Amortentia and re The morality of love potions/Merope and Tom Sr.

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152361

Betsy Hp wrote:
> You're completely and totally wrong about this, Carol.  Rape is rape
> is rape.  Male or female, a victim of rape *is* effected.  Just look
> at some of the testimony at the "Priest trials" here in the United
> States.  Those young men were effected for a very long time after
> they were raped.  Just look at the "teacher trials" going on now.
>
> And we have absolutely no clue as to Tom's sexual experience before
> he was taken prisoner by Merope.  For all we know he *was* a
> virgin.  We know he was a young man (19?), and we only have evidence
> of one female friend.  We also know that he was a product of 1930's
> England, where sex education was probably pretty backwords.  And of
> course, he didn't believe in witches.  Tom was violated in a way
> he'd never dreamed possible.
>
> Honestly, what if it had been Morfin (who did break into Tom's
> bedroom at least once) who'd whisked Tom away to have his way with
> him?  Would you still consider Tom a willing partner to his rape?


Carol responds:
Thank you for the circular definition, Betsy, but I know what rape is,
and if I didn't, I'm afraid that "rape is rape is rape" wouldn't
enlighten me. I am more than a bit offended that you would imply that
I have no compassion for the victims of pederasty and homosexual rape,
which of course are brutal and horrendous crimes. May I politely point
that we are talking about something rather different here?

Nor can what Merope did be compared to Morfin whisking Tom away to
have homosexual sex with him. Merope gave Tom a *Love* potion. Given
her background, is it not conceivable that she took the name at face
value and thought that it would make him *love* her? It was not, after
all, called a *sex* potion. Nor do we have any evidence that Merope
lusted after Tom, only that she liked to look at him, and that love of
any sort was absent from her life. And speaking of youth and
inexperience, Merope was probably also in her teens and certainly a
virgin. As for sex education, Tom may have learned a bit from his male
friends (boys generally do, for better or worse), but Merope had no
one to tell her about it. (Given the men in her life, she may not even
have known that sex existed.)

I refer you to my post 152331

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/152331

for evidence that Merope is a most unlikely rapist and far more
traumatized than Tom AFAWK.

Nor are the effects of a love potion, which causes a powerful
obsession with a particular person, at all comparable to those of a
date rape drug, which incapacitates the drinker, often rendering him,
or more often her, unconscious. http://www.4woman.gov/faq/rohypnol.htm
Tom was clearly not unconscious when he took his marriage vows, nor
during the one time when we know that they had sex.

We know that Tom claimed to be "hoodwinked," meaning that he was
tricked into marrying Merope, not into having sex with her. Surely the
marriage to a woman he didn't love, a marriage that he could not
legally escape from, was a more serious matter to a young man like Tom
than a few acts of what would have been consensual sex with a woman he
thought he loved or revulsion at the thought of sex with Merope?

We have *no* evidence that he was traumatized, only that he returned
to live with his parents (as he would have done because he was no
longer free to marry), and that he was "unpopular," regarded as even
more "snobbish" and "rude" than his parents (GoF Am. ed. 2), hardly an
attitude that the villagers would take if he never left the house. He
made no effort to find his wife and child, not because he was
traumatized but because he wanted nothing to do with them. The welfare
of his unborn child and the possibility that the child and its mother
might die of starvation were a matter of complete indifference to him.

Carol earlier:
> > <SNIP>
> > He lost his marital prospects; she was condemned, along with her
unborn child, to a life of misery.
> > <snip>
>
> Betsy Hp:
> No, Tom lost his mind. <snip>

Carol again:
Evidence, please? I would consult "The Riddle House" in GoF before
responding, as it provides the only evidence of his conduct after
deserting his wife and unborn child, other than the claim that he was
"hoodwinked," most unlikely to have been made by a man who had lost
his mind. Nor, as I said earlier, would a recluse be regarded as
"rude" and "snobbish," "even worse" than his parents, by the villagers.

I am not asking anyone to condemn Tom Sr., who, like Merope, did wrong
(neglecting his unborn child and his pathetically unlovable young
wife) under understandable circumstances. Nor, even though I don't see
him as a rape victim, am I taking away his status as the victim of
trickery and delusion. Certainly his prospects for a happy and
socially acceptable marriage were ruined and he was understandably
bitter and angry. Nevertheless, I maintain that he had a duty to
provide for his unwanted child, especially given his wealth. It would
have cost him little to provide a clean, safe cottage far from Little
Hangleton and a small allowance for Merope and their child. That he
would have allowed his own child to die makes him much worse, IMO,
than the Dursleys, and partially responsible for the hatred that his
son bore him (and Muggles in general). Should he be forgiven, given
that he was tricked into marriage? Perhaps, especially if he repented
in the end, and certainly he did not deserve to be murdered. But does
being a victim justify victimizing in return? No, it does not. It
merely perpetuates the vicious circle.

All I am asking is a little understanding and compassion for Merope,
who does not fit the pattern of a rapist or even a seductress. She,
too, was a victim, and it's clear to me that what she wanted was not
sex or even necessarily marriage but love. I am afraid that certain
members of this list would have burned her at the stake if they had
discovered her "crime." (How dare a woman use power of any sort on a
man? She must be an evil seductress, no, a rapist, and a witch at
that! Send her out to die of starvation with her unborn brat! That's
the mentality I'm seeing here, and I don't think it's the view that
JKR wants us to have.)

Carol, who would appreciate logical, canon-based counterarguments
rather than circular defininitions, false analogies, insinuations that
she is heartless, and claims that she is "completely and totally
wrong," which prove nothing except that the poster disagrees with her
opinions, as I do with hers