Ok, What's Up with THIS Woman?

So Monica Peters hosted a 20th Anniversary screening of Spike Lee's She Gotta Have It at Morehouse College. That any relevant critic and commentator of black popular culture can admit that they haven't seen She's Gotta Have It is one thing, but homegirl's reaction to the "rape scene" strikes me as incredibly disturbing.

Last night I hosted the 20 year anniversary party of Spike Lee's film "She's Gotta Have It." It was a classic moment watching the film as it is not available on DVD here in the United States. Cast member John Canada Terrell who played Greer Childs in the film was on the post screening panel.

This was the first time I had ever seen Spike's classic film. But my comments in the post film discussion had women in the audience OUTRAGED.

There was a scene in the film where Nola Darling (played by Tracy Camila Johns) is engaging in an emotionally detached, rough, brief love making session with her boyfriend whom she invited over to have sex. In the next scene, Nola is describing the act to her boyfriend as rape. This is where I got confused, especially since she consented to having sex with her boyfriend and never told him "no", "stop", or tried to fight him off. She willingly had sex with her boyfriend by choice, not by force. Remember that's why she invited him over in the first place.

During the post discussion women kept referring to it as "the rape scene." Even actor John Canada Terrell referred to it as the rape scene. I whispered to John and told him that was consensual sex, not rape. He agreed with me, but did not feel comfortable saying that it wasn't date rape in the name of being "politically correct."

Well, I broke the ice and asked the women and men in the audience, "How was this date rape?" Well, that's when women in the audience become extremely upset. Apparently some women associate rough sex with rape. They felt like I was a trader for not seeing the act as rape. The issue of "rape" took up most the dialogue time of the post film panel discussion. But I had to stand my ground on this issue.

In the "rape scene" Nola said, "Your hurting me", nevertheless she gladly stayed in assumed position and took it like a pro. This was not date rape, but an emotional violation. Nola called her boyfriend over to make tender sweet love to her but instead as her boyfriend Jamie (played by Tommy Redmond Hicks) stated so bluntly in the film she got "fuc*ed"

Spike Lee reportedly regrets filming this rape scene in "She's Gotta Have It." While I respect Spike's opinion and his being sensitive to women's feelings by calling this "the rape scene", rough consensual sex does not constitute rape. It just represents what some people would call a good fuc*....(well you can fill in the rest that word).

Damn.