Rape by Deception in Popular Culture: The Hidden Harm in Body-swap Narratives

Abstract

The increasing support for affirmative and informed consent to sexual activity has led to several jurisdictions, including the UK, several US states and Israel, to incorporate rape by deception, or rape-by-fraud, into laws against rape. Broadly, rape by deception involves the rapist making false claims about identity, fidelity, contraception and/or disease risk. False claims like these can make informed consent impossible and put the victim/survivor at risk for serious ongoing health conditions, including sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy. However, storylines featuring rape by deception in popular film and television suggest that cultural knowledge and recognition of the harm inflicted by rape by deception is not widely shared. In body-swapping narratives, a popular trope in comedy and speculative fiction, characters inhabit or swap bodies with other characters and may then engage in sexual activity where one party involved is unaware of the swap. In visual media, the body swapping trope is largely conveyed by actors taking on the mannerisms of other characters to comedic effect. In this article we will explore a range of representative examples of this trope and argue that rape by deception is rarely considered in these narratives, indicative of a broader cultural failure to think through the consequences of affirmative and informed consent.