The Bunker of Debunking

The Myth: Spike raped Buffy in the Bronze (during Dead Things)

18-Feb-2002

This page based on input from Dori & Lisa.

He told her to stop him.

She didn't.

And she could have; without violence, even.

This is a pattern with Buffy; he touches her, she tells him -one- time to stop, and then lets him do whatever he wants. She's the damn Slayer; she could throw Spike into next Tuesday if she felt like it, and he knows it. More to the point, =so does she=. That one protest is strictly pro forma, and anything he's doing to her, she could stop with a second protest.

She doesn't -want- him to stop. Or she'd by damn =stop= him, as witness her reaction when Spike tried to keep her from doing something she was set on later in the very same episode, namely, turn herself in to the police.

It was also made very clear that:

1) Spike had *no* desire to hurt her in that episode. If he did he would have FOUGHT BACK in the alley. The fact that he didn't fight back shows that domination isn't what he's shooting for. Also he clearly was *not* trying to hurt her in that episode.

2) The fight in the alley also makes clear that Buffy is *more* than capable of fighting back should she want to. In fact overpowering Spike isn't even a problem because as illustrated in the above point, Spike isn't trying to hurt her.

The scene in the alley makes it very clear just where the power lies. If she had wanted, really wanted, to end the situation in the Bronze she could have and without a fight from Spike. All she did was give a half hearted protest while making not *one* gesture to pull away or walk away. She has the power here. She CHOSE not to exercise it, ergo Buffy consented. If she had chosen to pull away or walk away or make any gesture toward stopping what was going on (as he indeed told her she could and *should* if she actually wanted him to stop) she could have.

Buffy exercised choice in that scene. The problem with Buffy is that until the final scene of the episode Buffy was unprepared to accept that SHE was making her choices. So the way the scene in the Bronze was enacted allowed her to continue her sense of self denial. He was relieving her of having to truly face that she was making the choice (though verbally he was in fact bringing her closer to the realization that she was making a choice). Buffy wasn't ready to accept her choices until the end of the episode. . .but that in no way means she wasn't making choices all along. This is made abundantly clear in the final scene. She allowed it. She chose it. And she has no excuse any longer.

Buffy made a choice.

It wasn't rape.