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Double Standard tropes

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UchuuFlamenco Since: Jul, 2017
#1: Jan 4th 2025 at 2:43:54 PM

This is something I've been meaning to ask for quite some time (over a year, in fact. I've been meaning to write this ever since this this ATT query happened a little over a year ago). I've been holding off on asking about it because it involves sensitive issues, but it's probably best to have an honest conversation about it.

So, I have some questions regarding this is about a specific group of Double Standard tropes:

(I'm leaving out Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi and Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal because I'm not familiar with them to say whether ny concerns regarding these tropes apply to them or not. If anyone wants to give their input regarding those two tropes, feel free to do so.)

So, my questions are:

  • Are these tropes about a double standard happening within the work itself (like how Good Adultery, Bad Adultery works), or is that not a requirement?
  • If that's not a requirement, which does seem to be the case, I'm concerned that these tropes are based entirely on hypothetical scenarios/speculation about how a work would handle the same scenario if it involved different gender dynamics.
    A lot of examples are written along the line of "Imagine how that would be treated if the genders were reversed" or "the movie would have never done that if the genders were reversed". Are those kinds of arguments kosher? I honestly can't think of any other tropes where the central concept hinges on having to imagine how a work would handle things differently if you changed a certain aspect of it.
  • The "imagine if the genders were reversed" argument runs into the problem of assuming that things like male-on-female Romanticized Abuse, Questionable Consent or Black Comedy Rape never happen on fiction.
    The example featured in the query I linked is about a female rapist who is not chastised by other characters for what she did, but I can think of examples in fiction (including fanfic like the work in question) where the same thing happens with male rapists. How exactly do you determine when a rapist is easily forgiven because she is a female rapist, and when a rapist is easily forgiven because the author trivializes rape in general?
  • What is the best way to draw the line between these tropes and Black Comedy Rape when it comes to comedy examples?
    For instance, Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male has a bunch of examples from Family Guy, but if you go to Black Comedy Rape you can see that Family Guy has actually made a lot of jokes about women being raped by men (a longer list than the one from Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male, in fact!). Can something be called a double standard if a show is an Equal-Opportunity Offender?

And last, but not least:

  • These tropes attract aversions a lot. Are these tropes universal enough for aversions to be noteworthy?

SharkToast Since: Mar, 2013
#2: Jan 4th 2025 at 6:39:36 PM

I thought we purged Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male of aversions because they were too common.

The main thing to remember with these tropes is that they're Tropes in Aggregate. That means that their meaning comes from general trends in fiction. In this case abuse and rape of women is generally treated as a bad thing in fiction, but is typically downplayed or treated as funny when it happens to men. The point is that in general such a thing would be treated more seriously if a female character was involved.

Edited by SharkToast on Jan 4th 2025 at 6:41:33 AM

DoktorvonEurotrash Lex et Veritas from Not a place of honour (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#3: Jan 5th 2025 at 5:50:13 AM

[up][up]I feel like these tropes should be automatically cut from any black comedy/shock comedy that also makes dark jokes about men raping or abusing women, since in those cases, there's clearly no Double Standard in play.

MorganWick (Elder Troper)
#4: Jan 5th 2025 at 6:04:19 AM

These tropes used to be called "X Is Okay If It Is Y On Z", which were never great names - arguably failing all three prongs of Clear, Concise, Witty - but were renamed specifically because people mistook them for saying we thought they were okay. As with the Artistic License tropes, though, the new names run into a different problem of misleading about the point of the trope, missing that it's about a double standard in fiction as a whole, not necessarily within individual works.

I do think works that play rape for comedy regardless of the genders involved shouldn't necessarily fall under these tropes, but if it does so more with some gender pairs than others you could make a case that it belongs.

DoktorvonEurotrash Lex et Veritas from Not a place of honour (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Ferot_Dreadnaught Since: Mar, 2015
#6: Jan 7th 2025 at 5:30:29 AM

What do we do with aversions?

Normally we cut them, unless exceptions are notable in the work, but given the sensitive subject matter I've held off.

Reymma RJ Savoy from Edinburgh Since: Feb, 2015 Relationship Status: Wanna dance with somebody
RJ Savoy
#7: Jan 7th 2025 at 2:32:05 PM

I have definitely seen Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male used to trope a girl trying to rape a boy, when the whole thing was played for comedy and fetishism with no attempt to downplay the terror nor any kind of standard to compare it to. It was as if the editor ignored the first two words.

I am wary of these Tropes in Aggregate, especially those with a moral implication. They have the potential to be informative, but to do that they have be held to an academic rigour that is difficult to enforce on a wiki. Also they can easily fall into soapboxing.

To set a hopefully single standard, I would suggest restricting examples to works where the comparison can be made. And I agree aversions are not worthy of note.

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themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#8: Jan 7th 2025 at 2:36:11 PM

If it means anything, Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male still has its old name, and I did a wick check on the matter a while back (but was told it didn't need TRS). Just letting the thread know if it's of value in any way.

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WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#9: Jan 7th 2025 at 2:37:02 PM

I mean, I feel like the comedy and fetishism idea is part of the double standard? Making it funny/hot is a way of downplaying the horror of it. Right?

I mean, Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male is almost nothing but examples where the abuse is played for laughs when it would not be funny if the genders were reversed

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 7th 2025 at 5:37:58 AM

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animuacid The girl of the window from Astyr residence in Lilysthia's grounds Since: Jan, 2024 Relationship Status: I love you for psychological reasons
The girl of the window
#10: Jan 8th 2025 at 1:33:52 AM

I'm more familiar with Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male because last year I added an example that compared acts in the same work.

  • Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male: The rape attempts on the heroines are portrayed dramatically while Junnosuke getting violated by SS girls is shown to only hurt his pride at most. It doesn't help that in these scenes he manages to overpower his aggressors and knock them out.

I think this is a Trope in Aggregate more than about stuff in the same work. There are some aversions that can be moved to Rape as Drama or similar, but others are more unusual and I don't know what to do with them. Like this from Yosuga no Sora:

  • Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male: Averted by a past incident where Sora caught Nao apparently "raping" Haruka. Nao genuinely regrets doing it and thought Haruka hated her for it. Turns out Haruka was okay with this — he was just surprised from it since it was his first time — and he wanted both of them to get over it. It helps that the anime is a lot less clear on whether or not the incident was consensual, and Sora is very biased on the matter.

This might be a nitpick, but why is the punctuation in the custom title of Double Standard: Rape, Female on Male different from the rest? Others like Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female have both a colon and a comma.

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