One of the odder interview types was what they call a “satellite” interview—because it’s handled via satellite, as sequential international interviewers call in to ask questions. On one occasion, Ron and I were doing one of these, seated together on either side of the satellite speakerphone and busily occupied in signing piles of Starz Outlander posters while we talked with people from Venezuela, Sweden, Germany, etc. I believe it was a male interviewer from Germany who kicked off the interview by asking, didn’t we think the story was “a little rapey”?
Ron and I stopped signing our names, looked at each other in astonishment, and mouthed—silently and simultaneously—“Is that even a word?”
Frankly, I think it’s not, but I have encountered—many, many times over the course of the last twenty-five years—both direct and indirect opinions to the effect that the commenter feels there’s a fairly high incidence of rape in the book(s), along with the corollary implication that This Is a Bad Thing.
These commenters and interviewers presumably realize that if I did think that, I wouldn’t have written the book(s) that way and are therefore either 1) trying to ask what I intended by the inclusion of such incidents, 2) seeking to further a conversation regarding sex and violence in the arts…and/or 3) trying to get me to say something quotably irascible that they can use to attract an audience.2
Regardless, conversations #1 and #2 are worth having. So let’s talk….
The question of rape in literature—and in the Outlander novels in particular—is pretty complex, so let’s begin by separating out a few of the relevant aspects of the topic.
FACTUALITY
Is there an unusual or striking incidence of rape in either the book or TV show? Plainly that’s a subjective question to start with, and it’s one that’s strongly affected by current cultural concerns.
As I note later in this book (see “Romance and the Written Word”), thirty years ago rape was a regular staple of many romance novels and was usually depicted in ways that would cause screams of outrage and mass book burning in 2015. At the time, books with such incidents were merely considered entertainment or, at worst, dismissed as “housewife porn.”
I’m not sure how one would reasonably estimate incidence of any given event in a book, as the numerical occurrence must clearly be balanced by the impact of any single occurrence. For example, in the earlier romance novels I mentioned, usually there was a single occurrence of rape, generally used as a plot device.3 There were not usually lingering physical effects, and such psychological effects as there were were, um, transitory. In other novels, rape was used repeatedly, but again without any apparent trauma that couldn’t be cleared up by having subsequent sex with the hero.
But getting down to cases…let’s see…in Outlander, there is a definite sexual threat by Captain Jonathan Randall toward Claire when he first encounters her. It’s not clear that this would have become attempted rape, but it might have, if the captain had not been interrupted by the appearance of Murtagh.
Later, at Castle Leoch, during the Gathering, Claire is accosted by several drunken clansmen, who demand a kiss and paw her. She definitely perceives them to have more than a kiss in mind, but in fact they don’t sexually assault her, being driven off by Dougal MacKenzie—who then makes a heavy pass at her but doesn’t evince any intent of committing rape.
Jamie, telling Claire his own history with Black Jack Randall, tells her that Randall raped his sister, Jenny. He believes this to be true, but in fact it isn’t. Still, Randall definitely intended rape and indeed attempted it, being foiled in the attempt by Jenny’s laughing at him and failing to show the fear he was looking for.
Okay, score so far: two sexual threats, one attempted rape.
In the course of later events, Jamie tells Claire that the small Bible he carries once belonged to a prisoner named Alex MacGregor, who killed himself after involvement with Captain Randall. The clear implication is that MacGregor was raped (and quite possibly tortured) by Randall, but we don’t hear this from either of the principals involved, and we see nothing of any interaction between them.
Two sexual threats, one attempted rape, one implied offscreen actual rape. Three hundred pages down, three hundred to go…
After their hasty marriage, Claire and Jamie repair to a deserted (they think) glade to enjoy a bit of marital felicity. Here they are surprised by a pair of English deserters, one of whom definitely attempts to rape Claire; she kills him by stabbing him in the kidney.
Later, Claire is captured by Captain Randall, who attempts to rape her but fails when she refuses to act afraid of him, giving Jamie time to rescue her.
Two sexual threats, three attempted rapes, and a partriiidge in a—no, wait…
In the course of events, Jamie reveals to Claire that at one point in his colorful history with Randall, the captain had offered Jamie clemency in the matter of being flogged for a second time, if Jamie would “make free of my body.” Not sure this could be considered a rape attempt, but it’s certainly a sexual threat.
Three threats, three attempts, one implied offscreen rape.
And then, in the fullness of time, Randall succeeds in capturing Claire again, and in order to save her life, Jamie offers to submit to Randall, who does indeed rape him. (Again, not onscreen, but we certainly hear enough of the details afterward to be sure it took place.)
Sum total: three sexual threats, three attempted rapes, one implied-but-likely rape, and one undeniable (and very brutal) actual rape.
That’s over the course of 629 pages (hardcover edition). So…one definite rape in six-hundred-plus pages. Adding in attempted rapes, that’s four, or one negative sexual incident per hundred fifty pages. Is this excessive, average, below average?
I’m rather hoping that most of you reading this will perceive the tongue-in-cheek nature of this statistical analysis. Obviously, frequency of occurrence is Not Really the Point. The use of sexual incidents (whether positive or negative) by a writer pretty much has to be one thing or another: titillation of the audience, or…done for a specific and serious purpose.
You’ll notice that I didn’t say “gratuitous titillation of the audience.” Some books’ actual purpose is indeed the arousal of sexual feeling, whether as the primary literary purpose of the book (i.e., erotica) or as an important auxiliary support to the main emotional narrative. Such books are normally bought with the specific intent of enjoying such arousal, and it’s therefore not gratuitous in the least.
I use sexual encounters between married couples in Outlander, for example, to demonstrate and support the emerging emotional closeness of the main characters, growing from the marriage of strangers to the point where a woman can save a man’s soul.
But rape?
The correct question to be asking about any element of concern in a book is, “What’s the author trying to do with this?” I.e., is there an apparent purpose—whether achieved or not—to the use of this element? (After that, you can legitimately ask whether the author did achieve his or her purpose—but you need to know what it was first.)
So. What was my purpose in employing rape as I did?
Not to start over with the statistical analysis, but look at when and how these negative sexual encounters occur. To wit: there’s one sexual threat from drunken clansmen at the Gathering (I think we include Dougal’s pass in that incident), and there’s one attempted rape by English deserters.
All the other negative sexual activity is being carried out by Captain Jack Randall. Might my purpose possibly have been character development? As in, perhaps I wanted to introduce him as a person with, shall we say, poor impulse control, escalate through indications that he might just possibly be taking undue advantage of his social position to oppress women, adding delicately that he apparently enjoys the infliction of pain of a general nature, and, moving right along, complete our portrait of a Sexual Sadist?
If that was your guess…you’re correct!
The man is a sexual sadist—naturally he�
��s going to be shown doing or attempting to do what such a person does. He’s also the chief antagonist of the story.
Is it therefore appropriate—in a purely artistic sense—to include such incidents as would make Captain Randall a) clearly drawn, b) clearly labeled as an antagonistic threat, c) plainly dangerous?4
Now, there are other ramifications to the use of rape as a noticeable element in the story, and these have to do both with the nature of rape and with the thematic narrative of this particular story. We’ll look at both those aspects a little farther on.
For the moment, let’s broaden the discussion a bit. The adverse commentary regarding rape takes note that it occurs elsewhere in the series, not just in Outlander, and such comments often imply (when not coming out and stating it as a generally accepted fact) that the author is either using the element gratuitously, as a means of shocking the audience and thus keeping their interest (which would presumably otherwise be waning after half a million or so words…), or is unhealthily obsessed with the notion.5
HISTORICITY
There is no reliable data on historical incidence of rape, though any number of vivid historical accounts (vide Boadicea, the rape of the Sabine women,6 etc.) make it clear that the act has been around as long as people have.
However, we do know quite a bit about the social structures of some times and places. In the Scottish Highlands, well up into the early-twentieth century, most of the population lived in small, tight-knit communities, where everyone knew everyone else (and most of them were related in one degree or another). Owing to the harshness of life and the customs of the times, women normally went from the protection of their father’s hearth to that of their husband.7
There were no career paths for unmarried women, unless they wanted to undertake a long and arduous journey to the nearest city, where they might find employment or (more likely) be obliged to resort to prostitution—or undertake a longer and more arduous journey to a convent. But the point here is that women did not wander around the countryside by themselves, unprotected.8 They lived with their families and were protected by the men of those families.
You note that when Dougal MacKenzie is faced with the prospect of handing Claire over to a man he knows to be a dangerous sadist, the first and best idea he has is to instantly marry her to someone. And you note what Jamie Fraser promises her on their wedding night: “You have my name and my family, my clan, and if necessary, the protection of my body as well.” He meant it, and as Claire later realizes: It was no romantic pledge he had made me, but the blunt promise to guard my safety at the cost of his own.
And the point here is that such protection was needed. A woman wandering about by herself was in fact fair game. You see this concept embodied in Scottish songs and folklore. A maiden on her way to visit a relative strays into the province of a bold forester, who accosts her and tells her that the price of passage across his land is her maidenhead—which he promptly takes. A young woman goes alone to the mill and demands that the miller grind her corn for her—whereupon he tosses her down on a sack of grain and quite graphically does so.
Now, there are two things to note here: Firstly, the fact that Claire encounters sexual menace (from Captain Randall, from the drunken Highlanders, and from the English deserters) is not the result of the author’s lack of imagination in devising conflict; it’s a reasonable depiction of the cultural context of that time and place and the perception of and danger to an unaccompanied woman—particularly an attractive one who seems to be running around in her undergarment. And secondly, the fact that Captain Randall appears to prefer male victims is likely the result of opportunity rather than inborn sexual orientation; he simply doesn’t often encounter women in a situation where he can assault them with impunity—he does have a pretty free hand with male prisoners under his control. Back to this in a moment…
The context of female safety—or lack of it—and the necessary protection by men is the basis of Claire’s forced marriage to Jamie. There needs to be a credible and exigent threat to her safety, and no other reasonable recourse, for this to be believable. Therefore, we (and Claire) need to see the situation she’s in—an Englishwoman alone, in a place where no Englishwoman should be in the first place, and where no woman should be alone, because to be a woman alone makes you fair game.
Returning to the effects of this social structure on Jack Randall’s character and situation: we see or are told of four sexual assaults committed by Jack Randall—two on women and two on men. All four take place when the victim is isolated from his or her social support and is in the physical power of the captain.
He finds Jenny Murray apparently alone at Lallybroch (she isn’t, but when he discovers that her brother is there, he deals with that nuisance in short order), and he doesn’t succeed in raping her only because she refuses to be terrified and instead laughs at him.
We hear that a young prisoner named Alexander MacGregor apparently killed himself while in the captain’s custody, and the clear inference is that he did so as a result of mental damage caused by sexual assault.
Captain Randall comes across Claire quite unexpectedly—alone, disheveled, and apparently undressed—and reacts like a dog finding an unexpected bone. He’s stopped from committing serious assault only by the fortuitous arrival of Murtagh. Which is worth noting: a beneficial concomitant of the Highland social structure is the male code obliging a decent man to protect any woman, not merely his own. You see Murtagh, Dougal, Colum, Dougal’s men, and finally Jamie all step up to acknowledge this responsibility with regard to Claire.
(This isn’t the time or place to go into a detailed discussion of the evolution of sexual attitudes—and I do mean “evolution” in a biological sense, not a social one—but, essentially, in our species women are less mobile, because they’re attached to children, who are helpless for a long time. The necessity of preserving his DNA causes a man to risk his own life to save those of his mate and children. The upshot of this is that women are much less sensitive to the dangers of their wider environment, while men instinctively know what it is to be alone, and helpless.)
MALE RAPE
This leads us to the final climax of Outlander, wherein Jamie sacrifices himself to save Claire’s life, ending up alone, helpless—and at the mercy of Jack Randall.
There’s been (as one might expect) a lot of comment about this over the years, ranging from accusations that I am obviously mentally ill even to have thought of such a thing, to congratulations on my socially enlightened and egalitarian attitude toward rape.
All I’ll say about that is that there are…you’d have to call them styles, I think, in perception of and social attitude toward just about every human experience, from child raising to law enforcement to personal violence. At the moment I’m writing this, we’re in a very rape-conscious period; there’s a lot of interest and a terrible lot of talk about it. (If there wasn’t, this particular article would be a lot shorter, I can tell you that much….)
In all honesty, the story plays out this way because (bear in mind that I wrote it for practice and never intended to show it to anyone, let alone try to publish it) I’d read several romance novels in which the heroine was threatened by rape or actually raped—and having already decided in a moment of whimsy that Jamie should be the virgin bridegroom…I sort of shrugged and said, “Hey, turnabout’s fair play….”
As with many artistic decisions, once made, that one had unexpected and very interesting consequences. I may have decided on the whim of a moment that Claire was a time traveler and that Jamie was raped—but having made those decisions, I took them seriously and explored the physical and emotional ramifications thereof.
At this point, I think I need to acknowledge the Starz production of Outlander and the very truthful adaptation produced by Ron D. Moore. Ron, bless him, didn’t shy away from any of the more sensitive or difficult material in the book and thus from Jamie’s experience in Wentworth. Everyone involved, from writers and director to cast and
crew, did the most tremendous job (and I mean that in all senses of the word) in bringing those scenes to life—a life true to the original story.
I talked at length, and separately, with Ron Moore, Tobias Menzies (Black Jack), and Sam Heughan (Jamie) about these scenes, supplying them with as much insight and background as I could. And what I said to each of them at the end of all the talking was, “I’m fine with whatever you can make work between you. I trust you.”
I mention the show in the context of this discussion because I’m writing this article the day before the final episode airs: Episode 16, “To Ransom a Man’s Soul.” This is the episode that shows Jamie’s rape and its effects on him, and if there’s anything in life I’m sure of, it’s that there’s going to be a Lot of Talk about it—both the episode on its own merits and (with luck) a much wider discussion of male rape.
Which leads us to…
IDEOLIZATION OF RAPE AND INDIVIDUALITY OF EXPERIENCE
Okay, look carefully at that word. It’s not “idealization.” Ideolization means conversion of a cultural phenomenon to an ideology.9
I get enormous amounts of mail and email. About everything under the sun, including a few things I didn’t even know existed. But I’ve never had a letter or email from a person who’s told me that he or she suffered sexual assault and then was traumatized or negatively affected by something they read in my books. Really. Not once, in twenty-five years.
On the other hand, I’ve had a lot of mail from people in this position who have said things about the books like “cathartic,” “validating,” “healing,” and “hope.”
The Companion to the Fiery Cross, a Breath of Snow and Ashes, an Echo in the Bone, and Written in My Own Heart's Blood Page 61