Consent, Allyship and Privilege on Bridgerton

You can trust me to analyze the hell out of the ‘Ton and I have some thoughts…

…each of which did not seem to merit their own essay, so I’d like to lump them together and discuss them here.

*SPOILER ALERT*

(Ahem. Me doing my part and discharging my duty as a kind fellow Netflix and chiller… or… umm… movie watcher I mean…).

Consent and Marital Rape

A lot has already been written about the marital rape scene in Bridgerton. One thing I haven’t seen written about is the juxtaposition between Daphne’s consent and the lack of Simon’s consent in their sexual escapades.

It is ironic to me that Simon always ensured Daphne’s consent in sexual matters whereas Daphne decided to rape her husband.

Because the great majority of sexual predators seem to be men, we have focused our teaching of consent on the male species. We live in a world where the messaging is directed to boys and men that they should seek enthusiastic sexual consent from their partners.

Simon is a great example.

Simon was so gentle and tender with Daphne — a virgin mind you — during the first time they had sex.

Throughout their encounter, Simon asked questions like, “Do you want me to stop?” (he asked her this twice) and “Do you want me to go further?”

And yet later in the movie, Daphne continues to ride her husband to ejaculation even though she sees the visible fear and helplessness of her husband's face.

It is forgivable that Daphne was curious about what would happen if Simon didn’t — couldn’t — pull out. But what she should have done was do what her husband had always done with her and asked. Beyond, “does it hurt?” (she did ask this one time), they should have been honest with each other and talked about why he always resorted to the withdrawal method. She knew that, for whatever…