[Note: I’m writing 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: “Who Are You”
INCIDENT: Rape via uninformed consent
PERPETRATOR: Faith Lehane
VICTIM: Riley Finn
The specifics: In the previous episode, “This Year’s Girl,” Faith used a device to switch bodies with Buffy. While in Buffy’s body, Faith paid a visit to Riley. She tried to seduce him by being overtly sexual and aggressive, but he’s not interested in that. He kisses her sweetly, and they sleep together, and during the whole experience, Riley thinks that Faith is Buffy.
The mind of the perpetrator: Faith goes into Riley’s room with the sole purpose of hurting Buffy. Everything does in the episode is about hurting Buffy or Buffy’s friends. Interacting with Riley is no different. But she talks with Riley as though he’s a man who’s itching to try out a new sexual kink on her:
“FAITH: So. . . how do you want me?
RILEY: How do I . . . ?
FAITH: Yeah. What do you wanna do with this body? What nasty little desire have you been itching to try out? Am I a bad girl? Do you wanna hurt me?”
Again: Faith wants to hurt Buffy, and she doesn’t care who else she hurts in the process. Her insistence on trying out the “bad girl” fantasy makes me think that she’s done more than just fantasize about that scenario, and that she might have had to be the “bad girl” in non-consensual sexual acts.
After Faith and Riley sleep together, Riley says (thinking that Faith is Buffy), “I love you.” Faith has a full-blown panic attack and can’t handle Riley being on top of her. She pushes him off of her, crawls away, and asks, “Who are you? What do you want from…her?” But she still allows him to comfort her and hold her.
The victim’s perspective: Riley thinks that Faith is Buffy (with good reason, because Faith is in Buffy’s body.) He’s not sure what she’s “playing at” when she comes onto him so aggressively, but he doesn’t like it. He and Buffy have had passionate, animalistic sex before, but not with the “do you want to hurt me” play-acting. He’s not interested in any of that. He wants tender, emotional sex. They have it, and he tells “Buffy” that he loves her for the first time. She has a panic attack and then insists, “This is meaningless!” He looks hurt, but when he notices that she’s shaking, he stands and wraps a blanket around her so he can hold her close.
After he finds out that the “Buffy” he slept with was actually Faith in Buffy’s skin, he’s angry, but he seems angrier that Faith tricked him into betraying Buffy than that Faith violated him and his consent. He mentions that he wants to get his “hands on her,” but quickly clarifies to Buffy that he doesn’t mean it in a sexual way.
What does this episode say about misogyny and rape culture?
This is the first episode where a prominent character rapes another prominent character. (Other acts have been attempted, but never followed through.) It’s interesting that the first successful rape (and I hate calling it that, ugh) is with a female perpetrator and a male victim.
What’s also interesting is the lack of violence involved in Faith’s rape of Riley. Faith is not violent with Riley. She doesn’t hold him down with force. But she pretends that she is Buffy, and he sleeps with her. Therefore, Riley is unable to give informed consent.
Despite this violation of Riley’s consent, the show never deals with this issue. “Superstar” briefly explores the awkwardness between Buffy and Riley after the incident, but the awkwardness occurs because Riley accidentally cheated on Buffy, not because Riley was violated himself.
And I don’t think that’s fair. I really dislike Riley, but I feel terrible for him in this episode. He’s used as a pawn in Faith’s game against Buffy, and the first time he tells his girlfriend he loves her, she has a panic attack and tells him that he and their experience together is meaningless.
What does this mean for Faith? Has she been abused so often in her youth that she relishes the thought of turning the tables, of being the abuser, just so she can feel like she’s in power for once?
Still, I don’t think Riley would consider himself a rape victim or survivor, just like I don’t think Xander would consider himself a survivor or victim of attempted rape. He moves on from it pretty quickly and is more concerned about Buffy feeling hurt. I wonder why it doesn’t bother him more that Faith tricked him. Maybe the reality doesn’t sink in with him. Maybe it’s better for Riley that the reality doesn’t sink in with him.
Then there’s Buffy. Fans have claimed that Faith raped Buffy, too, by using her body in a sexual way without her consent. I’m not sure if I agree. It’s a gross violation, to be sure, but is it rape? I’ll leave that for readers to debate in the comments section.
Whatever the case, it strikes me that Faith was really not interested in hurting Riley. Riley was a thing to her, just an object that she could use to hurt the person she really cared about: Buffy. I hear stories – mostly stories of war and combat – where men will rape women as an act of revenge or violence against the woman’s husband or father. This episode seems to be an example of that kind of rape – except, because Faith wasn’t violent and because Riley is a man, the matter isn’t taken seriously or mentioned beyond the next episode.
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The question of whether or not Buffy was raped is a tough one, my first reaction was that she wasn’t because her mind wasn’t in her body at the time, but people raped while in a coma or unconscious are still raped. I think the main thing that needs to be established to answer the question is whether or not the fact that it was a body switch matters and if so how? Does the fat that it was done with her body instead of do her body create enough of a distinction? I’m not sure myself.
I’m inclined to say that it doesn’t matter whether we call what was done to Buffy ‘rape’ or not. She was violated in a major way. Was it quite the same thing as rape? I’m not sure, but as I said, I’m not convinced that the label is important. Something can be immensely, immensely violating without being rape.
Honestly, in some ways, the attempted assaults on Buffy (by hyena-Xander and Spike) seemed to me to affect her less than Faith taking her body and Angelus tormenting her. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not on the part of the writers, but I actually thought that it was an important message – something doesn’t need to be rape/sexual assault to be deeply violating and scarring.
(Not saying that you said that – just a brain tangent.)
That’s my $.02, anyway.
I didn’t think of it like that.
I actually thought that it was an important message – something doesn’t need to be rape/sexual assault to be deeply violating and scarring.
Very good point. I agree that Faith and Angelus seemed to have a much more profound effect on Buffy’s life than the attacks from hyena-Xander and Spike. I think Buffy was able to shrug off the hyena-Xander attack because he was possessed and she didn’t feel threatened, and by the time the attempted assault from Spike happened – well, not so sound callous about a deeply upsetting moment, but by that time in her life, so many terrible things had happened to Buffy that I think she was almost used to be being betrayed by someone close to her. (God, poor Buffy.)
A little late to be commenting on this but I just stumbled across these and found them interesting.
I don’t think it would ever cross Riley’s mind to call what Faith did as rape because for there was no force involved. And because he was a willing participant in what he mistakenly thought was happening. I have a hard time imagining any man considering this rape and certainly not a personality like Riley who is both a soldier and used to feeling physically unthreatened by most people. I am certain Riley would say he was deceived, not raped.
I’m a bit surprised that you don’t discuss Parker & Buffy in these articles. I think Parker definitely deceived Buffy into having sex with him. Buffy may have been a bit naive not to have picked up on what was going on, but to me it seems clear that Parker knew that what he had led Buffy to expect and was taking advantage of that naivete. To me it seems what Faith did is very similar to what Parker did, just more extreme. Parker deceived Buffy about who he was on the inside; portrayed himself as a different person(ality) than he really was to get Buffy to sleep with him. Faith deceived Riley about who she was on the inside as well; just more literally.
There is also an interesting parallel between Xander & Faith and Buffy & Parker. Faith wanted a one night stand; Xander thought that meant there was a connection. Parker wanted a one night stand; Buffy thought that meant there was a connection.
Well, to argue with myself, it could be said that Parker lied about his character & intentions and Faith lied about her identity and even those are both forms of deceit, the difference in what was being lied about is enough to make these different in kind rather than just in degree.
This thought arose from reading the discussion here
http://unpaidsophistry.blogspot.com/2012/10/once-more-with-feeling.html
where the author quotes the California penal code on the California legal definition of rape and one of the definitions was:
(5) Where a person submits under the belief that the person committing the act is the victim’s spouse…
So that is one case where deceiving someone else about one’s identity is considered different than other forms of deceit.
Since I personally abhor all types of deceit, I’m not sure I would agree that Parker’s & Faith’s deceptions are different in kind, not just in degree. But I can see that an argument could be made that they were.
I feel rather embarrassed to admit that I had never thought about the Riley/Faith & Buffy/Parker parallels. Of course most people would say “Buffy consented to have sex with Parker so of course it’s not the same”; but while I wouldn’t say Parker raped Buffy, he certainly deceived her. I do think Parker as a character says something about rape culture in that it’s not a b/w thing but a sliding scale in which a lot of deceptions are still perfectly permitted or tolerated as long as they aren’t illegal, but I’m not sure if the writers ever got that or not.
Thanks for the link to Mark Field’s (Sophist) post, I need to re-read those now that I’ve been through the entire show at least once
And I entirely agree that Faith violated Buffy, whether you want to call it “rape” or not; there is no real-life parallel to magically switching identities so it’s harder to hang that label on it but the intent is the same. (Oddly enough, though, something similar happens on SMG’s last tv series, Ringer, in which she played twin sisters who switch identities; and “Bridget” sleeps with her sister’s husband and he makes love to her, thinking she is his wife.)