Wrongs Darker than Death or Night: Paradoxery ahoy
- Thread starter Deimos Anomaly
- Start date
The difference is the gun. The difference is the knife held to the throat. The difference is the threats against the victim or the victim's family.
The difference is that the victim is trying everything they can to get away, whike Kira Meru went to bed with him willingly.
I'm not saying that she wasn't being manipulated, that Dukat was not doing something horrible. Far from it. The man is a monster. But there is a HUGE difference between what he did with Kira Meru and what happens to a young girl raped in an alley with a knife to her throat.
Speculation. Or do you have something to support the idea that Gul Dukat would use such a transparent method?
That is irrelevant to the discussion.
Rape is forcing someone to have sex when they don't want to.
If Meru went to bed willingly, in what way was it nonconsensual?
Oh, for fuck's sake...
She was just trying to make the best out of a shitty situation.
I'm sorry, but it's been a while since I've seen the episode. Did Dukat take away the things her family was getting?
Her family wasn't getting that stuff because she was being raped. They were getting that stuff because she had been taken to the station. They still would have been getting that stuff if Dukat had done nothing more with her than a chat over tea and biscuits.
Again, for fuck's sake.
I'm talking abpout MERU here, not any other Bajorans. Yes, Dukat is respoinsible for the deaths of millions of Bajorans. Just because he didn't shoot each one himself doesn't make him any less responsible. But my point is that he NEVER harmed Meru. He wanted her to love him.
Oh? When someone carjacks you and takes you as a hostage, you fall in love with them immediately?
Rape is forcing someone to have sex with you when they don't want to. What Dukat did was make Meru WANT to have sex with him. A bit hard to cry rape when Meru's saying, "But I choose to!"
Now, Dukat's a monster and what he did to her was terrible, yes. It was wrong, I'm not denying that. Probably just as bad as rape to have fucked with her mind like that.
But at the end of the day she went to bed with him voluntarily.
And I'm sick to fucking death of being made out to be some scum of the earth for having a different viewpoint.
Call me crazy, but I don't remember anything in the episode where Dukat gave Meru any cause to think that she was unable to refuse.
But like I said in my above post, it's been a while since I've seen it. Perhaps you could tell me exactly what part of the episode where Dukat gave Meru the idea that harm would come to her or her family if she refused?
So if Dukat merely convinced Meru to have sex with him, then you won't cry rape?
Hope you don't mind if I propose a definition, Timo...
I would define rape as taking an action which threatens a person with harm unless the victim has sex with someone with whom they would not normally wish to have sex. This is not meant to imply that the person the victim is being coerced into having sex with is the same person who is making the threat, nor is it meant to imply that the person who will be harmed is the person being coerced.
It would also include a person against whom action is taken that prevents them from resisting sexual acts, like drugging a person so as to have sex with them, or restraining them so that they can't move.
Yes. There is a difference.
The difference is not that one is rape and one is not. They are both rape.
What was Dukat's job at the time?
How did Dukat feel about Bajorans in general?
BECAUSE SHE WAS F***ING KIDNAPPED AT THE TIME. WHICH MEANS IT WAS NOT WILLING.
What part of this is so friggin hard to understand?
By being a whore? Because that's what your argument boils down to. That she was kidnapped and felt she had no choice but to diddle Dukat but it's totes not rape, she was just trading sex for something. Which is the definition of a whore.
...no. Because she was having sex with him.
Do I really need to point out when I'm speaking in hypotheticals?
From all of DS9, do you really think he's the type of person that wouldn't exact some sort of revenge if a lowly Bajoran woman defied him? Seriously?
I agree. Fuck's sake.
Yes. He wanted her to sex him up. And she did.
But if she HADN'T, literally EVERYTHING we know about Dukat says he would have made someone pay for it, whether it was her, her family, both, or her entire planet.
You're right. I'm absolutely wrong.
So why don't you give me a time? How long is the least amount of time you have to wait before you can call it Stockholm Syndrome? And I don't want a guess. I want a cited link to a reputable publication. Or for you to stop being deliberately obtuse. One or the other.
She chose to TO HELP HER FAMILY. To MAKE SURE HER FAMILY CONTINUED BEING TAKEN CARE OF.
"I'm having sex with him completely willingly. So he doesn't order his men to kill my family and throw me into a mine. Willingly!"
No.
I'm not calling you the scum of the Earth. I'm sure you think you have a point.
I *am* pointing out that you don't understand the definition of rape as well as you think you do.
Guess what? Implied threats are still threats. And if you honestly think that if Meru had said no to him that nothing bad would have happened to her or her loved ones, then you haven't been paying any attention to Dukat over the course of seven seasons of DS9 at all.
She was a Bajoran put in the same room as the guy who made a living making sure Bajorans got butchered.
But I'm sure he came off super-nice.
I'm not going to say yes to that without a more rigid definition of 'convinced'.
Also, I'm more than a little offended that calling the kidnapping and sexual slavery of a woman is considered 'crying rape' to you. Because, the thing I think you guys keep forgetting, is that Meru was brought to Terok Nor specifically to be a 'comfort woman'. Did you people think that meant they'd be giving shoulder rubs and dining on tea and crumpets?
A man tells a woman to have sex with him, and he says this while pointing a gun at her child. She complies, doing everything she can to please the man, because she truly feels her child's life is at stake.
He's not technically threatening anyone, so according to your definition, it's not rape.
One person fears for their life or the life of someone else. The other person does not.
See? Difference.
His job is irrelevant. Yes, I know he was in chanrge of the occupation.
He wanted them, to love him, even though he hated them.
I know she was kidnapped!
It does not change the fact that Meru CONSENSUALLY got into bed with him!
What part of CONSENSUAL is so hard to understand?
You have not shown that Meru felt that she had no choice.
Here's what I imagine would have happened if she'd said no.
Meru: Please, Dukat, I don't want to have sex with you.
Dukat: Then I will not force you. You'll see that I am not some ogre, someone to be feared. I care for the Bajorans, and I want you and the rest of your people to see me as someone who will care for them, etc etc...
Dukat is about the mind games, he's not going to make thuggish threats.
Did he make any threat that he'd take away those things?
Yeah, he'd get revenge, but he wouldn't resort to such thuggish methods.
I disagree. Dukat is not some thug who will hurt a woman for refusing sex. He'd take the opportunity to try to show her what a kind, caring man he is.
Oh, stop being so damned stupid. You made the claim, the burden of proof is on you.
And everything she had seen of Dukat was Dukat trying to look like a gentleman. There was no reason for her to think her family would be in danger if she refused. Dukat even went out of his way to stop some other cardassian trying to rape one of the other women! Even though I'm pretty sure he set the whole thing upo, but it shows that Dukat wanted to look like the good guy.
I wasn't referring to you specifically, I was referring to Nerys saying, "I don't even have words for how sick your train of thought makes me."
I am aware enough of the definition of rape to know that it means "A person having sex with someone when they don't want to."
And as far as I can see from the episode, Meru wanted to.
Fine. You show me where in the episode Meru is threatened by Dukat at all, either directly or implied. Don't use your knowledge of Dukat, because you are aware of things that Meru was never aware of. Show me something that Meru was aware of that she could have seen as a threat against her by Dukat and I will admit I am wrong.
And the reason I think Dukat would have accepted it if she had said no is because Dukat seems to me to be much more interested in getting the Bajorans to love him then he ever was with petty revenge.
I seem to remember that he went out of his way to come across as super nice, and did everything he could to convince her that the general view of him as a monster was mistaken. Is it so hard to believe that a man as charismatic as Dukat was able to succeed every now and then?
You're the one who stated that forcing does not mean convinced. Why don't you tell me what you meant when you used the word.
Of course not. I've said countless times that what happened to meru was wrong by any sense of the word, and I've also freely stated that the other comfort women were almost certainly raped by the other cardassians. My point here is solely with Meru. Everything we saw regarding Dukat's interactions with Meru was Dukat trying to show her that he was really a gentleman, a nice guy (even though we know better). And nice guys don't rape women. So if Dukat was trying to look like a nice guy (which he definitely was), then it is very unlikely that he would rape her. He was far more interested in getting the Bajorans to love him than he was in getting an orgasm.
So if someone points a gun at you, you wouldn't feel threatened?
I dare you to try that with a bank teller. You really think, "But the gun wasn't loaded, I was not threatening anyone" is gonna cut it as a valid defense?
That's what I think, too.
As for Kira remembering her adult self... come on. She was three. Try to remember how someone you saw, like, once when you were three, and tell me whether you would even recognise them if they appeared before you today.
You wouldn't.
Also, this is me steering clear of the rape discussion.
She feared for the well being of her family and herself. She was doing it to help them, as evidenced by her husband's message to her. She was kidnapped and trapped on a space station millions of miles from home.
So by your own logic, you're wrong.
She's a Bajoran, he's the dictator who brutalizes Bajorans for a living, and you're not convinced it's relevant? Do you really just not understand what these words mean?
And whenever a Bajoran made it clear that they did not love him despite his efforts, he tended to make things worse. See: literally any episode of DS9 he was in.
For you? Clearly quite a bit.
Would she have agreed to sleep with him if she weren't kidnapped and trapped millions of miles from her home, friends, and family?
No.
Ergo, it was not consensual.
Because she had to be kidnapped first.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Dukat
Yeah. Clearly he's not one to overreact when dealing with a people you admit he hates.
Dukat was an angel. Clearly revenge was never his thing. Despite everything we've ever seen him do ever.
And then, when he failed to win her heart, he'd throw her into a mine and/or take the gifts he gave her family away.
See? I can repeat things too. Only the things I repeat are from seeing Dukat's reactions to every time someone reacted to him in a way he didn't like.
I claimed there was no mandatory length of time. You claim there is. Since you're purporting that something IS true, then the burden of proof is on YOU.
Also, I never made a definite statement anyway. "Pretty sure". Reading comprehension!
edit: But just to make you happy, the definition I found says it can happen in as few as several days.
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Stockholm+Syndrome
Was Meru kidnapped for three or more days? Because I'm pretty sure she was.
Read the entire 'Causes and Symptoms' section of that link, because holy hell is it relevant.
So you admit he only wanted to 'look like' the good guy. Interesting.
Then why did Dukat have to kidnap her first?
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Wrongs_Darker_Than_Death_or_Night_%28episode%29
SHE WAS DRAGGED AWAY KICKING AND SCREAMING FROM HER HUSBAND AND CHILDREN
Your move.
He's the one that used the word convinced there. Wasn't talking to you. Pay attention.
I wasn't talking to you.
For the first time this thread, I think you understand my point.
You just don't understand that I was replying to someone else.
Yes, I know that's a stupid argument. That's why I was tearing into the other fellow's definition of rape. Like I said I would.
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If you've kidnapped a person, any sexual advance you make towards her inherently carries a threat of violence in retaliation to rejection. You can't commit one major crime against a person's safety and then think that your actions don't carry the implicit threat of subsequent crimes.
Anyone who kidnaps a person and then makes a sexual advance towards his/her victim is implicitly threatening to rape that victim. Period.
You can "say no" in any situation in which you are not unconscious. But to argue that a person who has been kidnapped actually has a choice in whether or not they have sex with their kidnapper is absurd; their kidnapper is inherently threatening violence against the victim by virtue of already having kidnapped them.
You are wrong.
Yes. Or worse -- he would have retaliated against her family.
He was a known mass murderer who was occupying her planet. Anything he says to her carries the implicit threat of retaliation.
Let me put it this way:
If Hitler asked a young Jewish woman from Poland to come to Berlin with him and be his concubine and promised to spare her family -- would that not carry the implicit threat of, "If you say no, I'll send your family to the camps? If you say no, I'll have you killed?"
'Cos it does. That's the thing about living under a dictatorship -- anything that displeases the dictator is dangerous.
I don't think you're someone who thinks rape is fine and dandy. But I think you have no idea what rape actually is outside of certain very specific scenarios.
Not when you live under an occupation and it's the dictator himself. Attempting to please the dictator to gain favor and attempting to avoid displeasing the dictator to avoid retaliation are in most dictatorships functionally the same thing. Journalists who've had the chance to interview Muammar Gaddafi, for instance, have talked about meeting relatively low-level functionaries who were visibly terrified of Gaddafi even over minor things. They attempt to curry favor, and they're terrified of instant retaliation if anything goes wrong.
He was the military dictator of Bajor and the leader of the occupation. Threats to harm Bajorans are implicit in any interaction he has with them.
Gul Dukat already had a gun pointed at her and her family by virtue of being the dictator of Bajor, able to order anyone and everyone to their deaths if he so chose.
The only difference is that the man holding the knife is being explicit in his threats.
The man had already murdered thousands. Don't give me this "he wouldn't do that" crap. No reasonable person living under his rule would be anything other than terrified that he'd retaliate against her and everyone she loves if she rejected him sexually.
No, his job is not irrelevant. His job is the most relevant thing in this discussion. If you are the military dictator of an occupied territory, this means that every request or order you make of one of the occupied carries an implicit threat.
You mean aside from the fact that he ruled Bajor with an iron fist and was already responsible for millions of Bajoran deaths?
You cannot separate what Dukat did to Meru from what Dukat did to the rest of Bajor. Every atrocity Dukat carried out against Bajorans means that every other interaction he had with a Bajoran while occupying their world carried an implicit threat. Period.
"And everything she had seen of Hans Frank was Frank trying to look like a gentleman. There was no reason for her to think her family would be in danger if she refused!"
Actually, it means, "The act of using coercion to force someone to have sex when they do not consent." It's entirely possible for someone to consent even if they don't really want to do it -- a man who is tired but chooses to have sex with his wife as a concession to the fact that she's in the mood, for instance. "Wanting" it is irrelevant; "consenting to it" is what is at question.
Consent made under duress is not consent at all. If the military dictator of your occupied homeland responsible for untold atrocities against your people hits on you, guess what? You're under duress.
He talked to her. That's all.
Every interaction a military dictator has with an occupied people carries an implicit threat. Period.
So if the military dictator of your occupied homeland says he wants to have sex with you, you wouldn't feel threatened?
And a dictator of an occupied territory is holding the biggest gun of them all.
I dare you to try to argue, "But I didn't say I was going to harm anyone Just because she already knew I'd killed millions doesn't mean that she felt threatened then!"
Show me something that showed that she feared for the life of her family?
I read the script of the episode yesterday (you can find it HERE), and Meru was with Dukat for seven years. She found out that her family really was being looked after a few weeks into that. If she did have those fears, then they were settled very quickly.
That fear was most certainly NOT any significant influencing factor in Meru staying with dukat.
My point is that Dukat did everything he could to make it seem like the Cardassians weren't as bad as they really were. What's irrelevant is the fact that we know what was really going on, because Meru didn't know.
So you think that when it was so important for Dukat to get the love of the Bajorans, that he'd kill one of them in a way that pointed the finger at him? You think that the death of a Bajoran who had spurned him wouldn't be viewed as suspicious? Come on, Dukat's not that stupid.
So if a person is kidnapped, anything that is done to them is a crime?
Since Meru obviously had to get naked to shower, do you think that means the Cardassians were forcing her to? After all, she never would have stripped naked to shower on Terok Nor if she'd had a choice.
If you'd actually listen to what I am saying, you'll see that all I am discussing is whether she got into bed with Dukat of her own volition or not. When she got into bed with Dukat, was she doing it because she had chosen to?
For fuck's sake, I know she didn't choose to leave her family. But that doesn't mean that she was forced to do everything that she did after that point! She's still capable of making decisions, y'know.
Yeah, there's a lot in there that doesn't have anything to do with Meru. How about you cut and paste something specidfic?
Oh for fuck's sake, I said that Dukat isn't one to do something that will make the Meru hate him when he wants her to love him!
He was an angle to Meru. And that's all that this discussion is about. his relationship with Meru.
Irrelevant. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't, but the fact is that he DID win her heart and he didn't have to threaten her to get it.
But Meru DID like him. She loved him!
Funny, the creationists I've debated with don't do that...
Okay, I'll grant that Stockholm syndrome could be a factor here.
But considering that Dukat was doing his utmost to get her to fall in love with him, isn't it possible that those efforts were the reason why Meru loved him, rather than Stockholm syndrome?
By the way, the line from that link, "[a] study of over 1200 hostage-taking incidents found that 92% of the hostages did not develop Stockholm syndrome" doesn't exactly help your case...
Yeah, of course.
You don't actually think I am underthe impression that Dukat actually WAS a good guy, do you? I've said nurmerous times in this thread that Dukat is a monster, and I have never defended what he did to any Bajoran, Meru included.
You want to show me what part of the episode has Dukat threatened Meru, either directly or by implication?
That's what I asked for, not a bleeding summary of the whole thing. Give me a specific incident! A line of dialogue!
And like I have said many times, that was horrible.
I'M NOT FUCKING DEFENDING THAT!
At that time, Meru probably expected to be raped. But Dukat never - NEVER - gave her that ultimatum, did he?
You don't want other people reading or replying to something you addressed to another member, take it to a PM.
Then for the love of God, put the person's name in the quote tags.
"Oh, my family's fine. Toodles!"
No. Because had she stopped being with Dukat, he would have stopped taking care of her family. Durr.
Meru knew that she was shacking up with the guy who ordered her kidnapped and was masterminding the occupation of her planet.
Uh. Yeah. I do. Because of all the times he ordered Bajorans to their deaths. And was unapologetic about being the one in charge of the military occupation of their world.
So yes.
Why would he care if it was suspicious? He was in charge of the planet. Who would have arrested him?
If Hitler killed someone in Nazi germany, I guarantee you he not only wouldn't have been arrested for it, he would probably have awarded himself a medal.
Dukat is Cardassian Hitler.
Uh. Short of letting them go? Yeah.
And now you're equating showers with rape. You're a class act.
I am listening to what you say.
You're not listening to anyone else though.
She was kidnapped. She was forced to be on Terok Nor. She was not there of her own free will. She was dragged from her home kicking and screaming. And your position is that none of that matters because she didn't say no to the guy who (whether it's true or not, but I know it was) would/could have easily killed her and her loved ones with no repercussions at all. That with all that hanging over her head, it's not rape.
You're very, very wrong.
Yes.
But if someone physically has a gun to your head, you are also free to say no. That does not mean it's not rape.
I did. Immediately below the link.
And if he knew he'd failed in that regard, yes he would have.
And how he raped her, yes.
It is not irrelevant. Because the implicit threat of slavery and retribution is why she slept with him instead of saying no.
According to who?
The burden of proof is on the one purporting something exists.
The burden of proof is on you to show that there is a time factor, just like the burden of proof is on the creationist to prove an intelligent designer exists.
Thank y-
...
Maybe. I was only offering it as a possibility anyway.
Nor does it hurt my case.
No, you are defending what he did to Meru, by calling it anything other than what it was - kidnap and rape.
Yes. The quote box directly under the link in my post. You should really read those too so you know what I'm replying to.
You don't mean to defend it, but you are.
Did he say it in those words? Probably not.
But the implication was clearly there.
You replied as if it were a continuation of what I'd been saying to you. It was not.
I guess it would be too much to ask for you to remember the things you write.
Or to look up, where the name was in the quote box in the first part of his post I quoted.
I'm sorry, I must have missed the part in the episode where Dukat suggests sex.
But I didn't miss the bit where she falls in love with him.
What? Dukat would have kidnapped her again?
I'm not defending the fact that Meru was kidnapped. I'm just saying that Dukat never made any threat of violence that would result if she did not have sex with him.
Oh, I love unsupported claims.
Y'see, I see a big difference between a woman being held against a wall, a gun pressed into her ear and struggling to escape as a man rapes her and a woman who (yes, was kidnapped) but then falls in love and says, "Alright, I'll sleep with you because I'm in love with you."
Yeah. Gul Dukat, who wanted so much to have the Bajorans love him and not see him as a cruel person would really have said, "I'm a nice guy. Fuck me or I'll kill you and your family. But I'm a nice guy."
Makes perfect sense.
So if he asked her if she wanted jam on her toast, it really meant, "Have some jam or I'll kill you?"
Hitler wasn't trying to get the Jews to love him. Big difference. Whether you care about if people love you or not makes a big difference to how you treat those people.
I'm fully aware of what rape is. As I;ve said, someone very close to me was raped.
I just don't see that a woman who has fallen in love with a person and voluntarily goes to bed with that person (even if he is responsible for her kidnapping) is rape.
Perhaps you don't understand the whole "VOLUNTARY" part?
Right. Because Dukat would have just used violence against the Bajorans at the first sign of trouble.
Like in "Civil Defense", when the computer program Dukat created thought that Bajorans were revolting in Ore Processing, the first thing the program did was gas the place, killing Sisko, O'Brien and Jake.
Oh wait...
The program gave them chance after chance after chance to surrender, and it would have worked except there were no longer any Cardassian soldiers to confirm that they had surrendered.
Yeah, I see your point.
Like I said, asking if Meru wanted jam on her toast contained an implicit threat then?
So Dukat FORCED Meru to fall in love with him?
Except for the fact that Dukat was clear that he wouldn't. He made sure that her family got the benefits, just as he promised. He made sure that Meru got that recording. He made her feel loved.
Jam, anyone? (Please don't take that as a threat!)
Ah, but would Meru know that? She was in a refugee center. From the looks of it, one run by the cardassians (would a Bajoran run center really let a collaborator like Basso in?). So yeah, the Cardassians wouldn't have cut off communication. I'm sure Meru knew everything that was going on.
Oh for fuck's sake, not this again. Can you sing any other songs? This one's getting old.
And Meru consented, and I have no reason to believe that she thought Dukat would harm her or her family if she refused.
Anyway, if all Dukat wanted was a shag, why did he go to such lengths to get her to love him?
It's obvious that getting her to love him was very important to him, and he wasn't going to throw that away at the first sign of difficulty.
Consent given to a person because you love them is consent, however, and Meru was in love with Dukat.
Not this again...
Actually, the episode suggests that Dukat wanted her to love him.
A bit hard to do that while you're holding a gun - any gun - to that person's head.
And I'm sure Dukat gave her some sob story abpout how he didn't want to kill anyone, but he was forced to. The Central Command would have made it much worse if he'd refused.
And killers are capable of doing things without threatening to kill.
btw.
I just ctrl-f'd that script for the word 'love'.
The script never says anything about Meru loving Dukat except for Nerys' assumption, which is later thrown into doubt when she finds her father's message.
edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_woman
The Romans did what Dukat did to Kira's mother, too. It's not like the Romans didn't have any humans feelings like their conquered people. Sometimes, they'll take up wifes from people they've just conquered...it was a common practice. But they still didn't consider them equal.
Look at Mark Antony and Julius Cesar who fell in love with Cleopatra. Some people think that was the reason they lost their support...the idea of Roman Counsels courting inferior race didn't really sit well with the people of Rome.
Look at Mark Antony and Julius Cesar who fell in love with Cleopatra. Some people think that was the reason they lost their support...the idea of Roman Counsels courting inferior race didn't really sit well with the people of Rome.
He wanted her as a "comfort woman." It's implicit.
You mean the bit where she has Stockholm Syndrome.
Or murdered, or tortured, or have her family punished, or any number of other forms of retaliation.
Are you really so naive that you think Dukat wouldn't retaliate? This wasn't a democracy he was running.
Kidnapping her was already violence! Ruling her planet was already violence! Murdering millions of people was already violence!
Threats of violence are inherent to everything a dictator does to the people he occupies.
The rest of the post is support for the claim. Do learn to read in context.
Except that's not what happened with Meru. With Meru, her every decision was taken against the backdrop of the knowledge that Dukat had the absolute power to retaliate against her if she rejected him by having her or her family tortured or killed -- that knowledge is the gun. "I'll sleep with you because I'm in love with you?" That doesn't actually happen in that situation; in that situation, if someone says that, they are by definition suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. No one falls in love with their kidnappers. No one actually falls in love with someone they know they have to please to avoid death or torture.
The problem you're running into is that you seem to think that Dukat is intellectually consistent and makes perfect sense. He does not.
If Dukat actually wanted the Bajorans to love him, he would not have served as Prefect of Bajor. If Dukat actually wanted the Bajorans to love him, he wouldn't have run concentration camps. If Dukat actually wanted the Bajorans to love him, he wouldn't have murdered millions of them.
Dukat did many, many violent things to the people he claimed he wanted to love him.
The man was a sociopathic, genocidal mass murderer. Stop trying to make him fit into the slots that normal people fit into. He does not.
Meet Shwygar Mullah. She's a 30-year-old Ethiopian who worked as a nanny to the family of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi for a little over a year. In the course of her "employment" (aka, enslavement), she was at one point unable to keep one of Gaddafi's grandchildren from crying. ('Cos, after all, children tend to cry sometimes.) In response, Gaddafi's daughter-in-law poured boiling hot water over Shwygar.
Yes, even a seemingly benign interaction with a dictator carries an implicit threat of violence. Dictators are people who live above the law; they can indulge in their ever sociopathic whim, and can be held accountable to no-one. The very fact that they desire to wield that sort of power often marks them as a self-selecting group of megalomaniacs. They cannot be trusted not to engage in massive violence in retaliation for even the slightest of perceived slights.
So, yes, if I were in Meru's place, and he started asking me if I wanted jam on toast, I'd be afraid. I'd be afraid of every single interaction with him. Because this is a guy who thinks nothing of ordering millions of people to their deaths. There's no reason at all to think he wouldn't decide to harm me if I gave him a "wrong" answer to something completely irrelevant.
Dictators are not like normal people. They're not even like normal rapists. You need to get that through your head. They cannot be trusted, ever.
Neither was Dukat. You need to learn the difference between what Dukat says he wants and what he actually wants. Dukat is not a trustworthy source of information about his actual motivations.
No, sir. You are the one who doesn't seem to understand that a woman who has been kidnapped and is being held by a man who can engage in massive violent retaliation against her is inherently incapable of doing anything voluntarily. You seem incapable of understanding the concept of duress.
That is classic Stockholm Syndrome thinking. That your oppressor has not engaged in every possible form of oppression and violence does not mean he is not an oppressive, violent tyrant. That your kidnapper has not engaged in every conceivable form of cruelty does not mean he is not a cruel man. That a tyrant has not engaged in every potential form of tyranny does not mean he is not a tyrant.
And it doesn't mean he won't do something worse in the future.
Yes.
In essence, yes. By virtue of the fact that he kidnapped her, oppressed her people, and that she knew he could kill her and everyone she loved on a whim. People who find themselves so utterly in someone else's power will often try to bond with that person, to view every time their kidnappers refrain from engaging in cruelty, as evidence of their kidnapper's supposed "goodness." Stockholm Syndrome is real, and people exploit it as a real psychological phenomenon.
Which is bullshit, because you cannot trust your oppressor. If you could, they wouldn't be oppressors!
No. He bribed her and manipulated her, and coerced her into experiencing Stockholm Syndrome. You know what he would have done if he wanted to make her feel loved?
He would have not kidnapped her and not tyrannized her planet.
Are you joking? Seriously. Are you kidding me? Are you actually asking if a woman in a refugee camp living on a world occupied by a brutal foreign military dictatorship -- a refugee camp she would not have been living in had the Cardassians not decided to invade and rape her world and tyrannize her people! -- would know that her world was being oppressed and that the military dictator of her homeland was responsible for millions of deaths?
Here's a clue: There isn't a single Chechen who doesn't know about the Chechen blood on Russia's hands. There wasn't a single Pole who didn't know about the blood on Hitler's and Hans Frank's hands. There wasn't a single Kurd who didn't know about the Kurdish blood on Saddam Hussein's hands.
Occupied peoples know when they're being oppressed and when mass murder happens.
She may not have known every individual atrocity. But I promise you that she would know, and would have grown up knowing, about Cardassian atrocities against Bajorans. The idea that she wouldn't? It is just absurd and bears no relation to the real experiences of occupied peoples. They know when their people are being murdered en masse.
Of course I can. But you seem to have no idea what living under a dictatorship that has absolute power over whether you and your loved ones live or die is actually like, so you obviously need to hear that song over and over again until you get it.
Consent under duress is not consent.
Then you have no idea how oppressed peoples actually view their oppressors. That is a dangerous level of naivete.
He didn't. He wanted power over her. He wanted to manipulate her mind.
No, she wasn't. No one loves someone they know has the absolute power to kill her and everyone she loves. Any such profession of love is inherently evidence of Stockholm Syndrome.
Every interaction a military dictator has with an occupied people carries an implicit threat.
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that she wasn't having sex with him just to make sure her family got those benefits.
She was having sex with him because she loved him and wanted to.
If Dukat was the mastermind, why did the Cardassians withdraw? Dukat was following orders as well.
I'm not denying that Dukat ordered Bajorans to their deaths. He probably got a perverse satisfaction from it.
what I AM saying is that Dukat wouldn't have ordered the death of someone who he wanted to love him. The whole, "Love me or I'll kill you" thing doesn't really make people love you, y'know. And we saw that Meru really did love Dukat.
He would care because he wanted theBajorans to love him, and Dukat's smart enough to realise that they won't love him if it's obvious he's killing the ones who displease him.
I'm not saying he would have been arrested, I'm saying it would have damaged his efforts to get the Bajoprans to love him.
Except for the fact that Hitler wasn't driven by the motivation to get the Jews to love him.
Dukat is motivated by the desire to get the Bajorans to love him. That's a pretty big thing and will change the way things are done.
So when the kidnapper provides them with food?
No I am not. I am saying that the claim that anything a kidnapper does to the kidnapee is a crime is stupid.
I'm not defending kidnapping.
If you were listening to what I am saying, you'd realise that I am not saying that all that stuff doesn't matter. It does matter.
What I am saying is that Meru's motivation for shagging Dukat was because she loved him. She wasn't doing it because she was worried they would suffer. She saw the message that proved that they weren't suffering. She was doing it because she fucking loved him.
But Meru never said no, did she?
Are you saying it was rape because she didn't say no?
But he didn't fail, and he had Meru convinced that he wouldn't.
Gah, you;d make a terrible lawyer. Or maybe a really good one. But either way, assuming the thing you want to show is not a good way to debate.
The episode is very clear that Meru was sleeping with him because she was in love with him, not because Dukat had threatened her.
From the script...
KIRA
Is that what you're telling
yourself? That you're doing all
this for the children? The
clothes, the food... the easy
living? It's all for them? Are
you that deluded?
(accusatory)
This isn't for them -- it's for
you. You like it here. You enjoy
playing house with that murderer.
(hard)
Don't you see what you are... what
you've allowed yourself to become?
You're a collaborator.
MERU
(scornful)
A collaborator? Because I share
Dukat's bed?
KIRA
No -- because you like sharing his
bed...
(a beat)
... because you've fallen in love
with him.
The accusation hangs in the air for a long beat.
Finally, Kira turns and heads for the door.
You wanna argue with that?
You're wel-
But there's only an 8% chance of it applying. In any case, I'm willing to grant that stockholm syndrome may be a factor. But I will say that if it is, it's a small factor. After all, in most cases that I am aware of, the kidnappers aren't actively trying to get their victims to fall in love with them. Dukat was, and I think his efforts in that would have had much more influence on Meru.
I am saying it was kidnap. And I freely admit that Dukat manipulated Meru to get what he want. And that it resulted in her sleeping with him.
I am saying that it wasn't rape, because Meru loved him, she did not resist and actively wanted to have sex with him.
If I ask someone if they want to have sex with me, and they want to because they are in love with me, how can that be called rape?
I did.
And I admit that at that point Meru would been expecting she was going to be raped.
But by the time any sexual activity between her and Dukat occurs, she's already fallen in love with him.
I've never said that what Dukat did was tolerable or even forgivable. All I am saying is that when he had sex with Meru it wasn't raped because she loved him and she wanted it.
Yeah, I'm sure Dukat needed to make implied threats to get ionto bed with a woman who loved him and wanted to have sex with him.
Yeah, because Meru doesn't deny it at all, does she? The script says that Meru is troubled, which wouldn't make any sense if Kira was wrong. Meru is troubled because Kira has made her realise that Dukat is a bad person, and she loves him anyway.
And I;ve said that when she was taken she would have been expecting she would be raped.
I've also said that Dukat never forced her to have sex with him. Whenever they had sex, it was because Meru wanted to.
You wanna prove that she had stockhold syndrome? The source Elias quoted showed that 92% of kidnapped people DON'T get it, and you are forgetting that Dukat was going out of his way to get her to fall in love with him. Like I asked earlier, is it so hard to believe those efforts were successful?
But he never had to make or act on that threat, did he?
Or do you think Meru would fall in love with someone who had threatened her or her family?
I've never said otherwise!
All I;ve said is that when it was just Meru and Dukat alone together, there was no violence! He never hit her, he never threatened her or her family, he never deprived her of anything.
No, the rest of the post is your opinion.
You wanna support that claim?
Seems to me you;ve decided that it was impossible for Meru to actually have fallen in love with Dukat just so you can consider it stockholm syndrome just so you can consider it rape.
In any case, even if you are right, the fact remains that whether it was stockholm or not, Meru thought she was in love with Dukat. And she had sex with him based on that. So she gave her consent. And that's why I said "it's a grey area" which was what set this off in the first place.
For crying out loud, I know he isn't. But he certainly gave Meru the impression he was.
We saw Meru after she had been with Dukat for several weeks. And there was not a shred of evidence to show that he had mistreated her in that time. He'd even taken her on a bloody holiday.
Now, if that woman you linked to had fallen in love with Gadaffi, then maybe you;d have a point. But she didn't.
Then why did he try so hard? If he didn't want Meru to love him, why the big show about being such a nice guy? Why didn't he just take her and force himself upon her right then?
And yet Elias is arguing that in any situation the woman can still say no. How can you both be disagreeing with me, and yet be saying completely opposite things?
I know that! But the fact is that Dukat treated Meru with what she saw as love.
"He threatened me with questions about jam!"
Regardless of how it happened, Meru still loved him.
I'm not saying that Dukat wasn't manipulating her! Of course he was! How many times do I need to say it? All I am saying is that Meru loved him and she wanted to have sex with him! Yes, he manipulated her, yes, he deceived her and yes he tricked her. But at the end of the day, if Meru was completely comfortable having sex with Dukat, then it wasn't rape. It was still terrible and horrible, because he was lying, deceiving and manipulating her, but you must not forget that she was completely comfortable with the idea of sleeping with him!
Yes but he acted in a way that supported what he said, at least as far as Meru was concerned.
I'll have to finish this post later. I'll come back and edit it...
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Okay, sorry about that, I was at work and had to leave to catrch a train...
I know he kidnapped her and coerced her and all that.
What I am saying is that Meru was in love with Dukat and she was comfortable with the fact she was sleeping with him. If someone is comfortable with an act of sex and actually wants that act to occur, I don't see how that could be considered the rape of that person.
You see, to me, the term "rape" kinda means that the person DOESN'T want it. Meru did, and Dukat did.
For fuck's sake, I know she only wanted to because Dukat was fucking with her mind. And he's a monster for that. But you just can't claim that it was against her will, because she wanted it at the time that it happened.
And there's a difference between having sex with someone because you have tricked them into loving you and wanting to have sex with you, and having sex with someone because you are holding them down, threatening them or their loved ones, while they are struggling and doing everything they can to escape.
And that's why I said it's a grey area.
Believe me, I firmly believe that what Dukat did was terrible, horrible and unforgivable. But as Elias has said, a woman is always free to say no, and Meru never did, not once in the seven years she was with Dukat.
I am saying that a Bajoran woman in a cardassian controlled refugee camp would not be privy to the full details of what is going on. I'm not claiming she was completely ignorant! But she certainly had enough gaps in her knowlege for Dukat to spin a plausible story about how he's trying to get the Cardassian Central Command to be more lenient, but they won't and he feels terrible about what's happening, but if he refuses, they'll send in a new prefect, one who is going to be even more brutal, so Dukat has to stay, because even though Bajorans are still being hurt, it's so much better than what would happen if he left...
Meru wouldn't have known enough to know that he was lying.
Different situation. I'm not talking about civilians living in a general civilian population with aaccess to mass media. I'm talking about a group of Bajoran refugees in a refugee camp run by Cardassians who know nothing except what the Cardassians allow them to know.
No argument here. All I'm saying is that meru wouldn't know every single detail, because the Cardassians were controlling all the information that the Bajorans in that camp were allowed access to.
I never said she didn't.
Maybe you should have sung that song to Meru, because she was obviously able to fall in love with Dukat with that knowledge.
Consent given to a person who you:
I do know that Meru was in love with Dukat though.
Which he exercised by getting her to fall in love with him.
Now, I don't know if he genuinely wanted her companionship or if it was just Dukat getting his jollies at that fact that he could manipulate her mind like that. Probably a bit of both, but with a large dose of the latter.
But, the fact remains that Meru did fall in love with Dukat. And regardless of what Dukat did to make her fall in love with him, Meru was in love with him, and when she had sex with him, she wanted it.
Nonetheless, Meru was convinced she was in love with him, and she wanted to have sex with him.
Very well. When Kira changed her mind about the explosive and warned Dukat and Meru to get out before it exploded, Dukat called for Meru to make sure she would be safe. Please explain to me how this action was threatening towards any Bajoran.
I know he kidnapped her and coerced her and all that.
What I am saying is that Meru was in love with Dukat and she was comfortable with the fact she was sleeping with him. If someone is comfortable with an act of sex and actually wants that act to occur, I don't see how that could be considered the rape of that person.
You see, to me, the term "rape" kinda means that the person DOESN'T want it. Meru did, and Dukat did.
For fuck's sake, I know she only wanted to because Dukat was fucking with her mind. And he's a monster for that. But you just can't claim that it was against her will, because she wanted it at the time that it happened.
And there's a difference between having sex with someone because you have tricked them into loving you and wanting to have sex with you, and having sex with someone because you are holding them down, threatening them or their loved ones, while they are struggling and doing everything they can to escape.
And that's why I said it's a grey area.
Believe me, I firmly believe that what Dukat did was terrible, horrible and unforgivable. But as Elias has said, a woman is always free to say no, and Meru never did, not once in the seven years she was with Dukat.
I am saying that a Bajoran woman in a cardassian controlled refugee camp would not be privy to the full details of what is going on. I'm not claiming she was completely ignorant! But she certainly had enough gaps in her knowlege for Dukat to spin a plausible story about how he's trying to get the Cardassian Central Command to be more lenient, but they won't and he feels terrible about what's happening, but if he refuses, they'll send in a new prefect, one who is going to be even more brutal, so Dukat has to stay, because even though Bajorans are still being hurt, it's so much better than what would happen if he left...
Meru wouldn't have known enough to know that he was lying.
Different situation. I'm not talking about civilians living in a general civilian population with aaccess to mass media. I'm talking about a group of Bajoran refugees in a refugee camp run by Cardassians who know nothing except what the Cardassians allow them to know.
No argument here. All I'm saying is that meru wouldn't know every single detail, because the Cardassians were controlling all the information that the Bajorans in that camp were allowed access to.
I never said she didn't.
Maybe you should have sung that song to Meru, because she was obviously able to fall in love with Dukat with that knowledge.
Consent given to a person who you:
- Love
- want to have sex with
I do know that Meru was in love with Dukat though.
Which he exercised by getting her to fall in love with him.
Now, I don't know if he genuinely wanted her companionship or if it was just Dukat getting his jollies at that fact that he could manipulate her mind like that. Probably a bit of both, but with a large dose of the latter.
But, the fact remains that Meru did fall in love with Dukat. And regardless of what Dukat did to make her fall in love with him, Meru was in love with him, and when she had sex with him, she wanted it.
Nonetheless, Meru was convinced she was in love with him, and she wanted to have sex with him.
Very well. When Kira changed her mind about the explosive and warned Dukat and Meru to get out before it exploded, Dukat called for Meru to make sure she would be safe. Please explain to me how this action was threatening towards any Bajoran.
Don't have time to rip your argument as a whole apart quite yet as I'm about to head out the door, but this bit jumped out at me as I was reading.
And then, like four lines down:
Seriously. Think about what you're saying before you hit 'reply'. Please.
And then, like four lines down:
Seriously. Think about what you're saying before you hit 'reply'. Please.
Show me where she said that. Anywhere.
Oh my god.
He was ordered to mastermind the rape and pillage of Bajor. Derp.
Duh.
BUT THEN, A TWIST!
So wait.are you M Night Shamamalan? said:
He wanted the Bajorans to love him, so he wouldn't order their deaths, yet he canonically did order the deaths of countless Bajorans, which they were all well aware of...
Your argument falls apart right here.
Well, falls apart more.
And yet, it was. So again, you're incorrect.
You know what else damages those efforts?
The fact that every living Bajoran was perfectly aware who was responsible for what happened to Bajor.
So.
You keep saying that, and I don't think I ever asked you to cite where you got this information.
Instead of releasing them? Yes, that would still be bad. Because they're still kidnapped.
Thank you.
Prove it.
She never said it. Nerys accused her of it, but then that was thrown into doubt later in the episode. And really, it's not even like she knew her mother well enough to tell if she was really in love with someone else.
ARE YOU A FUCKING-
No. No, I need to stay civil.
God.
Let me try again.
That is not why it was rape. It was rape because she was kidnapped, transported millions of miles from her home despite verbal protests and crying, and put into the same room with a man she had every reason to think would kill her if she didn't acquiesce to his 'requests'.
That is why it was rape. Because no one in that situation would feel like they had a choice.
Circular argument. You can't say that he failed to make Meru love him, because all we have as evidence of that is the three days or so Nerys knew her mother. Hardly convincing.
...
Wait.
YOU GODDAMN ONE QUOTEBOX UP said:
GAHHHHH
No.
If anything, the episode is very clear on the opposite. The one time anyone suggested that Meru loved Dukat was when Nerys accused her of it, and that was thrown into doubt by the end of the episode when she found Taban's message.
Again?
Fine.
From the episode:
Hey look, Sisko and Nerys talking about how Meru only stayed with Dukat to take care of her family.
It's almost as if all those times I told you this, I knew what I was talking about.
And even if that part wasn't there, Nerys was only making an assumption about Meru's feelings based on her limited understanding on the situation.
You want proof? Here's a quote from Meru herself!
Hey, look, an admission that she only wants to help Taban and her children!
Or maybe you'd like a quote by Kira apologizing for accusing Meru of truly loving Dukat?
It's like LITERALLY EVERYONE BUT YOU KNOWS WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON!
Look at you, all trying to steal my gimmick because you think that's why I'm right.
I think Sci handled this argument better than I could.
No. She slept with him because the guy who wanted her could have had her and her family murdered without a second thought.
DID YOU FUCKING KIDNAP THEM FIRST?
Oh my god! you DID kidnap them first! You monster!
Here, I'm breaking up your quoteboxes for comedic effect because you don't pay attention to anything I say anyway.
Hey, remember that thing you said before? I'll quote it now, because I know you'd skip the box otherwise:
YOU! said:
If I'm not allowed to do it, I don't get why you are. Cognitive dissonance much?
And all I'm saying is that is both wrong and a disgusting way to look at it and it honestly offends me enough that I'm not letting the argument go like I probably should.
Hey, remember that thing you said? Here, I'll quote it again:
YOU! said:
I'm going to repost this quote every time you do that because I love it so much.
That's one interpretation.
It could also be that Meru didn't feel the need to defend herself against someone she'd just met, especially because she knew otherwise.
It could also be that she knew/suspected Dukat had the room bugged, so she let the comment slide so Dukat wouldn't find out otherwise.
Guess what! If Dukat had to manipulate her into loving him, THEN SHE DIDN'T REALLY LOVE HIM BECAUSE SHE WAS MANIPULATED AND TRICKED INTO IT, WHICH YOU JUST GODDAMN ADMITTED.
God.
Elias just cut to the heart of the matter really well. Even if we accept that Meru wasn't just pretending to have feelings for Dukat for the sake of assuaging his ego -- which Elias has made a good argument that that is what she was doing and that she didn't really think of herself as having feelings for him -- it's still rape. Because someone who has been kidnapped by her people's genocidal oppressor and realizes he wants her to "love" him inherently is incapable of actually having real feelings of love; any feelings of affection she may feel are inherently symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome because she is inherently being prevented from choosing to reject her kidnapper for fear of reprisal.
Also, just because this cannot be repeated enough:
Every single interaction between a dictator and the people he is occupying carries an implicit threat of violence.
Also, just because this cannot be repeated enough:
Every single interaction between a dictator and the people he is occupying carries an implicit threat of violence.
Yeah, in context. The context of a single person that Dukat is having a relationship with is different from the context of of an entire population.
Kira realised it, and Meru didn't deny it because she couldn't deny it.
And look at the way Meru was acting around Dukat.
So you admit that the whole thing wasn't Dukat's idea. He was ordered to do it by someone higher up and Dukat found he really liked it.
So Dukat wasn't the mastermind.
But that's irrelevant.
In fact, there's only one relevant issue here.
Was Kira Meru comfortable with the fact that she was sleeping with Gul Dukat?
If you can show me anything in the episode that shows she was in the slighest uncomfortable, then I will agree that Dukat was forcing himself on her and I will call it rape.
But if Meru WANTED to have sex with Dukat - for whatever reason - then she went to bed willingly (in the sense that she wanted to for its own sake, not to produce some other outcome). And if she went to bed because she wanted to, then it wasn't rape.
Now, please bear in mind that I define rape to be having sex with a person who is actively trying to resist that sex and requires some threat against them in order to gain that sex.
Like I have said, a million times in this thread, what Dukat did to her is disgusting, terrible, horrible, unforgivable and despicable. He manipulated her just for the sake of manipulating her and exercising power over her. Why don't you people fucking realise that I am on your side here? DUKAT IS A MONSTERT AND WHAT HE DID TO MERU IS JUST FURTHER EVIDENCE OF THAT!!! Read it! For fuck's sake, READ IT!!!
All I am saying is that if Meru got into bed and had sex with Dukat because she wanted to have sex with him, then it is not the same as forcing someone to have sex with you if they are crying, screaming, struggling to get away while you rip their clothes off them and threaten them with violence or death.
You guys ever watch Buffy? Remember when Spike tried to rape Buffy in the bathroom? That's the kind of rape I am talking about. Buffy was screaming, struggling begging him to stop. Kira Meru was never forced to have sex with Dukat like that.
So for fuck's sake, when will you guys realise that all I am saying is that THIS:
is different to this!
That's all I am saying!
They are not very different. Very very similar, in just about all respects. But there are differences. That is all I am saying, that is all I have ever said. When will you guys fucking realise that?
If however you can see that the two situations (while still both being terrible as I've said countless times before) are even the slightest bit different, then you'll see what I meant when I said it was a grey area. I've freely said that Dukat certainly manipulated Meru, and Meru slept with him as a result of that manipulation. I've never denied it.
And with that can we PLEASE leave it the fuck alone? If you don't get my position now, you never will.
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