Media Representations of Gray Rape: The Mindy Project

Looking for inspiration for this week’s blog, I typed ‘gray rape’ into Google.  One of the first links compiled by the search engine was an insightful blog post (link below) about the episode of The Mindy Project that Dr. Gotell mentioned in class when we were discussing men’s experiences of sexual violence and victimization.  In this episode, Christina, a character on the show, has sex with Dr. Leotard who is nearly unconsciously intoxicated and unable to consent.  As the blog post points out, “The incident took place between a clearly sober female and a clearly intoxicated male. Did he regret it in the morning? Yes. Did he appear to feel violated by it? No. Does that change the fact that he was raped? No.”  There should be no question then as to whether or not this was an instance of rape, yet the culturally sanctioned idea of gray rape, described as “sex that falls somewhere in between consent and denial” creates confusion around what constitutes sexual assault, especially when alcohol is involved (Hakvag 2009: 122). 

Another factor at play here is the relationship between normative masculinity and male sexuality.  Dr. Leotard recognizes that alcohol was the reason he was not able to prevent the sexual activity, one of the only socially acceptable reasons for men to lack control, as Karen Weiss points out in her article on male sexual victimization.  Also, both of the articles for this week highlight the “male sexual drive discourse” as a concept linked to normative heterosexuality that reinforces the dominant cultural belief in which “men feel they cannot say no to sex because they are supposed to always want it” leading to feelings of shame as male victims themselves believe they should have wanted the sexual relations in question (Hakvag 2009: 123).  Dr. Leotard states in this episode that he had sex with Christina, serving to reinforce this dominant understanding of male sexuality.  This episode also serves to perpetuate the myth that rape can only happen to women, not acknowledging men’s vulnerability in regards to sexual assault; arguably the reason why this episode was cleared to air. 

This episode is deeply problematic firstly because gray rape questions the consent standard.  It also signals a devaluation of men’s experiences of sexual assault and due to the show’s association with feminism could be misread as feminist’s dismissal of male victimization.  Perhaps, The Mindy Project could have used this episode as a platform to raise awareness of the underrepresented, complicated issue of men as victims of sexual assault instead of perpetrating the engrained discourses of hegemonic masculinity and the serious misconceptions surrounding consent that serve to validate gray rape.  Then maybe it would accurately reflect feminist activism that works to dismantle and deconstruct rape culture.   

Link to The Mindy Project blog post:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/66091/the-mindy-project-and-the-trouble-with-gray-area-rape