I have the 3 Spiderman movies and the Xmen movies that are on little discs for a
game player (manufacturer who I will not mention). Due to my disabled illnesses,
watching movies on a small game player is the way I’ve finally found access to them in more than a decade and a half. I won’t be looking for the Spiderman with rape or whatever euphemism or argument over whether or not it’s “really rape”, if it’s made into a movie.

As a rape survivor of 40plus years (I was in my mid20s; stranger rape.), I have
often been bewildered by the use of the new term, “sexual assault”. It seems like
euphemism, but may cover different areas, also. It’s not a discussion I would go further with, since rape has echoes that linger ….

I wish to briefly comment on the use of rape (actual, attempted, etc) in media, literature, movies, books, stories, etc. It needs to be mentioned, often, that
rape is violence, not sex. It is so pervasive in American culture outlets. If accidentally am watching a movie with rape, or attempted rape, I fast forward or stop watching. (I usually check out the plot on wiki before I’ve gotten the movie.)
Same for books, which I read on audiocassette due to allergic asthma from print, since the early 1980s. I observed how much more difficult it has become to find
books without violence.

The American culture still has a long way to go in discussing rape (and all the
varieties of words connected with it) as adults, without sensationalizing it, or blaming the woman. I note that the little movies on discs are primarily made for
boys who are 18 years old, or thereabouts, so my choices are limited. Action movies are OK, but the violence… Luckily, the first movie I got (about 2 years ago) was “The DaVinci Code” or I might not have continued with them.

Due to CFS/ME, I’ll end with that. Except to say (CFS/ME is the P.S. disease),
that I had a very close friend, another artist, who had incomplete quadriplegia, which is: he could move one arm slightly, using a wrist splint so he could draw in his pointilism style, pen and ink; gorgeous work. We were friends about 20 years
(he was injured in a car accident about 7 years before we met via the pen-network of artists, professionals who are disabled that I began and still run, in April, 1985.
It is very small, US “post”/mail only, not online. ) I have a pen-pal in a NYS prison, who has paraplegia (since being shot in the back by the police; no gun ever found), and acquaintances – all of whom are activists for disability and human rights. (See http://www.adapt.org for ADAPT, a group of activists in the US.) Run-ons are CFS/ME too….

I just gathered that it was in reference to other evil things that the Chameleon character does, as if what people were objecting to was that a bad guy did something bad, instead of how the surrounding narrative contextualised and minimalised the “bad thing” ie rape by deception, as something cheesily amusing because OMG now she thinks she’s Parker’s girlfriend.

Can someone give me context for this?

Yeah. I’ve been a comics reader and collector since 1987. This year I cut 90% of my pull list, including my once-beloved X-Men titles, and I haven’t regretted it. The writers want to be “edgy” and yet back away from dealing with any possible consequences. A story where someone is raped by a shapeshifter in the form of a loved one could be a good story – but “not really rape” and also “didn’t really happen” and also “ha ha those clingy women” is far more Marvel’s style these days.

Something vaguely similar happened to Phoenix back in the 80s – illusionist Mastermind convinced her telepathically that they were reincarnated lovers and soul-bonded. Once she worked out what was happening (when Mastermind attacked her actual boyfriend in this fantasy) she was justifiably furious and punished Mastermind. His brainwashing was shown as scary and evil, not funny or “didn’t happen”. That’s a sexual assault storyline that isn’t played as a joke for the boys.