Film depictions of sexual violence are increasingly alarming. It has to stop

From mainstream thrillers such as Jennifer Lawrence’s Red Sparrow to art films such as Human, Space, Time and Human, rape has become a repellent exploitative deviceIn the just-released thriller Red Sparrow, Jennifer Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, a young Russian woman sent to train at an elite spy school.

There, she is taught to identify the one thing that a human target desires – and to become that thing to extract information.

In one particularly gruelling exercise, Dominika is forced to confront a male student who earlier attempted to rape her, and instructed to “give him what he wants”.

However, Dominika niftily flips the terms of the encounter, undressing and offering herself to him instead.

The previously eager student suddenly finds himself unable to achieve an erection, and Dominika explains that she figured out what he wanted, as instructed, but that it wasn’t sex: it was power.If this logic sounds familiar,

Read full article