Historical Fictionistas discussion

Once you go far back enough, rape was seen as common and the right thing to do if you took over people's land, or sacked a town. This of course provides a huge barrier to most modern audiences.

I don't mind it, given I know it happened historically, but several people have told me they'd not read my book if any of the protagonists were rapists.

I'm at a loss of what to do. I want to portray the period accurately, and just turning a blind eye to the rape that did go on feels disrespectful and a bit twee.

But even GRR Martin does this. Characters he wants people to see as evil rape, and those who he wants the reader to sympathise with don't rape. Which is rather ironic, since some of the characters he based the protagonists on (like Ned Stark's historical equivalent) are attested to have raped people.

How should I deal with this? Thoughts?

Well, Martin had more leeway because he wasn’t writing historical fiction. I suppose you could have your favorite characters rape but feel bad about it. I think some writers of historical fiction have let the common soldiers rape but the leaders stand aloof.

Personally, I would not particularly want to read a story about a victor who collected his spoils in this particular way; but one can’t expect to please everyone, so you could always write what feel right to you and let the readers fall where they may. If you submit to a publisher, of course, you’ll be compelled to write what the editor sees fit to publish.

I think that if you aren't super detailed or graphic in regards to the actual act, most people will still read. I know many readers who avoid any detailed, explicit sexual aggression. You won't win those audiences over, but leaving it out entirely isn't accurate, so if you are writing HISTORICAL fiction, I think you need to at least mention or refer to it.

Thanks for the advice!

But then aren't I straddling an even thinner line? Mentioning it casually makes it seem like I don't care, which I do, yet describing it graphically is quite grotesque.

I should have said: I'm writing a historical fiction novel, more historical than fiction given 100% of the characters existed.

It is a difficult problem. If you are writing about actual historical figures who raped people, I think you owe it to your readers to present those characters' points of view, even if you add a historical note explaining that you, personally, do not endorse that point of view.

If that solution makes you uncomfortable (it does me), then I think you need to fictionalize your characters. Even if a particular period favors a particular type of brutality, there will be individuals who disagree.

As an author, you are entitled to write about those individuals—as well as others who hold the dominant view. But I am much less comfortable about distorting the historical record. That seems like whitewashing, in a way that creating forward-thinking (if not too forward-thinking) fictional characters does not.

But people weren't forward thinking. That's distorting history even more.

They were sexist, racist, intolerant people who killed each other over petty arguments.

Samuel wrote: "They were sexist, racist, intolerant people who killed each other over petty arguments."

Ken Follett wrote those kinds of characters in Pillars of the Earth... He just didn't make them protagonists. But there are many anti-heroes in literature, who exist is murky gray areas where morality and ethics are concerned. If you're skilled, you can still make the character/figure someone that readers can identify with.

Personally, I have no problem with rape in books. Fiction, non-fiction, whatever as long as it doesn't seem... Titillating. Like the author is writing it as a sex scene or something.

Maybe a possible solution is to make your narrator someone other than the rapist. At least then, even if you aren't willing to change his mind on raping, the reader is one step removed and doesn't feel so close and icky about it.

Either way, I think you should tell the story that wants to be told. Some won't appreciate it, but some will, and those are the readers you want, right?

Thanks for the advice. The problem is that every man was a rapist. It was just what was done to the enemy.

Then if you are writing in the voice of the rapist, write it as an emotional scene, rather than a physical. That is, how does he feel about it? Is it pleasurable? A chore? Does he hate himself, but does it anyway because its expected? Or does he do it with no feeling attached at all? Does he have a wife, children? Does he think about them when he does it? Sisters? A mother? What does he think about his victims? Make it about his thoughts. That should draw away from the external immorality of the act and make it a more internal, amoral thing.
But know if your protagonist is a rapist, there will be those who would prefer not to read your book.
The current TV series "Poldark" the main character raped a woman (which they softened for the TV) - might be worthwhile looking into how that was handled in the book?

Yeah.

I'll look into what people thought, but I'm afraid it might just be sexual pleasurable, no guilt. It's a similar people to writing people during the Renaissance. Most modern authors absolutely want their historical characters to love black people and want them to have equality. I'm not ashamed to admit my ancestors probably hated black people and maybe even had them as slaves, and if I ever write characters from that period I won't whitewash them.

Bree wrote: "Then if you are writing in the voice of the rapist, write it as an emotional scene, rather than a physical. That is, how does he feel about it? Is it pleasurable? A chore? Does he hate himself, but..."

^Completely agree!!!

Samuel wrote: "Once you go far back enough, rape was seen as common and the right thing to do if you took over people's land, or sacked a town. This of course provides a huge barrier to most modern audiences.

I ..."
I appreciate the dilemma. In my WIP, I want a character (a bad guy and not the protagonist) to call another character a nigger. It fits the characters, the context, and the times, and says a lot about the character who makes the utterance, but I am so worried that present day readers will be offended.
I think the advice you've gotten about using the scene to reveal something about the character is a point well made.

Isn't the issue with certain cultures and times that what we define as "Rape" wasn't thought of as "rape"? The "spoils of war" has included the right to plunder all of a conquered people's possessions and - for many centuries, across many cultures - women were deemed possessions of the conquered menfolk.

This wiki article on wartime sexual violence is the crux of my thinking on this - that bringing our 21st century view of all sexual violence as the same, eg., as rape in the modern sense, rather than seeing it as the characters of that time saw it - primarily as a tool in humiliating the losers and, sometimes, genocide - is mistaken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartime...

Providing insight to the reader into why those cultures thought of sexual violence in connection with war as different from rape of a civilian in peacetime might present an acceptable means of addressing it, with historical accuracy.

Wikipedia is awful for anything that you can't tell is false.

A lot of what's on that page has been whitewashed by people (not all of them third-wave feminists, but a good deal of them).

Especially in regards to modern wartime rape. It still happens, and american soldiers still do it. Obviously you can't put that sort of stuff on wikipedia though, the US doesn't like it being public. It also doesn't cover what we know of later medieval attitudes by women to rape, which, as far as my research shows at the moment, was a bit nonchalant, unfortunately. To quote Forrest Gump, it seems like a "Shit Happens" attitude.

"This wiki article on wartime sexual violence is the crux of my thinking on this - that bringing our 21st century view of all sexual violence as the same, eg., as rape in the modern sense, rather than seeing it as the characters of that time saw it - primarily as a tool in humiliating the losers and, sometimes, genocide - is mistaken."

Well, the modern thinking on adult rape is that it's very much about power by demeaning the victim. Paedophilia is very much sexual though, so it's the closest thing we have to how rape was back then, mainly sexual.
While there was the idea of humiliating your adversary, it was still very much sexual. It was just pleasure that the soldiers thought they deserved. It wasn't any less traumatic to victims then than now, but people on both sides saw it as the normal thing. So it wasn't "Oh my god, you raped everyone, you monster!" But more a matter-of-fact "Oh, you raped everyone. I will avenge them, but it's not a big deal for them, it's just a blow to my honour".

The idea of owning your body is relatively recent. By our modern definition of rape, arranged marriages are rape (and quite a lot of Roma believe that their cultural arrange marriages are raped. Some Indians also view it as rape, since the woman isn't consensual to the marriage or any of the sex that follows). So rape in a historical context was very much having sex with someone violently and against their will. It's not very nice, but having sex while intoxicated, which is nowadays rightly called rape, was back then the fault of the woman. Absolutely vile, but that's how things were.

Went off on a bit of a tangent there, but my point was that the reasons for it were very different. People were also put to slavery once a town was sacked (quite often the women who were raped went on to become slaves). We don't have much knowledge of how women reacted, but it's entirely possible they found it less traumatic than today. Just like Romans saw it as normal to be whipped for doing a bad job, today that would get your boss in jail. I'm looking into it, so I don't know, but maybe women saw rape as a normal thing to happen if a town was sacked.
Now we're in VERY unpleasant territory, but I don't intend to turn a blind eye to it if that WAS their attitude.

Which leaves me in a bad position if they accept the rape. A big theme of my novel is how primitive and barbaric society was and still is.

"Providing insight to the reader into why those cultures thought of sexual violence in connection with war as different from rape of a civilian in peacetime might present an acceptable means of addressing it, with historical accuracy."

I'll definitely have to show the aftermath. But I can't help but think that if the victims didn't consider it a big deal, that will turn off a lot of readers.

You're entirely right about it being the spoils of war, though. Rape against your countrymen was often punished by death, it was strictly only against enemy girls and women. Christianity also raised the age of who you could rape quite a bit as well (Romans had very relaxed attitudes to Paedophilia, but later on taking a child as a spoil of war became a big no-no). Christianity also made homosexual sex bad. So while Pagan Romans also raped men when they took a town, the Late Romans (all Christians) just killed the men, raped the women, and put any children to slavery. If it had been Julius Caesar's pagan army five centuries prior, they'd have raped *everyone*, and then killed the men and sold the children into slavery.

The Vikings also raped men when they plundered cities later on in the Early Medieval Era. It was only seen as bad to be the one receiving the anal sex and not the giver, so basically homosexuality was only bad for one party, not the couple. It was seen as effeminate and weak to not be the dominant one (usually a wife in a hetero relationship, and being weak and effeminate was seen as a normal thing for a woman to be, but NOT a man).
So men were also raped. There are quite a few Pagans in my novel, so I'll definitely have to include that in some parts of it. It was a point of conflict with the Christians, who found the Pagans who were homosexual revolting, and Christian sodomites were heavily punished.

so we'll agree to disagree on wiki, in that my posting was merely intended to highlight that sexual violence as a tool of war is the fact that readers need to understand, and with the perspective of the time. No one is suggesting it's in the past. Anyone paying attention at a glancing blow to the ongoing horrors in war zones in Africa and the Middle East would be aware of that fact, but many readers might not be paying attention to those current events unless they are occurring down the street in their own neighborhood/s.

Victims do accept rape. Today. Even in the US. Just look at the discrepancy between self-reported assaults and those the police departments track - particularly in any university town. We go on.

I'm not sure we're in disagreement then. A lot on that page keeps getting reverted (look at the history of the page) because people don't like the truth.

"No one is suggesting it's in the past. Anyone paying attention at a glancing blow to the ongoing horrors in war zones in Africa and the Middle East would be aware of that fact, but many readers might not be paying attention to those current events unless they are occurring down the street in their own neighborhood/s."

Well, people are very quick to call people they don't like rapists, like ISIS (who are rapists, don't get me wrong), but turn a blind eye to the American soldiers raping people too. And a lot of the US's Middle-Eastern warlord "allies" tend to be paedophiles, unfortunately...

"Victims do accept rape. Today. Even in the US. Just look at the discrepancy between self-reported assaults and those the police departments track - particularly in any university town. We go on."

True, very true.

Samuel wrote: "Wikipedia is awful for anything that you can't tell is false.

A lot of what's on that page has been whitewashed by people (not all of them third-wave feminists, but a good deal of them).

Especial..."

I have to admit, it does bother me when rape in books doesn't properly capture the victim's perspective. In real life, it's a traumatic event that victims struggle with for the rest of their lives, but historical novels often seem to gloss over its deep psychological and physical effects-- it happens to characters and then they just move on and it becomes a vaguely distasteful memory.

Even when rape historically was considered another "spoil of war"
as you have pointed out, I have a hard time believing that the effect on victims was any different. I'm not sure how you would address this as a writer--I'm simply offering my perspective as a reader.

Well, it's definitely a case of value dissonance with our ancestors. As I said in my first few posts, my ancestors (Europeans, Brits for the most part) would have been vehement racists. There's no point in me picturing them as heroic egalitarians, since they almost certainly weren't.

And as I said, most of my research so far points to women basically "getting over it". There'll always be exceptions, of course. But ancient mentalities were different. For example, it was viewed as normal to kill your baby if he was a cripple. Nowadays that wouldn't happen, but at the time it was the done thing.

A book that I can think of that portrays value dissonance wonderfully is "Le Rouge et le Noir" by Stendhal. The Protagonist Julien Sorel is a carpenter's son (yes, it's meant to be a Christ parallel). He's weak and effeminate, not fit to be a carpenter, and is often bullied by his brothers. His father doesn't like him. Modern audiences often think the father is a complete arsehole for hating his son and seeing him as incapable. But that was the reality in 19th century France. The idea of loving your child no matter what didn't exist, and if he was useless, he'd get treated like useless, and his family would view him as useless.

Nowadays that probably wouldn't happen in most parts of the world. I'm not saying it doesn't, however.

In Twelfth century comedies, women were sometimes raped, and the funny part was meant to be that secretly they wanted it, since they were horny objects who just wanted to fuck everyone.
That said, amongst all those frankly misogynistic plays, there's one that stands out since the victim actually speaks out about being raped.

Shakespeare, many centuries later, seems to see rape as inevitable. At one part in the Henriad, Henry (can't remember which) says his men will rape everyone if the besieged town doesn't surrender. And he's the hero of the story.

If we go back to Ovid, it's pretty much even worse, since in one of his poems he recommends young men who can't "get" a girl should rape her.

One thing people don't like admitting in terms of modern rape is rape against slaves. There's almost no doubt that the founding fathers all raped their slaves. I've never seen many people admit it, but most historians agree on that one.

Oh, and Ovid wasn't kidding. He also had this entire psychological theory that women wanted to be raped, much like the twelfth century playwrights. Yeah.

Marital/spousal rape wasn't even a crime in all 50 states of the US until 1993. No doubt there remain some who don't agree that it should be.

Historically, having sex with a slave was accepted as the right of an owner over a possession, in the same way that sex between married partners was a right of each partner and no independent consent was required or necessary.

So the debate, again, is not over whether sexual relations occurred between founding fathers and their slaves, but whether that action constitutes and should be referred to as rape, when considered by the social standards and mores of the day. For purposes of historical fiction, it might be problematic to apply current moral standards to condemn the actions of historical characters engaged in activities that were acceptable to their culture at that time - but you know your readers best.

But that's the whole point. Yes, it wasn't considered bad at the time, but modern readers will think it is.

This has been a fascinating discussion, and it's a real challenge to us as writers to present controversial issues like this and simultaneously respect the historical context while being sensitive to what the mindset of contemporary readers will be bringing to the read.

Good Morning. I dealt with rape as a war crime in my first novel and it was based on actual events that happened in Cyprus in 1974, when the island was invaded and divided by Turkey. Many young women, and older ones, were raped and tortured during that crisis. I was uncomfortable writing the rape scene; the rapists are faceless, nameless and are not characters in the book after the fact. Still, their actions cast a long shadow on their victim and those who know her for decades to come. I think you have to write those scenes without making them sexy or erotic; they have to be historically accurate and written as life events, asking the difficult question, what now?

Loukia wrote: "Good Morning. I dealt with rape as a war crime in my first novel and it was based on actual events that happened in Cyprus in 1974, when the island was invaded and divided by Turkey. Many young wom..."

Yes, unlike any other part of my novel, the scene itself with this content was written more journalistically: so difficult.

I also dealt with rape in my novel Book of Addis, which is about American slavery. Rape of Black women was such a regular occurrence in American history that it was impossible to not address it. I wrote it as horrific because it is horrific. It is utterly impossible to write a rape scene as "sexy" imo. It's absolutely impossible.

Samuel wrote: "Once you go far back enough, rape was seen as common and the right thing to do if you took over people's land, or sacked a town. This of course provides a huge barrier to most modern audiences.

I ..."

Who is telling your story, Samuel? I think telling the rape scene from the perspective of the victim and not the perpetrators will lend the right tone.

This is my offbeat opinion, but I think you need to do what the characters require and is historically honest. To rewrite history to appeal to a modern reader because it's distasteful is a creative license you have, but a question you need to ask yourself as a writer. So much of writing these days seems to be pandering. Don't do what the reader wants. Do do what the reader wants. It stifles the chance that something good can come out of writing what is honest and to be expected of a character in a certain setting and time period. Otherwise it's all just playing to stereotypes. That's just my feeling though.

Just adding my agreement to those saying go ahead and write it honestly, and lose the readers who don't like it; there's a whole lotta other books they can read instead. Only thing for me to add: a little violence goes a long way. In the novel we're working on (me & my mate), there's a young woman gang-raped by a plague-stricken army's remnants. We don't see the scene. We only hear her counting compulsively, "One two three four five six . . ."

As a reader and writer of HF, nothing turns me off more than people whitewashing history for the sake of more enlightened modern readers with more delicate sensibilities. Write it the way you think it really was or don't write it at all is my view. Look at Bernard Cornwell - tremendously popular and his Sharpe stories frequently refer to mass rape as a spoil of war (and this was only 200 years ago!!!)

Thing is, BC almost never goes into any detail, and on the one or two occasions he does - well, let's just say the perpetrators always get their very nasty come-uppance.

I think their are different types of historical fiction. I prefer to read the lighter type.. I like the books set in historical times featuring real people. I do not read the books for reality or education. I read them for pure enjoyment.

I read nonfiction for reality..

As a reader, and someone who is sensitive about this topic, here's my opinion:

If it is historically correct, include it. There's no point in trying to pretend it didn't exist.
BUT:
Ask yourself: What's the purpose of that scene? Is it there simply for shock value - not a good idea. Is it there to motivate a man via the rape of his significant other/sister/mother - not a good idea at all, it's insensitive and lazy storytelling. There are more examples, I hope you get the idea.
Basically, I hate when rape is used as a plot device for lazy storytelling or for voyeuristic purposes - or, even worse, for romance. (Looking at you, historical romances) You need something to make your protagonist grow or show how grimdark the world is? Think of something original.

Another important fact is the question of how the aftermath of the event is dealt with, or if it is dealt with at all. If there's a rape scene and it's just shrugged off, you probably didn't need to include that scene and should have thought of something else to get your point across.
You could, of course, always opt for not describing the scene in detail, instead focusing on the aftermath. This is probably the safer approach, but I guess it doesn't fit with every story.

And regarding the 'it wasn't considered a bad thing' discussion:
Yes, in a lot of instances rape was considered somewhat 'normal' in certain cases, and, yes, people just 'got over it'. But that doesn't mean it didn't have a lasting psychological impact. It just means nobody talked about it, because there was stigma and in a lot of cases, it would even have been the woman's fault. We still get these kinds of statements today - she secretly wanted it, she led him on, she shouldn't have been out and about, etc.
But just because people didn't talk about it doesn't mean they weren't traumatised. In a lot of instances, they didn't have words to talk about this kind of trauma, because we know a lot more about psychology now than people did back then. So a survivor would probably internalise all this trauma, and it would show in other ways people weren't able to link to what had happened to him or her. Maybe in ticks, in behaviour that was considered weird, freezing in certain situations, not talking anymore. It was also a gateway to prostitution, a lot of the people had no other choice because they were considered 'tainted'.
And this is also true for some perpetrators, especially if it was done out of some kind of peer pressure. Not doing what everybody did could get people into all kinds of trouble. We hear these stories from former child soldiers today.

tldr: Just because nobody talked about it doesn't mean it was shrugged off. People just pretended it was.

In conclusion ... whatever you do, just try to be respectful and sensitive about it. And don't ever use it as a plot device without any lasting impact.

Also keep in mind that today, tons of readers will simply not read your book if it includes on-page rape, especially if the perpetrator is the protagonist. I mean, if you have millions of readers, lots of money, and feel that you don't need 60% of them anyway: feel free. Otherwise: maybe try not to lose a large demographic? Just being realistic here in terms of marketing.

Thing is, to my mind, there should be nothing in a book which does not drive the plot and/or contribute to characterisation of main characters.

If a rape scene (or any other scene for that matter) did not achieve either or both of these things then I'd be wondering why it was there. An author (as Eva said) takes massive risks writing about rape at all. But gratuitous rape?

That book aint getting published.

Alaric the King wrote: "Once you go far back enough, rape was seen as common and the right thing to do if you took over people's land, or sacked a town. This of course provides a huge barrier to most modern audiences.

I ..."
I'm not a writer, but I like reading historical fiction. I prefer my historical fiction realistic, so raping, while uncomfortable to read about, would feel more realistic, since we know it happened.