quote:
The Dragon Bran podcast made an interesting point. Was Sansa actually raped if she never said no and didn't try to physically resist?
Technically they're right. Cersei and Jaime was more rape than this, but this one was much more brutal to see.
For sex to not be rape, one has to "give consent". Often, that's a reciprocation of intimacy. On the flip side, we tend to view "no" as the line between rape and not rape. But what happens in a situation where if one protests, then they most likely undergo a worse outcome than just sex?
So if we are talking legal definitions, I don't know. Not a lawyer. But to me, if I'm in a situation where saying "no" would most likely result in a more negative outcome, so I don't say "no", I would still view that as rape. A man holding a knife to one's throat and threatening that if you cry/scream/say no he kills you, for instance. It's still rape even though "she never said no".
So then the argument becomes, would Ramsey have hurt her if she had refused? I say most likely, but he wasn't holding Sansa down with the threat of a knife or anything. I just feel we know enough about Ramsey to know he wouldn't tolerate Sansa refusing.
But, "legally", I don't know how strong that is, more just a moral designation in my mind. And all of this is with the frame of reference of modern treatment of rape. Obviously in Westeros/ancient times/different religions, a man having sex with his wife, no matter if she refused, is not rape from what I understand.