The Nightwing rape incident and the depiction of this issue
By RazzaTazz 79 Comments
One of the most interesting comic book debates for me is whether Nightwing was actually raped by Catalina or not. While I have made my feelings quite clear on this incident in my review of that issue, it has in some ways for me always been like the case with Hank Pym, how one incident comes to define an issue within comics (in Pym's case it was spousal abuse) while mostly ignoring a lot of the other cases when it comes the issue. In terms of rape however, there have been two notable cases of either rape attempted rape since the reboot of the new 52, and neither of which has factored heavily into any discussions. Part of the ambiguity of the Nightwing scenario is that it was not exactly a clear case on whether it was rape or not (as for instance I do not believe it was.) So while it is not necessarily the case that it is of great importance to the story, it is still interesting that no one is discussing this issue, maybe because it is too vague. The first case is that of the love affair between Zeus and Hippolyta which resulted in the conception of Diana. Although they shared a consensual interest in one another Zeus was at the time posing as a regular human. This may not in fact be particularly different from a case of someone misrepresenting themselves in order to for instance have a one night stand, except in that case it is not a lie which betrays the fundamental aspect of one the interested sides. That is to say that its one thing to say put on some nicer clothes, but another thing altogether to use another body. this is actually similar in certain ways to the other case where Deadman wants to have physical intimacy with his girlfriend Dawn Granger and does so by possessing another man's body. In this case though it is the man that would be getting violated, after all he would have had no say in the matter of his sexual relations had Dawn actually allowed it to proceed. Of course the topic is a fairly heavy one and not one which is always easy to discuss, but only focusing on the on example may be doing it a disservice.
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