exitpursuedbyasloth:

Well, this is some fine bullshit to wake up to in the morning.

The problem with your synopsis of events, scooter, is that it is incomplete and flawed. While I feel it’s likely that what you say is what the writing team was going for, that’s not what they ended up doing.  If they truly wanted to show Cas acting on his own desires, free and clear of any coercion, while he was in sound mind and body, in a state where he is able to freely give consent, they should have done literally everything differently.

• They should not have had a predator intent on harming Cas manipulate him into it’s trap.
• They should not have had this predator possess the body of human, despite this particular species never having this ability or need for this ability before, doubling the amount of non-consent in this encounter. It was a nonconsensual two-man threeway, where the only party without an actual body is the only one who didn’t get violated.
• They should not have had this predator be Cas’s only access to food and shelter, especially not when Cas was half-starved, dehydrated, sleep-deprived, wounded, traumatized, nor while there was a severe storm outside that someone in Cas’s condition could have easily died in.
• No, really, with a body as stressed as Cas’s was at the time, death by exposure is a real possibility. Soaked straight through during a rainstorm in Detroit in the fall, having not had enough to eat or drink, unable to get dry or warm, a body already stressed from trauma, hypothermia and dehydration could easily kill him. Temperatures do not have to be freezing for someone to get hypothermia, it can occur at temps as warm as 60 degrees. Being wet accelerates the condition, because your body is even less able to retain heat when soaked straight through. Being homeless is fucking dangerous, especially to someone not used to it.
• They should have made sure Cas was in sound mind and body before he had sex (because honestly, a body that had gone through all of what Cas had gone through probably would not have been capable of sex). Not recently physically traumatized from both a car accident and a stabbing. Not recently mentally and physically traumatized from changing goddamn species. Not severely stressed and in constant basic survival mode from living on the streets. Not half-starved, dehydrated, and sleep-deprived (all of which effect the mind’s ability to function). Not so confused and delirious that he can’t find the giant corn-filled square that is Kansas.
• They should have made the sex realistic for Cas’s character, who is awkward and stiff and uncertain, especially over physical displays of affection, who has openly and repeatedly said he’s not that interested in sex, who doesn’t understand when people flirt with him, who tries to follow the plot of porn. The only reason it was movie magical perfect sex is because if they had actually had Cas act like Cas, the fact that the sex was coerced would have been mush more apparent.
• They should not have had such a power imbalance between Cas and his partner (this is also the issue with Nora, in that she was his boss, not a coworker, and abused her authority over him to get him to do what she wanted).
• They should have given Cas more time to adjust to being human before having him choose to have sex. They should have made it clear that Cas actually had and understood his sexual desires (and no, this is not accomplished with a slowed-down titty bounce shot).
• There should have been an obvious build-up to and of sexual desire, Cas shouldn’t have just been clotheslined by a vagina. Cas went from sad, shivering, in pain and kind of out of it to SEX in two seconds flat. This from a guy with not only merry little sexual experience, but with no real inclination for casual sex.That is not organic behavior.
• They should have made sure that it was clear that Cas understood the basics of having a human sexuality that isn’t asexuality, and of having sexual intercourse, including the fact that he needs to use a goddamn condom (because it was not funny that Cas didn’t even seem to be aware that you have to use a condom, it was troubling).
• Cas should have actually CHOSEN to have sex, and not have sex thrown at him. Cas should have been the one to make the first move, not simply been passive when somebody else initiated sex.
• I’m sure I’m forgetting some other horrible thing they did wrong, it’s so hard to keep track.

[None of this even covers the problematic issues equating being human with having sexual desire (are asexuals a kind of mineral?), and of assuming that since Cas is human, he’s going to suddenly want sex despite not having a desire for it before, and the idea that hormones and the physical body control sexuality, sexual desire, and arousal (when really, hormones are at best a supporting player). But that’s a whole other post, and I really have little desire to explain how Human Sexuality works to cowardly anons.]

There is a fundamental difference between agreement and consent, you can agree to things you do not or cannot consent to. A prisoner can agree to sex with their jailer, but they cannot consent to it. A drunk person can agree to sex, but they cannot consent to it. Sansa Stark agreed to marry Tyrion, but she did not consent to it. While Cas might have agreed to the sex, Cas did not consent to the sex, and sex without true consent is rape. The situation Cas was in was inherently nonconsensual, you can not offer true consent when the sex is tied to access to food and shelter, and your only other option is to risk hypothermia and death out on the streets. You cannot offer true consent when you are manipulated into a place of dependance and vulnerability by a predator with malicious intent.

Sex that is coerced is rape. You cannot say that there was no coercion in Cas’s consent, not unless you ignore entirely the circumstances in which it was given. You cannot say the Reaper didn’t hunt him down, stalk him, and lure him into a trap with intent to do him harm. You cannot say that the Reaper did not exploit the desperation of a homeless man in order to get what it wanted, because how would it ever have gotten Cas in it’s grasp if Cas was not so desperate for food and shelter? You cannot ignore the fact that it possessed the body of a human girl and hid that from Cas, nor the fact that Cas never consented to raping a third party.

The writers have nobody to blame but themselves when people call Cas/April rape. Every single choice they made compromised Cas’s consent, not to mention Human!April’s. They are the ones who decided to write it like that, they are the ones so oblivious to matters of consent they either never found an issue with the way they wrote the encounter and never listened to anyone who did have an objection to it (if there was anyone), which is really disturbing. Nobody is obligated to swallow their rape culture bullshit.

The fact that the rape was normalized does not negate the rape. Normalization is not Neosporin on a cut, it’s salt in a wound.

This post is getting long, so I’m just gonna end this with saying that Misha Collins acknowledges there were consent issues in that scene. He also said in pre-season interviews that Cas isn’t looking at the encounter right, he’s seeing it through rose-coloured glasses (meaning he’s not seeing it for what it truly was, he sees it as a more positive thing than it actually was), which hey, not an uncommon reaction in sexual trauma victims. Exploiting homeless people in the manner Cas was is not uncommon, one study finding nearly 50% of homeless youths in New York have experienced survival sex. After she called what happened to Cas rape as well, my friend x-cetera  received this anon where they described a similar experience to Cas’s and called it for what it was, rape. And here’s some further reading on this subject: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

TLDR: You’re wrong, sit there in your wrongness and be wrong.