@P_Tigras, Vendetta has said that while reasonable people can differ, he’d personally consider it a rape. No, I don’t think he’s tried to downplay the awfulness of the choice, though as I suggested above, his understandable decision to be terse about the aftermath (to avoid titillation) has the inadvertent effect of making the choice seem consequence-free. That does, unfortunately, downplay the awfulness – we don’t see the impact of our choice on Carina.
The reader responses have generally gone much further in downplaying the significance of the choice. For you and Shoelip, the denial of rape seems to hang on the idea that consent can’t be invalidated by anything short of physical coercion. You’ve made a few other points, but I’m not sure that many of them are ultimately relevant. Here’s what I mean by that:
Imagine Carina had been kidnapped, and hold everything else in the story equal – visibly terrified, she bursts out crying with her first customer, confesses that the only reason she’s there is that she was abducted at gunpoint, and pleads with him not to tell her boss she complained, because she’s frightened of the consequences. Would any of the following responses make it remotely OK (i.e. not rape) for the customer to sleep with her?
“Well, you haven’t outright said, ‘Please don’t have sex with me’.”
“Some other people have to take jobs that actually kill them, you know.”
“For many individuals, sex work is an enriching, empowering, enjoyable job.”
“I’ll bet you’ll look back on this as no worse than a visit to the dentist.”
“If it’s not me, honey, it’s going to be someone else.”
If we agree that none of those points would be relevant in a situation of physical duress, then we can cut to where I think we actually disagree. I’m suggesting that under some readily imaginable circumstances like having to choose between selling sex and the death of a family member, the choice would also be made under duress, which negates consent. Economic duress and duress of circumstances are well-established legal and moral concepts; a gun to the head is not the only thing that counts as coercion. And while we aren’t given all the details of Carina’s story, she sure acts and looks like someone under duress, who’s reduced to her very last resort. For the protagonist of Vendetta’s game to assume otherwise, given the information he’s got, would be morally reckless.
People can still have dignity when making a choice under duress; I agree with you that there’s a nobility in Carina’s sacrifice to support her family. But I don’t agree that her sacrifice is “cheapened” by recognising that she’s engaged in non-consensual sex.
Finally, however: good point that rape fantasies are not limited to perpetrator fantasies, or to one sex. My reference to “male narratives” that justify rape was unduly sex-specific – sorry, that was sloppy of me.
