And while we're on the subject, another kudos to Buffy on something

So as I continued, for reasons beyond understanding, to immerse myself in the horror show that is the "debate" over the SGU rape episode, I started to think about other bodyswap TV episodes and how they dealt with sex.

At which point, I remembered Buffy's Who Are You/This Year's Girl, and how Faith slept with Riley.

And the reason I like how that played out is that there was a real demonstration of how painful this was for Buffy - instead of a reset-button kind of thing which is what usually happens when women are mind-controlled/bodyswapped/drugged into sex in TV shows, so that there's no real sense of any harm done (I'm looking at you, SGA and Supernatural).

Now, this was a slightly different situation - it was a rape of Buffy, she hadn't consented, but Riley of course was ignorant of it, so the only rapist was Faith. And because Riley was Buffy's boyfriend, and someone she slept with willingly anyway, Joss could easily have brushed past the rapey-ness (thanks so much, rivkat, for introducing me to that word) and focused solely on Buffy's jealousy, etc, after the fact.

But he didn't. He went out of his way to demonstrate that this was a sexual violation. How? Because he had Faith the Rapist intentionally propose rough, kinky sex to Riley, and it was very clearly an aggressive act against Buffy. Faith could force Buffy to do anything Faith wanted, particularly sexual acts that Buffy would ordinarily find distasteful, and that was Faith's motivation for seducing Riley in the first place.

So, anyway, my point is, that was an episode that did not shy away from demonstrating the horror of the sexual violation to the person being violated - unlike just about every other show that uses this trope.

How strange everyone else must find Americans...

MSNBC's First Read

One of the reasons why the public appears so wary about Obama’s health-care plans is due to all the misinformation out there. Majorities in the poll believe the plans would give health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants (55%), would lead to a government takeover of the health system (54%), and would use taxpayer dollars to pay for women to have abortions (50%) -- all claims that nonpartisan fact-checkers say are untrue about the legislation that has emerged so far from Congress. Additionally, 45% think the reform proposals would allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing medical care for the elderly, which also isn’t true....

In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly. But it would be incorrect to suggest that this is ONLY coming from conservative viewers who tune in to FOX. In fact, 41% of CNN/MSNBC viewers believe the misinformation about illegal immigrants, 39% believe the government takeover stuff, 40% believe the abortion misperception, and 30% believe the stuff about pulling the plug on grandma. What’s more, a good chunk of folks who get their news from broadcast TV (NBC, ABC, CBS) believe these things, too.

Sigh.