# When has a rapist been a sympathetic character? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 7, 2007, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872 "2007-07-07T17:01:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/261 "2014-03-28T16:29:26Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > Evil Captor - I was merely stating my opinion that to the individual women it would feel like rape whether backward Ireland called it so or not. I understand, but I disagree. She would not have understood it as rape, so it wouldn’t FEEL like rape. People back then thought differently than we did. Our atttitudes change, our reactions change. The character may have felt brutalised or violated, but not raped. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/262 "2014-03-28T17:40:09Z")
I still disagree with you, Evil Captor, but it’s off-topic so I’m out. But maybe it’s just semantics or splitting hairs anyway since “brutalized” & “violated” can pretty much equal rape. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/263 "2014-03-28T18:36:10Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > The FIRST US state to make marital rape a crime didn’t do so until 1978. I’ll grant you that there had to have been a lot of people who thought marital rape was a crime prior to then, or the law would not have passed. But even in 1978 there were probably a lot of people who would not have considered it a crime. > > The Quiet Man was made in 1952 and set in contemporary Ireland, a place noted for being deeply sexist and sexually backward. I find it highly unlikely that they would have been in advance of the US on this topic. Unless you can come up with some reason why the home of the [Magdalene laundries](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sidonie-sawyer/-the-true-scandal-of-the-_b_4509415.html) and[hospitals that let mothers die](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar) rather than perform abortions would be in advance of the US on this topic , I stand by my previous statement. Minor note but I believe the Quiet Man is actually set a generation earlier than it was made, around 1922. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/264 "2014-03-28T18:45:06Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Minor note but I believe the Quiet Man is actually set a generation earlier than it was made, around 1922. Looks like you’re right: [The Quiet Man - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quiet_Man) ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/265 "2014-03-29T00:41:26Z")
Wings Of Honneamise- > [@](#): > > On an alternate Earth, an industrial civilization is flourishing amid an impending war between two bordering nations: the Kingdom of Honneamise and “The Republic”. > Shirotsugh Lhadatt is an unmotivated young man who has drifted into his nation’s lackadaisical space program. After the death of a fellow astronaut, he nurtures a close acquaintance with a young religious woman named Riquinni Nonderaiko. Seeing Lhadatt as a prime example of what mankind is capable of, and understanding the godliness and ground-breaking nature of his work, she inspires him to become the first man in space. > **[Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Space_Force:_The_Wings_of_Honn%C3%AAamise)** > > Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (Japanese: 王立宇宙軍~オネアミスの翼, Hepburn: Ōritsu Uchūgun: Oneamisu no Tsubasa) is a 1987 Japanese animated science fiction film written and directed by Hiroyuki Yamaga, co-produced by Hiroaki Inoue and Hiroyuki Sueyoshi, and planned by Toshio Okada and Shigeru Watanabe, with music by Ryuichi Sakamoto. The story takes place in an alternate world where a disengaged young man, Shirotsugh, inspired by an idealistic woman, Riquinni, volunteers to become the firs... The male protagonist tries to rape a woman but fails, he apologizes and they remain on good terms. It is a very interesting part of an otherwise straightforward movie, do you continue to sympathize with him? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/266 "2014-03-31T19:21:08Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > For you. I see him as an honest coward, cad, and bully, not to mention successful and interesting. I believe you do Flashy an injustice as well-- as I recall, he drew the line at murder. I’m pretty sure there’s even a passage where he boasts that you cannot find a single instance of assassination in all his long history. He tortures (by breaking his toes) and murders a man in _Royal Flash_. Admittedly the guy he tortured and killed was a very bad man, who had just tried to kill him, but it was in no ways self-defence: he has him tied up and drops him over a cliff after promising to “let him go”. (He does “let him go” - over the cliff). Why is that a shock? He’s certainly no stranger to killing people, and as per the OP he’s raped at least once, in the first book - an Afgan woman (which of course has dire consequences for him). > [@](#): > > And at least he’s not a liar and a thief like Huck Finn, or a mass murderer like Ender Wiggen, or a mutilator like King David, or an anti-capitalist rebel like Christ, or a prostitute like Holly Golightly, or mad like Hercules, or yadda yadda hopefully you get the point. I dunno where the heat is coming from. Flashy doesn’t deny he’s a rotter, he revels in it. The reason he’s amusing as a protagonist is that he’s an honest rotter, but that hardly makes him a good guy. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/267 "2014-03-31T19:31:47Z")
Tommy Gibbs, the main character in [_Black Caesar_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Caesar_(film)), rapes a woman he’s coerced into a relationship with him, and in fact complains that their (married, by then) sex life isn’t consensual (“Why you always got to be raped?”). He buys her gifts to clear his conscience, but clearly resents her for not loving him. And yet, for a murdering, gangster, rapist, Tommy is a sympathetic character: he’s merely trying to succeed in a world that won’t allow a black man to do so legitimately, and is consequently overly fixated on the trappings of material success, and filled with rage over the various injustices that have marked his life. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/268 "2014-03-31T19:45:29Z")
To add to my previous post: there is even an example of an attempt at formal assassination by Flashy - albeit unsucssessful. In his old age, Flashy attempts to assassinate Colonel Sebastian Moran, but is forestalled by the would-be victim’s arrest (this is in the short story _Flashman and the Tiger_ - in that case, his motives were for once honorable - he’s saving his granddaughter from Moran’s blackmail, he’s out to humiliate her by blackmail-forced sex in order to revenge himself on Flashy). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/269 "2014-04-01T00:31:55Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > To add to my previous post: there is even an example of an attempt at formal assassination by Flashy - albeit unsucssessful. In his old age, Flashy attempts to assassinate Colonel Sebastian Moran, but is forestalled by the would-be victim’s arrest… Is Moran arrested at the behest of Sherlock Holmes in what we know to be Conan Doyle’s story “The Empty House”? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/270 "2014-04-01T14:05:18Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Is Moran arrested at the behest of Sherlock Holmes in what we know to be Conan Doyle’s story “The Empty House”? Yes, and there is a very funny scene Where Sherlock comes across an elderly Flashy pretending to be a wino lurking outside the empty house (he was following Moran to kill him), and makes all sorts of mistaken deductions about him … while Watson _almost_ recognizes him. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/271 "2014-04-02T03:24:09Z")
Nice. I like it. ---
**Author:** ![Andiethewestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Andiethewestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andiethewestie)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/272 "2014-04-02T08:38:15Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > Evil Captor - I have to disagree with you. (" … what he did might be rape to our modern understanding, but it wouldn’t be to his … or his bride’s. e") > Decades ago A husband forcing himself on his wife might not have seemed like rape to the man but I’m pretty darn sure it did to the woman, or bride. That’s why the laws were changed. I totally agree with you. The Forsythe Saga is 19th century England, and even though what the lawyer Soames did to his wife was legal, and all the fall out of her leaving him caused her scorn in social circles, what he did was rape. She knew it, more importantly so did he. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/273 "2014-04-02T09:25:20Z")
From The World According To Garp > [@](#): > > [while telling Dean Bodger and her son about his father, who was a brain damaged WW2 veteran with spontaneous erections she was the nurse of] > > Jenny Fields: Where was I? > > T. S. Garp: He kept having erections. > > Jenny Fields: Thank you. He was dying. I wanted a child. It was a good way to have one without the bother of a husband around… who had legal rights to my body. So, one night at work… when the wounded and maimed were all asleep, I went to him. He was asleep. But his erection was there, as always. I removed my undergarments and climbed on top of him. He woke up then. He said the only word other than his name that I ever heard him utter. He said, “good.” It didn’t take very long, and that once was all that was needed. > > Dean Bodger: You raped him! You raped a dying man! ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/274 "2014-04-02T20:57:40Z")
There’s an episode of Law and Order: SVU where, for a brief tiny moment, you feel sorry for the rapist (well, in this case an attempted rapist.) The beginning of the episode has the would-be-rapist break into a woman’s apartment, but before he can do the dead, she manages to defend herself, keep him restrained, and call 911. When the police arrive, he wants to press assault charges on her, while she wants to press rape charges against him. He’s angry and confused, because he says she _wanted_ to have sex. He then tells the cops about a rape-fantasy website he went to, where he and the woman were messaging each other. He showed them messages that “proved” she had a rape fantasy, and told him how to break into her apartment to have sex with her, and that she would “act” like she didn’t want to have sex. It turns out that the woman’s psycho ex-boyfriend made the fake profile (so had plenty of pictures, and knowledge of how one could break into the apartment,) and was trying to get her raped. The would-be-rapist may have been a creep, and perhaps even pretty naive about things, but he honestly thought he was going to have consensual sex. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/275 "2014-04-02T21:02:48Z")
not to be too snarky about a serious subject, but Pepe LePew the Warner Bros cartoon skunk was always forcing himself physically on females who clearly didn’t want him. not my favorite cartoons, but I guess some people liked him. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/276 "2014-04-02T21:16:41Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > not to be too snarky about a serious subject, but Pepe LePew the Warner Bros cartoon skunk was always forcing himself physically on females who clearly didn’t want him. not my favorite cartoons, but I guess some people liked him. Sexual harrassment and stalking certainly, but surely not rape … unless there were Pepe LePew cartoons that I didn’t see as a kid. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/277 "2014-04-02T21:53:40Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > not to be too snarky about a serious subject, but Pepe LePew the Warner Bros cartoon skunk was always forcing himself physically on females who clearly didn’t want him. not my favorite cartoons, but I guess some people liked him. > [@Malthus](#): > > Sexual harrassment and stalking certainly, but surely not rape … unless there were Pepe LePew cartoons that I didn’t see as a kid. 😉 That seizing the hand and running kisses up and down the arm would probably get him pepper sprayed today. 🙂 _(Of course, his propensity for calling women “so round, so firm, so fully packed” might get him **shot**.)_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/278 "2014-04-02T23:14:07Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I suspect it’s more likely he meant Maureen O’Hara, not Catherine. Although a version of The Quiet Man with John Candy and Catherine O’Hara would certainly have been interesting. Correct I thought of my mistake while I was away from my compute and just came back to correct it. ---
**Author:** ![Mislav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mislav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mislav)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/279 "2014-04-15T12:15:51Z")
Simon Adebisi from OZ seemed to be pretty popular character although he would rape inmates on daily basis. I didn’t find him sympathetic though. I’m glad that Kareem killed him. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872/280 "2014-04-15T13:57:07Z")
> [@Mislav](#): > > Simon Adebisi from OZ seemed to be pretty popular character although he would rape inmates on daily basis. I didn’t find him sympathetic though. I’m glad that Kareem killed him. Side question: is it easier for a rapist to be a sympathetic character if said rapist rapes men, rather than women? My instant impulse is “yes.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-has-a-rapist-been-a-sympathetic-character/410872.md?page=15)