Content warning, this episode will contain conversations around sexual assault, sexual violence, and rape.

Hey there, everyone.

Kristen here to ease us into today's special episode, which is a re-airing of seeing red and the monster myth.

It's a conversation between myself, Albedazza, and Jess Clark, who has been doing professional work in sexual violence prevention for over a decade.

You'll learn more about Jess in episode and also in today's show notes, and we are so thankful to have had him with us, and to have Alba here in conversation as well.

Before we roll into the main episode, I just want to touch on three things.

I'm going to give you a brief layout of what to expect in our conversation, a note on how Black men specifically factor into the monster myth, and why this episode's re-airing is important now after season seven's second episode beneath you.

In episode, Jess will define the monster myth for us, and apply that directly to seeing red and spikes arc before and after that episode of the series.

We're going to discuss the importance of allowing for nuance and complexity in the response to sexual assaults, and in the relationships that exist between those who have been harmed, and those who have harmed them, will also discuss accountability.

In brief, and we'll get into this much more in episode, the monster myth is the idea that the person who might commit sexual assault is a stranger, who we don't know, and who is, quote, bad.

This myth, as you would imagine, is incredibly dangerous as it is most often the people we know intimately, who commit sexual assault.

It both prevents us from being able to recognize potential harmful behaviors in those we know, and it also prevents us from being able to recognize harmful behaviors in ourselves.

In episode, we're going to talk about some of the visual cues given to us in media when the monster, quote, in this myth, is a white man, shows like SVU are notorious for showing us the creepy white dude with a van to signal sexual danger.

Something that we didn't address in episode, and that we spoke with Mack about after its initial rearing, is the reality that black men are also often positioned as sexual predators.

When a black man is positioned as the quote monster in this myth, though, he doesn't need any coding past his blackness, underlining the racist structures that tell us that white men in general are not automatically dangerous, so they need visual markers to be coded as such, whereas being a black man is marked as visually dangerous as a default.

As we go deeper into season seven, we will be unpacking this a lot more.

The biggest reason that we chose to re-air this episode in the main feed now, the week after beneath you, is to double down on the conversation surrounding accountability, and on the nuance that exists when there is a pre-existing intimate relationship that has to be navigated in the context of harm.

You'll hear just talk about those who share child care responsibilities, finances, and in other ways still have to rely on the person who has harmed them, and also hear a speak to the importance of letting the person harmed in this case, Buffy, dictate the terms of the relationship.

Too long didn't read, this is a complicated and nuanced dynamic, and we want to keep looking at it through that lens.

Okay, on we go to the episode, and please note that today's episode of Angel on Top is also live, it's in its brand new feed, so you can click the link in the show notes to find them or head on over to buffering the vampire slayer.com slash Angel on Top.

Oh, hello.

It's me, Kristen, and I'm here in a very special space with two wonderful humans.

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