Discussion Why do CN novels treat rape as a joke?

The sane one is the majority of feminists my guy. there are like two TERFs in the world, max.

 

I did not say the nutters were the majority, just that their numbers are growing.

 

MC stands for Main Criminal in Chinese web novels... Also also holding rape as wrong to a higher degree than murder is pretty weird. I guess you'd rather the rape end in murder if you believe rape is worse.

The problem is Chinese authors don't get condemned by Chinese readers for rape depictions so they keep using it, and honestly it's mainly just a no work required plot device used at least once in most Chinese web novels, the threat of rape is used almost off hand in the event a female character is losing to a male character in a fight.

I personal find rape depictions distasteful but I also find the complete lack of actual morals in most characters distasteful as well (probably cause it reminds of reality a little too much), I mean most so called good guy MC's are terrible people who are prone to committing robbery, murder, strongarming, rape, mass murder while justifying it with twisted logic.

Rape is not worse than murder cause a live victim can heal, a dead one cannot.

 

I don't know why you brought up power structures in relationships when I'm specifically talking about rape. I do agree that they way relationships are written in some shoujo manga is hugely problematic. But that still doesn't detract from the lack of respect the CN novels show for rape victims. I'm not saying that the societies in these story shouldn't be patriarchal but the response from the characters should be more than "teheee, guess i got raped, ohh well"

 

they aren't my guy. i thought the anti SJW movement died out along with atheism on youtube

 

Now im not saying bitches deserve rape, but i am saying if they are scummy enough i wont complain if they are either.

 

I don't mind making fun of rape in of itself, but treating rape victims like being a bunch of clutzes in serious story is disgusting. there's never any nuance when it comes to what the victim is feeling and only surface level "face slaping"

 

"Heh you called me a slut, well then i guess you deserve to be raped"

 

You have low standards for a bitch. Me, im much nicer, forgiving and more tolerant.

"Im going to drug and rape you because you are a strong male and i want to make you my man"

"Ha! sike bitch you need better drugs than that to knock me own. Now lets rape you for trying to rape me and make you my woman!"

"Oh noes! How could this happen to me?!"

Meanwhile, le me:

 

It's just a thing that happens in the novels because the author doesn't put much thought on it... Just like how they often don't put much thought into murder and stuff.

 

Generally, in my limited cnovel/manhua experience, that sort of stuff usually happens in historical settings so I'd guess the author is going for the 'realistic' angle and going for a punishment that will destroy all other aspects of their life because of whatever antiquated views people had back then.

Imo though, writers are just strapped for time and/or bad at writing and use rape as an easy way to face slap. It's so transparently lazy and shallow. The writer just wants to get back to their regularly scheduled OP MC or whatever.

 

There is justifiable murder, there is no justifiable rape. A MC that kills without justifiable reason is as bad as the raping ones. It would be a villain's tale in this case, like the movie Joker, Taxi etc.

Chinese authors that treat rape as justifiable are just scum trying to vent their lack of morals onto their power trips. Same as with overly xenophobic novels, it's their prejudist rearing it's ugly head into the story. But then again, their MCs are also usually psychopaths without redeeming features but the author keeps treating them as heroes, so I'd say it's a general problem and not just the rape.

Some try to hide their disgusting fetish by trying to add some plot reasoning like the old "Afrodisiac" thing, but it's just an weak excuse no one buys.

So in short, the Author lets their lack of morals fly when writing their fantasy. A MC that kills without reason or rapes should never be treated as a heroic MC. (women or men, since there's a lot of raping in novels with female MCs as well)

But some comments in this thread show that the problem isn't just with Chinese Authors. Guess there's a reason these novels keep being written: there's a public. Damn...

 

Atheism is doing quite well, even if the growing retardation on youtube is somewhat concerning.

 

I know, but there has been also a dissonance of values. Law and custom don't always agree (if you are a native english speaker, or from a number of other countries, it should be quite apparent to you since there's the "law" law and the common law). Christianity, for example, disallows rape (for a different number of reasons that vary from basic respect for women in places closer to what seems to be Christ's message to things like opposition to things like adultery, loss of honour or staining of purity) and murder (period), but in many, many places common people that goes to church every Sunday (or more frequently, but most likely don't even try to understand what they should be really learning there) have a hard mindset of believing that rape victims are either guilty or an embarrassment, as well as considering certain offences as grounds for murder.

The letter of law and the behaviour of mankind often don't align.

 

Reasons I can think of include:
1. Idiotic authors - self explaining

2. "Realistic" setting - Women had little to no rights back in "the old days". Even in Europa a man could rape a woman and get away with it if he "took responsibility" by marrying her.

3. Most Xianxia/Xuanhuan settings have the "Might makes Right" attitude - Think about how often the MCs and/or antagonists kill people and no-one cares, because they were weaker and thus it was their fate. Most of these stories have MCs steal whatever the f*ck they want, kill whoever's in their way, etc.
In a society where rules only apply to the weak, the strong can take what they want. The only reason rape is (thankfully) rather rare is, that the story is a xianxia, not a hentai.
Morally righteousness is something only used to publicly shame the enemy, "our" MC naturally has no need to follow that rules because [Random Victim of MCs Action No. 74] clearly deserved having the MC do [random action that would get you jailed in any reasonable society] to them.

 

I don't want to enter into a discussion on why rape in novels are bad. Because they are. I don't enjoy those series and never will, just because of that.

What i take issue with, is rape being used as a tool to initiate romance between the MC and a love interest. That right there is fking despicable and absolute lunacy. Anyone that finds that okay in a story, is a worthless sack of shit.

 

Christianity is perfectly fine with rape, at least their oh so holy book is. The exception is raping married women, in which case its death penalty for both, victim and assailant. There really aren't any morals to be found in that "book". If christianity still gave a damn about it... well. Prison for all of them. Among other things it promotes pedophilia, rape, genocide and homophobia. Sexism too. When people say christian values (and mean the modern ones, not the ones which get you into prison) they mean the western ones. And those are roman, greek and scandinavic/celtic/germanic (depending on where you are).

On topic: Readers and authors of these WNs generally completely lost any semblance of common sense. They just want to see blood and violence at this point. Rape victim falling in love would make sense with the stockholm syndrome being in effect, but in most cases its not and just plain bullshit. In general almost all violence is HEAVILY downplayed in WNs. Rape is just among the more despicable cases. I stopped reading almost all novels listed on NU, with veeeeery few exceptions getting trough my quality standards.

 

In China today, rape is considered to be a severe crime. You can be jailed for a minimum of 10 years to 30 years max.

However, in the distance past (before year 0), you have to understand that women has far more lower rights than men.
Although the norm (Confucian) dictate that men must not abuse and rape women (People would view as a scum if you do), but the law of the state did not protect women as well as it is today. Only the rich and powerful family's women have the right to do that.

The lower rung of society, however, is very normal occurrence to see such behavior. It is very normal for the wealthy and powerful to rape commoners whenever they want. They don't even care if they make them pregnant and the law won't punished them for it.
It's similar to westerners in this regard, although westerner would prefer to call such act as: 'attending/serving'.
Thus, it is very dangerous for girls to walk outside, hence why the Chinese culture always warn young women to be extra careful to go outside even today and why there is a saying of 'Beauty brought calamity' to both yourself and others around you.

Also, in Chinese culture, virginity and purity is many times important compared to the western culture, so 'slut' is actually a very offensive word for a curse. Although the culture has now reduced because of the globalization and modernization, but the curse is still as effective as it is today, because the meaning of the curse is very clear: To bring bad reputation intentionally. That's very destructive to a woman's future.

And, in Chinese culture, being raped and violated are literally worse than being killed for women. A lot of women would rather die, especially in the past. So, 'I hope you get raped' is basically the worse kind of curse for a woman could get. The speaker would need to have a lot of hatred to dare speak of it, because it is at the same level as a declaration of war.

In the western culture, curse words like 'Slut', 'Bitch', 'Bastard', 'Motherfucker', 'Son of a bitch' or 'fucker' has no literal meaning. It's just an act to release their pent-up emotion. 'Slut' in Chinese context has the closest meaning to 'Rapist' or 'Murderer'. The curse context could only be used if the target has any connection to that sinful act.

 

Thank god someone voiced this issue because in the end for almost 4 to 6 out of 10 novels to be tagged with the rape tag it means that there is an audience to maintain it. It’s like how almost 90% of ML’s in modern day CN are CEOs. It’s all because it’s extremely popular with the readers. Here same with rape, it’s fully saleproof for chinese readers.

I’ve asked the same question on another forum and someone answered me that the rape issue in chinese novels and the way it’s used by chinese authors and why its well received by chinese readers is because in the chinese deeply patriarcal engraved society a woman can’t have s*xual relationships before marriage or she’ll be labeled as a sl*t. So to smooth it all chinese authors will use the common plot of ML raping FL because they were both drugged and they have no other choice but to tie the knot because either FL will get pregnant or ML has to « take responsibility ». And rape is also used as a way to punish antagonists because of its destructive effects on women physically, emotonally and socially (SO IT FRIGGIN MEANS THAT AUTHORS ARE CLEARLY AWARE OF WHAT RAPE REALLY MEANS BUT THEY STILL ROMANTICIZE IT). All in all it became a social norm *rape culture too strong*. And as someone else said they are more things happening in China and informations are tightly controlled by their government and as patriotic as how most of chinese authors are they won’t pour dirty water on their country.

BUT what I do REALLY not understand is why the heck are English publishers translating those novels with rape ??? I mean it’s (not) ok for chinese writers if they have a different societal viewpoint on rape *chauvinism overload makes me cringe* but for God’s sake RAPE is a FRIGGIN CRIME in a large majority of countries in the world aren’t english publishers passively condoning rape by translating those works ? At the very least on Novel Updates the rape tag is put so you’re warned but for instance Webnovel keeps publishing those novel with rape in it. Worse than that despite some readers complaints they’ll still manage to release weekly 1 or 2 new chinese novel with the common Mary Su drugged and raped by the CEO ML of the town.

Anyway if some people have enjoyable chinese romance novel without rape to recommand (sweet heartwarming stories in preference ). I need to find some occupation during quarantine...

 

The MGA example wasn't bad simply because it was rape though, you essentially had the mc pulling out his dick to start raping while a battle was still ongoing.