Katrina's Soap Journal

rape: (as per Webster's) Sexual intercourse with a woman by a man without her consent and chiefly by force or deception

There wasn't much on my mind last month in regard to the soaps, so I stuck to my little spoiler commentary columns and didn't bother with a journal. Sometimes, when I don't have much to say, I can sit at the keyboard, especially if the soaps are on at the time, and just let the thoughts flow, as though I actually did have something of value to offer. For May, I just ended up looking at a blank page with a few scratchy little lines, their spirits willing but their little bodies adrift in a sea of inadequacy.

I didn't really think I had much to say about Friday's show because overall, I found it rather benign, but then Sage told me there was a huge brouhaha (he actually used that word and I smacked myself upside the head for having inadvertently let such a cool and useful word slip away from my vocabulary unnoticed) over the after presumed sex we saw between Liz and Ric after he slipped her a Mickey.

This gave me pause to reconsider the situation and later, to write this column reflecting my thoughts on it. Certainly, people will often have conflicting opinions on a subject as sensitive as rape, always seeing it through the filters of their own life experiences and often attaching too much or not enough emotion to what they see on TV as a result. Again, these are just my impressions and are not an attempt to convert anyone over who feels differently (and I would appreciate the same courtesy please!).

It's my feeling that when considering rape versus... whatever the versus is in this situation, what primarily has to be factored in is the feeling and impression of the proposed victim. If you go with the Webster definition above, it would have to be a nonconsensual act inflicted upon someone by force or deception. Certainly, that was not the case with Ric and Elizabeth.

Was Liz violated? Absolutely. Regardless of where his deeds fell afterwards on the nefarious scale, I'd be mighty pissed if my husband drugged me. That's followed by an automatic "for any reason" if it happens without my consent or knowledge. Ric's lack of moral fortitude isn't something that is of question to anyone with a few working grey cells, I expect, having established his dicked, dicked ways back when he fake raped Carly. We know he's a jerk. Whether or not he loves Elizabeth, he's definitely a person capable of horrible, heinous atrocities if it furthers his agenda. He's unquestionably guilty of violating Liz, by drugging her drink, but not of rape, in my opinion.

As I said previously, as nearly as I can see, rape is NOT in the eye of the beholder, but in the eye of the victim. As far as Carly knew, she had come onto Ric (which she might have a sliver of belief of the possibility given her past behavior and her state of mind that night) and he had taken advantage of the situation (with the emphasis on taken advantage). It took me a long time to understand why Carly wasn't screaming rape off the mountain tops after she woke up with Ric and of course, the answer was obvious. She was shamed by her own past and her own feelings of guilt. This was exactly what Ric had hoped would happen and she fell soundly into his machinations. The very fact that Ric did NOT have sex with Carly and convinced her they had makes him guilty of emotional and mental rape. No, his tiny johnson did not come in contact with the holy of holies, but the act of telling her that she did these things and allowing her to believe her baby could be his fulfils all of the standards set by Webster. He convinced her by force and through deception that sex had occurred.

Of that, he is very, very guilty.

He drugged his wife without her knowledge and of that, he is very, very guilty.

None of us saw what happened between Ric and Elizabeth and the sex is presumed because the next scene showed them naked on what is evidently their only solid surface other than the floor, that nappy couch, in one another's arms. No one knows (probably not even the writers) the degree of consciousness that Elizabeth had during the act. That's not even the point. The point is, again, the feeling and impression of the proposed victim. To adequate illustrate why I have the opinion that this was not rape, I have to mention a few facts:

1) Ric and Liz are married and have had consensual, hot sex both on screen and, we presume, off.

2) Liz obviously is very into her husband and seems to have no restriction or aversion to having sex with him.

3) Liz's impression was that because she had not eaten, the alcohol was going to her head really fast and she was drunk.

4) I've had sex with husbands (never at the same time or in tandem and usually my own - I've had two) when utterly shitfaced, passing out drunk. I did not consider it rape. I considered it bad timing. I did not attempt to stop it because it was pretty cool at the time until I passed out and very natural, not to mention I wanted to use all of my remaining waking moments engaging in the act.

5). I have indeed passed out or worse, gone to sleep without the benefit of alcohol, just MomFatigue, during the actual act and during several different phases and variations of the act. I did not consider that rape. I considered it fatigue coupled with boredom meets opportunity.

6). In all instances, it's my understanding (unlike Carly, I have seen supporting evidence) that my partner at that time completed the act in my absence, which was fine. Pfft. I got my rest.

So if we take those six factors into consideration and conveniently and kindly overlook the possibility that I am an aberration of nature and not the only woman to have practiced any combination of items 4-6, one could reasonably conclude that what likely happened is that Elizabeth got sleepy from the drug, they started to make out, made love (presumably) and she conked out at some point during or after. I think it's likely thousands of tired or drunk women have done the same thing. If she'd been with Mike at the time and he pressed his advantage, yeah, that'd be rape. With her husband with whom she would willingly, nay eagerly, engage in hot monkey sex in her clear and conscious mind, nah, it doesn't fit the rape requirements in my opinion.

Is he a bad guy? Oh yeah. Well established. Did he rape Liz? I vote no.