Question of the week #62

[treonb]

In the Pilot, Philip kills the man who raped Elizabeth.  In Season 3 we saw that Philip himself had gone through sexual abuse as part of his training.  How do you think this affected his decision in the Pilot?

You can expect spoilers for the entire first three seasons in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

Comments

[sistermagpie]

I think first it comes down to how abuse is defined. I remember having this convo with Jae once here. Usually "sexual abuse" means non-consensual, period. But in this case I also tend to use it in the way that just means hard use. Like football players have a job that involves a lot of physical abuse--but it's not assault. It's a very different experience than being mugged or being in a car accident, but there's still a mental reaction to being hurt.

Psychologically there's a big difference between being raped and the sexual training/work that Philip and Elizabeth both consented to and still consent to--but I do think it can get complicated--even some actual abuse victims can have complicated feelings about consent, especially if they're young. So somebody who's agreed to this kind of training isn't being assaulted...but it might still be a disturbing experience.

In Philip's case it doesn't seem like he's ever one to think of himself as the victim here. In his mind in the pilot I think he only saw himself as protecting Elizabeth just as he was protecting Paige and other girls from the guy at the mall. But underneath that I think he actually does have a little more understanding of the experience that, say, Stan would and that probably does play into his reaction in ways of which he's not really aware.

Plus we don't even know what else might be playing into it.

[quantumreality]

I think that pretty much says it way better than I could.

[soupytwist]

I think there's a lot to this, and I'd be fascinated to know exactly how Philip does think of it. I think it's clear from the flashback that it IS a traumatic memory for him, that could mean an awful lot of different things. My feeling is he does consciously think of it more like he's a football player taking the hits, but the parallel construction in the flashback deliberately correlates him with a sex worker, so I think we can take that to mean he also does make that association, even if it's one he's not comfortable with.

And I definitely think his experience affected his reaction to Elizabeth's telling him about her experience. I think he's naturally good at imagining what things are like to experience, but that having been somewhere that made him sexually uncomfortable AT LEAST also gives a lot more room for that imagination to grow, when it comes to thinking about what that might have been like for her. I don't think he'd have reacted as VISCERALLY otherwise. It always seemed very intense for him, and in retrospect that "how DARE you do that to Elizabeth" anger he seems definitely tinted with his own experience of being without agency.

[sistermagpie]

Plus it wasn't just him, but the Centre in general. This was an officer who was supposed to be protecting her and the Centre allowed it as a perk.

Philip also has that flashback after running out on Kimmie. He makes the connection that he felt "like a teenager" when he ran out of her house, which is a connection to normal teenage sexuality (the boy running out of the house to avoid getting caught by dad) but his flashback is anything but normal teen sex and it connects to Kimmie in both ways.

That is, one one level he's remembering how he trained himself to be able to prey on Kimmie sexually for the Centre. But that training also puts him in Kimmie's position, both by being a teenager sexually manipulated by the adults with whom their having sex and a teenager being fed sexual experiences by the Centre. He doesn't want to have sex with Kimmie, but he's being pressured into it, so he's both the victim and the predator.