A question about 'that' scene - Sam and Toni

[amberdreams]

I see there is a discussion on tumblr which I can't hack into because it's frigging tumblr, so I'm asking the question here instead. Maybe de_nugis, indiachick et al can chip in?

Is the opening scene between Sam and Toni so disturbing because of the sexual aspect of it? Does the sex part actually matter? I'm shallow enough to have enjoyed the visuals even while part of me was equally disturbed and disbelieving.

I'm asking because to me, the key thing in that scene wasn't the effectively dub-con/non-con sex. What made me uncomfortable watching is thinking about the many times Sam's mind has not been his own, and even though he outwardly seems strong and has 'got over' all the violations of his thoughts, surely this must haunt him constantly. Gadreel in a way is less of an issue than Lucifer, because I doubt Sam remembers anything about the times Gadreel used his body - though having said that, he did evidently remember killing Kevin when Gadreel was in charge so maybe I'm wrong about that one. But anyway - I thought there were more parallels between this scene with Toni and the scene in Free to be you and Me where Lucifer manipulates Sam's dreams as Jess. Knowing Lucifer is on the loose too just makes that more disturbing and scary for me, never mind Sam.

Having said that, I doubt the show meant to draw any parallels with that scene in Season 5, or with Sam's dream about Bela because I doubt any of the current writers would have bothered watching anything that far back. I very much doubt they intended to make any deep points at all. None of the kidnap and torture of Sam makes any sense because the whole British MoLs storyline doesn't make any sense. My guess is they put it in to a) add a cliff hanger at the end of last season, b) give the boys some personal hazard to face that isn't Lucifer again and c) some not very complex plotty point that will be revealed later and probably revolves around the American obsession with having Brits as bad guys.

As usual I'm rambling, but maybe someone can add something interesting in the comments.

Comments

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

The disturbing aspects for me were *counts* four-fold.

I am no where near above enjoying the visuals that went with that scene, I may well have rewound it a few times but...

1) Non-Con/Dub-Con. Toni's using mind control and spell craft to literally fuck with Sam's head. Not okay.

2) I want the woman dead so to see her using Sam in this way to get information made me froth at the mouth.

3) He's been used and abused and hijacked and infiltrated, mind and body, so many times, to see it happen YET AGAIN upset me to no end.

4) Toni knew she couldn't break Sam the way she'd assumed from the off. 'If we can't break his body we'll break his mind' When THAT didn't work she decided to try and screw it out of him. Get a damned grip woman, you're meant to be less sloppy and more in tune with your whole Obi-Wan Hunterish skills than these ape-like Americans...Yet you revert to what is commonly known as wiles to get your own way? *rolls eyes* Oxy-MORON! ;)

Anyway, that's my penneth worth :)

Just want to add that I thoroughly LOVED the episode! Toni just makes me want to claw my own eyes out.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

But on #4, she didn't stop trying to break his mind, she just infiltrated his minds in a different (and for me more insidious way). That's my point about the sex part. It wasn't real.

I think I'm less angry about it because I honestly don't see the point of it. The whole British MoL thing is leaving me cold so far.

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

So far it's making me think that actually they're not MoL at all. Maybe something way more creepy and that's why it's bugging me so.

As for the sex part, no that did actually bug me, a lot. Not because it was sex with Toni (all though that royally pissed me off) but because it was such a disgusting way of gaining information from a man who was clearly stronger that they'd given him credit for. "I know, if he won't intellectually cave let's bounce up and down on him until he gives it up!"

And it wasn't about breaking his mind, she basically thought that giving him a happy would get her own way for her. She happened to be right to a point, but the fact she'd just extolled the virtues of the Brit Chapter of MoL and how much more savvy and amazing they were and how sloppy the Yanks were at getting it done, and then she goes and uses the age old trick of sex, real or not....Nil Points lass.

Sorry about the edits hun, been a long couple of days, lol.

[amypond45.livejournal.com]

I was disturbed by that scene on a number of levels. To watch Sam have sex with someone who is manipulating and abusing him AGAIN really pisses me off. But it also felt like the show was screwing with us, the viewers. Since Sam is hella sexy and presents as happy in this scene, it's like the show thought it was cleverly giving us what we want (happy, sexy, half-naked Sam) and reminding us of the horror of what was really being done to Sam at the same time, making what was meant to be a classic SPN comment on the nature of horror and the monsters within us all. Except, in this case, we're supposed to NOT be able to tie this back to all the times Sam's been essentially raped in the past, and we're not supposed to think of it as "rape" at all, since Sam's a man, I guess. Show thinks it's been funny and clever, but in fact it's being stupid and obtuse and counting on its audience not to understand or remember Sam's past. I resent that, it's gross and insulting and mean-spirited. I felt manipulated and abused by that scene, and it frustrates me because there were so many ways to be truly scary about the same topic (after all, Lucifer no doubt did this to Sam in the Cage, getting into his head and making him "happy" and "consenting" before reminding him that he couldn't even trust his own emotions! Yikes!)

Now I'm rambling, but I know I really, really disliked this scene. I'm still trying to work it out!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Nope, that is a rational argument.

[alyndra]

These particular writers have been screwing up everything with no fucks to give since S6. :/

You know what actually bugged me about that scene was, the dialogue where Sam told her stuff? Reads like somebody wrote filler for 'Sam tells her stuff.' There's no actual information, which makes the whole charade pointless and gratuitous!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

There is that too - which is why she goes back to 'conventional' torture once he wakes up. Yet another thing that makes no sense.

[alyndra]

On further reflection, I am picturing Sam complaining to her about Ruby and Benny ad nauseam while she continually fails to get him back onto the topic of current hunters. Heh. This amuses me and solves plotholes all at once!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

that would have been a rather nice injection of humour too!

[jimbobjoe.livejournal.com]

None of the kidnap and torture of Sam makes any sense because the whole British MoLs storyline doesn't make any sense. My guess is they put it in to a) add a cliff hanger at the end of last season, b) give the boys some personal hazard to face that isn't Lucifer again and c) some not very complex plotty point that will be revealed later and probably revolves around the American obsession with having Brits as bad guys.

Yes to ALL of this. I was trying to explain my problem with the British MOL to a non-Supernatural friend, and I just kept saying, "It doesn't make any sense!"

Also...
But, but, doesn't the bad guy always have an accent? *wink*

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Indeed - the Americans seem to have moved from villains being German or Russian to British.

[anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com]

Not only does none of it make sense but am I the only Brit who finds the portrayal of the English/British MOL ( noticed that error in continuity for Toni too) to be an offensive caricature rather than a rounded character?

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Very much so. And Mick's accent was truly awful.

[jimbobjoe.livejournal.com]

Yes, they are all caricatures. Toni was from the very start last season. She was only one screen a couple minutes but still managed it! I'm sure this mysterious enforcer guy will be a caricature too.

(I'm not a Brit so I can't say I'm offended, but I understand your problem with them!)

[anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com]

Well, I've had time to calm down and think about this... and I'm still livid. For me the problem was the why. The sexual aspect was utterly unnecessary and to me,less likely to be successful than say a hallucinated hunt with a victim needing info to survive. I believed straight away and still do, that the scene was gratuitous sex to get Sam (Jared) undressed. These writers know that nobody in fandom likes them and objectifying Jared was likely to get some boost in their ratings. It's a device as old as the hills with actresses and I'm just as angry whatever the gender. Add in that they decided to go with the crap that if the abuse creates physical enjoyment its okay and I'm feeling sick and angry for Jared.

The cherry on top of it all is that the writers did not acknowledge yet another episode of traumatic violation for Sam. It fits with the mindset that victims should just 'get over it' once a trauma is over and it repeats it, cements it and confirms to all the assholes out there people can just get over torture, violation, rape etc if they aren't cowards and whiners. As somebody with p.t.s.d from repeated manipulation and consent violation I am actually in tears writing this. It hurts. It really fucking hurts to see the show I love making that subtle statement. Those messages matter. They really matter and I came away from the episode feeling dirtied and and angry. I still do.

[amypond45.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yes to all of this! Thank you!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Thanks that explains it much better and I understand where you are coming from. Well I don't completely understand as I'm not standing in your shoes but I understand better why you are so upset. I've not suffered any abuse or PTSD and it made me uncomfortable.

I still think the root of the problem is in this whole British MoL story line because torture of any kind makes no sense whatsoever. There's no reason for torture and there's absolutely NO reason for this organisation to be in the US doing anything. Why bother? They have things as they want them in the UK, so why suddenly worry about what's happening over the pond?

And this is from a hurt Winchesters fan.

[anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com]

I think you're right. If there is any sense to be had in the MOL story then they are failing miserably at conveying it to us. That part of the story so far has seemed completely muddled. ('It's a right guddle,' are the words that came to mind last night!)

Don't get me wrong. I like hurt Winchesters a lot the knife scene did strange things to my tummy, but context matters, and as you point out, the context in the story line is flawed. (Also, have these writers ever been to the U.K. or met anyone British? Because they don't seem to have a clue.)

The torture and especially the sexual aspect make no sense. It isn't aiding any logical story line. It isn't exploring anything interesting like the morality and effectiveness of torture. It isn't even using it to character build or delve into the psyche of the victim or offender. It was simply there for shock value and objectification purposes. Even most of the torture porn in fanfic serves some purpose in exploring one of those themes.

To use those devices in mainstream T.V. successfully really requires some tactful and skilled writing and they failed miserably imo.

*sigh*

[alyndra]

These particular writers have a history of utterly gratuitous and unnecessary sexual stuff in their episodes, though. A lot of people felt very similar outrage when Cas and April (the reaper who wanted to kill him) had extremely consensually problematic sex which was then laughed off. I can't go through and list stuff from each ep they've done, but I'd bet you it would be pretty eye-opening. Granted, most of it doesn't hit quite like this does, but it's very much part of a trend.

And I'm not saying that makes it okay. Just that I'm not shocked.

[manzanita-crow.livejournal.com]

I don't mind so much when 'bad guys' do these awful things. Then no-one thinks it is actually ok to do this stuffw. It DOES upset me when our heroes do dreadful things and it is never acknowledged. Fine if they are brought up on it - cos even heroes aren't perfect. But when they do bad things and it is whitewashed and they never apologise - THAT's when I get upset. For example, there was a lot of fuss when Sam drank from the nurse at the end of S4, but no-one paid any attention to the hosts of the demons that TFW used at the end of S5. They were tied up so they could have exorcised them. I know it was all "for the greater good", but it could have been acknowledged.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Mmm very true, that makes me extremely uncomfortable.

[manzanita-crow.livejournal.com]

Also, if they're gonna make Brits be the bad guys, at least make us look cool! :D

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[kribban.livejournal.com]

Are you me? That's a perfect articulation of my main (only) problem with SPN.

I do wonder if it's a conscious "You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain" narrative theme.

That was why I loved season eleven SO much; it was a return to the earlier seasons' moral code.

[jennytork.livejournal.com]

For me, which is all I can interpret, I couldn't STAND that scene and I was never so thankful to have something be a hallucination in my entire life!!!

I don't know if it's because I have recently come out as asexual, or if it's because I have a daughter going through puberty or what it is, but lately sex scenes bother me tremendously. Life is about so much more than sex, and to see it in every single show -- well, it just bothers me. There can't seem to be a comedy, even, without innuendo making funny things into something nasty.

I just found it completely unnecessary. And I am rather disappointed in the writers for taking it there.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

But when you see which writers this was, like others have said, it isn't so surprising.

[indiachick.livejournal.com]

Here's why I was upset :

1) In the narrative, it isn't supposed to be just about sex. Sex is the actual physical act, which we are shown nothing of. What we are shown is a glowy, happy, trusting Sam. Sam, who doesn't trust easily, who is suspicious of everyone as a Winchester is wont to be, in bed with a strange woman, hazily talking about hunters in America. It's Sam, who has been drugged into a sense of false safety, who has been made to fall into a post-coital haze of sorts to be investigated. And you know how else that could have been shown? Replace Toni with someone he knows and trusts, someone he believes. Replace Toni with Charlie in a coffee shop. With Bobby at his house. With Jessica in Stanford, sitting on a park bench. If lowering his barriers to gain info was the point, then it could have been shown ANY way. My point is that this scene, and the shock value, existed for the sake of simply disturbing us, and the writers seem to think that sex is the way to disturb us. That freaks me out a little.

2) I don't care that this won't be acknowledged on the show. That Sam won't talk about it, or that he doesn't actually have an option to talk about it. That's not my contention at all. As a writer on a media vehicle such as a TV show, you have a responsibility to your characters. Here's Sam, who has repeatedly been told that his sexual relationships end in death and horror. Here's Sam, who you allude has been sexuality assaulted by Lucifer. By a hallucination nonetheless. Does it make sense, in that context, to have REAL Lucifer waltz around then in his safe space, invading spaces that are personal to his victim? Does it then make sense, after you've already written yourself into a wall with the Sam Lucifer thing, to further subject the same character to a scene followed by victim-shaming? ("was it good for you?": worse than any Lucifer line) Yes, I get the argument that the writers had to give us a convincing baddie and that there is no space in SPN for characters to combat their trauma because the show must go on, but there is something called a writer responsibility. Deus ex machinas are universally hated for a reason. My argument is that if they were going to end this episode in a sort of temporary cease-fire this scene SHOULD NOT have existed. Not for shock value, or anything. It's one in a string of choices that shows lazy characterization, and it is one too many.

3) Would this have been ok and just a plot device to show us how bad Toni is if the genders were reversed? If we can't all honestly answer no, then we have a problem. Even if it weren't real: if the visual image was of a man having sex with a woman against her informed consent to gain info, it would have immediately been a plot point, a conversation to come at a later episode, a retribution in the waiting. Like Sansa and Ramsay in The Game of Thrones. But I bet that Sam won't ever mention this, won't actually kill Toni, and won't actually take revenge. And that, coupled with several instances over the years when we have been shown demons (Meg, Ruby, Abaddon) and other supernatural creatures (Amara, Lucifer) dub-con kiss/threaten/harass these boys, and them expected to look stoic and take it because they're men...That's fucked up. Bodily autonomy is for everyone. Being a tall, built guy doesn't excuse you from the horror of losing it.

But then there will be contention that "what will they do instead, since we have no chick flick moments, can you imagine them talking about rape." Which is where I again say that it's not Sam's predicament and Sam's lack of justice that makes me angry as much as the writers' decision to write it this way. It's lazy, meant to rattle, and does exactly the same as a loud cracker on a quiet night: startle, just for a moment.

(Sorry this is so long)

[zara-zee.livejournal.com]

...It's Sam, who has been drugged into a sense of false safety, who has been made to fall into a post-coital haze of sorts to be investigated. And you know how else that could have been shown? Replace Toni with someone he knows and trusts, someone he believes. Replace Toni with Charlie in a coffee shop. With Bobby at his house. With Jessica in Stanford, sitting on a park bench. If lowering his barriers to gain info was the point, then it could have been shown ANY way...

So much yes! These were my self-same thoughts when watching.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Actually I thought that too - if they wanted to recreate a believable bedroom scene with Sam behaving like that, they should (like Lucifer did) insert Jess or even Sarah Blake or Amelia into Toni's place. Those would have been convincing women for Sam to see in his head in whatever drugged up, be-spelled haze he was in.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Long but certainly not too long. Thanks, this is all clarifying my own discomfort with the scene. As usual, my Flist has a much better intellectual grasp on things than I do!

[frozen_delight]

It's lazy, meant to rattle, and does exactly the same as a loud cracker on a quiet night: startle, just for a moment.
THIS!!!

[zara-zee.livejournal.com]

I found it a disturbing scene. She manipulated his mind to create a false sense of intimacy and trust and of course, when he comes back to himself, he has the memory of his body as well as his mind being violated, even if it didn't 'actually' happen, he still remembers it as if it did. The whole thing was just horrible. And I think she knew exactly what she was doing. She knows all about the Winchesters, maybe not everything, but enough to make some educated guesses about which buttons to push to majorly fuck with them. She seems to have some off-the-charts anger at American hunters and Sam got the brunt of it.

But so far, the BMoL are definitely a caricature. It almost feels like there was a conversation like this in the Writer's Room: "Hey, what can we do that we haven't done yet? Ooh, I know, remember those few episodes of Buffy when the Head Honchos from the Watcher's Council came over to show those stupid colonials what's what and they were mean to Buffy and her friends but eventually realised that America is Different and got their comeuppance? Why don't we do something like that with the Men of Letters? Ooh yeah, great plan. What's their motivation? Dunno...we'll just...write our way into that..."

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Oh really? This was a Buffy scenario? Well that makes this even worse. Now I'm getting really cross about this British thing.

[zara-zee.livejournal.com]

Yep, and Buffy did it better! Well, they may redeem themselves yet, I suppose. We'll just have to wait and see. I mean, I'm intrigued, I think the basic concept could be interesting, but so far I'm not truly buying what they're selling.

[fireheart13.livejournal.com]

YES YES YES all I've been able to think of is Buffy. They were shits to her all in the name of "getting things done right". Ditto here.

[toratio.livejournal.com]

It's definitely about the mind control stuff. I mean, anyone basically can rape someone. But what she's done is made him enjoy it. You can see the shame on his face when she asks him if he enjoyed it.

It's the emotional and psychological manipulation that is the worst. I'd be willing to bet that Lucifer used some of the same techniques in the Cage, made Sam forget he was being tortured.

As for the British MoL - caricature? Maybe. But the fact is, governments use techniques - like torture, like sexual assault, like confinement - to get information out of people. Putting aside the supernatural aspect, it doesn't seem ridiculous to me that an organisation like the MoL would be doing this. Hell, the Winchesters have never been above using torture. I'm not 100% convinced that the MoL are worse. I mean, we hate it because it's Sam, but as far as the MoL are concerned - and, from the fact she talks about Ruby, it seems like she's probably got a lot of outsider and/or out-of-date information - the Winchesters are monsters. They are to her what demons are to Sam and Dean.

The double standard sexual assault thing is awful, and an ongoing theme in Supernatural. I mean, the first ep of the series had the Woman in White, who was pretty much about to rape Sam. Same goes with Meg a few times. There have probably been others with both boys. I think that's a general issue with society about how he think rape occurs. Not to let SPN off the hook, but it's a broader issue.

[rockstarpeach.livejournal.com]

Well, isn't it the accepted norm that any assault is worse for the sexual aspect?

Like... a rape is wrose than a punch in the throat?

But if the punch in the throat is a rape, too... Which kind of mindrape is worse? I don't know either.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

All good questions. I suppose in the end they are all violations and all bad.

[hugemind.livejournal.com]

Uhm. *backs out slowy* I don't think I have anything interesting to add, and I will probably get at the very least lots of side-eyeing for this, but I'm still adding this to give you a larger sample of views. To me it's just another bad guy doing bad guy things, and in this case, I see it as just another way of torture.

I don't see it as "traditional" noncon because the entire hallucination world is Toni's creation: Sam's actual physical body is not being violated and hallucination-world!Sam is very into what is happening (because of Tony). I'd think that the biggest source of distress for Sam is the fact that Toni messed with his mind, not how he messed with it. The hallucination world was Toni's idea of honey instead of vinegar after she'd already lost all chances of real-world!honey actually working. I don't like to mix the term noncon into the discussion when dealing with magically-induced hallucinations, because I feel like the word has an important meaning in the real world and the meaning gets muddled if every act in every world, real or imaginary or hallucinatory or a mix of these, has to be labeled as noncon or not. Because technically the physical torture is also done against Sam's will and the mind-torture is done against Sam's will, so trying to label a seemingly consenting act in the hallucination is sort of pointless for me, because whatever she inserts into the hallucination-world is already something Sam didn't ask for.

I guess the question that I get from this discussion is that are we labeling mind-violation always as sexual violation like rape or as physical abuse like causing bodily harm? And because the question is getting really academic already at this point and I seem to have better things to do with my time, my takeaway from all of this is that Toni should die in a fire and that Sam deserves a big bro hug.

[frozen_delight]

I agree that Toni must die! And I, too, was somewhat upset we got no bro hug...

I guess the question that I get from this discussion is that are we labeling mind-violation always as sexual violation like rape or as physical abuse like causing bodily harm? And because the question is getting really academic already at this point and I seem to have better things to do with my time, my takeaway from all of this is
You make a very good point, I think. In general, we are very quick in this fandom to talk about rape even if no physical/sexual violation occurs. The problem is that the show sometimes encourages us to interpret possession etc. as a metaphor for rape, but it doesn't do so consistently. Because their is no consistency in how Sam and Dean react to the idea of possession. Usually, when it concerns them directly, it's presented as something unforgivable. But in other cases, the issue is completely ignored or even ridiculed. For instance, if we take Meg or Gadreel possessing Sam as something Sam experiences as rape, the way he continues to treat other human vessels after these horrific experiences simply doesn't make sense.
So what I find troubling about the sexual component when it comes to Toni's torture is that in this case the show is insisting that violating Sam's mind and body are in fact the same thing in a completely *unequivocal* way, which means that there is now no way that they can't follow through on the metaphor. And, as we all know, they have no intention to do that. Ergo the scene is just gratuitous nonsense. A sick joke.

I'm not sure if I'm getting my point across - so sorry for the rambling.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I think we are crediting the show with too much intelligence in this instance. I seriously think they just thought - oh! Here's a great pretext for giving all those slavering hoards of female fans what they long for - half naked boys having sex. And even better, if it isn't real and it's with our latest baddie, that means we don't have to worry about the fans wanting to kill the actress/character concerned because they already want to do that any way.

[hugemind.livejournal.com]

Don't apologize for rambling. :) I'm aware that my view seems to be in the minority, so I am interested in knowing how others see the show so differently.

I think that for me the key difference here is that I haven't seen possession as a rape (and I seem to have been blind to the metaphor). I know that it was discussed widely in the fandom during for example S9, but I recall that I had the same difficulty of calling the possession "rape", simply because to me the word "rape" has a specific meaning in the real world, and applying the same word to a fictional situation of body being possessed by another being distorts that meaning. Possession definitely violates the person and ignores their will, but I am not seeing the sexual aspect. To me, it's more about taking away the person's free will and using their body as an instrument than the possession being the ultimate goal of the whole thing. And since we don't really know how the boys have experienced possession, I tend to take the perhaps more tradional and definitely more pragmatic view that if the writers aren't explicitly writing it as a rape, then it's not. It's definitely a violation of some kind, but more nuanced.

In the case of the Sam/Toni scene, the pragmatic in me has no trouble believing that Toni would resort to this to get the information she wants: real pain didn't work, the hallucinations and pain from the injection didn't work, so in order to offer honey instead of vinegar she has to get in Sam's mind and I guess the most believable scene she can crete is one where she inserts herself.

I'm not sure if this makes sense, but I appreciate you taking the time to explain how you view the situation.

[galwithglasses.livejournal.com]

Criminitly! Again? Just when I thought maybe it was safe to go back in the water...I'm still half a season behind from 11 and thought maybe I'd just watch these first couple and jump back in. No. The torture stuff has always been super hard to hack and another mind-fuck with Sam's head, especially with sex involved....just no. Is the MoL villian like an evil Bond chick?

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

You can safely watch episode 1 and probably enjoy it. I don't know how to categorise this Lady Toni Bevel character - other than she feels like a construct, a cypher. She's like a muddled combination of Lady Penelope and fem!Bond without the moral compass. Maybe her character will develop as she's been kept alive for future episodes, but at the moment, she's more like a little boy's fantasy than a real person.

[madebyme-x.livejournal.com]

It was difficult to watch (even though the view was pretty!) I guess maybe if Toni heard Sam call for Jess in the previous episode, she knew that maybe a spell of some kind of intimacy would work? Which is still super creepy, and works well in the context of horror. But like you and everyone else have said, it crosses this line again about Sam and autonomy and body issues, that either Show doesn't like to deal with, or maybe doesn't really know about or want to explore? I'd like to see some mention of this, but I think it's highly unlikely.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Sadly I think you're right, the show just doesn't go deep enough. But that's why it's important for us to fill those gaps - at give them their due, they do manage to spark lots of discussion!