Charles Paul Freund on Game of Thrones and Historical Views of Sexual Violence
You know what was missing from that Game of Thrones rape scene that evoked so much reaction? What was missing was a sense of the historical view of sexual violence. You might reasonably suppose that such arcane subject is not likely to interest many people, much less HBO's large audience. But if the show's producers had really wanted to dismay viewers, they might have skipped the mere violent sex and instead set up a scene with the show's characters expressing some often-remarkable ruling-class views of sex, seduction, violence, womanly virtue, and masculine honor. Twitter would have exploded, writes Charles Paul Freund.
