what got me was her realization, as she panicked "i just touched your dick!", and chuck palmer's clear full knowledge as he grinned triumphantly at her panicking, that the rape culture is inside her mind already. she is already unable to refuse consent, out of years of being raised to give way to and be grateful and succoring to men. even hannah, who has explored consent and sexuality, is shocked to discover this. this is the backdoor in every woman's mind that PUAs aim to exploit. the rape culture in a woman's mind is available to all men, all the time, as a way to coerce sex with complete impunity. young women especially are vulnerable to this because they've never seen how it operates before- even hannah, who called out this very situation, with this exact same man, didn't know the rape culture in her mind until it was exploited. women are made vulnerable by design and by everyone, so that no man can be held accountable.

I would like to point out that the writers of this article called his victims "girls" repeatedly and only switched to using "women" at the end. Thank god for that.

But this infantilization of women has fricking got to stop.

I haven't seen the episode, so many this comment is incorrect. Maybe the women the writer molested were all 17 years old or younger. If so, I apologize for the criticism of this particular piece.

The comment stands for the rest of society, though. We will begin to feel more empowered when we stop buying into this "girl" crap.

Oh, look. It is in the title of the show. My point stands.

@7 idk if you watch the show but hannah clearly loves dick. she clearly does not love what happens in chuck palmers bedroom. loving dick and being sexually coerced are not mutually exclusive. your partner might love dick, but does she love being manipulated where she especially vulnerable?

this thread is just a treat. i don't know why the stranger throws out MRA bait.

I wonder if there's fanfic already where Rylo Adam searches for, battles, and then slaughters Chuck Palmer.

I think you are all missing the point of this episode. Once you realize that "Chuck Palmer" is really a Kremlin agent, it makes a lot more sense (The fake beard and fake receding hairline are dead give-aways). The quotes that he gives to the reporter are really coded messages from the Kremlin to Steve Bannon. Also, the whole penis scenario was secretly filmed and will be used to blackmail Hannah into conducting covert operations for Moscow.

I actually think this was one of the best ever episodes of The Americans, because everything seems so simple on the surface. I hope Hannah becomes a recurring character for the rest of the season so we can see how she behaves as a unwilling Russian agent. Anyway, this is a great show, and hopefully this info will help you all better understand the different layers.

I remember when The Stranger prided itself on the meanness of their commenters. Now it's an SJW hugbox. Way to go. Real lively community you've got here.

Trolly troll has a point, that a lot of these comment threads are objectively terrible by anyone's standard. I don't get anything out of them. MRAs don't actually get anything out of them either. They don't convince anyone or even agitate anyone. It's just stupid. There's no conversation that can survive this combination of attitudes.

Split the comments into two streams, one labeled "I'm not PC" and one labeled "I'm not an asshole", and aggressively ban trolling in either direction. Smile and gracefully accept the complaints of censorship.

@15: Hey Simon. Fuck you.
I, like your wife, was violently raped in college at knifepoint by a stranger. My rape, like your wife's, is not the gold standard by which all sexual assault needs to be judged. Telling some one that the haven't really been assaulted because they weren't cut, or beaten, is despicable. In my case people said that I hadn't really been raped, despite the knife, despite the beating, despite the blood, because he sodomized me orally, and didn't penetrate me vaginally.
Fuck you. Fuck your smug distinctions. Rape isn't a god damn club.

Tricia, I'm guessing that apartment, if it's right across the street from Central Park, is no less than $10 million. Prime real estate. Now from what I was told on a visit to NYC a few years ago, Harlem Brownstones are in the $5 Million range---still kick ass for location and culture.

Don't get the Dunham hate. When you get past her privilege and obsession w/ self promotion ("I'm the voice of a generation"), she's a very talented writer.

@20: I'm a "trolly troll"? I didn't think I was. Time to re-evaluate my life.

@27 I meant @19 complaining about the SJW hugbox nature of this thread.

I can't tell you the amount of sex I've had to get out of uncomfortable situations. I'm only now just learning that saying no is better than being disappointed in myself. I guess this is a form of rape but I just don't feel wronged no matter how pushed I felt at the time. The dynamic is certainly different since I identify as guy but I tell my girlfriends this and they're shocked. Women aren't the only ones that feel pressured for sex! Hell, I've been bullied by women too.

Anyhoo, it all just makes it hard for me to sympathize with people screwing so they don't have to experience social embarrassment or feel mean for saying no to someone that want's something so bad.

I found myself wishing that they hadn't made him so gross in the end. The only different between Rhys and the hunky doctor Hannah boned a zillion times that one fine day is how he randomly pulled his dick out at the end. Kind of un-grey-areas it for me.

Had that happened, however, what exactly is wrong with a powerful, influential (even if those exist only in Hannah's head) leveraging those advantages to seduce someone?

Correction @30 "had that NOT happened". Sry.

@29 if you feel like answering, why does it make it harder to sympathize with other people in a somewhat similar situation? Something like "it wasn't all that bad" for you so there's a limit to how much they can complain? Or it was pretty unpleasant but you don't blame the semi-coercer so it doesn't seem appropriate that other people would blame their semi-coercers?

I do think the gender dynamic makes a difference. Actually my impression is a lot of women do take a similar stance -- they could have gotten themselves out of this, the person was just super-pushy not threatening -- but then some conclude there is a real repeated pattern here, it's not just their own fault. Some say it's, I'm making up the exact numbers, 10% their own fault, 40% the super-pushy person's fault, and 50% a society problem that this pattern exists.

The moment you say no, it’s over. Until you do, you have to take responsibility for your own choice to stay silent. I think autonomy is a set of responsibilities just as much as it is a right and if you are going to claim autonomy you have to take responsibility as well. Any number of guys would probably be blindsided and feel like victims if I confronted them, doubly so because they sucked my dick (yet I felt no less coerced). Again, no doubt I am privileged and it’s totally different for women. I do think that women refusal to be victims and saying NO instead of coming back the next day and saying “you attacked me and did me harm”. This especially goes for the eventual NO or walking out and then saying it was rape yet someone totally stopped the show and left. Guys have whipped their dick out on me and I’ve dove right in, others I’ve said WHOA, no thanks and it was over. Honest mistake/they gave it a try and I was not down. Weird when it’s not flying, sure. Do I want to bring charges? What the fuck are you talking about no.

It's a complex issue but based on my own experience and political beliefs, unless your autonomy is impaired, you should assert yourself or enough of the situation is your fault that no one should be talking about destroying someone's life, no matter how much of an asshole they might be. (and no being drunk does not morally absolve you from murder, you can say no unless you're passed out to sex).