Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26159109-20161114201452/@comment-5106672-20161115001227

Mmh… that's highly debatable. There are quite a few examples that could suggest otherwise.


 * Regina and the Huntsman – she actually forced herself onto him. Enough said.


 * Jack: didn't we meet her in bed with James?


 * Tamara was shown in no uncertain terms to be cheating on one of the heroes.


 * Cora was mostly after powerful men rather than men in general, but she was quite happy to go on liasons to get through with it. Fake prince? Sparkly magic teacher? Bring it on.


 * Lacey: not a villain proper, rather Belle fifty shades darker, but she was shown to be happy to get busy.


 * Zelena tried a number on Rumple and did one on Robin: she was after a totally different thing, but still.


 * Maleficent had her one night stand. "Dragon thing", sure, but we can add her to the count.


 * Cruella. Cruella was VERY sexualised. James, David (knowing he wasn't James), James again (her "toy"), attempted Arthur… "Mama" surely wanted to have a good time.


 * Evil Snow White and Evil David were implied to have a similar dynamic to Regina and the Huntsman going on between them in the AU.


 * Do I recall correctly, or did Dark One Emma get touchier with Hook in Storybrooke at one point among her means to manipulate him?


 * The New Evil Queen is chunking it up to eleven.

Bonus point:


 * Ruby was very overtly sexualised in Season One, a time when she wasn't certainly a villain but wasn't very sure about where her loyalty lied. She stopped that once she became team hero full time.


 * Dr. Whale: he's kind of morally ambiguous, and very sexualised.

Extra bonus point:


 * Hook, who's flirted with about anything with breasts on the show.


 * James, see Jack and Cruella.


 * The Sheriff of Nottingham, roll eyes to him.


 * Greg Mendel, see Tamara.


 * Some rumours about Gaston proved to be true: shall we count him in?


 * To a certain degree, Rumple, especially back in the days of Cora and now he's in full villain mode.

Now, full-fledged villains with no sexual subtext whatsoever? Ursula, Ingrid, Isaac, King George (an old man), Pan and the Lost Boys (underage), Nimue, Arthur (although there's some shady stuff with Guinevre and the sands of Avalon and, well, they're married so… ugh, another Graham), Hades, the Blind Witch… the others are quite marginal and we know very little about them.

Conversely, all the good guys have either been in committed relationships, cheated on their spouses with someone they truly loved and would end up with anyway (David with Mary Margaret in S1, Guinevre with Lancelot, Robin with Regina) or, if they had one night stands, they have discussed and showed some regrets over them (Mary Margaret and Whale, Guinevre with Lancelot). Even former villains have shown a totally different approach to their sexuality once reformed (Regina with Robin in S4). And those relationships are usually framed in a different way: look, a baby on the way! Cuddly morning in bed, everyone dressed up. Let's take it to the next level. And so on.

So, I wouldn't go out and call sexism on Once, because we have also male examples of sexualised villains and/or morally grey characters. But there can definitely be a pattern of Once playing up the sexuality of characters as a shortcut to their villainousness.