[Note: I’ve decided to begin a series about consent issues in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I will post a new entry in this series every other Tuesday – or perhaps on a weekly basis, if I have the time. In this series, I will look at an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that deals with rape, sexual assault, or consent issues as a main plot point or as a featured event of the episode. I will examine these episodes in chronological order. If, in my writing of this series, you feel that I have skipped an episode that should be a part of this series, feel free to submit a guest post, and I will consider publishing it.]
EPISODE: “Surprise”
INCIDENT: Statutory rape
PERPETRATOR: Angel
VICTIM: Buffy
The specifics: Buffy and Angel escaped from the Judge, Drusilla, and Spike. They fled to Angel’s apartment and he looked at her wound. Angel finally told Buffy that he loved her, she told him she loved him back, and they began kissing. He suggested that they stop, she told him to keep kissing her. They fell into bed and had sex. For Buffy, it was her first time.
The mind of the perpetrator: Angel was in love with Buffy. He felt hesitant about sleeping with her, perhaps because she was underage, perhaps because he knew it would be her first time, perhaps because he knew their relationship was a bad idea to begin with, but in the end, he protested very little before having sex with her.
The victim’s perspective: Buffy was in love with Angel, and on the night of her birthday, Angel was almost taken away from her twice. First, Jenny Calendar intervened and arranged for Angel to help disperse the body parts of the Judge across the world. Second, the Judge almost killed her and Angel. Earlier in the day, Buffy talked with Willow about the possibility of sleeping with Angel, saying she was ready to have sex with him. By the end of the day, she did, and she was the one who initiated sex.
What does this episode say about misogyny and rape culture?
Legally, Buffy and Angel’s first time having sex would definitely be counted as statutory rape. They slept together on her seventeenth birthday and he was two hundred years old.
On the other hand, sex between Buffy and Angel would technically count as necrophilia, since Buffy is having sex with someone who is dead.
Even though Buffy and Angel sleeping together is wrong from a legal perspective, I have a hard time categorizing this incident as rape. Defining it as rape would rob Buffy of her agency in making that choice to sleep with Angel. She knew exactly what she was doing in the heat of the moment. She wasn’t under the influence of anything, she wasn’t hesitating for a second, and she wanted it to happen. She wasn’t thinking about the long-term implications or potential consequences about having sex with Angel, but if every act of spontaneous sex was considered rape, well…I don’t know how to finish that sentence.
Hence, I don’t consider this a violation of consent, despite acknowledging that this would legally be considered statutory rape.
At the same time, Buffy is barely seventeen and Angel is two hundred and forty. Angel having sex with Buffy at her age and her level of experience is…well, it’s a little gross. Don’t mistake me; I get caught up in the sweeping romance of the moment, I feel moved when they profess their love for each other, and Angel is probably more emotionally honest with Buffy here than he is during most of their relationship: “I love you. I try not to, but I can’t stop.” I also give Angel a bit of a pass because they slept together right after they almost died, and were still in danger from the vampires and demon that tried to kill them. (“Exception for impeding death situation,” as Xander would say.)
But it disturbs me how Angel is initially attracted to Buffy because of her seeming innocence, much like he was initially attracted to Drusilla for hers. Even if one version of Angel has a soul and the other doesn’t, “innocent and young” seems to be his type. And that makes me view Angel as a creeping creeper who creeps. It’s no wonder my favorite Angel relationship is his long-term affair with Darla (whom I’m convinced Angel loved far more than he ever loved stupid Buffy, anyway).
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When someone as old as Angel dates chances are the person he dates is going to be much younger than himself, another good example of this is Doctor Who (if you haven’t heard of it the main character is currently over 1100 and was around 900 during his romance with the femalde co-chatacter/lead/whatever).
So for me when it comes to immortals having sex an age gap this big is ok so long as the younger person in question is old enough mentally to understand what they are doing. Buffy may be on the edge of that line but I think she is on the right edge.
It’s not that Buffy can’t mentally understand what she’s doing. I object to the age difference mostly because we see in future episodes that Angel fell for her after seeing her lollipop-sucking, hair-twirling, fifteen-year-old self. I think it’s icky that he was initially attracted to a much younger-seeming Buffy who was basically still a kid.
I agree. By the end of the series, Buffy was definitely an adult, with a lot of experience having people depend on her (more than most people have in a lifetime). I would be a lot less squicked out by Angel having a relationship with season 7 Buffy, but that mature, confident young woman did not exist in season 1.
Exactly. I also have fewer problems with her dating Spike for this reason. Not that their relationship wasn’t problematic in other ways, but at least she went into that relationship with a much better knowledge of who Spike was.
Oh I see, yeah that part is icky.
It’s also a question of the age of consent. In Germany, while we have special protections for people under the age of 18, the age of consent is 14. So, that coupled with how the show portrayed the relationship between those two (it is Buffy’s decision), never made me think of statutory rape.
The squick factor is still there, though. Not many texts portray this: Angel is an old man, even if he doesn’t look it. Same is Edward in Twilight, btw. And in Buffy, it’s even more difficult because SMG was 21 at the time, so based on looks we don’t immediately think of Buffy as a middling teen and Angel as 200+ years old.
Good points, all of them. That’s why I stand by the opinion that “It’s not violating consent, but still kind of gross.”
Is this serious? Jesus.
Actually, no. I wrote it as a joke just for you. Enjoy!
I’ve been re-watching Buffy, ever since it’s 20th anniversary can’t believe it’s that old. Anyway I wouldn’t say that Buffy wasn’t under the influence of anything when she slept with Angel. Emotionally she was in a very vulnerable place.Adults don’t make ration decisions when they have near death experiences, let alone teenagers. It doesn’t matter if she initiated it she was still very much a child compared to Angel vampire or not. Just because she thought she was ready doesn’t mean she was, even if Angel hadn’t lost his soul they still would have never worked out. Also I’d say that Buffy was still suffering from PTSD from the master along with a whole host of other issues. Angel had been watching Buffy since she was fifteen years old, fifteen! Their relatinship had a sexual preditor groom his young victim feel to me. I think Angel was attracted to Buffy for much of the same reasons he was attracted to Drusilla, she was young, innocent, and “pure.” Which if you ask me says a lot about Angel. Even before he became a vampire he was a no good drunk.
I think this whole obsession he had with torturing young women was something that was always there inside of him. He even admits that being a vampire doesn’t completely change your personality. BUFFYJust remember, a vampire’s personality has nothing to do with the person it was.ANGELWell, actually –(off Buffy’s glare)– that’s a good point
Never do we see a point where (before he was cursed with a soul or when he had one) that Angel treated women kindly. It’s only after he’s cursed with a soul and made to feel the pain of others for years that he become the brooding man-child that we see during BTVS. I’ll never be convinced that the act was consensual, there are too many extenuating circumstances