lirazel | i just need to get this out of my system

I would count it as a personal favor if Joss never, ever, ever used dubious consent in his stories again.

However, seeing as they keep cropping up in everything he's been involved in, I doubt this will happen.

What I really want to know is: WHY? Having Buffy find out she's pregnant? Perfectly acceptable plotline. Could be good or bad, depending on how it's handled. But WHY FOR THE LOVE OF SLAYERS DOES THE CONCEPTION NEED TO INVOLVE DUBIOUS CONSENT? If he wanted the father to be a mystery to drag things out, he could just have it happen offscreen and then have Buffy refusing to talk about it. And if he wants the dad to be a non-entity, he could have easily had her have a PERFECTLY CONSENSUAL one-night stand with someone who isn't important to the story.

The fact that he made the decision that he did...I just can't deal with this right now. Even if we've gotten some awesome fic out of it already. That's what I'll stick with.

Also: Scott Allie has made me not like him again. Way to go, dude.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Don't get me wrong, I think the whole point is to make this a "fatherless" child so Buffy can be a single mother. But here are the options:

1) Buffy and X are drunk as skunks, they have sex - consensually, and neither remember the next day. Is it dubious consent or bad judgment?
2) Buffy and X are drunk as skunks. Buffy comes ON to X and she seduces him. Could happen. She was seriously in a self-destructive behavior. In that case is it really dubious consent or just bad judgment?
3) Buffy and X are drunk as skunks. X comes on to Buffy and she resists him ---- oh wait, that means X is in the hospital because she could have put him thru the wall --- unrealistic scenario IMO. Remember how scared Giles and Xander were of Buffy in Bad Beer? She doesn't lose her abilities.
4) Buffy and X are drunk but Buffy is passed out. X is less drunk and has his way with Buffy. Now this is rape, not even dubious.
5) Buffy and X are drunk but X is more coherent. X seduces Buffy who goes along because she is feeling depressed and unloved. In this case I'll call dubious consent if X uses her depression.

So....I think the point of this is that there are at least two out of four realistic scenarios that make this bad judgment but not dubious. JMO.

I agree it's a shitty approach but I don't think it's a fascination with dubious consent. I think the objective was to make the father an absentee dad.

Given Joss's consistent, almost pathological, use of dubious consent in his stories, I just don't have any faith in him.

I think the point is, Joss didn't have to set it up so that dubious consent or outright rape was a possibility at all. But he did, and it's part of a larger pattern of using that trope in his work.

This. Exactly. Very well-said! :D

i just need to get this out of my system

We don't actually know if it was dubious consent do we?

Re: We don't actually know if it was dubious consent do we?

Re: We don't actually know if it was dubious consent do we?

Re: We don't actually know if it was dubious consent do we?