesting day job tends to attract?

"The women he sleeps with have consented to sleeping with the person they're with."

Except he chose not to mention some reasonably important information that will, in all likelihood, cause very bad things to happen. How many times has he slept with someone who didn't know about the 007 thing, and he then had to rescue them? Again, for them to have "informed" consent, shouldn't he have mentioned that in passing? But he didn't.

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bluefall
2009-09-14 02:00 am UTC (link)

She was consenting to sex with someone else, the tall studly guy with the red cape.

Which is exactly who she had sex with. The fact that he's also Clark Kent is about as relevant as the fact that he likes to do crochet in his spare time, and Lois hates crochet. That is not even the same universe as agreeing to have sex with someone and consequently sleeping with someone entirely different.

Again, for them to have "informed" consent, shouldn't he have mentioned that in passing?

No. Failing to volunteer information and thereby presenting the best possible picture of yourself is not remotely the same as giving false information and thereby capitalizing on someone else's picture entirely. I don't know how many different ways I can say this.

Bond is, of course, a gold-plated asshole. Nobody's arguing that. What he does is probably comparable to not telling your partner you have an STD (which I bet he's also done regularly), or that you're actually married to a jealous prizefighter. Part of being a sexually active adult is knowing that sex carries a risk of contracting STDs or jealous lovers. Hence it is reasonable to expect that "informed" is the default state wrt to Bond's jackassery.

It is not reasonable to expect that someone you believe to be one person is actually somebody else. "Informed" is not possible in this case unless the masquerader himself spills the beans.

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	arilou_skiff 2009-09-14 06:16 am UTC (link)
	Isn't there an argument for differentiating between force and fraud here? Just like there is an argument for making robbery and fraud different crimes? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	janegray 2009-09-14 08:22 pm UTC (link)
	The argument that "if he didn't use force or the threat of force, it wasn't rape" makes no sense. Drugging somebody to get them in bed is considered rape, yet there is no actual force involved in fucking an unconscious person. They are both rape, just like robbery and fraud are both theft. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	arilou_skiff 2009-09-14 09:06 pm UTC (link)
	Drugging someone can be considered to be use of force though. (Just like drugging someone and kidnapping them is) there is precedent for feeding someone drugs being considered an act of assault, IIRC. (Reply to this) (Parent)

arilou_skiff
2009-09-14 09:21 pm UTC (link)

I'd also note that at least where I'm from robbery is *not* theft. And neither is fraud. Robbery is folded under chapter eight: "On Theft, Robbery and other crimes of acquisition" (as seen theft and robbery are two separate crimes) while Fraud is filed under "Fraud and other dishonesty".

Rape is filed under "Sexual crimes", along with a bunch of other crimes. It is specifically defined as "He who (the language is gender-neutral, but I'm not sure how to replicate that in english) through violence or threats of violence or criminal action coerces another to sexual intercourse or act which is considered to be equal thereof [actual sentencing guidelines]
The same is to be the case if the person has intercourse or other sexual act that according to the first section is comparable to intercourse by means of illegitimately exploiting that the person due to unconsciousness, sleep, intoxication or other effects of drugs, sickness, bodily injury or mental illness or otherwise taken into consideration of the circumstances is considered to be in a state of helplessness."

Note that there are other sexual crimes with wider applicability than rape.

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	ashtoreth 2009-09-14 06:27 pm UTC (link)
	I'm the only one who thinks James Bond was a rapist? Sean Connery era Bond and some nurse who he forced to have sex or he'd tell on her...something? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bluefall 2009-09-14 06:32 pm UTC (link)
	Did he? I've only ever seen a couple Bond films, since the whole franchise appears custom-designed to irritate me, but if he was pulling shit like that, then yeah... glad I haven't seen it. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

psychop_rex
2009-09-15 11:12 am UTC (link)

For the record, I HAVE seen that one, and I'm pretty certain that no, he didn't. The scene in question is one where Bond is at a health resort, and a villain has just busted up the place while the beautiful female attendant was elsewhere. She comes back, and starts getting anxious about how it'll be her job if her boss finds out that she wasn't where she was supposed to be. Bond is like 'Well, I can think of ONE way you could convince me not to tell', and she goes 'You don't mean...? Oh, no,' and he says 'oh, yes,' and they go behind a curtain and the scene changes. True, one could view that as sex through blackmail if viewed literally, but it needs to be seen in context - James has been bustin' the Bond moves on this attendant since he first arrived, and she's been playing the 'exasperated but possibly interested' card for a similar amount of time. They've been flirting, is what I mean, and the scene plays out as the culmination of that, rather than any sort of display of force. Bond's still a chauvinist pig and all, of course, but I don't think he would ever resort to rape - for one thing, he prides himself on his gentlemanliness, and for another, one of the more ridiculous aspects of the series is how every beautiful woman he meets immediately falls deeply in lust with him and goes 'Sex? Sure! Now? No problem!'

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houbanaut
2009-09-14 11:23 pm UTC (link)

Why is that even a question? Because some of us consider the suggestion that all selfish or unpleasant behavior should be made a crime to be naive, unpractical and highly dangerous.

It's great if people are nice to each other, and we should certainly encourage that, but the reality is that some people are jerks, and all of us are jerks now and then. Making it illegal to be a jerk isn't going to change that.

For as much as you and others insist that impersonating a person the victim knows is completely different from other kinds of deception, there is a continuum there. Like, how about the guy who pretends to be, I don't know, Ricky Martin, in order to get groupies? Rapist? How about the guy who pretends to be in the band? Rapist? How about the guy who carries around a book of poetry just so he'll seem deep? Rapist? How about the guy who tells his date "Yes, that's my favorite movie too!"? Rapist?*

Deception is a tricky thing to legislate because we all use it (studies have shown that the average person tells a lie, IIRC, about a dozen times a day). Yes, some deceptions are criminal and SHOULD be criminal. I think we all agree on that. But when you're classifying certain cases of something so slippery as one of the most heinous crimes there is, it's only natural that people should ask "So where does it stop?"

___
* For the record, my gut feeling is that something like the Chameleon scenario - with sex - would be rape, the Ricky Martin guy might be guilty of some kind of sexual assault (though I have no idea whether the actual current law would agree), the guy pretending to be in the band would be a jerk, the guy with the poetry would be doing something tacky but within the "rules of the game" (which men and women both play), and the guy with the favorite movie is probably OK.

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