Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27079851-20171120082917/@comment-5106672-20171202214748

CoolDudeAl wrote: I thought about this some more, if lying about who you are and sleeping with someone is rape by deception, than wasn't Cora raped by Jonathan, because he lied about being a prince? How come I've never heard anyone complain about how that plot was handled? He certainly wasn't punished, and even mocked Cora for throwing herself at him, even though he had tricked her by pretending to be royalty. I think the point here is that Gothel is physically a different person from Rapunzel, whereas Jonathan was physically himself. Jonathan only lied about his social status, which he clearly did to get Cora's consent, but since her point was social climbing anyway I think the moral responsibility there is 50-50. The horrible implication there is that Jonathan is one of those d****bags who go around casually sleeping with people (not using protections IRL) and then fleeing when they knock them up.

Conversely, consent is based on physical attraction, which is highly subjective. But I do really think people are reading too much into this, because I can't quite figure a real life equivalent to finding out the person you consented to sleep with can shapeshift into a form you may or may not find attractive. The show didn't go there. Did Wish!Hook find Rapunzel specifically attractive and wanted to have sex with her? Did he just want to get laid and she was there, so who cares if she's truly Gothel? The show does not tell us, so the whole discussion kind of falls flat because a) the situation is ambiguous enough and b) let's repeat that, there are no comparable real life situations.

Also, the comparison to Zelena and Robin is kind of pointless. That would need for Gothel to glamour herself as Milah – i.e.: someone Hook wants to sleep with because he has a strong emotional bond to her – which is not the case. What both cases share is a woman unilaterally forcing parenthood onto a man, which is an equally troubling problem (that the show CLEARLY addresses as very, very wrong), but a totally different one.