After acting out
the first scene of Lidless in class,
I realized how graphic the actions and the dialogue truly are. I wanted to
explore the dynamic of the Invasion of Space by Female act and explore the
opposite: Invasion of Space by Male. First, before I dive into my whole spiel
on double standards, I wanted to outline some of the more graphic parts. As you
reread these parts of the play, switch the gender roles (and body parts) where
necessary. Imagine a man saying these things to a woman. Then, after we can
picture the flipside of this act, we can decide the morality—or lack thereof—behind
the entire idea.
Here are some of
the more graphic parts of the first scene:
ALICE I’m touching myself. My fingers trail up my
thigh as I think of all our bodies could do. I could sink onto your hard, hot
cock. I could bury my face in your neck. You could hold me. You could move me.
You could help me find light and redemption and peace.
And again:
ALICE What’s the matter, Mo? Is the great Islamic
sword too weary to rise today? (Beat.)Holy
mother. Looks like I found your sweet spot. Right here. An inch beneath your
left ear. Jesus. I could hang Old Glory on that pole. I’ve been wasting my time
on white boys. It appears those rumors about Asian men are lies your ladies
tell to keep you to themselves. Selfish bitches.
And again:
ALICE Oh. I forgot to tell you, I’m bleeding, and
there’s nothing shielding you from my twenty-five-year-old cunt, just red, red,
red, staining skin already caked pus white and blue with bruises, making you
the color of the flag I’ve sworn to protect.
Obviously, a
gender reversal in for this scene seems absurd, disgusting, and beyond
publication. If Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig had fictionalized the rape of a woman in
this same manner, she may not have gotten the rights to publish it or the
acknowledgement of her work. While that might seem extreme, the rape of women
is a huge issue throughout the world today; however, the rape of men doesn’t
seem so prevalent, so hearing something like this doesn’t seem so awful.
When I talked to
some of my friends about this first scene, a lot of them seemed disbelieving.
For them, they didn’t really understand how a woman can rape a man. They said, “If
a man is not willing, then it won’t really work.” However, this type of
mentality holds the same weight as the people who claim that certain women “ask
for” rape by the way that they dress and their overall attitudes. This thinking
perpetuates a double standard. If it doesn’t work for one gender, it shouldn’t
be okay for the other.
Rape is a serious
issue, and I think that, while Cowhig brings light to that, she does so in a
very dangerous way. A simple imagining of role reversal borders on extremely
inappropriate and offensive text. Do you guys agree or disagree?
I liked that the author used a male victim with a female rapist because the fact is, despite popular thought, male rape happens. It is entirely possible for a female to rape a male. Male rape is even more under reported than female rape is. Male rape is used to grab our attention, but I do not think that the author borders on an extremely inappropriate and offensive text merely because of the use of a female rapist. In either way, rape is a moral atrocity whether the perpetrator it a male or female. Even though I do not care for the particular language the author uses to describe the rape scene, it is probably a somewhat realistic interpretation. I do not agree that "the rape of men doesn’t seem so prevalent, so hearing something like this doesn’t seem so awful." I think because we do not hear about male rape as often hearing it makes it even more shocking when we hear about it. This is partly because we have been partially desensitized to hearing about female rape because it is more common, and of the socially driven view that males are bigger, stronger, and have stronger willpower so they cannot be raped. This author uses the reversed gender roles to really get the readers attention and to bring out the atrocities of rape and torture.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32361
I think Cowhig is trying to shed some light on a less publicized issue, which is male rape. Your friends’ responses are all too common, as I’ve heard many people make the same claims. While I was reading the text out loud in class on Monday, it was extremely challenging but I pushed through because I felt like it was important for people to hear it voiced in order to convey the extremely horrific nature of the words. Like I mentioned in class, when I initially read the play, I was able to just skim that part of the text to just get the idea of it. Hearing/saying it aloud, however, emphasized the horrific details. The text, in my opinion, combats the notion that “men can’t be raped” by showing a realistic (yet obviously terrible) example of how that could happen. Thus, I feel as though the text is doing something very important, which is raising awareness of male rape since most people tend to focus primarily on female rape.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you, Bethany, that similar language describing a female rape would definitely experience more criticism, and the author would likely have a much harder time getting published. I feel as though that issue, however, speaks more to the fact that male rape is, at this point in time, not as big of an issue as female rape is for most people.
If we were able to reverse these roles and have a female being raped, it would completely change things. The torture tactic being discussed here is "invasion of space by a female" not "rape". Is this title simply a nice way of phrasing rape? Im not sure how we define rape and I'm sure everyone has different opinions but I feel that there is a significant difference between sexually taunting someone and actually raping them. Noted above, it is in fact possible for a man to get raped, maybe not as easily as it is for women to get raped but surly possibly. In this situation, rape is not just being taken advantage of, it is going against religious beliefs. That is where this tactic is most successful( for the interrogators) and terrible( for the detainee). The religious beliefs are what we have to be careful about when examining this by switching the roles of male and female. When we switch the roles and a female is getting raped, it seems as though the driving force to talk would simply be not wanting to get raped, where as the driving force for males to talk would be the religious views that are associated with close contact to females that are not their wives. Having said that, I feel that the torture tactic of "invasion of space by male/female" or "rape" would be equally horrific to experience for each sex.
ReplyDeleteI looked up “Invasion of space by female” and found this on a research archive. “’Invasion of Space by a Female’ is used to describe a number of tactics, from a female interrogator straddling [a detainee] and molesting him while other military guards pin his body to the floor against his will to a female interrogator rubbing his neck and hair, often until [the detainee] resists with force and is subdued by military guards.” In one instance, this caused the detainee to get agitated by the females physically close presence and told his story in order to get out.
ReplyDeleteI agree and disagree with what you’re saying. Rape is rape, whether it’s a female or male rapist, it is just as atrocious and inappropriate when a man does it as when a woman does it. But, I do agree that it would have been much harder for Frances Ya- Chu Cowhig to have gotten this play published if she had reversed genders in the first scene, just because the media always portrays female rape and we barely ever hear about male rape.
I wish I could have been in class to see the scene acted out because I feel like it could have felt much more real. Although reading it gives me an idea, seeing it always helps make it clearer.