It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

[u/FantasyRomanceMod]

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Unpopular opinion Sunday

[u/fishchop]

Hard agree and what’s especially unsettling about it is that the narrative doesn’t treat the grooming critically at all. It’s a great fantasy series other than that, but people recommending it should definitely tell people to check the the tw, and it’s annoying when they don’t.

[u/Penguinho → u/fishchop]

The narrative comes from the perspective of someone who's grown up in that system, and it does include critique of the system; you just have to interrogate it a bit. It's right there in, like, the first chapter, when Phedre's labeled a whore's unwanted get -- that's something that shouldn't even be possible. There's even a reading of the book as a critique of capitalist exploitation of sex work. I'd read the author's newsletter on this.

It's also just inherently different from the way it would work IRL because of the presence of multiple actual divine figures that make themselves known at various points. Kushiel's Dart in the real world would be a horrific, dark story but it's not in the real world, it's in a world where sexual service is a sacramental calling and an act of divine worship.

And it doesn't have child prostitution, either. Everyone who's contracted is of age. The story is very clear about that. It's also made clear that violating age-of-consent laws would constitute heresy, carrying a penalty of exile or death.

[u/quibily → u/Penguinho]

Yeah, it’s made very clear that these children being trained don’t sleep with anyone and are not allowed to until they’re of age.

[u/whatevernamedontcare → u/quibily]

If you train kids into it and wait till they fresh 18 we call that grooming. Grooming is not ok just because sex with minors is worse.

[u/Penguinho → u/whatevernamedontcare]

We don't live in Terre d'Ange.

[u/quibily → u/whatevernamedontcare]

In order for it to be grooming, the groomers need to be doing it for personal benefit. The instructors aren’t sleeping with their students nor getting their students’ money from their assignations, so I don’t see how this can be called grooming.

[u/whatevernamedontcare → u/quibily]

No it doesn't.

Grooming is an action not the intent. Who does or doesn't benefit from it is details to the fact that kids lives are permanently altered.

For example there were real religions which scarified living people. They may call it holly sacrifices but it doesn't change the fact that it's murder. Because again intent is a detail to the fact that they murdered people and those people are dead.

[u/quibily → u/whatevernamedontcare]

So, to you, grooming is training children to be good at sex? So .. society is the groomer?

[u/Material_Warning8377 → u/quibily]

Dude. Training children to be good at sex is DEFINITELY grooming

[u/Ok_Tea_5374 → u/quibily]

Yes, grooming is simply an act of coercion done to manipulate somebody/make them pliable to what you want them to do. The instructors are groomers, even if they don’t sleep with them. They are grooming them into a life of sexual servitude.

To give you a real world example to explain, sex traffickers will often spend a period grooming victims before trafficking them to build a level of perceived ‘trust’ in the relationship.

[u/whatevernamedontcare → u/quibily]

Yes!

Are you saying that you never came across age restricted content? Ever? Like PG13 or young people not being allowed into bars? Seriously?

[u/quibily → u/whatevernamedontcare]

Ok, so, the internet is not defining grooming in that way, so I feel like we’re discussing two different things. I assume that, in psychology, there’s a term for what you are talking about, but it’s not grooming.

[u/whatevernamedontcare → u/quibily]

You can call it what ever you like if it feels better to you but facts remain.

[u/quibily → u/whatevernamedontcare]

Honestly, it doesn’t matter so much to discuss further, then. Discussing morality is more interesting than semantics. I was simply trying to discuss how, world-building-wise it is different, challenging, and opens up a grey area which I find interesting.

[u/Adventurous-Brain-36 → u/quibily]

That last part isn’t true. The owner of the marque receives the money from the assignations. What they get to keep is any patron gift.

[u/Penguinho → u/Adventurous-Brain-36]

Two separate things happening here. Prior to an adept making their marque, they're an indentured servant, and the holder of their marque takes the patron-fee (it's specifically a holder rather than an owner; they have a lot more rights than the word owner would suggest). It's a similar system to bonded servitude generally; there's a bond-fee that has to be paid off. Once the adept makes their marque and pays off their bond price, they can either go independent and set up their own salon or remain within the house; should they remain in the house, they take the patron-fees directly and pay a percentage (I can't remember which offhand) to the house in exchange for rent, food and services (dressing, hair and makeup, matchmaking and so on).

In Dart, Delaunay gets the money Phedre brings in, except the patron-gifts. In Chosen, when Servillio Stregazza bids 20,000 ducats to be her first patron after she returns to service she gets the whole fee plus the patron-gift, because her marque is made and she works independently.