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Rape: It's how Haruhi says hello.
Shuichi: Anyone would cry after what you did! You're a rapist, you big jerk! Yuki: Admit it, you liked it! You masochist punk! Shuichi: I - I couldn't help it! It felt... well... nice. ( blushes)
The idea that people can enjoy being raped and/or will fall in love with their rapists as a consequence of the rape. More often than not, the rapist turns out to have acted out of pure love, or winds up loving his victim emotionally too. Popularized by "bodice ripper" romances, in which resistant women are overwhelmed with passion as men force themselves upon them.
A staple of published yaoi and Slash Fic, in which a disproportionate amount used a rape scene to bring the two male characters together, but can also extend to heterosexual couples and women. The receiving end may rant, protest, cry glistening tears... but before the first half of the scene is over, they'll have started cooperating and acknowledging their enjoyment. As a famous meme goes: "It's not rape, it's just surprise sex you didn't know you wanted".
Nearly all yaoi manga published in English contain some element of this. Plots have become almost frighteningly predictable too, often beginning with Mr. Seme either raping, or at least getting halfway with Mr. Uke, freaking poor Mr. Uke out and therefore leaving some room for the two to collect their thoughts, whereupon they admit their love for one another and make love consentually. A somewhat unconventional series might have Mr. Seme realize that he also needs to reach out emotionally before Mr. Uke comes to accept him, but try and find a yaoi series (shonen-ai ones don't count, as they don't focus on the sex) that completely avoids this trope. (Since 'seme' means 'attacker' and 'uke' refers to someone who recieves attacks, this tendency is somewhat built into the terminology.)
Whichever genre, a Rape Is Love scene is used as a convenient plot device to give the victim an arousing experience without actually soiling their innocence, because it wasn't their choice to have sex in the first place. There's something kinky in forcing a person to realize his/her love. And if the victim falls in love with the rapist, that ups the angst meter.
And if the goal isn't to bring the rapist and his victim together, it'll make the victim a walking angst magnet, perfect for being saved by his/her soulmate.
This concept can be viewed by the reader or watcher in two ways:
- Rape is an emotionally traumatic experience in Real Life that should not be glorified or romanticized in any form; first because it's an insult to those who have endured it, and second because it helps perpetuate the idea that "no means yes" and it's okay to ignore your partner when (s)he tells you to stop. (Many rapists have given variations on this trope as an excuse.) It causes extremely unpleasant physical injury to multi-purpose body parts and permanent psychological trauma to the point of nihilism, psychopathy, victim becomes abuser, suicide, etc. In other words, massive Unfortunate Implications. Noticeable physical excitement does not equal consent.
- Rape fantasies are okay in escapist fiction, just as something like Lolicon is pleasing to its target audience, as long as one knows that the same thing is not true in real life.
It is best advised to pick one and not offend the other side.
A subtrope of Stockholm Syndrome and You Fail Sex Ed Forever. See also Prison Rape, Naughty Tentacles. Compare Rape As Comedy, Rape As Drama. Contrast It's Not Rape If You Enjoyed It.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- To Aru Kagaku no Railgun]is a prime example of this trope.
- An alarmingly common trope in BL manga, where the seme will often repeatedly attempt to force an uke to make out with or even have sex with him, much to the uke's anger and protests that he's straight (which often leads to the seme trying harder just to prove him wrong). It's considered justified in the end because it turns out the seme was right about him, which apparently invalidates any need for his consent.
- Winter Demon from Yaoi Press featured this with the titular winter demon Fuyu raping a pretty, young (male) monk before the manga begins. The monk is forced to seek Fuyu's help in the actual beginning and the pair fall in love. And then as if this counts as redemption Fuyu is also raped in the first volume.
- Also somewhat subverted in Okane Ga Nai, Kanou rapes Ayase in an attempt to convey his feelings, but Ayase eventually falls in love with him anyways. Then it's played for comedy in an extra by having Kanou travel back in time back to the moment of the rape and proceed to attack his past-self for what he is about to do to Ayase.
- It is up to debate whether Shizuru raped Natsuki in her sleep in Mai-HiME, as the details are sketchy and the plot never goes back and addresses it and exactly how far she went. However, the Rape Is Love plot is used straight in the same series between Yukariko the nun and the art teacher Ishigami. Many fans Hand Wave actions done in the series as the "dark influence" of various plot devices, as most everyone is miraculously forgiven in the end.
- In Kannazuki No Miko, Chikane rapes the love of her life, Himeko, as part of a Xanatos Gambit to destroy the Big Bad without killing Himeko Because Destiny Says So.
- A different take on this trope occurs in Gravitation: Shuichi allows himself to be gang-raped to protect his lover from defamation. It's implied that the fact that he did it out of love allowed him to recover from it pretty quickly. The more traditional version is subverted in a flashback: Eiri Uesugi kills his mentor for raping him, although his name - Yuki - does become Eiri's pen name.
- Actually, in regards to Eiri Uesugi, he kills his mentor not because Kitazawa Yuki (the mentor) was going to rape Eiri, it's that he was going to let someone else go first.
- There are also some non-explicit sex scenes in Volume 2 of the Gravitation manga between Shuichi and Yuki that are borderline non-consensual with Yuki very much being the seme; the quote at the top of the page comes from one of these scenes. In contrast, the anime implies that whatever sex occurred off-screen was consensual.
- In defense of Gravitation in the beginning Shuichi is much more conflicted about his feelings towards another man rather than his feelings towards Yuki as a person and lover.
- Hot Gimmick romanticizes an abusive relationship: readers are expected to support the heroine's decision to remain with her Troubled But Cute love interest at the end — his blackmail, physical force, and coerced sexual encounters with her are supposed to be how he expresses his love for her.
- Just-about-averted in Rose of Versailles, in which the male romantic lead Andre forces himself on the heroine Lady Oscar - he does come to his senses and stop short of actual rape, however, and repeatedly tells her he's sorry. The whole incident is treated as evidence of his unrequited passion for her, and doesn't stop her from falling in love with him in return by the end of the series.
- In the anime version, anyway, Andre's actions are also supposed to be evidence of his immaturity, and one of the reasons Oscar doesn't (yet) return his feelings. (The title of the episode wherein it occurs is "Andre, a Green Lemon")
- Subverted in the anime Now And Then Here And There. The girl who is raped is severely traumatized the first time and becomes steadily more unhinged each time, while the men seen seem to want an actual relationship, with one trying to chat with her and offering her a gift, and another one tracking her down after her escape and trying to start a relationship with her, which she greets with horror and fear, with the man ultimately getting killed helping her.
- Nearly half of hentai mangas start in this way, when guy/girl/child gets raped and likes that in the next page, then comes back for more in the end.
- In the hentai OVA Dragon Knight IV: Wheel of Time, the warrior princess Bianca doesn't know her place in the army of good guys and is unwilling to submit to the hero, Eto. So when she challenges him, he easily defeats her, and then rapes her to put her in her place. It works, and she enjoys it. And that's enough about hentai or this page will never stop.
- In After School Nightmare, Sou sexually assaults Mashiro twice—first forcing a kiss on him and later actually attempting to rape him. Mashiro nevertheless falls for him.
- More or less the entire plot of System of Romance
- One Girls Love example can be found in the manga Gokujou Drops. Moe Moe Komari gets frequently molested quite explicitly by Tall Dark And Bishoujo Yukio despite Komari's protestations. Komari eventually admits to herself that she enjoys it and starts developing strong feelings for Yukio.
- Another such example is Blue Drop. The Arume are not above raping earth women, if only to torture the men, which they seem to dislike pretty much. A lot of women appear to enjoy this quite a bit.
- Chizuru really does love Kouta, but she tends to show it by abducting him (and that part is optional) and trying to rape him.
- One of the later chapters of Karin has her brother forcing a vampire named Bridget to be bent over sticking out a window so she can be burned by the sun wearing very revealing clothes. He's crouched over behind her holding her down in a scene that looks a lot like a rape but apparently isn't one. That is, until she calls later and announces she is now pregnant with his son, so they get married. ...kay.
- Well, it is rather strongly emplied that they had a somewhat more conventional, and consentual, relationship off screen after that. Still... ew.
- Rapeman, a superhero who punishes heartless (but sexy) villainesses with his legendary (nonconsensual) lovemaking prowess!
- ... Seriously?
- Seriously. Was quite popular in both the U.S. and Japan for a while, even.
- In the The Tyrant Falls In Love AU manga Aru Hi Mori No Naka, once Ookami (Souichi) is back to health and Kuma (Morinaga) has made it through the winter, Morinaga thinks the best way to show his love for Souichi is to, you guessed it, rape him. Although, throughout the rape, Souichi believes that Morinaga is actually just trying to kill him. The next morning, after realizing what happened and also being confessed to, Souichi comments, "Are you telling me that you'd force yourself on someone you love?"
- Actually, the main Tyrant books start with this trope as well. Morinaga wastes no time taking advantage of Souichi's aphrodisiac-caused hard on, despite protests. Obviously, by the title of the manga, Souichi, at some point ends up in love with Morinaga (but not after he tries to murder him the morning after said rape.) Can also be taken as Rape As Comedy, because Souichi is severely homophobic, to the point where he's got something to hide.
- In the Asatte No Houkou manga, Amino forces Karada to give him a hand job, and clearly believes that Rape Is Love. He later realizes that he was very very wrong.
- In Death Note yaoi doujin Bound Prince, L does this to Light. Actually this might be more a case of Degrading Sex Is Love, as for the majority of the sex acts in the story, Light appears to have the opportunity to back out or at least fight back, he merely succumbs due to having given his word of honour. Some very grey areas, though.
- In a nutshell: This
 ◊ (NSFW)
- In Samurai7 , the emperor makes a habit of kidnapping farm girls for his harem. One of them fawns on him so that he will leave the others alone, but eventually does come to love him anyway, much to the other women's horror. Carrying his baby has something to do with that, but it certainly leads to a complicated relationship with her actual husband when they are reunited, and he can't understand why she would have any positive feelings for the man.
- By the way, it doesn't occur in Suzumiya Haruhi, despite the picture above. Haruhi never actually gets to rape (although in the light novels it comes damn close), and Mikuru most definetely does not enjoy it. So take two sips, people.
- Fooly Cooly : Haruko and Mamimi towards the 12-year old Noata. Okay, overt sexual harassment he often openly objects to but secretly enjoys, but still .... SUBVERTED! It becomes very, very obvious over time that the two of them are mostly just using him, Haruko to get to Atomsmk and Mamimi to replace his older brother. Poor kid. At least he's still got Ninamori, whose relatively normal if a tad aggressive.
Comic Books
- Watchmen loves Black And Grey Morality bunches.
- To expand: this trope is discussed and alluded to in a very interesting way. The Comedian attempted to rape Sally Jupiter (the first Silk Spectre) at the height of the Minutemen's fame, and it's an unflinchingly brutal scene (especially in the movie); Laurie, Sally's daughter, spends her whole life hating the Comedian after she finds out about it, and is baffled and frustrated by her mother's mellower attitude. As it turns out, Laurie is the Comedian's illegitimate daughter. Some time after the rape, the Comedian tracked Sally down and expressed genuine regret over the incident, and at some point after that, they had a consensual one night stand. Sally then realised she was pregnant and immediately married her agent. Sort of a Subverted Trope, in that even decades on, Sally's very conflicted about it, and no one's under any illusions that it redeems the Comedian, who has done many, many other awful things (and is extremely misogynistic towards every woman except Sally and Laurie.) It does help to humanize him a little, though.
- In post-crisis DC continuity, Hercules rapes Hippolyta (and several others Amazons as well) and is transformed into a pillar of load-bearing stone as punishment. When he's finally released, the Amazons are charmed enough by his humility to forgive him. Then he and Hippolyta have a brief romantic relationship. This is in fact more notable for its bizarre use of Greek Mythology than anything else- rape was one of the few crimes classical Hercules didn't do, and forgiveness? From the Amazons? About anything? Good luck with that.
- This produces an interesting moment in the Justice League/Avengers crossover when Wonder Woman (Hippolyta's daughter) attacks the Marvel Universe's version of Hercules for what his counterpart did to her mother. On the Marvel side of the equation, the encounter was entirely consensual.
- Recently over at DC, the decision was made to make the Son Of The Bat mini-series canon again, but decided to retcon Batman and Talia Al-Ghul's consensual encounter into Talia drugging and raping Bruce in order to conceive their son, Damien. Talia still acts like Bruce was a willing participant, so in at least in her mind it was love. Bruce however isn't all that amused and all but called it rape.
- In Nexus, Ursula drugs Horatio and sleeps with him while he believes that she is his girlfriend Sundra. Later, when Ursula shows up on Ylum with Scarlet and Sheena, her twin daughters by Horatio, the four of them live together as a family. It must be noted that, at first Horatio, as much as he loves his daughters, neither feels nor expresses any affection for Ursula, but he eventually does seem to warm up to her, to the point where they do make love consensually. Also, Ursula does seem to develop feelings for Horatio.
- Red Sonja (an occasional companion to Conan The Barbarian) was gifted with incredible skill in battle in order to seek vengeance on her rapists, but only after she swore a holy oath to never love a man "unless he could defeat her in battle"... thus recreating the rape that caused the whole thing in the first place. One sick puppy, that Red Sonja...
- Like many fantasy tropes, Phil Foglio used a similar plot in one of his XXXenophile stories. A sex-starved but battle-hungry woman is cursed by the gods (for some reason) to never be sexually satisfied until a man defeats her in battle. She assumes, because of this, that the first man to defeat her in battle will rape her afterwrads. After all the men in the tavern stop coming because they're tired of being constantly beaten by her, the only man left is a mild-mannered fellow who teaches her a chess-like game and subsequently beats her at it. The curse lifts instantly because, as they both find out, the name of the game translates literally as "battle". Happy consensual sex ensues.
Fairy Tales
- Older Than Print: appears in the Arabian Nights stories (particularly "The Tale of Prince Behram and the Princess Al-Datma").
- Sleeping Beauty.
- An old Italian precursor of Sleeping Beauty is a particularly depressing example of this where the King rapes the titular character while she sleeps. She falls in love with him, he has an affair with her and the story is resolved by him executing his jealous wife.
- Some early versions of Snow White, if necrophila can count as rape... or love...
Film
- The James Bond movies Goldfinger and Live And Let Die contained scenes in which Bond forces himself on the heroine, and his action is "justified" by her falling in love with him.
- It's more of a Slap Slap Kiss in Goldfinger— he forces a kiss on her, but that's as far as it goes before she consents. He comes off sleazy, but it doesn't appear to be actual rape.
- The novel Goldfinger averts this, since Bond does not rely on Pussy's aid to foil Goldfinger. At the end the former lesbian crime boss succumbs to Bond's charms, saying "I never met a man before...I come from the South. You know the definition of a virgin down there? Well, it's a girl who can run faster than her brother. In my case I couldn't run as fast as my uncle. I was twelve."
- Subverted in Alan Moore's The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, when a British secret agent named 'Jimmy' tries to force himself on a young woman. Not only does she not swoon, she fends him off via a brick to the face.
- Also pretty disturbing is Thunderball, where he blackmails a health clinic employee into having sex with him after he's nearly killed when she doesn't check up on him frequently enough. She doesn't seem too put out over it, which apparently makes it okay.
- In Gone With The Wind, Scarlett and Rhett's unbelievably tumultuous relationship has reached a point where, after the birth of her first child and continuing to pine after the unattainable Ashley (who she "only thinks she loves"), she tells Rhett that she no longer wants to have sex with him. Some time later, after one of their vicious rows the drunken Rhett picks Scarlett up and carries her upstairs to the bedroom, declaring that she won't turn him away this time. Cut to Scarlett waking up (alone) in bed the next morning, looking extremely happy, indicating that she thoroughly enjoyed the experience, although Rhett soon comes in and makes an apology for his behaviour, partly blaming it on drink. It's an arguable example of the trope, because
- A surprising number of people argue that her delighted reaction the next morning implies that she almost immediately consented (well, she doesn't seem to make a great effort to struggle out of his arms when being carried), thus "excusing" the intent of the rape, and
- The rape does not mark a particular turning point in their relationship, there being a great deal of flawed, antagonistic love for each other both long before and long after the event. Nevertheless, that doesn't stop it from being a scene that uncomfortably evokes the old rapist's catchphrase "All she needs is a good seeing to" (in fact, much earlier in the film Rhett says something similar to her: "What you need is to be kissed. And often! And by a man who really knows how," if you know what I mean.
- "It's not rape, it's just surprise sex she didn't know she wanted."
- Played quite disturbingly in Straw Dogs. As in many cases, the viewer respects the "victim" a lot less, but here, it appears quite intentional.
- Rutger Hauer's and Jennifer Jason Leigh's characters in Flesh and Blood. Here, at least, she doesn't seem to suffer this with any of her other rapists.
- Speaking of which, Blade Runner has Rick force Rachael to say she loves him as he rapes her. She's a robot, so it's OK.
- Your Mileage May Vary. It could also be Slap Slap Kiss. She does say, "Put your hands on me."
- According to the book Future Noir Executive Meddling demanded a love scene be inserted, so the writers deliberately came up with this business of Rick forcing his attentions on her.
- Young Frankenstein features a comedic version of this with The Monster and Elizabeth. Borderline: Elizabeth goes from protesting to consenting immediately when she gets her first sight of The Monster's "very large shvanstocke"; however, the Monster doesn't seem particularly interested in her consent.
- Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann uses this with the 'going back in time to become your own grandfather' plot. The "grandmother" rapes her "grandson" at gun-point and they develop a relationship.
- Subverted with a vengeance in I Spit on Your Grave. Be warned, though, that movie is half Squick and 5/6ths Nightmare Fuel. Yes, it's 133% creepy.
- In Revenge Of The Nerds, Louis dons an identical Darth Vader costume as one of his Jerk Jock rivals and proceeds to have sex with the jock's girlfriend. As she's post-coitally gushing about her "boyfriend's" performance, Louis unmasks himself... On top of her. She expresses dismay at his deception, for about five seconds, before openly marveling that "a nerd" could be that good in bed, and spends the rest of the movie in heat for him. They end up married in subsequent sequels. Played for laughs, but Fridge Logic quickly turns it into Dude Not Funny.
- Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur tries to invoke Rape As Comedy, even though no rape actually takes place. The main character has been framed for murder, and is fleeing from the law. A woman has found out his identity, and tries to turn him in to the police, so he is forced to kidnap her. At one point, their car breaks down, and while he fiddles with the engine, another car is seen approaching them. He manages to fix the engine in time to drag her screaming into the car and drive off just as the other car stops to see what's going on. The other drivers are revealed to be an old married couple, and the wife (having witnessed a woman screaming for help and forced into a car) remarks, "They must be so in love." Somewhat of a Wall Banger for modern audiences.
- Hitch subverts it in Marnie. Sean Connery has unrequited feelings for the title character and eventually forces himself on her. He awakens the next morning to find that she has attempted suicide.
- Lust Caution: The heroine is supposed to become the mistress of the Big Bad in order to draw him into a trap. He rapes her, but she ends up falling in love with him anyway.
- Lara in Doctor Zhivago, though she ends up changing her mind and shooting her rapist.
- In the original book the movie was based on, she isn't even raped in the first place. She shoots the guy because she's in desperate need for money and wants to blackmail him.
- One of the many interpretations of the pitch-black David Lynch film Blue Velvet: most critics agree that, in his own depraved way, the sadistic gangster/rapist Frank is in love with Dorothy, but debate whether she feels the same way. Dennis Hopper hilariously, and disturbingly, lampshades the twisted dynamics of their relationship in a Cluster F Bomb answer to an interviewer asking why he took the villainous role:
"Frank just happens to be one of the great romantic male leads of all time! ...I mean he fucking worships Dorothy and Dorothy is hot for him because when the kid Jeffrey gets physically intimate with Dorothy she suddenly wants him to slap her around just like Frank does. Frank and Dorothy – that's a great love story of our time! ...Here's a guy who'll go to any lengths: he kidnaps her, cuts her fucking husband's ear off with pair of scissors, which isn't an easy thing to do, and ultimately he even shoots the cop he's in cahoots with. Now if that isn't true love, what the fuck is? And at the end of the movie, in those last images, there's the shot of Dorothy - she's sitting in some park with her little son in her arms. David's intention, 'cause he told me this, is to let the viewer know that it's not over, she's still thinking about Frank, still longing for him. Frank's dead but she'll always love him."
- Played for laughs in Monty Python 's Life Of Brian, when the protagonist confronts his mother on discovering he exists because she was raped by a Roman. Her response? "Well, at first..."
Literature
- He doesn't actually rape her, but Jacob forces himself on Bella in Eclipse. It's the forced kiss which makes Bella realize she loves him.
- In Margery Allingham's 1930s murder mystery Fashion in Shrouds, one character is depressed over losing her love to a rival. Her brother recommends "a nice rape" to make her feel better.
- In VC Andrews' Flowers in the Attic, Chris commits Brother Sister Incest with Cathy against her will, but Cathy later says if she really didn't want it she would have pushed him off.
- Reversal in the Mode series from Piers Anthony. The protagonist couple finally get married, but after having been raped in her past, the female lead offers to let the male rape her to consummate their marriage. He declines.
- Averted massively in Lois Mc Master Bujold's Shards of Honor: Sergeant Bothari, during a period of severe mental illness, is forced to participate in his commanding officer's rape and torture of a female POW. After she goes into a catatonic state he keeps her in his own quarters for several days, playing out a fantasy relationship with her; the experience leaves her pregnant and nearly destroyed by the mental trauma, and when they meet him again nineteen years later in The Warrior's Apprentice she promptly shoots him dead. Bothari, by this point much saner, seems to regard it as cosmic justice.
- Played with in Barrayar, too. Koudelka and Drou have an unplanned, er, encounter, on the couch; Kou then takes to avoiding Drou. When finally confronted, he miserably apologizes for raping her. She is offended both by the implication that she couldn't have fought him off - Kou being a cripple and Drou being the Empress's personal bodyguard - and by the realization that Kou was so caught up in his own actions he didn't even notice Drou was participating. She didn't enjoy the sex much, since it was her first time and neither of them were much good at it, but she absolutely wanted to be there. They eventually get things straightened out, and go on to marry, have four daughters, and live happily ever after.
- Inverted in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series. Phedre, the main character, is a high class masochist-courtesan, whose patron god has ordained that she be "pleased" by suffering, physical or mental. When she's raped by Melisande and sold into slavery to the Skaldi in the first book, and made the prisoner of a mad king in the third, she's repeatedly coerced into sex, and her body can't help but enjoy it, even as her mind is emotionally traumatized. However, Phedre's never in danger of fully falling in love with her rapists, and gets back at all of them. Using her spying and planning skills, she foils the Skaldi invasion of her home country, gets Melisande banished from the realm, and assassinates the mad king with a hairpin. All of her former rapists suffer because they mistake her physical weakness for mental submission.
- Played for Squick, or at least tragedy, in The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant. After Lena is raped, the trauma of the experience leaves her no longer entirely sane, and she imagines herself as having been in a romantic relationship with her rapist.
- In Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, a girl rapes a young monk. Yes, you read that right.
- The entire plot of Christine Feehan's Dark series. Her male vampires have to rape their female soulmates in order to stay alive - forcing themselves on their soulmates physically and spiritually to act out a bonding ritual - but it's supposed to be OK Because Destiny Says So. Since the female is already the male's soulmate, she falls in love with the hero and gives birth to their child.
- In Ken Follet's World Without End, Ralph Fitzgerald thinks that, if he rapes Annet, she will love him. Ralph, there was a reason you were called stupid behind your back. He would have been executed, if it were not for the king. Ralph makes many crossings of the Moral Event Horizon.
- In Paul Gallico's The Poseidon Adventure, Susan is searching for her brother alone in a darkened corridor, when she is brutally raped by a panicking teenage crewman, afraid to die a virgin. Not only does Susan grow to like the boy after a brief conversation, she mourns his death and hopes that she's pregnant with his child so that he'll leave a legacy.
- Variation in Jim Grimsley's Dream Boy. The rape of one of the main characters by a third party somehow causes he and his boyfriend to become closer and solve all their relationship problems. Possibly Rape As Redemption.
- In Robert A Heinlein's novel Friday, the titular heroine eventually ends up with one of the men who raped her in the beginning of the book as part of an interrogation. This is partially justified, as (a) said rapist
was only following orders, and is willing to fall on his sword to beg forgiveness when they meet again, (b) the rape scene was meant to show that Friday herself was The Stoic, even in that situation (she's mostly annoyed while she plans to exploit Rape Is Love to her advantage), (c) as a covert agent, rape was considered a routine part of capture and interrogation so he was doing what his role demanded, (d) this specific rapist also allowed her to go to the bathroom, a kindness Friday doesn't forget and counts in the guy's favor; and (e) the real reason for the rape scene is to show how Friday (an Artificial Human) has been indoctrinated to think of herself as not human after her dehumanizing childhood. In any case, readers may still find the pairing fairly cringe-worthy.
- It is made explicit throughout the novel that Friday, and indeed all Artificial Persons (genetically engineered human beings) are raised to be "indentured" (read "slaves"), with "doxy" (read "sex slave") training being part of basic schooling, and had extremely permissive and casual attitudes about all sex. As a result, since both she and her rapist were Artificial Persons (APs), not only does Friday consider being forced into sex to be pretty much a non-issue, but both undoubtedly had been in the position of being ordered to have sex in their training with other A Ps, and "willingness" was never an issue, while they were growing up. This makes even more sense when you realize how stupid it would be to make a sex slave who was superhumanly strong, fast, and objected to rape.
- She actually did threaten to castrate Pete with her bare hands when she first met him again... until she found he was also an Artificial Person, at which point she immediately empathized with him. Apparently their common origin and sex-slave training had Friday realizing that she couldn't really hate him without also in a way hating herself... when her Character Development over most of the book is that she's slowly been learning not to do that.
- Pete explains very specifically that his rape of Friday was not a matter of "only following orders"; he raped her, he explains, "because I wanted to. Because you are so sexy you could corrupt a Stylite. Or cause Venus to switch to Lesbos." This is, if not Rape Is Love, at least rape as compliment.
- Edith Maude Hull's The Sheik, which might as well be called Values Dissonance: The Novel. Strong, independent female protagonist is kidnapped by a (ridiculously stereotyped) Arab sheik and raped pretty much daily for a month or so. She finally tries to escape because she quite rightly loathes him, but no sooner does he catch her again than she realizes she's completely in love with him and is willing to efface herself utterly to make him happy. Eventually he realizes he loves her too, which...really doesn't excuse the rest of it.
- Minor correction... He is not ridiculously stereotyped. The Reveal towards the end is that he's actually not an Arab Sheik. So marrying him is OK!
- At least in the movie they toned it down...a tad.
- The Ira Levin novel This Perfect Day has a very disturbing scene where, after kidnapping her to rescue her from the drug-addled conformity of The Family, Chip rapes Lilac. This is the event that finally awakens her to her true humanity, and the two are soon a couple and get married shortly thereafter.
- Anne Mc Caffrey examples:
- One of the more controversial moments in the Dragonriders Of Pern series occurs in Dragonquest, with F'nor forcing himself on Brekke. Justified (allegedly) as "for her own good and the good of her dragon" (her queen dragon was due for her first mating flight, and Brekke's inhibitions could make for a poor flight and subsequently a clutch of eggs small in size and number) and Brekke comes to enjoy it in the end. But the fact that Brekke explicitly panics and fights F'nor once she figures out what his intentions are left a sour taste in many readers' mouths.
- In Freedom's Landing, the heroine, Kris, helps shanghaied Catteni nobleman Zainal (temporarily) escape their mutual captors. Zainal tries to repay her help... by attempting to throw her down and have his way with her. And he's honestly baffled as to why she's not thrilled about it. It's suggested, but never really followed up on, that the Catteni view non-procreative sex as a token of favor a male gives a female. Then again, one of the nastier recurring themes in the series is that many of the women in Kris's makeshift colony were coping with rape trauma after encounters with other Catteni. It's highly doubtful all of them looked to "honor" the women.
- In an introduction Anne Mc Caffrey stated the initial short story was an unsuccessful attempt to cash in on the porn market. She then had a choice of leaving this in the drawer and coming up with some new ideas, or expanding on the short story.
- In The Tale Of Genji, nearly every single sexual encounter Genji has (and that's a hell of a lot) plays out like this. When Utsusemi refused to let him near her a second time, he settled for her brother.
- This is arguably the entire point of John Norman's Gor series, with a side mention of "Abuse Is Love".
- Sometimes appears abruptly in otherwise innocuous pre-feminist-era romance novels, ratcheting up the squick factor by about x10000. A typical example by Victoria Holt: the "hero" abducts the heroine when he learns she's about to marry another man, and repeatedly rapes her over three days in order to spoil her for marriage for anyone else. Another example from the same author features the reluctant heroine deliberately trapped in a bedroom by the hero; when she beats out a window trying to escape, the hero is to his credit shocked to his senses, but she's left feeling all confused, since part of her wishes she'd just gone along...
- Similarly, at least one Catherine Cookson novel involves a rich young rake carelessly raping a poor young girl, who from no fault of her own has a reputation as the town tramp. She then bears his child, which she is forced to give up to him. She is eventually married to a kindly local miller... but the story downplays his selflessness in favour of an ending wherein he dies and the rake, far from being repentant, realizes he's loved her all along, and deigns to marry her. Yechhh.
- Come to that, the sheer volume of post-feminist "romance" novels that have fallen in love with this trope is... disturbing. See also: Jennifer Blake's The Storm and the Splendor. Shirlee Busbee's Gypsy Lady. At least one story called The Reluctant Bride...
- In The Storm and the Splendor the hero saves the heroine from attempted rape by the villain, marries her (more or less against her will) and then explicitly resists the urge to consummate the marriage until she is truly willing (at one point, after they've been kissing and she gets upset, he abruptly leaves the bed and stands at the window, to, uh, de-arouse himself). A better example is Royal Seduction which can only be characterized as a guilty pleasure—no matter how witty and poetic Prince Rolfe is, no matter how noble his quest to find his brother's murderer, no matter how devastatingly good-looking he is, there is no getting around the fact that he explicitly rapes Angeline! And does so repeatedly in the days to follow. Other Blake examples include Golden Fancy (Ward at least apologizes to Serena immediately afterward) and Embrace and Conquer (Morgan rapes Felicite after believing her to have conspired with her half-brother to ambush him). And as for other authors, Rosemary Rogers is notorious for this; her books in the '70s frequently have heroines who ask (half-fearfully/half-coquettishly) "Are you going to rape me?" Love Play, Sweet Savage Love... The worst example is The Insiders, a portrayal of '70s decadence at its worst — Eve ends up marrying Brant, the gajillionaire who earlier had orchestrated her gang rape. Also, Eve is also anally date-raped. Both Blake and Rogers are terrific writers whose books are certainly products of their times...
- Used more as "love is rape" in Diane Pearson's Summer of the Barshinskeys, in which Ivan Barshinskey rapes the protagonist in anger out of not being able to have her beautiful sister, but she goes along with it because she loves him. It seems that it would count as rape because he is not aware of her consent, as he later apologizes and she soothes him. They later become contentedly married.
- Ayn Rand had... issues. She would go on to say "All sex is Rape.", which in light of her books, makes you wonder what she meant.
- In The Fountainhead, Howard rapes Dominique, not only leading her to fall in love with him, but arguably awakening her to Objectivism, and definitely serving as her sexual awakening: before she seemed unequivocally asexual, but finds sex pleasurable after this incident. Made far, far worse by a load of Author Tract being dumped into the scene as well, using a variant of Rape As Drama and a particularly twisted Rape As Redemption.
- One might argue there was some Author Appeal for Ayn Rand here — Dominique is Rand's Mary Sue, as is Karen Andre in her early work, The Night of January 16th, who is raped by and falls in love with Bjorn Faulkner in essentially the same way.
- The Fountainhead sex scene is actually somewhat of a subversion. Howard spots her eyeballing him while he was working in a rock quarry. She invites him over to her house to fix her "broken" marble fireplace, which she had smacked it a couple of times with a hammer, wanting to deliberately break it as she needed an excuse to invite him over. Because she barely cracked the marble, Howard finishes the job for her with a chisel, to her approval. Their conversation was so suggestive that the only way Dominique could have broadcasted her desire for him any clearer would have been if she had answered the door naked and had "bone me" written across her forehead. This fact is not lost to Howard, so he simply comes back later on that evening and does, in fact, give her what she wanted, with her refusal actually being her way of testing him (diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, I guess). As Ayn Rand herself said: "if it was rape, then it was rape by engraved invitation".
- Used realistically in John Ringo's Council Wars series when the Big Bad kidnaps one of the heroines (along with a bunch of other women) for his harem. All are raped repeatedly until Stockholm Syndrome sets in, at which point the heroine is horrified to realize that she actually loves him, though that doesn't stop her from killing him in a particularly nasty and gruesome fashion. Unusual in that the victim is fully aware of what has happened to her and recognizes that she's undergone a form of brainwashing. A later book shows that all of her harem-mates also suffered severe psychological trauma from the experience.
- Subverted in the French science fiction juggernaut (11.500+ pages without counting the sequel and spinoffs) La Compagnie des Glaces (The Ice Company): The "Rail Pirate" Kurts and his crew rape the powerful Corrupt Corporate European Femme Fatale Floa Sadon, who acts as if she was enjoying it. The subversion comes from the fact that Kurts then falls in love with Floa, but she starts to love him only once their relationship becomes consensual and she has him wrapped around her little finger. Well, since they both are MagnificentBastards, maybe they were meant to be together...
- Another example comes from the fact that the protagonist, Lien Rag, is captured by a fat and repulsive female mob leader who wants to have a child by him (she enjoys behing pregnant, and Lien is supposed to have some specific genetic material that the mob leader would like to "implement" into her offspring). The mob leader then uses her younger and much better-looking daughter to make Lien "ready" and switch with her at the last minute. Lien Rag does not fall in love with the fat mob leader, but when it comes to her seductive daughter, the fact that he was attached and that she was the accomplice in his rape does not bother him... or her, for that matter.
- Subverted in Atonement — Lola marries Paul due to societal pressure, and can't bear to admit that he raped her.
- In The Illuminatus! Trilogy, this trope, specifically in Ayn Rand's work, is satirized (among other things) via the Fictional Document Telemachus Sneezed.
- Subverted in The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub. The villain Serial Killer, Dick Dart, narcissistically claims that all sex is rape, since when he does it with women, he completely owns them. It initially seems that the heroine, Nora, does develop Stockholm Syndrome with him, and genuinely starts liking him more than the other men in the book. Until later on, where she rebels and tries to kill him after he tries to force her to be his accomplice in killing a bunch of old ladies.
- Popped up in a Christian romance series, specifically in Marylu Tyndall's The Redemption. A main character is raped by the dashing, amoral young captian of a pirate ship, escapes, has his baby, and eventually decides that he's a Dracoin Leather Pants. Note that, in previous books, he also kidnapped a woman (twice) and caused her to miscarry.
- In S.L. Viehl's novel StarDoc, the protagonist, a female doctor, enters an isolation chamber with someone who is a possible carrier of a plague in order to prove it's not airborne. This someone happens to be the irritating but handsome male linguist. He sexually assaults her, and she, to her own disgust, begins to enjoy it. It later turns out that the "plague" is actually sentient, and was in control of him at the time and actively trying to infect her, so her forgiveness of him is somewhat understandable. What's not so understandable is that there's obvious unresolved sexual tension between them by the second book, and they eventually fall in love.
- Kathleen E. Woodiwiss' acclaimed historical romance The Flame and the Flower is quite well-written but has an exceptionally disturbing rape-to-love conversion. The heroine stabs a man who is attempting to rape her and flees, believing she has killed him. The so-called "hero" has men wandering the streets looking for a prostitute to bring to him, and when they see her on the streets they grab her. She goes with them thinking they are police. The hero rapes her, dismissing her resistance as "mere coyness". She escapes and goes back to her abusive aunt, only to find out that she is pregnant. Her aunt forces her to wed her rapist... whom she eventually falls in love with, and bears the child, and they all live happily ever after. I found this massively disturbing — he never apologizes for the rape, and the novel leaves the reader with a distinct impression that because she was out on the street alone, she deserved it. Even for a novel set in the early 1800s, this struck me as excessively misogynistic.
Live Action TV
Theater
- The original version of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues features an extremely controversial section about a teenage girl who is given massive amounts of booze by an adult woman, who then takes advantage of her while she's drunk. The character in question finds herself enjoying the experience, and closes the monologue with the line, "If it was rape, it was a good rape." Later versions of the script attempt to rectify it by making the girl sixteen and removing the good rape line... but still portraying Rape Is Love.
- The titular character in David Mamet's Edmond seems in the final scene to have developed a strangely close bond with the Scary Black Man who raped him just two scenes earlier. Of course, this case is... well, not justified per se, but... well, part of something altogether bizarre anyway.
- In the original play of Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, Melchior rapes Wendla in the hayloft of his family's barn. In subsequent scenes, Wendla doesn't appear to be too troubled by the experience, but Melchior angsts over it, worried that Wendla will be angry with him.
Video Games
- Subverted in Jewel Knights Crusaders. It seems like for the sake of the plot that it's played straight, but the dialogue makes it abundantly clear that the main character's romantic feelings, if any, have nothing to do with his desire to have sex with any woman that moves. He also subverts Jerk With A Heart Of Gold pretty blatantly.
- In Crescendo, this looks like it's played straight in Ayame's path, but it actually winds up being a rather gut wrenching, traumatic inversion. Your hero has a MAJOR Heroic BSOD on discovering he adopted, and find out his stepsister purposely B Sed him for years into believing otherwise sends his already depressed psychological state over the edge, and proceeds to rape her, or so it appears and looks like. In truth, she had feelings for you, and her massive lack of resistence was this combined with her guilt for lying to you, so it not entirely nonconsensual. It's still traumatic and messed up, but it eventually gets resolved in the good ending, where they both acknowledge their feelings, and you both manage to overcome the trauma together.
- Not quite rape, but sexual harassment - If you allow Ocelot to grab Snake from behind during the final battle in Metal Gear Solid 4, Ocelot moans 'Snake...' and gives him a tender kiss. It restores Snake's Psyche. Considering Snake's weird romantic issues, this makes sense.
- Snake can also be on the molesty end of the equation if the player decides to pat down a FROG and touches their breasts or crotch. They hate it - unless he looks young.
- Even then it becomes a crap shoot - the girl can punched you in the head, then shoot you.
- In the Touhou Project h-doujin Love-Reign, Alice's love for her doll Shanghai is portrayed in this manner. To quote one of Alice's most disturbing lines ever (said when she as forcing a soul into Shanghai):
"Your gestures of fright, pained behaviour, even your lovely voice are all so superb. Well, it's natural to expect it from something I've made with love.
There, it's done.
I love you, Shanghai."
- Shiki's dreams in Tsukihime in the sense that it becomes consensual during the process. Of course, it's not really that bad since Rape Is Ok When It Is Female On Male.
- Also subverted, in that it's 1. Literally all a fantasy, 2. A very bad idea by Aruceid, and 3. Is coming a good portion from Shiki's own head. Also overlaps with 'Rape as Comedy', and 'Be careful what you wish for'.
- It doesn't come at all from his own head. He's horrified at the thought that it might have and asks her specifically about that. Len is to blame here, leaving him free to ask what the hell Arcueid was thinking to make him have a dream like that. And it's also not okay with Shiki, he simply decides not to hold a grudge. And in Kagetsu Tohya, one of the sex scenes is Shiki paralyzed by Len while she strips him and... doesn't really know what to do. She's half cat and half little girl, people.
- Many, if not most, h-games do this. To quote an above editor: "And that's enough about hentai or this page will never stop."
Web Comics
- Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire. Adolescent Stonewater (Noble Savage orc) leapt in to save the outlawed Melna (Noble Savage orc) from being butchered along with her parents by a tribe of Always Chaotic Evil orcs. He invoked the ancient traditions or whatever to claim her as his wife and thus ineligible for butchery; they insisted with sharp pointy things that said traditions require knowing one's wife in the hot & heavy Biblical sense; she was too catatonic for a by-your-leave (and the tribe wouldn't have let him anyway). She knocked him out cold and legged it afterwards. Sparks fly when they meet up as adults and have to fight evil together, but Stonewater's grown up to be a hero with the power of nature and of Positive Discrimination. Through her disgust Melna realizes that she's fallen in love with him. Her reaction involves violence and alcohol. A honest attempt to depict very sensitive issues? Crossing a line that just shouldn't be crossed? A ham-fisted attempt to be "deep" and "edgy?" Opinions vary, but "orc rape!" has still become associated with Dominic Deegan.
- Later revisited, where Melna admits that it wasn't Stonewater himself she was falling for, but the way he's grown into a Orc much like her father.
- Viciously averted in the Tally Road story arc Darkest Before The Dawn where Finn practices his Black And Gray Morality by raping 'Eight' with hefty doses of BDSM expertise to break her spirit and sell her into prostitution for money. Finn can and will cause her to respond sexually by patience and technique, but his final act of violation is explicitly demanding her consent on the grounds that the rape will go faster and be over sooner, to which she assents, in despair. He causes her to just about explode with orgasm, setting up the trope perfectly- then takes a level in badass by reverting to his spirit-breaking mode and scorning her wordlessly, with the intended result. 'Eight' is depicted as way too smart not to figure out what is happening, and plainly does not fall in love. Of course, the trope is twisted further when Finn lets her leave forever but reveals he's gone all softhearted over her anyhow... perhaps an ur-example of a Trope Backfire?
- Penny And Aggie had insecure Karen assault her boyfriend Marshall in the shower. She completely blew off a philosophical chat to grope him. All of which was portrayed as okay because she's insecure, because men are not victims, and because Marshall is portrayed as too insecure to have sex because of his nymphomaniac mother. This is still fiercely debated in the fandom.
Western Animation
- In the second Futurama movie: Yivo, the titular Beast With A Billion Backs does this with the entire universe.
- I'd say this is an aversion. After finding out that Yivo was having sex with everybody he poked a genticle in, everyone makes Yivo go on proper dates with them and wait with the sex. As it occurs with in the film, they don't have sex anymore untill the whole universe married Yivo, and everyone falls in love with him because they have a great time at the dates.
- Starchaser: The Legend of Orin features one of the protagonists kidnapping a "fembot" working as a secretary (just because the opportunity presents itself, and after fumbling about with her back for a while, eventually reprograms her by opening her butt and poking around in it with a large metal tool, causing her to fall instantly in love with him. Again, this is one of the heroes, and he does this in preparation to sell her to a slave trader.
- In fairness, the dude soon changes his mind and decides not to sell the fembot after all, even though it means paying the slave trader out of his own pocket. Also, neither he (nor anyone else) ever have sex with the robot.
- Used in one of the darker episodes of Moral Orel, Alone, where it is revealed that schoolteacher Ms. Sculptham is in love with her rapist Mr. Creepler.
Real Life
- Some Central and/or South American countries still have a law on the books that if a rapist marries the victim he can avoid punishment. A lot of pressure is placed on the victim to agree to this because she is "damaged goods" and this way she can get a husband. Pretty amazing to anyone who has the slightest clue how awful rape is.
- Inverted in Italy: that law was up until, in the first half of the XX century, 12-year-old farm girl Maria Goretti was killed by her neighbor Alessandro Serenelli when he tried to rape her - and she was later canonized by the Catholic Church for her refusal to give into the sin of lust, which apparently helped abolish that particular law. And she's not the only case of a female being sanctified for preferring to defend her purity to death - she's just the most popular. Maria's canonization was elicited in large part because she apparently never raised a hand to protect herself from the upcoming fourteen stab wounds, but instead she devoted all her efforts not only to protect her virginity without violence, but to try making her would-be rapist surrender and leave her alone ("No, Alessandro! It is against God's wishes! Please stop, or you'll go to Hell!").
- Some Catholics say that the real reason behind Maria's canonization is more her Plucky Girl behavior than refusing to give into lust. That's contradicted by the following question posed by Pius XII, ueing Maria's canonization: "Young people, pleasure of the eyes of Jesus, are you determined to resist any attack on your chastity with the help of grace of God?" Either the Cath higher-ups were really good master in mixed messages, or...
- Early Christian martyrology is chock full of stories about Christian women, generally young girls, who suffered martyrdom rather than submit to sex — in many cases, with their own husbands or fiancées. Subverted in the case of St. Cecilia; she actually converted her husband St. Valerius and convinced him to live in chastity with her as if they were brother and sister, so Cecilia's final martyrdom came as a side-effect of Valerius's own and not as a consequence of her refusal to sex him up.
- When barbarians were swarming over the Roman Empire, St. Augustine took pains to reassure the public that a Christian woman who is sexually forced commits no sin, so long as she does not enjoy it.
- A twist on that law is traditional Hebrew law. If a man rapes (or just has premarital sex with) a woman he is required to marry her, complete with marriage price. If the woman doesn't want the lout, the marriage is cancelled, but he still has to pay the marriage price. Don't know if that's still in effect, but it was a couple thousand years ago.
- Well, there's a way to get the parents to shut up and let you get on with the wedding...
- This law is frequently misunderstood. The woman is in no way required or encouraged to live with the man, nor to have sex with him ever again. He, on the other hand, is required to financially support her for the rest of her life, and cannot divorce her to get out of that obligation.
- Speaking of Christianity: Brutally inverted in the story of Dinah.
- Sadly, this editor has seen this play out with abuse victims (and in the particular cases I'm speaking of, females). Usually not if the rape is a one time occurrence, but if someone is repeatedly raped over a long period of time, Stockholm Syndrome can set in. Of course, this can be true with *any* form of abuse, but it seems more effective when the abuse is sexual. A mindset develops that "They must love me (even if only a little), because they want to have sex with me".
- Among the Yanomamo people of Brazil, both the men and the women consider it an act of love when a husband beats his wife. The women even go so far as to shave their heads and dust the bumps red to show them off.
- Of a racially-motivated rape of two women by three men, a police detective in the US justified not classifying the hate crime as such by saying: "It was felt that there was no hate involved instead he [the lead rapist] was very infatuated with the Japanese race."
- Funny thing: some rapists fall into this trope, to the point where it's considered a subtype of rapist behaviors. They honestly believe that their victims are in love with them, and have been known to do things like give home security tips and arrange for the next date with the victim. One rapist was actually caught because one of his victims went "...okay" to the whole 'next date' thing...and while she stood him up, the police did not...
- One of the How-Not-to-Get-Yourself-Raped-and-Killed lessons a lot of women are taught is that if a man is raping or trying to rape you and shows signs of being this type — calling you by terms of endearment or making you say you love him, for instance — it can help, if it seems safe, to say things like "I don't like this," "You're hurting me," "You're scaring me," and so on. It makes dents in his delusion that you're a willing and enthusiastic partner.
- Some therapists who work with rape victims will tell you that one of the most traumatic (well, everything in a rape is traumatic....) thing that can happen during a rape is that sometime (rarely but more often than you'd think), the victim can experience physical pleasure (buried under that god awful amount of fear and pain) and that renders the (mental) recovery a lot harder. But that pleasure is purely body mechanisms, still the victim can feel guilty and feel s/he had a part to play in the rape, and maybe s/he asked for it. That is the most destructive thing for a rape victim because it makes it very difficult to acknowledge they had nothing to do and were not responsible for the rape.
- Also particularly hellish in cases of child molestation where the children had no idea what the hell was going on and why they were feeling pleasure at what was happening. Even worse when the abuser was careful not to injure them and told them that what they were feeling was natural.
- Eh, sorry about that, although figured it was going to be deleted most likely, since this really isn't the place for arguing about it like I said in that comment, but I couldn't help myself after reading the comment right above...
- One of the classic failures of society to support rape victims is the response, when trying to tell someone you're been raped, "Did you enjoy it?" This is the worst side effect of the trope that All Women Are Lustful. Male victims, meanwhile, all too often find they get this reaction if their rapist was a woman, since All Men Are Perverts.
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