So, in this post I shall tackle Cassandra Clare’s response to the attempted-rape scene that happened at the end of CoLS.  I’ve reprinted large chunks of it here, and my comments are in bold.  For those who want, the original is here.  

The incestuous sexual assault in City of Lost Souls is committed by the villain, a child murderer who is planning genocide and is obsessed with control and power. While the scene is certainly upsetting and could be triggering, it is there to show that this character is beyond sympathy or redemption, and for the most part, that’s the reaction I’ve seen – “I tried to like Sebastian but then he tried to rape Clary and I hate his guts now.” 

So…raising the mother of all demons in order to make an evil, mind-controlled army to burn down the world…that wasn’t considered “beyond redemption”?  You had to include rape in order to show that he was evil because trying to burn down the world wasn’t good enough? 

Honest to god, I’d forgive a rapist before I’d forgive the destroyer of all humanity.  That’s not condoning rape, it’s just saying that the second option is quite evil enough.

This also goes into the argument I made in my review, about how painting rapists as “irredeemable” makes us far less likely to bestow that title on someone who deserves it.  If “rapist” is worse than “genocidist,” then of course we’re going to knee-jerk deny it when our own friends and family members are accused.

(And who the fuck was “trying” to like Jonathan in the first place?)

For the reasons listed above, I do believe in trigger warnings for, say, internet posts. That’s what I put this post under a read more tag and added a trigger warning. Books, however, do not and never have come with trigger warnings. When you’re writing books, it’s part of your job to write about things like rape, like sexual assault, like self-mutilation, like torture, like war crimes. Because it’s your job as a writer, even if you’re writing fantasy, to reflect reality. (No one who believes in trigger warnings believes you shouldn’t be able to write about those things on the Internet either; they just think they should be tagged. This seems fair: netiquette is part of making the internet, which is otherwise, unlike published books, totally unpoliced, bearable.) Once you stop being allowed to write about those things, you erase the ability of art to say anything meaningful about them. And that is a great cultural harm.

Wait, so…she admits that trigger warnings are good and don’t prevent people from actually writing about the material being warned about, but…she won’t put one on a book because…no one else does?

Honey, the fact that books don’t currently come with trigger warnings doesn’t mean that’s a good thing.  The current system isn’t a shining paradigm of free speech and open thinking.  I’m actually in favor of better labels for books.  Labels don’t keep people from reading or writing about all sorts of graphic stuff on the internet, and it won’t stop people from doing the same in a print media.

I’ll play devil’s advocate for a moment.  It will keep some people from reading some things.  If you’re ultra conservative and think that rape should not be in a teen’s book, and if you know that a rape will happen up-front, you won’t read it.  But is the argument here that the same ultra-conservative reader will somehow take an unexpected, unwarned-for rape scene…better?  It’s not like just throwing that stuff in their faces is going to make them more tolerant, not if it comes unwelcomed and without context.  If the argument is that you don’t want to lose readers (and money), therefore it’s okay to spring triggering material on them, fine.  Make that argument.  But don’t hide behind free speech.

To say rape shouldn’t be written about, that sexual assault shouldn’t be written about, it is to say that people who are survivors of sexual assault and rape shouldn’t see representations of people like them in books. It is also to say that books should represent a world in which those things don’t happen. This is extremely dangerous thinking. If the reality that rape and sexual abuse exist are wiped from the pages of books, where do the people who have those experiences go to find context for the thing that has happened to them? How about in a book that has actual room to talk about it? (Yes, there are rape and abuse hotlines, there are places you can go for help, but if all traces of what just happened to you have been erased from the media, how do you even know to go and look for help? How do you know that you’re not the lone freak this has ever happened to rather than one of the one out of four women who will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime?)

I get what she’s saying here.  I really do.  Rape and rape culture needs to be represented in our media, and it shouldn’t be restricted to books that are just “about rape.”  When we say that rape can only exist in its own subgenre of books, we’re marginalizing the victims and saying that they need to stay over there, in the corner, away from the “normal” people.  So, yes, rape should be depicted in books that are ultimately about other things.

And the fallout should also be depicted.  You can’t just depict rape and then call it a day.  Rape has far more to it than a single event; it’s a whole culture of consequences.  Throwing a rape into a novel that has neither the time nor the inclination to properly cover it does just as much damage as never including it at all.  Using rape as a cheap short-hand for characterization (which Clare explicitly admits to in this post) does just as much damage as never including it at all.

Books don’t come with trigger warnings because as a society we’ve decided that placing warning labels on art is a cultural wrong. From the American Library Association’s Freedom To Read statement: “We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be “protected” against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.”

That means books can hurt you. Because as a society we’ve decided that is a price we will pay for freedom of expression. This isn’t a treatise on censorship, though I could certainly write one, so I’ll move on.

Wha….  Just….wha….?  Look, trigger warnings aren’t about censorship.  Trigger warnings will not stop people from writing stuff.  There’s no sacrifice of freedom with trigger warnings.  It’s not about being unable to recognize “misinformation,” it’s about not causing pain to your audience.  I’m fairly certain that a rape victim reading CoLS will recognize it as being complete and utter bullshit.  But they’ll also be in a lot of pain in the process.

And bullshit about “warning labels on art is a cultural wrong.”  When did our society decide that?  We’ve got content ratings on movies and entire websites devoted to helping parents avoid problematic books for their small children.

We’re also a culture that decided Jersey Shore should have 6 seasons, so maybe we need to take our “cultural decisions” with a grain of salt.

What troubles me is to see people mocking Clary for having been sexually assaulted, and this sort of rhetoric: “the only reason the attempted rape in CoLS happened was to show how desirable Clary is.”

Alright, if that’s the only argument she’s getting, then fine.  That’s a stupid argument and deserves to be debunked.  But just because that’s a stupid argument doesn’t mean that the rape depiction in the book is without problems.  Actually, what Clare says after this about rape not being equated to desirability is pretty decent.  Just…not terribly relevant to the real problems with CoLS.

 “… and [the scene] had no real point.”

Ah, the “no real point” rhetoric.

[…]

So, I think the theory goes, if Clary were assaulted because she needed to “grow” or “grow up”, then [presumably] there would be A Point. But if the scene is presented, as I hoped and intended it to be, as a violent act against her that she did nothing to “deserve”, then “there is no point.” That is a reaction born out of fear, an understandable fear, but it is also one that unfortunately supports and promulgates rape myths that are very damaging. Anyone can be raped, at any time, at any place, by anyone. That is the truth and it’s an ugly messy truth that doesn’t fit neatly into any box and is therefore very scary. But retelling ourselves dangerous lies about how rape happens because women are stupid, and that when they are raped they had better treat it as a “learning experience”, are not the solution to that fear.

“A Point” doesn’t have to mean that Clary needs this rape to further her storyline.  That’s fair.  No one needs or deserves rape, nor are they required to become a better person afterwards.  But “a point” can also be directed at you, dear author.  If the point isn’t for the character, then the point should be for the audience.  You should actually fucking say something about rape and rape culture.  That would also be “a point.”  You said nothing.  You just tossed that scene out there and then let it hang like an abandoned pet.  In fact, if you wanted, you could have made “a point” about how undeserved the rape attempt was.  You didn’t.

In the same sense, there is a desire to see Clary (not Sebastian) really suffer because she was assaulted. There is a desire to see her feel pain and trauma. 

headsyoulive-tailsyoudie asked you:

Is Clary even a little effected that she was almost raped? I mean, people just don’t get over something like that. Please tell me she has some sort of PTSD or something similar in City of Heavenly Fire.”

It saddens me to see this desire to have Clary really suffer horribly because of the awful behavior of somebody else. I can understand what it’s rooted in — the sense that if she suffers horrifically, she’s a good girl, she’s having the right reaction to a sexual assault, and whatever blame might be otherwise laid at her door will be erased. 

No, the desire to see Clary suffer is the desire to see the pain and horror of rape actually fucking depicted and not brushed under the rug.  It’s not about making her into a “good” girl, it’s about having you, as an author, actually acknowledge what you’ve done.

 “No two women respond in the same way…There is no one correct or preferred way to deal with the feelings and reactions you may find yourself having.”

As I said earlier, one in four women will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime.

I’m one of them.

As it turns out, being a victim of rape doesn’t mean you can write about it well.  (To be clear: I’m talking about her skills, not her right to write.)  The fact that she based Clary’s reactions on her own reactions doesn’t mean she’s actually done a good job at presenting that idea.  Nor does it mean that she’s done a good job at giving the proper thought to the messages she’s sending or the context of that scene in her novel.

Does that mean Clary never will suffer any other kind of reaction? She may: just as there is no one right way to respond to sexual assault, there is no one right time frame to do it in. Clary has suffered multiple traumas and her world is teetering on the edge of a massive war: many people, as a coping stragegy, shove their feelings to the side until what needs to be dealt with has been dealt with. But even if she never blames herself, even if her sexual feelings for Jace are never affected, that does not make her a whore, or make her reaction to her assault invalid or impossible. Some survivors, understandably and validly, develop an aversion to sexual contact after an assault. Others find healing in consensual affection and physical activities like kissing (or any physical activity: I’m using kissing as an example because it’s what happens in City of Lost Souls). Both responses are okay, because again, there is no wrong response for a woman — or man — to have to being assaulted.

All of this here?  Perfectly fine.  Yes, it’s okay for Clary to get angry instead of scared.  Yes, it’s okay for Clary to repress what happened in favor of dealing with bigger shit.  Yes, it’s okay for women to respond to rape in whatever way they want.  However, none of that has anything to do with CoLS.  Clary didn’t repress the rape; she straight-up forgot about it.  Clary didn’t get mad at Jonathan for assaulting her; she was already mad at him and her anger didn’t intensify or change.  I think that’s the biggest problem between the author’s intent and what she actually wrote.  Clary may have been acting the same way Clare did in real life, but Clare probably wasn’t being held captive by a child-murdering lunatic before her assault.  It’s all well and good to have Clary react the same way Clare did, but it loses all bite since Clary was already acting that way.  Her emotions and actions can’t be attributed to the rape because they didn’t change.  The argument isn’t about Clary reacting improperly; it’s about her not reacting at all.

Earlier in this post, Clare said that we read to find ourselves in fictional characters, to know that we’re not alone in our experiences.  That’s a statement I quite agree with.  (Well, I think it’s one of the reasons we read fiction.)  But it really bites the author in the ass now, because if a victim comes into this book trying to connect with Clary on an emotional level, they’re going to be severely disappointed.   And, again, it’s not because Clary reacted “wrong.”  It’s because the book itself completely ignores the fact that she was sexually assaulted two seconds after it happened.

But my ask box is full of messages from confused and unhappy young people who identify with Clary, who feel that somehow they are being indicted, they are being told they are ” sluts” or “cunts”, they are being told they are bad people who condone rape even though they do not. Some are survivors of rape who are crushed by the thought that they have failed to respond in the right way and therefore the rape was their fault, or that they must have enjoyed it — one letter was from a girl who was frightened that since she had been sexually assaulted previously, if she tried to have sex with her boyfriend now, it would be awful and traumatic because that was how she was “supposed” to feel. She didn’t feel that way, but reading people saying that Clary kissing her boyfriend after being assaulted and making a joke to him about fishnets was inappropriate and that Clary should and must be too traumatized to do that was frightening for her. (Which made me very sad, because part of the reason I wrote that scene was to portray a girl who even after a sexual assault felt okay with consensual physical affection; I felt it underlined how totally different those two things were. This is again not to invalidate any reaction of shock, horror, or aversion to physical contact: only to say that there is value is presenting the spectrum.)

The sad part here is that Clare is bringing up an issue that really does deserve attention.  It would be great if someone would depict a sexual assault victim who isn’t afraid of sex afterwards.  I think that is something that the world would benefit from.  It’s just, there’s a world of difference between “I recognize that I’ve been assaulted and am working through it in my own way that just so happens to include the need/desire for physical affection” and “rape?  What rape?  Shove off, readers, I don’t want to actually discuss something that happened a whole two chapters ago.”