6 posts tagged “rape”

This ticked me off, so I’m going to write about it; even though, I know I shouldn’t. It’ll just cause grief.

OK, in a Spider-Man comic, a guy called the Chameleon disguised himself as Peter Parker and had sexual encounter with Peter’s female roommate that may or may not have been actual sex. When asked if sex between the roommate and the disguised Chameleon was rape because the roommate did not know that she was sleeping with the Chameleon, the author said:

My understanding of the definition of rape is that it requires force or the threat of force, so no. Using deception to trick someone into granting consent isn’t quite the same thing.

Which is not to say it isn’t a horrible, evil, reprehensible thing that Chameleon did. He is a bad man.

He insults parapelegics[sic] and dips people in acid too.

Most people looking at the question seem to fall into two camps.

1. Those who say, “Sex by deception in NY does not constitute rape under NY law, so the author was correct, but the act was still despicably immoral.” (I would be in this group.)
2. Those who say “Even though NY does not call it rape and would not prosecute the act as rape, it is still a form of rape because it is sex without actual consent, no matter what the law says.”

As far as I’m concerned either stance is fine. Although I would absolutely take issue with someone saying the act was not immoral, no one appears to be saying that. Everyone is saying the act was despicable.

However, some people looking at responses say that the people responding in the first option above (“It’s not rape as it is defined but it’s still evil.”) are also saying one or more of the following:

1. Therefore, sex by this kind of deception is ethical
2. Therefore, sex by this kind of deception is not a big deal.
3. Therefore, sex by this kind of deception should not be illegal.

I haven't seen anyone support any of those "therefores," and I know I don't. I think the act, had it been real, would have been terribly unethical, a big deal, and should be illegal. Despite the fact that no one seems to be supporting any of the "therefores" hasn't stopped people from claiming that people support them. One of the people in the “You are claiming that therefore ...” camp is a person going by the name Seafire. Seafire writes:

kalinara: one last thing though, I am still not sure the place of legal analysis in this discussion.
I'd give 2 reasons:
1. Just b/c it doesn't meet the legal definition of rape doesn't mean that it isn't rape.
2. More importantly I find it pretty odd that we are willing to have a discussion/analysis on the issue. there have been so many murders in comics have they ever been legally analyzed? I doubt it.
I have a feeling that the only reason why the legal analysis is being used is to say, "Ah well its not legally rape therefore..."
And I would argue that this type of mixing and confusing of legal issues with moral issue that give lawyers the bad reputation that they have.

And continues:

Madthinker: okay so I give up: why the legal analysis? What purpose does it serve unless it is being used to somehow say, hey its NOT rape.
Why not a legal analysis of the different types of murder that have occurred in comics?
Why not a legal analysis of Black Cat's actions as a thief?
I love analysis of comics for new insights etc. But I am not sure what the purpose of the legal analysis of whether it was rape under the law was.
Okay let's contextualize this; an event occurs, that possibly is a crime. That happens alot in comics. The character has not asked for a lawyer, there is no court room involved, no police action... why the legal analysis?
Are you saying that the purpose of the legal analysis by various blogs of this comic was a lesson in law?
- Seafire, not attacking but genuinely perplexed

 Not attacking, she says. I’ll give you three guesses where this ends up. Keep watching:

Madthinker: And just to clarify, we are not even talking about an analysis that involves legal policy; i.e. should this type of situation be considered rape. This is plain and simple an IRAC analysis of a crime. If that is the case, why not IRAC other comic crimes? UNLESS the purpose of the IRAC analysis is to show legally it wasn't rape and therefore absolve Chameleon of his crime.
I personally am a little uncomfortable with the story-line but not as much as other ppl b/c it isn't a violent rape. As notintheface has mentioned in his blog there are other comic stories of this type of deceipt rape. And such stories are also common in folklore, fairy-tales and myths, so I beleive that they have a purpose and reason for existence. That being said I just find it perplexing that we are IRAC-ing this issue. Obviously ppl are not mad over whether it is legally rape or not but whether it is morally/ethically rape or not. And IRAC-ing it does not add anything to the discussion unless you want to make ppl aware about the law to
a. have ppl change the law
b. let ppl know that it wasn't rape and therefore ok
-Seafire

 

Not attacking, just saying that I’m OK with deceiving people into having sex. How could that be seen as an attack on my character? But wait, there’s more “not attacking” to come!

(For those of you not in the legal profession, IRAC is an acronym for a method of doing legal analysis that stands for:

Issue: this is the question you are trying to answer. In this case, under NY law is obtaining consent for sex by disguising yourself as another person with whom that person would give consent an act of rape?

Rule: this would be all the legislation, case law (decisions of previous cases that were similar to this one), legal definitions, etc. that fit the facts above. kalinara dug that law up, which included a case where a twin pretended to be his brother to have sex with his brother’s girl friend and that was found not to be rape. (Yeah, I was a little surprised too.)

Application: combining the facts of the issue with the rules that you discovered on the topic. In this case, looking at the facts of the Chameleon case and comparing them to the facts of the twin case and the legislation.

Conclusion: your answer to the question posed in the issue. As the facts of the twin case are almost identical to the twin case, one would have to conclude that the Chameleon would not be found guilty of rape in NY; although, he would in other states and countries where the rape laws are written differently.)

Seafire continues:

Anyway, let me respond to Seafire’s question of why this issue is being IRAC-ed and not other issues in comics.

First, it was IRAC-ed because if you ask people involved in the legal profession something that looks like a legal question, we tend to respond with a legal answer. “Is this rape?” can be looked at as a religious question, a moral question, a semantic question, or a legal question. All are valid. Legal people, like me and kalinara (a woman who is generally opposed to rape in comics), will tend to give a legal answer.

Second, most murders and thefts in comics are pretty clearly crimes. There is no need to IRAC the Joker gassing people to death or the Black Cat steeling jewelry. The answer is clear. The thing speaks for itself.

Third, the premise that other issues are not IRAC-ed is absolutely false. Just off the top of my head I remember arguing all of the following comic book legal questions online:

Seafire’s conclusions of my character based on my legal analysis of a comic book are that I’m hoping to get away with rape and/or that I love rape loopholes. I’ll remind you that this is based entirely on my legal analysis of a comic book, not my rapey actions or any knowledge of my character beyond an IRAC of a comic book. Not only is this kind of judgmental attack on my character unjustifiable based on this scant evidence (which would also apparently stick to kalinara, a feminist woman who dislikes rape in comics), but one has to wonder why Seafire thinks I would support this loophole? Does Seafire think I’m hoping to develop shape sifting abilities so I can take advantage of this loophole? That I’ll get a clone or discover a long lost identical twin, who can pick up guys that I would fail at, and that I’d ditch my husband and piss of my clone/twin and his partner so I could get a piece of my clone/twin’s partner because I couldn’t be convicted of rape?

The staggering gall of Seafire’s accusation is mind-boggling rude.

In the comment section of Brandon’s column on rape in comics, he defends his column against my critique on it seen here. The first method Brandon uses to defend his smearing of comic writers as rape-obsessed hacks and comic readers as proto-rapists is to attack me and James, who argued against Brandon’s column in the comment section, as being neither notable nor organized writers. Brandon wrote:

I think it's weird that the apparent seriousness or dedication to writing is the mode of attack for you and Jason because neither of you are particularly notable or organized writers.

Perhaps this argument would have been stronger if Brandon had been organized enough to notice that James is not named Jason, but even if we ignore that, this is a really weak defense for libel.

Brandon persists on claiming that comic writers are littering their works with rape origins despite offering no evidence whatsoever that this is actually occurring and having read my evidence that it is not. His defense is that I’m not notable or organized enough to make that criticism. Brandon is telling us that something exists when we can clearly see that it does not. Like the Emperor in his new clothes, Brandon is telling us a naked lie and assumes that he is too important for us to contradict him. Well, he’s not. Saying that my blog is neither notable nor organized may well be true, but that hasn’t dressed up his Emperor’s New Theory by even one thread.

Let me add that there have been plenty of notable and organized people who have been wrong, who toted the popular theory of the day without really scrutinizing it. Bill Kristol comes to mind. He’s certainly notable and must be organized to do all he does, but he’s been wrong repeatedly while spouting whatever popular theory came along. Iraq will be easy! Bush will be great! Sarah Palin is a wonderful idea! Were the people who criticized those theories wrong if they weren’t as notable or organized as Kristol? Saying that comics are full of rape and that male readers are sleazy perverts who hate women is a popular sentiment. You can build a fan base of people who will nod their heads in agreement and tell you how compassionate and wise you are. But you’re still wrong. You’re still lazy. If you aren’t looking to see if those theories hold up against the facts, no amount of praise or organization makes you right. You’re Bill Kristol. You’re Bill O’Reilly. Organized, notable, and wrong.

You can harp on the boob-jiggling joke all you want, the point was there's a weird sense of voyeurism or like pervy-ness going on in rape/sexual assault in comics. Indeed, one reason it's often used in comics is because it's sort of seedy and a way to show sex/sexuality without being overtly sexual.

Wow. It was a joke? I mean did anyone think the following “joke” of his was funny? Take a look again at what he wrote:

And that's rape! It's an origin story or dramatic turn of events that allows a writer a lot of freedom and complexity without doing a whole lot of work. The character is harmed in a way the society at least pretends to see as sometimes worse than murder and therefore gains sympathy, rises above it and therefore becomes "strong[er]", and also, maybe some creepy boob-jiggling panels during the rape scene are in there which makes the whole thing kind of naughty and appeals to the ever-present torture porn aspects of our reptile brains.

So that was a literary theory joke? A pro-feminist rape joke? Did anyone laugh after reading that? He implied that comic writers are lazy and that comic readers are reptilian in their love of rape and that’s a joke? Does that mean that he doesn’t think that writers are lazy or that readers are reptiles because he was being ironic? Or does it mean that he thinks baseless slurs are inherently funny ... you know, so long as they aren’t about him?

What’s odd about this “it was all a joke” defense is that he becomes more insulting to writers and readers in his defense of his “joke.” He implies that writers and/or readers are weird, pervy, and seedy. Will we be told that calling them (i.e. us) weird, pervy, and seedy was also a joke?

Odder still is Brandon’s continued insistence that “it's often used in comics” while also continuing to leave this statement completely unsupported by any facts at all. He still hasn’t told us of even one rape origin scene, boob-jiggling or otherwise (unless Dreadstar’s Willow’s 26 year-old origin story involved a rape which it might have but I can’t remember that far back; I remember there was a rape but in her origin?), so how did he come to the conclusion that rape is often used in comics?

To count all my murders i'd have to take off my shoes and pants

And what does he mean by often? If we were to look at crimes in comics, we’d find that murder, assault, kidnapping, and arson all occur many, many times more often than rapes. Rapes occur is only a tiny fraction of superhero comics. They happen so infrequently that saying that they occur in less than 1% of comics still sounds like a bit of an exaggeration to me. Marvel and DC put out something like 1,500 superhero comics a year. Virtually all of them have assaults in them. Every comic with an explosion is depicting an arson. So many people are held against their will (tied up, trapped behind force fields, shrunken into bottles) or transported to other places (mysterious planets, the Dark Side Club, the Legion of Doom HQ) that I couldn’t even begin to figure the number of kidnappings. I wouldn’t even try to count how many murders happen in a year of comics. In any given year, the Joker (or the Punisher or Wolverine or Darkseid or Midnighter. etc.) alone will kill many times more people as will be raped in all the superhero comics produced by Marvel and DC combined. But Brandon says rape is used often. It’s possible that Brandon thinks that a rape or three a year in comics is often, or that once every 26 years is often, but because he doesn’t back up his claim, we don’t know what “often” means to him or if he is correct about this theory that rapes happens as often as he believes they do.

Superfudge

Judy Blume

If Brandon wants to defend his criticism as criticism and not the hogwash that I think it is, the way to do it is to support his claims that rape is used often in comics by giving examples of it being used often in comics. Attacking me as lacking notoriety or organizational skills is great fun (try it at home!), but doesn’t change the fact that Brandon supports his literary analysis like a 4^th grader who didn’t really read Superfudge, reiterating what he thinks is in the book while bumbling out evasive answers and trying to deflect the focus from himself. It fools no one.

And of course, it could all have been a joke (on a site called “Are you a serious comic reader?”) and if that’s true, I’m sure the following analysis of Brandon’s work will be hoot for him:

Brandon’s writing betrays his love of child abuse discussions, both the merely physical and the perversely sexual. Child abuse has long been a trope in media (e.g. true crime magazines and TV shows, Nabokov novels, and internet porn) used to excite the humors and lure readers in with lurid descriptions. It used mainly by hacks who don’t have the skills to draw readers in with anything other than the most sensational. Brandon uses child abuse often. Child abuse columns (particularly those focusing on sodomy) supply dramatic turns of events that allows the critic a lot of freedom and complexity without doing a whole lot of work. He discusses how the child is harmed in a way the society at least pretends to see as sometimes worse than murder, and therefore, the critic gains sympathy as he appears to rises above the horror of child abuse like a saint slaying a dragon from horseback. He appears morally "strong[er]", while he includes some discussion of semen seeping from various cavities during the abuse scenes, making the whole thing kind of naughty, which appeals to the ever-present power-hungry, sexual, and violent portions of his reader’s caveman brains. Critics like Brandon can’t seem to keep their hands off child abuse. There is no need from some nerdy compilation of data on Brandon’s frequent use of pedophilic imagery. Instead, we can be assured that because Brandon critiques pulp fiction, his writing is sated with the gaudy schlock of sodomized babies.

Pop quiz!

1. Now, that’s _____!

A. criticism

B. a joke

C. libelous

D. poetic justice

E. douchey

A condescending, awkward, contemptuous poopoo head

2 comments

Time for the second response to a couple of bloggers who responded to my post from the other day on criticism of rape in comics. This time, I’m going to get a little mean (for gay readers that's "jungle red" and for straight guys that means "I'm gonna be a real douche") because I took offense to what Brandon wrote here, and I’m clearly a small person. I apologize to everyone (except Brandon) for the tone. I know how you gentle readers hate harsh words. Having said that, however ...

The main point is, Scott's really condescending and there's an awkward contempt when he invokes "feminist criticism" towards the end of his little essay.

Please note, gentle reader, that I referred to Karen Peltier’s post as a “reasoned and levelheaded essay” and Brandon called mine a “little essay” while claiming that I was condescending. If there is a Nobel Prize for Irony, someone’s gonna win a free trip to Stockholm!

I’m not sure what Brandon means by “awkward contempt” in that sentence, but if he means that I have a contempt for feminist criticism, let me assure you that I don’t. I am a feminist and a critic who writes feminist criticism. Mind you, I don’t agree with all feminist criticism or all feminist theories, but I have great regard for feminist theory generally, which is why I’m critical of lazy or unfounded feminist theory. When Physicist A criticizes Physicist Z as being a lazy physicist, who doesn’t back up his theories with actual proof, we don’t assume that Physicist A has contempt for physics. If anything we’d assume that Physicist A holds physics in great regard.

Here is an example of criticism that you will never see me write: Your astrological prognostication is lazy and unsupported by the facts! The reason you won’t see me write that is because I have no respect for astrological theory to start with. It’s all bullshit, so I don’t care how lazy or unsupported astrological claims are because the whole field is lazy and unsupported. The same cannot be said for feminist theory. My fear is that lazy and unsupported feminist criticism lowers feminism in many people’s eyes to the level of astrology, phrenology, and Mormonism. I am saddened by how many women refuse to call themselves feminists. Those women frequently mention this or that bullshit theory as the reason they reject feminism; even though, those same women will say they agree with the central ideas of feminism. Respecting feminism requires that we criticize the bullshit. So if Brandon meant that I had contempt for people who tarnish feminism with dreck cloaked in feminism, he is correct. I do. Feminism deserves better.

I'm not even sure what his point is really, other than some nit-picking at Karen's phrasing and a lot of not-backed-up references to "lazy" comics bloggers.

Not-backed-up references? To make this clear to Brandon and whoever else might not be aware of which lazy comics bloggers I was referring to, I was referring to the Stuff Geeks Love blogger (who I referred to at least twice) and Karen Peltier (who I said I was referring to in the first paragraph while linking to her post that I quoted from.) I said that the SGL blogger was lazy for saying that virtually all strong women in comics were raped and  backed up my contention that s/he was wrong and that Karen was lazy for suggesting that there was some significant frequency of female characters being raped as a means for female ascension to superhero ranks and backed up that she was wrong. Even a moments review of the actual rapes in comics would have revealed the errors they were making, but they didn’t take even that moment. Those are the lazy bloggers and those are the reasons why I called them lazy. Was that not clear? There are other bloggers who might fit the bill who I didn't refer to, of course, but I can’t see how anyone could miss who I referring to after I named her in the first paragraph and quoted her throughout.

Since Brandon seemed to have some trouble figuring out who I was referring to in my earlier post, I’m going to make this one easy for him. (Psst, Brandon, that was me being condescending.) Brandon wrote this:

And that's rape! It's an origin story or dramatic turn of events that allows a writer a lot of freedom and complexity without doing a whole lot of work. The character is harmed in a way the society at least pretends to see as sometimes worse than murder and therefore gains sympathy, rises above it and therefore becomes "strong[er]", and also, maybe some creepy boob-jiggling panels during the rape scene are in there which makes the whole thing kind of naughty and appeals to the ever-present torture porn aspects of our reptile brains.

But this is a not-backed-up reference ... Ugh. That is really poor writing. Let me start try that again.

But that is an unsubstantiated reference to something that may or may not have happened in a comic character’s origin story -- at least, I don't think it has happened in the kinds of comic origin stories that Karen and I were referring to. Creepy, boob-jiggling panels during the rape scene?  I can’t think of any superhero’s origin that this fits. Is he referring to Red Sonja? Is he reading a Penthouse comic? Is this a figment conjured from his own reptilian brain that he is projecting onto comic writers?

Not only isn’t there any reference to this bizarre scenario happening in any comic, Brandon makes reference to exactly zero (0) actual rapes in comics. He references specific works of literature written over a century ago. He references specific films. He mentions some TV characters. He embedded a video of a band. He mentions some male comic book characters who weren’t raped, but there isn’t a single mention of an actual rape that happened in any comic book. In fact, he doesn’t even mention a single female comic book character unless we count Skully from the X Files spin-off comic. That is lazy comic criticism. LAZY!

(Brandon, I was referring to you and your adorable, little essay seen here. Perhaps you’re familiar with it. It is the essay I'm quoting from, and you wrote it. I'm calling you, Brandon, a lazy blogger.

You = Lazy Blogger

If you still don't understand that the lazy blogger I am referring to now is you, please, contact me so I can dumb it down more.)

Moreover, given that Brandon has made clear that references shouldn’t be “not-backed-up references” ... Ugh. I just can’t stand it. “Not-backed-up” hyphenated? Really? You’ve read Le Morte d'Arthur, but you don’t own a thesaurus? Or were you too lazy to use it?

Moreover, given that Brandon has made clear that references in essays shouldn’t be

Boob-jiggling rapes are destroying Christmas!

unsubstantiated, unconfirmed, unproven, unsupported, or uncorroborated, pontificating about rape in comics without mentioning even one (1) is yet another example of his ironic writing. (Come on! Someone must have the phone number for the Nobel Prize Committee!)

If you criticize without using critical thinking, you aren’t even a lazy critic. You’re a blowhard. You’re Bill O’Reilly, making up perverse stories from your creepy, boob-jiggling imagination to tar others with your own reptilian fantasies.

Charles yoakum or skrull imposter

Today, I’m going to respond to a couple of bloggers who responded to my post from the other day on criticism of rape in comics, both of which can be seen via Journalista. The first I’m going to respond to is charles yoakum, who judging from the tint of his picture and cleft chin may or may not be a Skrull. I agreed with a lot of what this possible alien conqueror said, so if I don’t comment on it here, you can assume I thought it was brilliant. Perhaps too brilliant ... as if written by someone from an advanced alien society! As for the rest ...

He took the time to do research on the female characters who have been raped, as well as taking the time to annotate some of the lists that he found.

I wish I could claim to having done that annotation, but the bulk of it was done by the folks at When Fangirls Attack. I did some, but most of it was the work of others. So let’s give a big hand to Ragnell, kalinara, and company.

I think that I have to disagree that simply listing the number of female characters who haven't been raped to get a statistical analysis for the percentage of women in comics is missing the point of the arguement for the data:

That depends on what you say is the argument. For instance, if someone says “I don’t like rape in comics,” I won’t argue with that. It’s a subject opinion. (“Subject opinion” is redundant, isn’t it?) But if someone says “Virtually all the strong women in comics have been raped,” that is pretty much as objective statement and it can be argued. You can say that’s not the main point of the original poster’s essay, and I’ll pretty much agree with you. The SGL blogger was suggesting that geeks don’t really like strong women, but saying that strong women in comics are always raped was essentially the only statement made by the SGL blogger to invalidate the strength of women in comics. If “they’re all raped” is the only argument you use to show that comic geeks don’t really like strong women, then your argument falls on its face. There are virtually no weak women in comics and only a small minority of the strong women in comics have been raped. In order for the SGL’s blogger to be correct, the blogger would have show either:

Aunt May will have none of your guff!

1. Most of the strong women in comics have been raped
2. Comic geeks have been requesting rape in comics

Neither statement is supported by the facts. Instead, what we see among modern geeks is a reverence for strong women (e.g. Buffy, Ripley, Xena) and an almost complete disregard for weak women. Can we even name any weak women in our cult favorites? Even Aunt May is now a strong woman who fights Doc Ock and refuses a dependent role.

Comics have primarily been a boys club, and there are years and years worth of negative stereotypes to overcome, especially to a traditional male audience that is generally not known for having fairly enlightened views of sexuality.

I’m a little reluctant to suggest that today’s art or media has the obligation to overcome yesterday’s art or media. I think it is beholden only to itself. But I won’t fight too much (or at all, really) against the idea that it is a good thing to strike a blow for feminism in comics. Why not enlighten? At the same time, I haven’t seen anyone point to a rape story in American comics that suggested something anti-feminist. For instance, I don’t think there have been any rape stories that suggested any of the following:

• the person who was raped deserved it
• the rapist was a good person
• the raped person would come to romanticize the rape
• the raped person really wanted to have sex with the rapist
• rape is not a big deal

Actually, there have been some stories where men have been raped where one might make the case for some (most?) of those, particularly in instances where the rapist was an alien disguised as someone having sex with the hero, e.g. Colossal Boy & the Human Torch.

When the rape stereotype comes up, it can stand out a bit too much like a sore thumb, or at least lazy writing.

But is it lazy writing? Or rather, I should ask, is it any lazier than killing off parents, killing romantic interests, killing cops, destroying cities, destroying countries, destroying planets, threatening to destroy the universe, alien invasions, Nazis, mad scientists, killers on the loose, monsters on the loose, unethical corporations, unethical religious leaders, unethical kings, or unethical politicians? Or for that matter super heroes and super villains? Comics have 20-some pages to get you to feel something big, to make you hate someone and hope our hero beats the crap out him; otherwise, the hero looks like a jerk when he starts beating someone. Writers could eschew those bits of “lazy writing” but would we buy the comics? What will motivate our hero to take violent action within 22 pages (every month!) if not something obviously terrible?

(Here is something fun to try. When you hear someone say that death in comics is a sign of lazy writing, ask that person to name the 10 best comics stories. Odds are you’ll see some death in there. Maybe in most of them. Then ask if Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, and King Lear are examples of hack work.)

As the comics ahve become targeted to a more adult audience, the suggestion of the sexual assault have moved from the inference to more concrete, and thus, has become even more disturbing.

Absolutely true ... well, unless we go back to the golden age, pre-Code crime comics maybe. I’m just guessing here. Where the rapes obvious then? In any event, Sue’s rape was more obvious than anything I can think of from the late 20^th century, i.e. 1973, when I started reading, to 2000.

As a father of two girls, yes, it bothers me tremendously, and while you could argue that that makes the rape an effective dramatic device since I do have an emotional reaction to it, I'm tired of it.

This is the argument against rape in comics that works. This is true. And it is the only argument necessary. There is no need to clutter it up with intellectualization about feminist or literary theory.

The argument that there’s lots of rape in comics fails because it always comes off as an overstatement. Far less than 1% of comics have rape in them. Most writers have written zero rape stories and few have written more than 1. The argument that rape is lazy writing fails because comics are built almost entirely on big, obvious threats that could just as easily be considered lazy writing, but it is for those big, obvious threats that we tend to buy super hero comics. But saying that you just don’t like rape stories works. There is no arguing against it and it seems to be true of many readers, and their real motivation for speaking out against rape in comics. The vast majority of decisions we make are made on our personal feelings, not abstract theories especially when those theories are not supported by the facts. We don’t like rape in comics because we don’t like rape.

Personally, I don’t think comics should do rape stories because they seem to turn off a significant number of readers while not really pulling in new readers. Certainly, there are rape fetishists who like some rape stories in comics, but those don’t tend to be the kind of rape stories told in American superhero comics where the rapist is invariably scum who gets beaten up. Superhero comic rape stories do not empower rapists or indulge what rape fetishists enjoy. So who is really fond of these rape stories? As near as I can tell, the bulk of superhero comics readers fall into two camps in regard to rape stories, the indifferent and the pissed off. There is to my knowledge no one clamoring for more rape in American superhero comics but plenty of people calling for less.

Just as too many years of off-off-off-Broadway plays in New York made me hate the "every male is gay, they just won't admit it" plot line constantly written by gay off-off-off-Broadway playwrites.

Ugh. I’m over those too. And I could do without ever seeing another angst ridden coming out story. Also, I'm getting really tired of Skrulls. Hey, wait a minute ...

This is a response to a response to something I wrote. Both my original post and the response that I am responding to were linked to at Journalista. I think Karen Peltier wrote a reasoned and levelheaded essay, but I think she was off the mark on a couple things. The least of which was here:

Leading off with some of the flaws of the aforementioned article, it is accompanied by a list of 67 female comic book characters who were known to be raped. To counter this, there's a list of 335 (yes, the number is bolded in the article because it's just SO MANY) female characters who weren't raped.

No. I bolded 335 for the same reason I bolded 67, so the numbers could be spotted easily. I bolded 67 before thinking about bolding 335. I’d had trouble with numbering lists on blog posts before where the numbers were cut off, so I thought I’d counter that potential inconvenience with convenient bolding.  I’m always thinking of you, gentle readers. (Of course, I’m usually thinking of you naked, but that’s beside the point.)

And not that I have an extensive knowledge of female superheros, but the percentage of relevance seems way higher in the rape list than in the not raped, where it seems like there are probably literally hundreds of throw-away obscure references.

That could be; however, I would also point out that some of the 67 “rapes” were not in fact rapes and several of them were only “implied,” and we know that at least in one case, the implication was only in the mind of reader, so there may not have been an implication of rape intended by the writer in the other cases either. Also, my list of not raped women didn’t include any characters who were primarily villains, but the raped list did. I could have added plenty of famous female villains to my list. Further, while there are plenty of women on the not raped list that might be considered throw-away characters, I looked that the original list of raped characters as my guide and asked myself, “If this character had been raped, would she have been included on the raped list?” Further still, I left off many, many female characters who had as many or more appearances as the some of the obscure characters on the raped list. If I had included every female character who had as many appearances as Calliope or Cora, the list would have gone into the thousands.

A sort of good point is made in a really stupid way in saying, "If we are to take Stuff Geeks Love at face value, we’d have to say that the blogger thinks that none of the women on the non-raped list are empowered role-models or that none are strong women" which is totally bullshit because of course that's not what they meant,

 She is correct that, of course. they didn’t mean that, which is why I used the conditional “if” phrasing and assumed readers would be smart enough to understand that what I meant by that statement is that the premise of the SGL blogger was built on a false assumption. We know that the blogger must think that some of those female characters are empowered role models, so the assumption that they are also usually raped is wrong and should have been obvious to that SGL blogger if that blogger had taken even a moment to think about the female characters in comics.

but it's important to notice that rape as a means for female ascension to superhero ranks is just the easiest traumatic origin story that most writers can come up with for women.

It may be the easiest traumatic origin story, but it isn’t the most common. Below is the list of women who had rape in their origin stories or retroactive fit into their early lives before they became heroes:

1. Black Canary
2. Black Cat
3. Catwoman
4. Dazzler
5. Hawkeye II
6. Karma
7. Oracle
8. Psylock
9. Red Sonja
10. Starfire
11. Storm

Of these women, maybe 3 or 4 actually had a rape play a significant role in causing the character to

Hawkeye II

take up a heroic identity. We could say that in the cases of the Black Cat (if we count being a costumed thief who helps out sometimes as a heroic identity), Red Sonja (if we count her as being in the “superhero ranks”), and Hawkeye II, their rapes were the motivating factors in the creation of the heroic personas. For the rest of the characters, the link between their rapes and their heroic personas is tenuous. For instance, in the cases of Dazzler, Karma, and Storm, their rapes didn’t cause them to become superheroes. Years passed after their rapes without them donning spandex. All of them became superheroes only after being recruited by the X-Men.

And is rape really the easiest traumatic origin story for women? Why wouldn’t the same traumatic origin story used for Batman, Spider-Man, Ant Man, etc. be the easiest? Below is a list of 28 female characters who had their heroic lives motivated by the deaths of someone close to them (who was usually male.)

1. Aqua Girl (Lorena Marquez)
2. Arwyn from Sojourn
3. Black Canary
4. Black Widow
5. Cameron Chase
6. Cinnamon
7. Dara Brighton (The Sword)
8. Elektra
9. Engineer
10. Huntress
11. Jubilee
12. Karolina Dean
13. Katana
14. Kid Quantum II
15. Liberty Belle
16. Manitou Dawn
17. Molly Hayes
18. Moondragon
19. Namora
20. Nico Minoru
21. Nightshade
22. Onyx
23. Skyrocket
24. Spider-Woman I
25. Tigra (a.k.a. the Cat)
26. Vindicator
27. Vixen
28. Wasp

And of course, there are all sorts of female characters who became heroes for other reasons, usually just because they got super powers, and it seemed like the right thing to do, e.g. the Invisible Woman, She-Hulk, & Wonder Woman. So the idea that comic writers are relying on rape as the “means for female ascension to superhero ranks” is, I think, being rather dramatically overstated. The use of rape is probably the least common. Hawkeye II appears to be the only true superhero for which we can say rape was the means for her ascension to the superhero ranks.

At least most women that are raped in comics make the better of the situation, and while it's still not totally cool, I think the cause of the frequency of rape lies in poor writing rather than intentionally misogynistic intentions.

So if we can toss out all this rape debate as being part of insensitive, unimaginative writing, ...

I’ve seen this theory that writers who use rape are lazy, unimaginative writers before, and I just don’t buy it for two major reasons.

Satana

First, if you look at the rape stories that are told, there is an enormous diversity of stories. Usually when one thinks of a rape story, one is thinking of a story like the rape of Sue Dibny. However, the rape of Sue was a very different story than the statutory rape of Terra, which was a very different story than the forced royal marriage story of Starfire, which is very different than the consent created partially by luck powers story of Dazzler, which is very different than the married Satan without knowing he was Satan story of Victoria Wingate, which is practically the opposite story of the Satana intentionally luring a rapist into attacking her so that she could consume his life force and kill him story. The “rape is unimaginative” theory would suggest that Terra’s story was a cliché and that Dan Slott's She-Hulk story was derivative because he wrote a story that suggested there was something immoral about Starfox using his powers to manipulate people. Man, if I read one more story about a godling from Saturn’s moon using his pleasure creating powers to get a superhero/lawyer to fall in love with an astronaut/werewolf, I’m gonna hurl.

Second, let’s say that Marvel and DC each publish about 15 titles a week, and there are 52 weeks in a year, and each comic averages about 3 acts of violence committed against superheroes per issue, and we were to count up all the acts of violence over the last 25 years (which doesn’t go back in time as far as some of those rapes do), we’d find that there were about 117,000 violent acts in those comics. Of those, about 67 were rapes. That means that about 0.06% of the violence in comics comes from rapes. Of course, I’m just estimating on these numbers, but no matter how you crunch them, rape is not the go-to crime in comics. And of those 67 rapes, few writers have written more than 1 of the stories, so that means that if a writer includes even 1 rape in the hundreds (or even thousands) of acts of violence in the dozens (or even hundreds) of stories he or she writes, that writer runs the risk of being called an unimaginative, poor writer. I do not see how that can be a valid criticism.

Plenty of feminist criticism is fair, correct, and important. However, if we are going to use feminist criticism on comics, we should look at the reality of comics and not the assumed reality of comics. While I have seen plenty of discussion on how lazy comic writers are who use rape in comics, I see little discussion on how lazy critics of comics frequently are when analyzing rape in comics.

Over in Stuff Geeks Love, we are told that one of the things geeks love is Strong Female Characters Who Actually Aren’t. The post is filled with half-truths, myths, and poorly thought out theories to yet again bash straight guys for being straight guys. Here is an example:

Which is not to say that geeks don’t embrace strong female characters. They still love Buffy the Vampire Slayer who, it must be admitted, really did embody many feminist character traits. However, it should be noted that in the Buffy universe, it’s dangerous if female empowerment extends to sexuality. Buffy loses her virginity to Angel, who then becomes evil. Faith, the alternative slayer, is sexually aggressive and also, eventually, evil. The parallel universe Willow is also sexually aggressive (and evil) and also a lesbian, which the real Willow also becomes after losing her virginity to one of the male characters. If there’s one important lesson to be learned from Buffy, it’s that it’s probably best to leave sexual power to the men, as the women just can’t seem to be trusted with it.

There are a couple of things wrong with this theory. Let’s note first how the blogger flip-flops on what makes someone a person who can be trusted with sexual power. Notice how the blogger says that when Faith and Willow showed sexual power they became evil as examples of women not being able to handle sexual power. But when Angel became evil because of his sexual power, that shows that Buffy could not be trusted with sexual power. Huh? Isn’t that Angel’s problem with sexual power, not Buffy’s? Was there a theme running through the entire Angel series that he couldn’t be trusted to have sex? In fact, most of the guys in Joss’s universe seemed to have trouble with sex. Spike was screwing a robot, which was built and used by another geek. Riley Finn couldn’t handle Buffy’s power and became a willing vampire picnic. And didn’t Wesley kind of go evil and then become more sexually powerful?

Cordelia - Sexual Power and a Crossbow

Secondly, this little theory leaves out the most obviously sexually powerful character in the Buffy and Angel series, Cordelia, who didn’t go evil but rather became essentially a good goddess.

Anyway, then the blogger goes after the comic geeks and you know how I hate that!

In the comic book world, if there’s an alleged strong female character, you can count on one thing: she was raped. Rape seems to be the hands-down favorite motivator for turning an ordinary schlubette into an empowerment role-model. Famed comics writer Chris Claremont was a champ at rocketing women from the doomed planet of Rape-ton to emerge as Superwomen. That is, when he wasn’t creating imaginary girlfriends for geeks.

In my old blog, I with the help of my readers came up with this list of female heroes who one might argue had a rape in their background that might have caused to them to become heroes or empowered role-models. Many of these are questionable, however.

1. Black Canary? (was the target of what was read as a rape – although the writer said it was not rape -- , and could at least be considered sexualized violence, and that attack was part of the relaunch of the character as a co-star in the post-Crisis Green Arrow series.)
2. Black Cat
3. Catwoman
4. Dazzler? (whose first use of her power was during an attempted rape but it wasn’t her motivation for becoming heroic)
5. new Hawkeye
6. Karma? (This was the only character of the bunch who I could think of who kind of fit deiseach’s rant about mothers being raped. Karma and her mother were raped during the time as refugees. I’m not convinced this is what caused Karma to become a hero. I could argue it was her first recorded adventure … where she killed her brother.)
7. Oracle? (Barbara was a hero before the Joker shot her, which some people say was rape or at least sexualized, but we can say that the event motivated her to improve her computer skills and become Oracle. Of course, she was already a hero before that happened.)
8. Psylock? (but my readers suggested that the attempted rape “was never a prime motivating factor” in her becoming a heroic figure.)
9. Red Sonja
10. Starfire? (I’m not convinced the rape was what caused her to be a hero, but it does appear to play into her origin story, so that might be close enough to add her to the list.)
11. Storm? (was attacked, and it's heavily implied, raped as a child, but again this was not portrayed as a motivation for her becoming a hero)

So that’s 11 out of hundreds (thousands?) of female characters who might be considered empowered role-models and I’m not sure that Chris Claremont has populated the planet Rape-ton. I’m not convinced he’s even populated the hamlet of Rapeville.

Below is a list complied by Ragnell and kalinara, with the help of some friendly folks at When Fangirls Attack and a few additions by me, of 67 female characters who were sexually assaulted. (Actually, it's less than 67 because some of the things they listed are most definitely not sexual assault, and I've noted those instances when I spotted them.) The list was an attempt to document how often rapes occur in comics. Apparently, they’ve be working on it for about 7 years now.

1. Abby (Ref Needed)
2. Alicia (Fantastic Four #255) Implied
3. Arella (Raven’s mother)* Even though we might consider Trigon disguising himself as a real man false pretense, Arella did seem to be aware that she was “marrying” an extradimensional being/demon, so that gets a little iffy as rape.
4. Arisia (Warrior #42) Implied
5. Atlanna (Incest, Atlantis Chronicles)
6. Aurora* (Supposedly raped by Sabertooth in Weapon X)
7. Barbara Gordon (The Killing Joke) Implied
8. Big Barda (Action Comics #592-593)
9. Book, Mallory* (She-Hulk, seduced by Andy’s Starfox powers, false pretence)
10. Boom Boom* (suggested on the boards that she was raped by Kilgore)
11. Calliope (Sandman)
12. Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel (Avengers#200)
13. Cassie Sandsmark/Wonder Girl (Statutory, TT Annual #1 -- Age?) This was not rape. When both people are underage, it isn’t rape.
14. Catwoman (Her Sister's Keeper)
15. Cobweb (TS#1) Implied
16. Cora (Atlantis Chronicles) I haven’t read the book, but my research suggests this was actually consensual incest.
17. Crazy Jane (DP)
18. Dazzler (False pretenses, Longshot's luck power, ref needed)
19. Debbie Darnell/Star Sapphire (JLA #115) Implied
20. Diana/Wonder Woman (WW#10& 51)
21. Dinah Lance/Black Canary II (GA: The Longbow Hunters) Implied This is disputed by Mike Grell who wrote and drew the scene.
22. Dream Girl (Universo Project) Implied
23. Elektra (Daredevil #181 Implied, Elektra: Assassin #1)
24. Emma Frost (Ref Needed)
25. Engineer/Angela Spica (The Authority #21, 27)
26. Felicia Hardy/Black Cat (SM/BC mini)
27. Grace Choi (Outsiders #17)
28. Hawkgirl (Hawkman, ish # needed)
29. Helen Bertinelli/Huntress (Huntress miniseries ??)
30. Inertia* (Supreme Power #4)
31. Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk (SH#7)
32. Jenny Hayden/Jade (GL#109)
33. Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman (Ref Needed -- Perpetrator was the Purple Man) I believe this is an error. I think she is being confused with Jessica Jones, who was not raped by the Purple Man but was forced to watch rapes, which might be considered close enough to count.
34. Karma* (I believe it is mentioned in Marvel Team-Up #100)
35. Kate Bishop (YA Special #1)
36. Katherine Anne Summers (Uncanny X-Men 156-157)
37. Kinkaid, Unity* (Sandman)
38. Kitty Pryde (Forced marriage, Uncanny X-men 179)
39. Lara of Krypton (false pretenses, forced marriage; World of Krypton trade)
40. Lian Harper (Outsiders #19) Implied
41. Lionheart* (a.k.a. Captain Britain, Avengers v. 3, #77)
42. Marrow (Weapon X: The Draft)
43. Mia Dearden/Speedy II (GA #42)
44. Mirage (NTT -- Need ish #)
45. MacTaggart, Moira *
46. Mockingbird* (Drugged and raped by the Phantom Rider in The Avengers.)
47. Phantom Lady (IC#1)
48. Queen Hippolyta (WW#1)
49. Red Sonja (Kull and the Barbarians #3)
50. Rogue (Ref Needed) I’m not sure how this was even possible.
51. Salamandra (Fantastic Four #515) Implied
52. Sally Sonic (Statuatory, Bulleteer #4)
53. Satana* (An attempted rape in her first appearance in Vampire Tales #2)
54. Saturn Girl (false pretense, forced marriage, ref needed)
55. Scandal* I’m going to count Vadal Savage trying to force her to have a child.
56. Secret (YJ#7)
57. Shining Knight (SK#4)
58. Skids* (suggested on the boards that she was raped by Kilgore)
59. Spider-Woman III* Implied It sure seemed to me that there was some rape going while she was drugged out of her mind, so there wouldn’t be consent.
60. Spoiler (Robin #111)
61. Starfire (Ref needed) Implied I disagree with this one but others don’t, so …
62. Storm (forced marriage, X-treme X-men 11-16)
63. Sue Dibny (IDC #3)
64. Supergirl/Kara Zor-El (Incest, SupergirlV5#5) Implied Incest isn’t rape.
65. Swift/Shen-Li Min (The Authority #27)
66. Terra (Statutory, New Teen Titans v1, issue 39, page 11)
67. Wingate, Victoria (mother of the Satana and the Son of Satan)* False pretenses as the poor dear didn’t realize she was married to Satan.

An asterisks (*) indicates that I added the character to the list of Ragnell and kalinara. Some of them were suggested by other people, but I added 9 of the characters to this list that I came up with myself, which a hefty percent of them, so please don’t accuse me of trying to skew this to may advantage. Pleeeeeease!

“Implied” following an entry means that on the original list, it was marked not as an actual rape that one could be sure of but only as an implied or subtextual rape. As we can see from the Black Canary entry, this can be disputed.

Below is a list of 335 female characters who have not been raped, or at the very least, have not been added to the list above. Please note that I made this list on August 2, 2007, so some of these women may have been raped since then, but I skimmed the list and didn’t notice any. Let me head off a few comments here. First, yes, I agree some of these characters are fairly obscure. I’m sure there are people who don’t know who Courtney Duran and Puck II are. However, I also suspect that people don’t know who Cora (Aquaman’s grandmother who had 1 or 2 appearances in a miniseries almost 2 decades ago) and Calliope (Greek muse of epic poetry who had a single appearance in The Sandman many years ago) are. If we are going to get an idea of the percentage of female characters who are raped in comics, we can’t count all raped women but only count the not raped women if they are prominent and appeared recently. I will also point out that the list below is not exhaustive and omits many, many female characters who had more appearances and more recent appearances than Calliope.

Second, if you are going to say, “But that character …” and then say she died or was turned into an animal or was mind controlled or whatever other thing you want to say that isn’t rape, I’ll agree with you that it happened, but it wasn’t rape, and this post is only about rape. While being turned into an animal or being mind controlled is like rape in that it is a loss of control of self, it isn’t rape, and at one time all the male characters on the DC earth were turned into animals by Circe and at another, the entire population of earth (except Wonder Man who had ealier been mind controlled by the Black Talon) was mind controlled by Dr. Doom, so counting events like those isn’t really helpful unless you want to point out that all male characters have had rape-like experiences too.

1. American Dream (MC2)
2. Amethyst
3. Amphibian (Supreme Power)
4. Andromeda (LHS)
5. Andromeda (Marvel’s Atlantean)
6. Aquagirl
7. Aquagirl II
8. Arachne (akaSpider-WomanII)
9. Arcanna (Squadron Supreme)
10. Arcanna (Supreme Power)
11. Argent
12. Armor
13. Arrowette
14. Artemis
15. AtomGirl/ShrinkingViolet
16. Banner, Betty
17. Batgirl (Cassandra Cain)
18. Batwoman (the new one)
19. Batwoman (the old one)
20. Beautiful Dreamer
21. Big Bertha
22. Black Alice
23. Black Betty
24. Black Cat (Ultimate)
25. Black Orchid
26. Black Widow I
27. Black Widow II
28. Blacklight
29. Blindfold
30. Blink
31. Bloodstone, Elsa
32. Bluestreak
33. Bordeaux, Sasha (Black Queen)
34. Bryant, Betty
35. Bulleteer
36. Cairea
37. Callisto
38. Candy, Etta
39. Captain UK
40. Carter, Sharon
41. Celeste/Neon (LHS)
42. Celsius
43. Cerise
44. Chase, Cameron
45. Cheney, Lila
46. Clea
47. Cloud
48. Cloud 9
49. Contessa Valentina DeFontaine
50. Cooper, Valerie
51. Copycat
52. Crimson Avenger III
53. Crimson Curse
54. Crimson Fox (I, II, &III)
55. Cripps, Ethel
56. Crystal
57. Cyclone
58. Darkstar
59. Dawnstar
60. Dazzler (Ultimate)
61. Dead Girl
62. Dean, Karolina
63. Debrii
64. Deep Blue
65. Diamond Lil
66. Diamondback
67. Dolphin
68. Domino
69. Donovan, Milla
70. Dove III
71. Dr. Light II
72. Duran, Courtney
73. Dusk
74. Dust
75. Echo (aka Ronin)
76. Elasti-Girl
77. Empress
78. Enchantress
79. Energizer
80. Fahrenheit
81. Fairchild, Caitlin
82. Fallen Angel
83. Feral
84. Fever
85. Fire (Black King’s Knight)
86. Firebird
87. Firebrand II
88. Firehawk
89. Firestar
90. Flamebird
91. Foxglove
92. Free Spirit
93. Fury I
94. Fury II
95. Gamora
96. Gloss
97. Goblyn
98. Godiva
99. Gorgeous
100. Gosamyr
101. Gypsy
102. Halo
103. Harbringer
104. Harkness, Agatha
105. Hawk II
106. Hawk III
107. Hellcat
108. Hepzibah
109. Hill, Maria
110. Hub
111. Hudson, Heather (neither the Alpha Flight or Exiles versions)
112. Huntara
113. Husk
114. Ice
115. Icemaiden
116. Infectious Lass
117. Invisible Woman
118. Invisible Woman (Ultimate)
119. Irons, Natasha
120. Jenny Quantum
121. Jet
122. Jolt
123. Joystick
124. Jubilee
125. Judomaster
126. Kale, Jennifer
127. Kapatelis Julia
128. Katana
129. Kent, Martha
130. Kid Quantum II
131. Kinetix
132. Knight, Misty
133. Knockout
134. Komodo
135. Lacuna
136. Lady Blackhawk
137. Lady Lark
138. Lady Mastermind
139. Lady Shiva
140. Ladyhawk
141. Lane, Lois
142. Lane, Lucy
143. Lang, Lana
144. Lemaris, Lori
145. Liberty Belle
146. Liberty Belle II
147. Lifeguard
148. Light Lass
149. Light Speed
150. Lilandra
151. Loa
152. Looker
153. Luna
154. Lyja
155. M
156. Ma Hunkle
157. Madame Web
158. Madame Xanadu
159. Magdalene
160. Magik
161. Magma
162. Manhunter
163. Manitou Dawn
164. Marrina
165. Marvel Girl (Ultimate)
166. Mary Marvel
167. Maxima
168. Maya
169. McGee, Dr. Tina
170. McNamara, Hazel
171. Medusa
172. Meggan
173. Menagerie
174. Mera
175. Mercury
176. Midnight, Jessica (Black Queen’s Bishop)
177. Miller, Layla
178. Minoru, Nico
179. Mirage (Dani Moonstar)
180. Miss America (Freedom Fightes)
181. Miss America (Liberty Legion)
182. Miss Martian
183. Monstress
184. Moondragon
185. Moonstone
186. Morgan, Jennifer
187. Moy, Alyssa
188. Ms. Marvel/She-Thing
189. Murmur
190. Mystique
191. Namora (Agents of Atlas)
192. Namorita
193. Negative Woman
194. Nemesis (Alpha Flight)
195. Neramani, Lilandra
196. Night Girl
197. Night Nurse
198. Nightmask
199. Nightshade
200. Nikki
201. Nocture
202. Noleski, Connie
203. Nova (Frankie Raye)
204. Nuala
205. Omega Sentinel
206. Onyx
207. Owlwoman
208. Pantha
209. Parker, Aunt May
210. Parker, May (Ultimate)
211. Pathway
212. Perez, Valerie
213. Persuasion (a.k.a. Purple Girl)
214. Phantom Girl
215. Phantom Lady III
216. Phyla-Vell (Quasar II)
217. Pixie
218. Platinum
219. Polaris
220. Power Princess
221. Power, Kate (MC2)
222. Princess Projectra/Sensor Girl
223. Prysm
224. Psylocke
225. Psylocke (Ultimate)
226. Puck II
227. Pulsar (aka Capt Marvel, Photon)
228. Push (MC2)
229. Question (the new one)
230. Rainmaker, Sarah
231. Rampage
232. Raptor (Brenda Drago)
233. Ravager
234. Raven
235. Red Bee
236. Red Wing
237. Replica
238. Reyes, Cecillia
239. Risque
240. Rogue (Ultimate)
241. Sabra
242. Sage
243. Sandsmark, Helena
244. Saphire
245. Sawyer, Maggie
246. Scarlet Witch
247. Scarlet Witch (Ultimate)
248. Scorpion
249. Sefton, Amanda
250. Sepulchre/Shadow Woman
251. Sersi (the Eternal)
252. Shadow Lass
253. Shadowcat (Ultimate)
254. Shakira
255. Shanna, the She Devil
256. Shard
257. Shikari
258. Sif
259. Silver Sable
260. Silverclaw
261. Siryn
262. Skyrocket
263. Snowbird
264. Songbird
265. Spaulding, Roxy (Freefall)
266. Spider Girl/Wave (LHS)
267. Spider Woman (Ultimate)
268. Spider Woman I
269. Spider Woman II
270. Spider-Girl
271. Spitfire
272. Squirrel Girl
273. Star Girl
274. Starhawk (Aleta Ogord)
275. Stature
276. Stepford Cockoos (do they count as 3 or 4?)
277. Stinger
278. Storm (Ultimate)
279. Stunner
280. Summers, Rachel (Marvel Girl)
281. Supergirl
282. Surge
283. Talisman
284. Tara
285. Tarantula (Heroes for Hire)
286. Tautin, Josephine (“Mademoiselle Marie, ”Black Queen’s Knight)
287. Tekka
288. Thena (MC2)
289. Thessaly
290. Thompkins, Leslie
291. Thor Girl
292. Thornn
293. Thunder (in the Outsiders)
294. Thunder (LHS)
295. Thundra
296. Tigra
297. Timeslip
298. Topaz
299. Traci
300. Triplicate Girl
301. Troia
302. Tsunami
303. Turbo
304. U-Go Girl
305. Valda
306. Valkyrie
307. Venus (Agents o f Atlas)
308. Venus Dee Milo
309. Vigilante
310. Vision (the Ultimate one)
311. Vixen
312. Wagner, Jakita
313. Walker, Rose
314. Waller, Amanda (White Queen)
315. Wasp
316. Wasp (Ultimate)
317. Watson, Mary Jane (Ultimate)
318. Watson-Parker, Mary Jane
319. Werewolf By Night (the new one)
320. Wheldon, Evangeline
321. White Witch
322. WhiteTiger (from the old Heroes for Hire)
323. WhiteTiger (the newest one)
324. Wicked
325. Wild Thing (MC2)
326. Wind Dancer
327. Windfall
328. Witchfire
329. Wolfsbane
330. Wonder Girl
331. X-23
332. XS
333. Yorkes, Gertrude
334. Zatanna
335. Zolomon, Ashley

So that gives us about 5 times as many not raped female characters as raped female characters, meaning about 20% are raped. Actually, given how very, very many females I didn’t count, the percentage is much less than 20%. For instance, I didn’t count characters who were strictly villains, but Ragnell and kalinara did. If we are to take Stuff Geeks Like at face value, we’d have to say that the blogger thinks that none of the women on the non-raped list are empowered role-models or that none are strong women. I just don’t buy that. In fact, I think it is very difficult to find women in comics who aren’t strong women. I think it would be virtually impossible to find many weak women in

Zombies explain so much

comics who are popular. Hell, it would be very difficult to find any weak women in comics. And what gets me is that bloggers like this seem to think that comic geeks are obsessed with rape while it is the blogger who seems to see rapes that don't even exist.

One of the things that the Stuff Geeks Like blogger suggests that geeks like is zombies. That might explain why the blogger is animating this corpse of a myth to attack geeks ... and why the blogger’s brain seems to have been eaten.