*Trigger Warning: Talk of marital rape and consent issues*
Season two of Bridgerton stands out in the Bridgerton Universe, and it is for a surprising reason, especially in this post #metoo world. Of two seasons of Bridgerton, and one season of Queen Charlotte, season two is the only one that has no dubious consent, in fact this season has a scene where consent is very explicitly stated by both protagonists.
For a universe that is created by a woman it is not only surprising, but also disappointing, that there is an issue with consent in the show, and further to that it is very disappointing that many in the Bridgerton fandom are not more concerned about it.
But what are the issues exactly? Essentially the issues focus on marital rape in both season 1, and again in Queen Charlotte. In the former it is treated as a moment for the woman to be taking control, in the latter it is turned into a joke and treated as nothing more than bad sex.
Addressing Queen Charlotte first, as the most recent - and disappointing - case of marital rape, disappointing because it shows that the producers at Shondaland learnt nothing from season 1, or that perhaps they did learn and try to mitigate the backlash of including the scenes.
For background, in Queen Charlotte there are multiple scenes showing Lady Danbury with her husband, and whilst there is no physical force involved it is implied that there is coercive force involved. We see Lady Danbury having a scalding bath after each encounter, we see her request salve for her thighs which clearly indicates injury, we see her disassociate during sex, and we see Lord Danbury threaten to make her have sex with him if she refuses. Further we hear her backstory, where we find out that from the age of 3 Lady Danbury was groomed to be the wife of Lord Danbury, she had no choice in the matter. Not only was Lady Danbury groomed to be Lord Danbury's wife, once married she entered a relationship that involved several signs of coercive control, something that is a form of domestic abuse, which includes marital rape through regulating the sexual relationship.
It is not necessarily the inclusion of this storyline for the show that is the biggest problem (though I do not see a reason for it to be included as it was), but rather how it was dealt with in the show, and subsequently discussed by the creators and fandom.
Within Queen Charlotte the marital rape of Lady Danbury was played for laughs, to the point that a joke was included during the first sex scene between George and Charlotte, and in each scene the direction made it obvious the audience were meant to find humour in what was happening onscreen, but it is not something to be made light of. However, the worst aspect for me was the reaction to it, many fans on social media played down the scenes by saying that it was just bad sex, or that it was the way of the world then and not every woman enjoyed sex, these fans minimising marital rape also used the lack of a warning by Netflix as a reason why it was not marital rape, despite it clearly being so.
The fans minimising the marital rape had a reason to think that way though, and that reason comes directly from the writer(s) and creator of the show, Shonda Rhimes (and Julia Quinn). In an interview conducted by Valentina Valentini on the Shondaland website Shonda Rhimes, in discussing the relationship of Lord and Lady Danbury refers to it as 'bad sex'. Julia Quinn backed this narrative by saying "One thing I really appreciated in the script, which you wouldn't see if you haven't read the script, but Shonda was very careful to point out in the script that it's not assault, what's happening. It was just, "She is not into it"". This is very worrying, that two women can write about marital rape of a woman and then downplay it to nothing more than bad sex. What is even more evident with this quote from Julia Quinn is that Shonda Rhimes, was aware that these scenes were rape, or that they would be viewed as rape, and therefore wanted to minimise it as much as possible.
As mentioned, this is not the first time that the Bridgerton Universe has used marital rape within the show. In season 1 we saw Daphne rape Simon by forcing him to ejaculate inside her so she would get pregnant. In the show the focus was on Daphne's feeling of betrayal when she found out about his duplicity, thus framing this scene as her taking control, rather than on Simon's trauma at having been sexually assaulted. Simon showed clear distress at being held down and forced to ejaculate inside Daphne, and despite not verbalising his withdrawal of consent in that moment of distress, it is obvious that he was withdrawing his consent with the shaking of his head, and that Daphne did not acknowledge this.
Theresa J Conway, in an article on Medium, puts the case forward that this scene does not depict marital rape, her basis for this is that Simon never said no, that he was a willing participant in the beginning of the act, and that he did climax, so that to her indicates consent. I take issue with this view, and I wonder if the same view would be taken if it were a woman, not man. Imagine if a woman was a willing participant at the instigation of sex, but then was forcibly held down and showed signs of distress but was unable to verbalise her withdrawal of consent, and then climaxed, but it was claimed she was not raped because she climaxed and willingly took part at the beginning. As women we are told that consent can be withdrawn at any point, men are told that a woman can withdraw consent at any point and that to continue if a woman withdraws consent or shows distress constitutes sexual assault or rape, so why is it different when the victim is a man?
In both of these cases within the Bridgerton universe there is an overlaying perception regarding race, and the fact that these actions were both visited upon people of colour, (and in the case of Lady Danbury perpetuated by a dark skinned man), this is an issue to be raised within a wider discussion of Bridgerton and the treatment of their characters that are played by people of colour, it goes further than that of Lady Danbury and Simon.
These scenes in season one and in Queen Charlotte illustrate why season two is an anomaly in the Bridgerton Universe, not only was there explicit consent between the protagonists, it did not touch on the instances of dubious consent in the books at all. Anthony and Kate came together as equals, complete with Anthony showing his willingness to stop, and Kate explicitly telling Anthony 'don't stop', an addition to the scene by the actors Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley which shows an understanding of these issues in today's world, and something these actors should receive more praise for. To many, seeing the explicit consent in season two brought about the belief that the producers, and writers, in the Bridgerton Universe had taken on board the criticisms from season 1, and learned from it, but the Queen Charlotte scenes made the season two explicit consent stand out within this universe they are building.
