Well, here's a really gross false dichotomy

[gryphonsegg]

While reading several discussions about different fictional narratives that each contained rather graphic depictions of sexual abuse, I noticed a certain assumption appearing over and over again. There seems to be an idea going around (yes, some ideas are kind of like colds, why do you ask?) that a story can't have a rapist villain or rape survivor protagonist or a theme of dismantling rape culture without also having extremely detailed descriptions of every incidence of sexual assault that happened in the life of any character in the story. It's often accompanied by the corollary that any book that doesn't devote multiple paragraphs to describing a sexual assault must be a book that ignores the possibility of such events occurring or that is set in a fantasy world where sexual assault does not exist. I've seen it get trotted out by people who try (I think sincerely) to be non-sexist and sensitive to RL abuse survivors, and yet it appears to be playing right into the hands of Edgy!Grim!Gritty! writers who insist they HAVE to have loads porntastic rape scenes in their narratives in order to teach the audience that rape is a bad thing.