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rainwaterspark(Trigger warning: The following post discusses sexual assault used as a plot device, and the specific example of sexual assault comes from a book that features childhood sexual assault between an adopted parent and child. If any of this is triggering for you, please take care of yourself.)
Previously, there has been heavy criticism of men who use sexual assault of women to motivate male protagonists. Nowadays, sexual assault is used in other ways—by women and nonbinary authors, of male characters, in ways claimed to be #ownvoices narratives.
But in my experience as a reader, by and large, sexual assault narratives still lean heavily on “shock factor” presentation, often to shock both the reader and the survivor’s love interest.
Let's talk about The Fever King by Victoria Lee (which I read early courtesy of Amazon First Reads).
I, personally, am not triggered by sexual assault or CSA. I've also read plenty of books featuring this content before.
However, reading about Dara Shirazi as a CSA victim in The Fever King left me genuinely upset.
It's not because there were graphic details, but rather because of the way Dara is framed in the narrative. The story is from Noam's perspective, and he's fairly oblivious to Dara's PTSD as a result of sexual assault/CSA for most of the story. When he finally learns the truth, Dara's experience is filtered through Noam's horror.
In that moment, we aren't really seeing Dara the person, but rather Dara the helpless victim, Dara the physical evidence of How Evil the antagonist is (never mind the fact that we already have plenty of other evidence of that already).
Dara's trauma is, in a way, objectified for Noam and the reader's consumption. Especially since it's not "just" that he was sexually assaulted, but that he was sexually assaulted as a minor, by his adopted father--all details that seemingly make his trauma "worse," that increase the "horror" factor.
(Hell, the narrative even uses the word "animalistic" to refer to Dara in that scene, explicitly dehumanizing him.)
I know this wasn't the author's intention, because the author has been vocal about how she herself is a survivor.
But that was how it felt to me: that Dara's trauma existed in the book for objectification and horror.
This isn't the first book I've read with sexual assault written from an #ownvoices perspective that I feel still objectifies trauma (the other one I know of is Fortitude Smashed by Taylor Brooke). I think ultimately, if you are writing from a non-survivor's point of view regarding another character's (especially their love interest's) sexual assault, it's going to be hard not to objectify the experience, because from that POV it's always going to be filtered through shock and horror first and foremost.
Previously, there has been heavy criticism of men who use sexual assault of women to motivate male protagonists. Nowadays, sexual assault is used in other ways—by women and nonbinary authors, of male characters, in ways claimed to be #ownvoices narratives.
But in my experience as a reader, by and large, sexual assault narratives still lean heavily on “shock factor” presentation, often to shock both the reader and the survivor’s love interest.
Let's talk about The Fever King by Victoria Lee (which I read early courtesy of Amazon First Reads).
I, personally, am not triggered by sexual assault or CSA. I've also read plenty of books featuring this content before.
However, reading about Dara Shirazi as a CSA victim in The Fever King left me genuinely upset.
It's not because there were graphic details, but rather because of the way Dara is framed in the narrative. The story is from Noam's perspective, and he's fairly oblivious to Dara's PTSD as a result of sexual assault/CSA for most of the story. When he finally learns the truth, Dara's experience is filtered through Noam's horror.
In that moment, we aren't really seeing Dara the person, but rather Dara the helpless victim, Dara the physical evidence of How Evil the antagonist is (never mind the fact that we already have plenty of other evidence of that already).
Dara's trauma is, in a way, objectified for Noam and the reader's consumption. Especially since it's not "just" that he was sexually assaulted, but that he was sexually assaulted as a minor, by his adopted father--all details that seemingly make his trauma "worse," that increase the "horror" factor.
(Hell, the narrative even uses the word "animalistic" to refer to Dara in that scene, explicitly dehumanizing him.)
I know this wasn't the author's intention, because the author has been vocal about how she herself is a survivor.
But that was how it felt to me: that Dara's trauma existed in the book for objectification and horror.
This isn't the first book I've read with sexual assault written from an #ownvoices perspective that I feel still objectifies trauma (the other one I know of is Fortitude Smashed by Taylor Brooke). I think ultimately, if you are writing from a non-survivor's point of view regarding another character's (especially their love interest's) sexual assault, it's going to be hard not to objectify the experience, because from that POV it's always going to be filtered through shock and horror first and foremost.
