@Timothy J Swann
It’s true. And it is indeed a wild world.

You didn’t mention the song! The song was a big thing!

I think that the Tony character would actually consider fulfilling the incest coercion that Josh poses. Apparently the one person Tony actually cares about is Effy, and he is given a situation where in order to save her, he must commit this forbidden act (and be able to excuse it away later as a forced thing to save a life). He automatically dismissed the thought.

Likewise, it seemed ridiculous that wealthy Josh goes to the trouble of kidnapping and drugging someone, then just lets his hostage get carried out the door. It’s utterly inexplicable.

Josh apparently

http://kottke.org/10/07/periodic-table-of-swearing

Oh, and the ostracizing of Maxxie wasn’t from the Anwar party thing, it was how they acted in class when he called himself a “slut-” instead of telling him it wasn’t his fault, they all dropped their jaws, gasped, and started comforting Michelle, nor did they try to smoothe things over between Maxxie and Michelle- so it was more through inaction and passive aggressive. Again, I could have been reading too much into it, though.

While not shown, it was HEAVILY implied that Tony made physical contact with Maxxie’s penis- the way Maxxie comments implies there was contact and no reaction. And the way Tony looks so crestfallen implies heavily that he had done more than just stare while on his knees. But, if nothing else, Maxxie’s pants were open. I consider it sexual assault because of that (the contact, not the pants), and something else I said in the email: that Tony did, indeed, prey upon Maxxie in a weak moment after being rebuked previously. Maxxie had said no before, and Tony, when there wasn’t as much vocal protest, jumped the gun and made unwanted physical contact with Maxxie in a sexual way. The predatory nature and the fact that there was contact makes it assault in my eyes. I can understand why “coercion” may be more acceptable for others, but I just wonder where the line between “assault” and “coercion” is- does there have to be VIOLENCE for it to be assault? I’d say no because of the psychological damages that can be done (and think about it: people say they’re “verbally assaulted” when chewed out all the time, so why can’t a person say they’re “sexually assaulted” if a sexual encounter they didn’t want occurs?), but others say yes, so that is a personal definition and choice thing. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know what it would be classified as in a police report or if charges were pressed, and yeah, I do sometimes go victims’ rights!-crazy, so I could have just had too strong of an emotional reaction to the scene and the fallout. Because as I said in the email, I stress how Maxxie calls HIMSELF a “slut,” even though he 1) did not want the encounter, and 2) ENDED IT himself by pushing Tony away and dismissing him. He blames himself for it, and that’s so utterly tragic to me, I just can’t fathom how else to interpret it except as an example of how fucked up society is with regards to unwanted sexual encounters, be they against women OR men, and the shame and guilt still placed on people that actually need support, love, and justice; and how so often, the ones doing the victimizing don’t get their portion.

The reason I think Tony is a sociopath (up until the stuff with Effy): he uses people as objects to achieve his ends. He wants to have a good time, so he uses those around him as puppets to do so. The redeeming stuff felt very trite and while probably meant to be genuine by Tony, it came across as sloppily contrived by the writers who were just doing what they thought people would respond to because “we can’t get behind” a person that is a genuine asshole/sociopath.

I had the same reaction about Anwar’s dad as you, Stokes, and I’m *of* faith, so there ya go. But because faith is, ultimately, so deeply personal, some people have absolutely visceral and opposite reactions to the same things.

I hate to keep bringing up sexual assault and such, but when Cassie was so blase about her pills in that first episode, I absolutely fell in love with Sid for *not* doing anything with her. I’ll leave it at that.

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/04/21/glee-sex-montage/