One of my worse-kept dirty secrets is that I do academic research for fun. My friends and colleagues give me a fair amount of shit for this, and I cheerfully counter with the above. It’s true, at least for me. I love the intense cerebral discourse of academia. I love the intricate interweaving of the theoretical and the practical. When I was in college, I assumed that I would go to graduate school, and then build a career in academia; I went straight from earning my B.A. to directing a college writing center. 

I am no longer in academia.That’s not entirely true—I remain involved in academia. But I am no longer part of the Academy. My entrance to the exclusive club of the comics industry came at the cost of both my academic status and the means to advance it. I lack that vital institutional affiliation. And I lack a physical analog to the academic conversations I still pursue by way of listservs and personal correspondence.

I miss it like crazy.

Within the (mostly virtual) academic circles I frequent, I’m something of a rogue scholar. My background in writing center studies and my current vantage point outside of organized academia make me more prone to challenging artificial strata and what I see as cripplingly narrow definitions of “legitimate” scholarship. These days, I tend to go in on the defensive, a little punk, a little pissed off: a riot grrrl stomping around the ivory tower. I figure if I make it clear that I’m not pretending to be what I’m not, it’ll take the real scholars a little longer to catch on and push me back into the margins.

This past December, I was feeling deeply conflicted about my involvement in academia—there had just been a ruffle on the comix-scholars listserv that started when some poor sap asked if anyone know of good comics shops in London and was immediately and nastily attacked for bringing down the tone of the discussion. Over the next forty-eight hours, it grew into a spectacularly bitter fight (which had been brewing and splashing up occasionally for at least as long as I’d been subscribing to the listserv) over the definition of legitimate scholarship and what (if anything) distinguished it from fandom, lay scholarship, and dilettantism. I don’t post much on the listserv, because I recognize when I am out of my element: most of the participants are professional academics, and many of the discussions relate to their individual specialties. I spoke up in this conversation because it was on an issue I had spent a good deal of time studying and considering, and to which I thought I had something useful to add.

My mistake.

I’d like to think that there was a decent conversation, or at least a remotely useful one—that the entire thread wasn’t effectively sideswiped out of the air when a fellow with a Ph.D. decided that it was time someone put this presumptuous little bitch in her place. The topic foundered, lingered halfheartedly for less than a day, and died. It has not come up since; nor have I posted to the listserv since that conversation, although I still read from the margins.

So, anyway.

As I mentioned above, I’m not particularly confident that I belong in academia on the best days, and the scalding public rebuke left me shaken and wondering whether I had any right to be there at all. And all of this happened three days before the deadline for submitting abstracts to the 2008 UF Conference on Comics.

To be continued…

In the meantime, you can discuss this column here.

I’d like to be able to say that I’m back and rarin’ to go, but honestly, I’m still pretty run down. It’s been a hell of a month. Months. Year. And what I’d like to do more than anything else is call in to work and curl up under a big, fluffy blanket with a mug of hot cocoa and peppermint schnapps and watch Miyazaki movies for the next week or so.

But here I am.

I’ve been deliberating lately over whether I should continue to write Inside Out, and, if so, what (if any) kind of schedule I can commit to. I was very, very close to either scrapping the column altogether or putting it on indefinite hiatus. I may still be – I’m honestly not sure.

Here’s the deal: I’m doing a lot of writing these days. In addition to freelance gigs, I’m writing a series (among other content) for Sequential Tart, judging at Project: Rooftop (Joan Rivers, eat your heart out!), doing independent scholarly research, and – and this one’s the clincher – working on my application to a low-residency M.F.A. writing program. Lots of words, and that’s in addition to working full-time and then some, serving as a board member and treasurer of Girl-Wonder.org, moderating a couple fora, building a loft in my studio, getting ready to teach wireworking classes, and developing a top secret super-awesome charity project (I promise I’ll tell you soon!), maintaining personal relationships, and occasionally sleeping – and I’ve got my country’s 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it; I’m swamped.

So, where does all of that leave Inside Out? As I said, I’m really not sure. To some extent, I think I’m going to leave it up to you.

Here are some options:

-Inside Out could become a more general blog, in which I write about my relationship and reactions to comics but spend less time on the industry and more time on scholarship, reviews, and personal observations.

-I could continue to focus on the industry but make more of my posts more personal and anecdotal.

-I could post long critical and informative columns but do so only sporadically.

-I could make Inside Out primarily a q/a and advice column.

-You tell me.

This is the coda to a series about sexual assault and comics. You can find the previous posts here:

Introduction

Rape in the Gutters

Writing Sexual Violence, Part 1

Writing Sexual Violence, Part 2

The Widowmaker

Is It Too Much to Ask?

Rape Is Rape Is Rape

Same-Sex Assault

The Morning After

Back when I wrote about the Conan #39 letter column, several people asked whether I could post the actual text of that column here. I checked with the boss-types, who said yes–provided that I wait ’til Conan #40 hit the stands. Luckily for me, #40 came out in the midst of my panicked preparation for WisCon (Augh! Paper! Panels! Costume Ball!), so I don’t have to come up with a column’s worth of new content.

Before jumping into the letter column, I want to say a few things: First, if you’re glad to see this, please consider buying the comic that it appeared in. Second, this column happened because of the tremendous amount of feedback we got from fans regarding Janissa’s rape. If you like this idea, or if you want to see more of this kind of material, please take a few minutes to shoot off an email to me, Scott Allie, Matt Dryer, or Dark Horse in general to let us know. Finally, although I didn’t get to mention this in the letter column itself, I want to reiterate that it wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of support from Conan‘s editor, Scott Allie; my partner in crime, Katie Moody; the Girl-Wonder community; and former Conan layout artist Thomas Yeates, with whom I corresponded extensively in the process of writing this thing.

So, without further ado, the Conan #39 letter column.

This month I’m handing over the lettercol to my assistant, Rachel Edidin. She’s been making a massive contribution to my books the last six months or so, and had an idea for this month’s lettercol to which I couldn’t say no. By the time she’s done, it’ll be hard to add marketing plugs for our other books, so I’ll get that out of the way here. Next issue of the monthly features Paul Lee and Dave Stewart back with Tim, and Thoth back to mess with Conan’s life. Meanwhile, the epic saga of King Conan’s dark journey into Stygia continues in Conan and the Midnight God.
This lettercol will no doubt renew a topic that’s been kicking around this series for more than two years. I appreciate this sort of dialogue with readers. Some people have written to say that the way some people approach the subject is inappropriate, in one way or another, but I’m happy to see people addressing it, so I try not to judge. There are some things to which it’s hard to have any “proper” response.
Here’s Rachel—

I’m writing this column for two reasons. First, I want to address some issues that have come up in connection with the rape in Janissa’s backstory (Conan #12). Second, April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and in connection with that, I’m going to talk a bit about some sexual assault facts and resources.

Two years and twenty-seven issues after Janissa’s introduction, we’re still getting letters about her. We’ve been accused of misogyny, of misrepresentation, of sloppy storytelling; in addition to the dozen-odd letters that have appeared in columns, we’ve received and responded to several that were simply too long to run.

One of the most common complaints we received was that Janissa just wasn’t a realistic representation of a rape survivor: that someone who had been through what she’d experienced should be severely traumatized and minimally functional, not “a sexy comic book ninja babe.”

I didn’t read Janissa as a sexy comic book ninja babe; from her first appearance, I interpreted her as deeply damaged. But then, I spent four-plus years as a volunteer victim advocate at a rape crisis center, and I’ve had a lot of direct experience with survivors of sexual assault. Everyone reacts to trauma–especially sexual trauma–in different ways; I’ve seen the classic “sobbing in fetal position” scene, but I’ve also seen women who coped with brutal assaults by cracking jokes. What they had experienced was no less traumatic, and the fact that their reactions weren’t the “right” way for a trauma victim to behave makes them no less valid. One of the first things that crisis advocates learn is never to judge a survivor by her or his behavior.

And what if Janissa is sexy? For some survivors, presenting themselves as sexual–and sexy–is a way of reclaiming their sexuality and self-confidence. Sometimes that behavior comes from a less healthy source: some survivors feel that they’re “damaged goods,” and that, as such, they might as well play the part. To me, Janissa reads as confident (or self-destructive) enough to run around in armor that leaves pretty much every vital organ and nerve center exposed. (I’m concerned less with the “sexiness” of her outfit than its wild impracticality!)

So, while Janissa’s demeanor may not be what you’d expect from a trauma survivor, that doesn’t mean it’s not realistic. But is Janissa’s story sexist?

The obvious test is to ask how much the story would change were its protagonist male. Not a lot—you can feasibly replace Janissa with, say, a second son of an aristocrat who’s sick of living a passive life of leisure and goes to a sage to learn how to become strong and self-directed, etc. Case closed, right?

But art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The reality is that a male writer wrote a story about a woman who was gang-raped by demons in a society (and literary form) in which the throwaway status of many female characters reflects the status of women in real life; in which rape is often blown off or blamed on the victim. Regardless a writer’s specific motivation, the fictional use of rape as a default story element in female characters’ back-stories is indicative of how casually and unquestioningly we perceive sexual violence as universal to women’s lives.

Does that mean it’s always inappropriate or sexist to portray women who are rape survivors in comics, or that Kurt’s story was inherently sexist? Hell, no. I think that Kurt’s decision to include rape in Janissa’s background was a sound creative choice. He wanted to create a character who had become a dehumanized fighter; systematic use of sexual violence is a pretty effective means of achieving that end. More important, he didn’t rely on the trope of “woman gets raped and decides to become a warrior”—the rapes are instead the Bone Woman’s vicious twist on Janissa’s desire to develop strength and skill.

But: The objection that a writer, editor, or publisher shouldn’t have to take responsibility for something that isn’t his or her fault—in this case, the tired trope of female heroes as rape survivors—ignores the real problem. While I don’t think that the chronic victimization of female characters is the responsibility of a single writer or publisher, I think that all writers and publishers should take steps to acknowledge and address that problem and the climate that created it. Even small steps (like dedicating a letter column to addressing rape issues in a given comic!) can make a difference by promoting open discussion and increasing awareness.

In America, a woman is raped every two minutes*. It’s been estimated that one in six women is a survivor of sexual violence, but that’s a conservative guess: the real number is likely closer to one in four. More than half of female rape survivors were assaulted when they were under the age of thirty. Nearly a third were assaulted before they were eleven.

Less than a fifth of those assaults are ever reported to law enforcement agencies.

Rape isn’t just a women’s issue. One in thirty-three men has been a victim of rape or attempted rape; of those men, at least half are exclusively heterosexual. Again, that’s a conservative estimate; it’s impossible to know the real number, and men are even less likely than women to report being sexually assaulted.

It was an accident that Janissa’s return coincided with Sexual Assault Awareness Month, but coincidence or not, it’s too important an issue to bypass. Based on the number of letters we’ve gotten about Janissa’s rape, many of you feel the same way.

It’s important to discuss this because rape feeds on silence and shame. Survivors are hesitant to speak up for fear of skepticism and social stigma. The rest of us are hesitant to raise our voices because hey, it isn’t our problem.

Rape is everybody’s problem. If you yourself aren’t a survivor of sexual violence, you more than likely know–or will eventually know–and care about someone who is.

Some Common Myths About Sexual Assault:

Sexual assault is a crime of passion and lust, and victims have usually “led on” their attackers through dress or behavior.
Rape isn’t an act of passion; it’s an act of violence. It isn’t about uncontrollable desire: it’s about power. It is never okay to force sex on someone, no matter how they look or behave.

If she doesn’t protest, it’s not rape.
Acquiescence is not the same as consent. If someone was impaired (chemically or otherwise), verbally coerced, or threatened, or even if they simply didn’t consent, it’s not okay to have sex with them.

All assailants are men / all victims are women.
While it’s true that the majority of rapes involve a male assailant and a female victim, that’s not the whole story. Ten to fifteen percent of rape victims are male, and although female perpetrators are rare, they do exist.

If a man is raped / rapes another man, he must be gay.
Rape doesn’t have anything to do with sexual orientation: remember, it’s about power, not desire. 50% of male rape survivors identify as exclusively heterosexual, as do an even higher percentage of their attackers.

Women often lie about being raped.
According to the FBI, less than 2% of rape reports turn out to be false.

If you or a friend has been assaulted, if you want to know what you can do to help stop sexual assault or support survivors, or if you just want to learn more, here are some resources:

National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1.800.656.HOPE

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network: www.rainn.org

National Sexual Violence Resource Center and Sexual Assault Awareness Month: www.nsvrc.org

Men Can Stop Rape: www.mencanstoprape.org

The Clothesline Project: www.clotheslineproject.org

*All statistics are from either the National Institute of Justice or the Illinois Department of Justice.

Legal note:
Conan #39 (including the above letter column) Copyright © 2007 Conan Properties International, LLC. Conan® and Conan the Barbarian® (including all prominent characters featured in this issue) and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Conan Properties International, LLC unless otherwise noted. All contents © Conan Properties International, LLC unless otherwise noted. Dark Horse Comics® and the Dark Horse logo are trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc., registered in various categories and countries. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental.

Go here to discuss this column.

This is the third installment of a series about sexual assault and comics. You can find the previous posts here:

Introduction

Rape in the Gutters

Writing Sexual Violence, Part 1

On Monday, I brought up some questions writers should consider if they plan to write a story involving sexual assault. Today, I’m going to give some more specific advice about how to write about sexual assault and sexual assault survivors accurately and respectfully.

An awful lot of the popular beliefs about sexual assault are wildly inaccurate. What you assume might be true of a survivor–or a perpetrator–may well be a culturally constructed myth.

Let’s take a look at a typical concept of sexual assault:

The victim is an attractive woman in her late teens to mid twenties. She is dressed attractively if not outright provocatively; she is alone in a risky neighborhood / bar, late at night. She may or may not be intoxicated.

The perpetrator is a man in his mid-to-late thirties. He lacks basic social skills and empathy for other people. He is somewhat disheveled and appears disreputable. He may attempt to make overtures at the victim shortly before outright assaulting her, but they have not encountered each other before that unless he has been stalking her. If the victim attempts to struggle, he will physically overpower her, usually without the aid of a weapon.

The assault itself will be violent. The victim’s body will be visibly bruised, and her clothing will be torn. In the aftermath of the assault, the victim will be either hysterical or catatonic.

If it’s a superhero comic, the rape will likely propel the victim into a career as a superhero. At some point, she will be forced to face her assailant, either literally or metaphorically, to come to terms with her previously repressed emotions / memories regarding the assault.

It’s an exaggeration, but not by much. It’s also informed entirely by cultural myths about rape. Let’s pick them apart and see how they work:

The victim is an attractive woman in her late teens to mid twenties.

We assume that the victim must be sexually desirable and physically vulnerable, which translates to a physically attractive and fairly young woman. Actually, people of all ages and genders are survivors of sexual assault, and physical attractiveness has very little to do with whom rapists target.

Rape is a crime of violence, not sexuality.

She is dressed attractively if not outright provocatively

Again, this stems from the assumption that sexual arousal is the driving force behind sexual assault. It also implies that the victim was assaulted at least partially because of her choice of clothing.

The majority of women who are assaulted are dressed normally at the time. Sexual assault has nothing to do with the victim’s behavior or choices.

she is alone in a risky neighborhood / bar, late at night

This implies again that the victim is at least partially responsible for her own assault; it also reinforces socioeconomic stereotypes, since the rape is assumed to have taken place in a bad–transl: lower-class–neighborhood.

Most perpetrators are of the same socioeconomic class as their victims, and most rapes occur in familiar places, within the victim’s routine.

She may or may not be intoxicated.

And again, we have some implication that the victim’s own irresponsible behavior has put her at risk.

This also implies a correlation between alcohol use and sexual assault. While the two are closely related in some environments–on college campuses, for example, the majority of rapes occur when one or both parties is chemically impaired–drinking neither exonerates perpetrators from responsibility for their actions nor makes victims culpable for what is done to them.

The perpetrator is a man in his mid-to-late thirties.

Most, but not all perpetrators are male. Furthermore, they are all ages. Again, perpetrators tend to fall into the same demographic groups as their victims, so it’s likely–although not universal–that the perpetrator and the victim will be relatively close in age (obviously, this doesn’t hold true for child abuse).

He lacks basic social skills and empathy for other people.

Most perpetrators are generally able to function normally in society. Some are married; many are conventionally attractive. Many regularly engage in consensual sex.

He is somewhat disheveled and appears disreputable.

This image of the perpetrator also feeds into socioeconomic assumptions about criminals. Again, perpetrators tend to target victims in their own socioeconomic classes, which cover a wide spectrum.

He may attempt to make overtures at the victim shortly before outright assaulting her

Based on the assumption that rapists are unable to attract consensual sexual partners because they are socially awkward, etc. See above.

but they have not encountered each other before that unless he has been stalking her

The majority of perpetrators are acquainted with their victims before the assault. Many are friends; some are family or intimate partners.

If the victim attempts to struggle, he will physically overpower her, usually without the aid of a weapon.

Okay–that’s actually pretty accurate. The majority of rapes don’t involve weapons.

The assault itself will be violent.

While sexual assault is an inherently violent act, perpetrators also use verbal coercion and target victims who are asleep, intoxicated, or otherwise impaired.

The victim’s body will be visibly bruised, and her clothing will be torn.

Even violent physical assaults can leave very little evidence. Clothing is surprisingly difficult to tear, and any assailant powerful enough to physically force himself or herself on another person can generally do so without causing them visible injuries.

In the aftermath of the assault, the victim will be either hysterical or catatonic.

I’m gonna rant on this one a bit, because it’s one of my favorite pet peeves. THERE IS NO “STANDARD” OR RIGHT REACTION TO TRAUMA. Yeah, I’ve seen the stereotypical catatonic-in-fetal-position scene, but I’ve also seen survivors of really brutal assaults crack jokes in the ER. Different people cope with trauma in different ways, and it pisses me off endlessly when a survivor’s credibility is questioned because she or he didn’t react in the “right” way to being raped.

If it’s a superhero comic, the rape will likely propel the victim into a career as a superhero. At some point, she will be forced to face her assailant, either literally or metaphorically, to come to terms with her previously repressed emotions / memories regarding the assault.

Obviously, this is where statistics cease to apply. This scenario is offensive not because it’s inaccurate, but because it’s so bloody overused.

That’s all for now. Next week, I’m going to look at a specific comic–Conan #12–and the reactions it elicited.

In the meantime, you can discuss this column here.

This is the second installment of a series about sexual assault and comics. You can find the introduction here and the first installment here.

I previously discussed some of the more common trends in the portrayal of sexual assault in comics and came to the conclusion that the most problematic instances stem from a combination of ignorance and laziness: writers who use rape as a shortcut to add depth to characters without concerning themselves with the depth of the stories themselves. As a result, they end up relying on tired tropes and stereotypes, and their stories in turn perpetuate some of the most harmful and misogynistic myths about sexual violence.

What follows is a writers’ guide to portraying sexual assault. I’m going to break this down into two sections. The first will have to do with general story decisions, and the second (which I’lll post later in the week) will address some specifics. This guide is written with comics–particularly superhero comics–in mind, so if you’re not a comics writer, adapt as necessary to your form of choice.

So, without further ado, I present Rachel’s Guide to Writing About Sexual Assault:

1. Don’t.

Sexual assault, particularly retconned sexual assault, is overused to the point that even the most sensitive and respectful depictions are met with groans of “Oh, no, not again.”

Take a good look at your story. Why do you think a rape is what you need for it to progress? Is there something else that could fill the same function? Unless you have a damn good reason to include rape in a story, you probably shouldn’t. Using sexual assault as a motivation-in-a-box or an equivalent trope will do nothing but steal credibility and respect from a really serious, really important subject. Plus, you’ll look like a twit.

2. Here are some questions to ask yourself if you’re considering including a sexual assault in a story:

-Why do I want to write a story involving sexual assault? If it’s because you think it’ll raise ratings, make your story more “mature,” or identify you as sensitive to women’s issues, think again. If you are an assault survivor writing to exorcize inner demons, seriously consider whether this particular story is the best context in which to work out your issues. I don’t say this to discourage any survivors from telling their stories–something I think is vitally important–but I do want to stress that a fiction story may not be the most appropriate context for doing so, particularly if it involves other people’s characters or plotlines (as in a shared-universe superhero comic).

Some of the worst stories out there come from genuinely concerned individuals who want to raise readers’ awareness of sexual assault issues. Remember that something that you care passionately about or that has affected you deeply and personally may not be the best subject for a fictional story, since it’ll be very hard to separate yourself from your work enough to get a decent perspective.

-How will it affect the development of my characters? Even though sexual assault is a big deal, it’s rarely the single defining experience of a survivor’s life. Using it as a shortcut to character development is a cheap and ultimately ineffective trick, and it’ll come back to haunt you later.

-How will it affect continuity? Will it matter? Why, or why not? “Because rape is a big deal” is not a good enough reason.

-How much do you actually know about sexual assault? Are you a sexual assault survivor? Do you have close friends who are? Have you ever sat in on a rape trial? Have you ever spoken with a perpetrator? If not, odds are pretty good that you have a flawed understanding of the factors surrounding sexual assault, and you’re going to need to do some serious research to write about it without falling into stereotypes.

3. If you’re considering writing sexual assault into a character’s backstory, you should ask yourself a few more:

-What about this character makes me think that she or he is a sexual assault survivor? Why is a history of sexual assault the best explanation for those traits? Not all women who are touch-shy, tough, misandrist, obsessively self-reliant, or paranoid are assault survivors. In fact, most probably aren’t. It goes the other way, too: a confident, caring, and generally well-adjusted individual has as much chance of being a rape survivor as the basket case to her left. Be very wary of less obvious stereotypes, here, too: to assume that a man who is raped or rapes another man is gay, or that a lesbian must have had at least one bad sexual experience with a man is every bit as offensive as–if not more offensive than–making similarly broad assumptions about any other group.

-Why has the issue not come up before? Why is it coming up now? “Because I just thought of it” is not a good enough reason.

-What effect will disclosure of the character’s history have on the story? Will it be a major plot event? How will it affect other characters?

Later this week, I’ll discuss how to handle specific issues and avoid falling into stereotypes when writing about sexual assault. In the meantime, you can discuss this column, ask questions, and make comments here.

This is the first installment of a series on sexual assault and comics. If you haven’t yet read the introduction, you might want to check it out for a little context.

Sexuality is not a black-and-white matter; neither, therefore, is consent. There are infinite shades of gray between consent as defined in the Antioch Policy and the legal and medical definitions of sexual assault. Although we can agree on certain terms and definitions for sexual violence, those definitions are far from universal, and they’re thick with semantic subtleties and qualifiers.

When sexual violence finds its way into comics–when writers choose to portray sexual violence in comics–that ambiguity comes into immediate conflict with the traditionally cut-and-dried morality of mainstream superheroes. In worlds where right is right and wrong is wrong and each is defined by colorful costumes, it’s hard to express the confusing and often conflicting cultural and individual factors that surround and therefore define an assault. Even after the popularization of grim ‘n gritty antiheroes and the introduction of a degree of moral ambiguity to comics, the form remains more likely than most to oversimplify both characters and their actions. Furthermore, they’re only gradually emerging from a long tradition of sexism, if not outright misogyny, and the problematic portrayal of women in comics further complicates the issue of sexual assault within the medium.

Sexual assault is almost impossible to express well or respectfully when the characters concerned are themselves simplified to the point of stereotypes. It’s an intensely personal act and experience whose nature and repercussions are heavily colored by both cultural nuances and the individuals involved. Unfortunately, it’s also become a popular shortcut for “developing” female characters. In this capacity, it tends to fall into one of three plot roles: an attempt to give the character a “dark” history, usually as a context or explanation for neuroses; a female hero’s primary motivation for heroism or her catalyst for becoming a hero; or a means of diminishing a strong female character by emphasizing her vulnerability.*

In the first instance, the sexual assault generally has occurred at some point in the character’s comparatively distant past, usually in conjunction with other adversity: she may have been assaulted by an unsavory parent, guardian, or relative whose behavior was symptomatic of the general moral vacuum in which she was raised; or the assault may have served as implicit punishment for her own moral delinquency (i.e. drug abuse, promiscuity, etc.). In these scenarios, the victim is usually portrayed as a complete innocent–at worst, temporarily misled but basically virtuous–and the perpetrator is totally reprehensible and inhuman, an utter rogue who appears sympathetic only when he is deliberately manipulating his victims. He is also generally in a position of power–a parent or other older relative, a pimp, etc.–and the rape usually happens in connection with other abuse.

In the second instance, the sexual assault is the female character’s motivation for becoming a superhero. In these cases, the victim is either deeply traumatized and relegated to a semi-comatose state; or she is immediately incited to a life of crime-fighting, either as a means to revenge or as a way of preventing other women from suffering a similar fate. In these cases, the assailant is almost always a stranger or, at most, an acquaintance, and the assault is usually anonymous, apparently arbitrary, and particularly brutal.

In the final instance, a female character who is already a hero is assaulted as a means of emphasizing her vulnerability and/or femininity: in effect, “cutting her down to size.” This instance is particularly insidious, as it is most often used as a means of diminishing a previously powerful and confident female character. If the assault is completed, the character is generally deeply traumatized and left either catatonic or violently self-destructive to an extent that affects the character’s ability to function as a hero for an extended period of time; if it is attempted, it is generally prevented by the intercession of a male superhero. Either way, the ultimate result is the disempowerment of the character.

What all three scenarios have in common are gross overgeneralizations, sloppy storytelling which relies on crude stereotypes and clichés, and deeply misogynistic and heterosexist undertones. They buy into–and sell back–the most harmful sort of myths about sexual violence because they are too lazy or too ignorant to look beyond popular disinformation.

It is possible to write a mainstream comics story about sexual assault well and respectfully; it has been done (and in my next column, I’m going to give you some tips on how to do it). But it requires writers to abandon shallow tropes in favor of less superficial–and sometimes less marketable–stories; to reexamine–and often reject–their and the industry’s assumptions about gender, power, and sexuality.

*I’m going to go into more depth about gender and sexuality issues later this month. In this column, however, to accurately reflect the portrayal of sexual violence in comics, all three of these scenarios assume a male assailant and a female victim. This in itself is symptomatic of a tremendous problem in the ways in which many mainstream comics address–or overlook–sexual assault. It is extremely important to be aware that not all sexual violence is heterosexual; that not all aggressors are male and not all victims are female.

Discuss this column here.