Most of my favourite books are well-loved, which is to say they are all marked with dog-ears, chocolate stains, tears, diet coke, and there’s the occasional case of puffy page after a volume has fallen into bathwater.
However, I tend to be easier on my comic books, because they’re pretty (and hard to read in the tub). So why does my TPB of Birds of Prey: Sensei and Student have a dented corner and a torn cover?
Because I tossed it at the wall, that’s why.
Most sane people agree that Gail Simone is 17 kinds of awesome. The main arc of Sensei and Student is fantastic; it’s a tightly plotted story of family, friendship, obligation, betrayal and revenge in which every competent character (good, evil or amoral) also happens to be female.
But the single issue follow-up to that arc, “One Day, Well Chosen,” turns my stomach.
After some hectic adventuring, Oracle (Babs), Black Canary (Dinah) and Huntress (Helena) get together to clear some air. Naturally, you can’t have a group meeting without referring to the fact that Huntress once slept with Oracle’s ex.
Huntress: “About sleeping with Nightwing, Oracle. First, I didn’t know you and second, you weren’t together at the time, right?”
…
Oracle: “We’re not together anymore. You ever want to be part of a cheap, meaningless little one-night stand again… …be my guest.”
Oh, NICE, Babs! Aren’t you the queen bee? Canary tries to make peace after this fantastically nasty slur, only for Oracle to spill some beans:
Oracle: “Did she mention to you that she slept with Arsenal (Dinah’s foster son/younger brother/nephew/it’s complicated) recently?”
Canary: “What? Gee, Helena, maybe this would be easier if you’d just tell us who you haven’t done the freak dance with?”
Hang on ONE FUCKING MINUTE.
Huntress’ sex-life can be a matter of legitimate interest to Canary under two circumstances:
1) Huntress and Canary are having sex and Canary wishes to know about any less safe practices which might adversely affect her own health.
2) Given their line of work, it might be useful to know if Huntress had slept with a known villain who might come back for revenge. (Like, say, Ra’s Al Ghul, DINAH.)
Other than this, it’s none of her damn business.
At any rate, while it irritates me two of my favourite superheroines can be so stereptypically gossipy and judgmental about their collegue’s sex life, this isn’t actually the part which makes me ill. It is realistic for people to be unfair and nasty from time to time. Moreover, both Oracle and Canary realise they were horrifically unfair and make amends later in the story. This is awesome. This did not prompt book-hurling.
No. What sent that book sailing across the room is Josh.
Josh is a putrid youth who had blackmailed Huntress into promising a date with him in exchange for some information she needed for a mission. (This was not the brightest idea ever, but then Josh is not terribly bright. His date involves less dancing and dinner, and more being-thrown-around-rooftops and takeout Chinese.)
Josh, fanboy creep that he is, calls Huntress “baby-boots”, “sweet stuff” and other Miller bar-banter-esque charming names. He sees Huntress not as a person, but as a sexual status symbol. He clearly believes that her dating him, even under duress, makes him cool: “And my stupid roomate was … braggin’ when he dated a nurse.” “Any chance you could drive past my ex-girlfriend’s house a few times, ’til she sees us together?”
As Huntress observes, “There’s probably a good guy in you somewhere, but who could ever find him under all this pimp drivel?”
In the space of five pages, Josh propositions Huntress for sex three times. Each time, she scornfully declines. Their last moment of dialogue:
Josh: “So are we gonna…”
Huntress: “Magic eight-ball says outlook not good.”
The next time we see them:
Huntress: sitting up in bed, wearing a sheet and her mask. Beside her, an implicitly just as naked male body, clearly post-intimate encounter, almost certainly Josh.
Your wrathful columnist: “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BULLSHIT?”
Book: meets the wall at high velocity
Boys and girls, what do we learn from this Very Special Issue of BoP?
1) No doesn’t always mean no! You can be verbally disrespectful to your date and (by implication, all women) but as long as you’re persistent you might get lucky with the luscious target of your sweaty fanboy dreams!
2) The process of going from “No way in hell” to “Yeah, okay” requires so little attention that it can happen entirely off-panel for the sake of a cheap gag. (Punchline: Huntress is a slut! Hahaha!)
Unlike Babs and Dinah, I don’t require Helena to research the former significant others and intricate family trees of someone before she has sex with them. She can choose to sleep with someone because she wants an orgasm, or because she feels pity for the guy, or because she’s pissed off with her friends for slut-shaming her, and those choices all make sense in the context of this character.
But I want to see her make that choice. I don’t want to see her go from “I’m saying no” to “I already said yes” without any indication of why she changed her mind. I want to see a woman with agency, not a woman who, metatextually speaking, doesn’t get to choose.
Simone’s Birds of Prey run is, on the whole, beautifully written and strongly feminist. I’m not angry because Gail Simone sucks; I’m angry because she doesn’t, and we still get this please-persist-boys no-means-yes story.
I’m used to this stuff from other writers; I expect better from Simone. Usually, I get it.
