reddwarfslash | Rimmer And Yvonne McGruder

Rimmer And Yvonne McGruder

There's a thread on TOS about the morality of Rimmer sleeping with McGruder while she was suffering from concussion. Personally I've always assumed that if she'd been discharged from the medibay then she was sufficiently "with it" to know what she was doing. I also accepted the "Last Human" retcon which explains a lot more about what went on that night. (Spoilers in the thread just in case anyone hasn't read it.)

But reading some of the points brought up in this thread makes me uncomfortable. Wondering how others interpret it.

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/forum/messages.cfm?threadid=B9128677-1999-AFED-B439706F293BF2EA

Sorry to bring up such an unsavoury topic, but it's something that clearly had a big impact on Rimmer and is referenced quite a lot in the series.

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Here's my take on it: Rape/sexual assault of any degree is about power, and I just don't see Rimmer as having any sort of power in that situation as it was depicted in (all versions of) canon. I get the point about her not being of sound mind, but I just can't see a way in which it could be argued that Rimmer took advantage of her.

IMO, it's very clearly written as her being in control of the situation, and, again IMO, I've actually always felt there was an implication of HIM being assaulted by HER. Now, Rimmer's sexual orientation is obviously not confirmed in canon (yet!) but if you read him as homosexual, that puts an entirely different spin on the situation too.

Just my two pennycents!

I think we have limited information on what happened and it's extremely open to interpretation. It could be interpreted as a rape, and I think that's actually the most obvious and straightforward interpretation if you don't take the novels into account. (If she was too impaired to know who she was having sex with, he knew that, and he chose to go through with it anyway, I'd call it rape.)

I don't think it's the only possible interpretation, especially considering the novels. You could, for instance, come up with a scenario where she was clearly willing and misspoke a few times when addressing Rimmer, and Lister exaggerated the whole thing for a joke, and I wouldn't call that rape. (The whole question of mental impairment and consent can be really tricky, especially without knowing the specifics. That's why the whole "How drunk is drunk" thing keeps coming up in terms of alcohol and consent.) And I want to interpret it that way, because I like Rimmer and I don't want him to be a rapist.

While part of Rimmer certainly isn't above torture and/or rape (witness his Low self), he certainly seems to have thought it was "making love" from what he says while drunk and uninhibited in "Thanks for the Memory." If there was going to be a time he was going to think of it as an assault - in either direction - I would have sort of thought that'd be a time. So it's uncertain, but I don't think she was raped, or him.

Definitely if you go by the novels, it seems to have been consensual. Yvonne wanted him to call her back afterwards and he never did out of a misguided sense of "cool." She seemed to want her baby, and raised her son telling him what his real father's name was AND an idealized version of him, rather than what an asshole he was. And Rimmer was quick to praise her to Michael and take no credit for himself when the kid tried to latch onto him as a hero figure.

So - who knows? But I think it leans more toward the "non" side more than the "yep" side.

I guess I took it as Lister just taking the piss out of Rimmer. I didn't take what either of them said seriously. And until Doug writes something from McGrueder's POV we will never know the truth. I'd rather know why it only took 12minutes. They couldn't have fully undressed.

MANY SPOILERS FOR BOOKS AND TV.

Sexual assault is to touch someone with sexual implication, without their consent.
Rape is penile penetration without consent (note: legally speaking ciswomen are not capable of rape, only sexual assault).

Whether or not McGruder was capable of consent is arguable. Rape cases are often thrown out because the victim and/or accused were drunk, or under some kind of influence, or had a questionable capacity to understand the situation. For example, I read a case about a young man with autism who sexually assaulted his sister. Although the ACT was sexual assault, his capacity to understand his actions were questionable and he wasn't charged.

If McGruder was concussed and Rimmer was of sound mind, it would be rape. If Rimmer was drunk (but there's no evidence of that as he only mentioned eating pizza) then he raped her.

I'm speaking only in legal terms, and as I say, most cases are thrown out because it's such a grey issue.

But this isn't the only time the writers do this. Sex and sexual assault is treated quite flippantly on several occasions.

Lister is drugged and assaulted by a female Gelf (Last Human).
Rimmer is assaulted as a minor by his uncle (he thought Rimmer was his mother).
When Rimmer is given a female body (Better Than Life) he is abused verbally and physically by his associates (in defence, it was his own mind making it happen to teach him a lesson about misogyny) and then they attempt to pimp him out for work.

And I'm sure there are many more instances.

I don't know why, but in my head I always imagined that when the sex actually took place Rimmer thought Yvonne knew who he was, boasted about his conquest to Lister and was then subsequently humiliated when she later got his name wrong and it became apparent that she'd thought he was someone else all along. It would certainly explain more his slightly flippant and somewhat bitter remark of 'served her right for being concussed'.

I was talking to

roadstergal about this last night, and she made the point that if Lister really thought what Rimmer did was rape, his reaction would have been much more severe than it is in canon. So, there's that.

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