True Blood and Rape Culture

[Wolf_22]

basicly rape culture states that some cultures see rape as part of life. mix sex and violence. and generally when its spoken about (in human terms), we see it as accepting or demanding male agression and expecting female victimization.

some people have always tried to tie vampires to rape culture. the biting, the rough sex, and sometimes the force - the unwilling biten human and even the literally raped huamn (and any of us disagree that biting is often a metaphore or strong relation to sex?)

when it comes to trueblood I think of a handful of things:
eric said he had sex with his male maker. he didn't label it as a homosexual act or him as bisexual. and apart from saying his maker liked males, he doesn't define sexual orientation.

now if a human told the story we would say:
eric was raped by his maker.

he goes on to say 'it wasn't so bad', 'everything sexual is exciting when you are a young vampire', and ' I liked it....eventually'.
a human would say : he was raped and is blaming himself or trying to make the event less tramatic. sexual enjoyment/climax doesn't mean its no longer rape

but within the vampire world of TB we know:
there is no such thing as saying 'no' to your maker
or who you are pledged to/serving/living under (IE sherrif)
vampires often feel hunger (blood) and sex as one in the same
vampires for natural or cultural reasons are very sexually tolerant

but just because he was a vampire does that mean it really didn't bother him?

I'm say:
1 - he still talks about it very slowly. he struggles with the word 'eventually'
2 - he is known as a good sherrif because he doesn't ask for sexual favors if they are unwilling (this was said by felicia)
maybe this is because he knows what its like to be the one controled by another and won't use his power over others in a sexual manner.

if we were to touch back on the human view of rape culture:
we do see bill in a starved frenzy bite and rape sookie until he regains enough control to realize who she is, where they are, and what he is doing.
...what is that phrase? 'couldn't control himself'?

so is that our culture coming through or are vampires really different?
is it sex = food and any creature can do crazy things while hungry, can they rape in some cases without it being their fault?

and of course the 400lbs question, how does this effect the readers and our perceptions?