... that Ursula was well aware of what she was doing with that passage that she was making her readers into rape apologists. But other tha you I always interpreted this passage as the zenith of Sheveks propertarian behaviour. He is so steeped in property- culture that he is willing to just take what he wants. He does not consider that his wanting/power is directed at a person who perhaps should share that power, rather than just be an object. On Anarres, though bodies are not owned, they are attached to a person who feels pain and humiliation and can not be separated from them. So I think that even in a world were bodies are not owned you still have to ask for consent. Not so in a world were bodies are objects to be owned, traded and stolen. Might we not see feminists as being fiercly anti-propertarian? Nobody gets to own our bodies, no men, no state, no fetus?

Thanks for this post. I have always avoided thinking more closely on that passage in the book.
Jokerine
http://blog.hdreioplus.de