(no subject)

[ysobel]

The more informed I get about rape culture and the concept of enthusiastic consent, the more squicked out I get by incidents, RL or fictional, involving aggressive romantic/sexual pursuit of an uninterested party.

I finished my rewatch of Star Trek TNG and have moved on to DS9, and there's an episode where basically Lwaxana Troi gets attracted to Odo, who is eminently uninterested and pretty much asexual+aromantic in general (I can't remember if this changes later in the series but at the moment that is his explicit canonical stance), and just. Eurgh. And he goes to Sisko for help, who is amused and suggests mainly that he let himself get caught (because, idek, it would be good for him or something.)

Why why why augh.

Comments

[branchandroot]

And this is supposed to be a full empath, right? It's just /so/ squicky. Especially the non-con elevator sex. Because that's essentially what it amounts to.

You watch that ep and suddenly Deanna's poor, stumbling "do this by the textbook not by instinct" counseling approach makes /so/ much more sense.

[ysobel]

I could buy that she can't read Odo, telepathically or empathically, because of what he is -- he's not even humanoid, and she canonically can't read Ferengi, who are -- and I could maybe, maybe, buy her coming on stronger than she means to because she doesn't have that feedback.

Except that coming on too strong and disregarding the wishes of others *is her thing*, via TNG appearances.

I don't know what I disliked more: the storyline itself, with the non-con elevator not-sex and the "we are totally bffs who understand each other" resolution of it, or Sisko's reaction to it. (Protip: when you are the boss, reacting to straight-up sexual harassment report with basically "hurr, tough luck, why don't you enjoy yourself, lolz" is *not what you are supposed to do omg*.)

I need to go scrub my brain or something.

[highlander_ii]

Odo has feelz - b/c later he has a thing for Kira and she rebuffs him rather a lot.

Star Trek doesn't really seem to have a good understanding of how to handle sex of any kind that isn't consensual. All of the dub-con/non-con/harassment type situations get handled a little wobbly.