September 15, 2023

Content Warning: this is a post about people violating the age of consent.

Many years ago, a 12-year-old girl in my hometown became pregnant. I was also 12 at the time, but went to a different school, so I didn't know her personally. Nevertheless, I knew about her situation because my teacher took it as a chance to scold my class for belonging to a "promiscuous generation." Being the kind of obnoxious 7th grader who read the newspapers, however, I soon learned something that teacher had left out: the father of the baby had been arrested.

This led me to have the following conversation with a Girl Scout in my troop, whom I'll call Tina for anonymity.

Tina: Her boyfriend got arrested for teen pregnancy.

Me: Teen pregnancy isn't a crime.

Tina: Then why'd he get arrested?

Me: It's illegal for a 19-year-old to have sex with a 12-year-old. It's called statutory rape.

Tina: Really?

At the time, I thought this was a neat situation where I knew something other people didn't. It was not until decades later that I had a horrifying realization: if a grown man had tried to have sex with Tina, she wouldn't have known that wasn't OK. She didn't know the age of consent in our state was 16, or that normal adult men don't want to have sex with children, or that if a grown man does want to have sex with you at 12 years old, it's not your "promiscuous generation's" fault. No one had told us these things. Not our parents, not our teachers, not an afterschool special or a Very Special Episode of a children's TV show. I only knew because I'd read it in the local newspaper, and Tina only found out because she was friends with me.

So let me say it here, for the record: any grown man who "falls in love" with a child is a predator, full stop.

What does this have to do with the DFGRR?

For the Dead Boyfriends list, I'm currently working my way through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, whose first three seasons revolve around an alleged romance between a high schooler, Buffy, and a 241-year-old vampire, Angel. 

This is Buffy:

This is Angel:

This is Angel reminiscing about falling for Buffy on the day she was called to become a vampire slayer.

Angel: I saw you before you became the Slayer... It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school. You walked down the steps...and I loved you.

Buffy: Why?

Angel: 'Cause I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see. And I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe... to warm it with my own.

Buffy: That's beautiful. Or taken literally, incredibly gross.

Angel: I was just thinking that, too.

- "Helpless" (aired 1999-19-01)

Cute, right? Not so fast! Buffy was chosen when she was 15. That means Angel was watching Buffy walk down the steps of her school when she was in tenth grade. Plus he's a vampire, so a "bright afternoon" means he had to be wearing a trench coat and a hoodie to be outside. Men, try putting on that outfit and lurking outside a high school to watch girls, and see how quickly someone calls the cops.

Despite the obvious problem here, and the problems they face in-universe, textual evidence suggests the audience is supposed to be rooting for the Buffy/Angel pairing. Personally, though, I can't stop mentally gagging on it. Let's work through this dichotomy, if we can.

Does this "love story" have negative effects in-universe?

Yes, yes it does. To understand this situation, you need to know a tiny bit of BTVS lore: vampires are demons possessing the bodies of dead people. Angel is a "good" vampire because he got cursed by g*psies, and the curse restored his human soul. So he's now got the powers of a demon, with the conscience of a human. Everybody got that?

(Note: "G*psies" is what the show calls them, and no, it's not an accurate depiction of Romani culture.)

The reason having a soul is a curse and not a blessing is that it makes Angel feel super guilty about all the stuff his demonic self has done. For that reason, the curse comes with a loophole: if he ever feels truly happy, he'll lose his soul again.

His first moment of true happiness comes in season 2's "Surprise," on Buffy's seventeenth birthday, when she and Angel have sex for the first time.

What happens?

First, Angel goes evil for the rest of the season. He runs amok murdering recurring characters, stalking and harassing Buffy's friends, torturing her mentor Giles just for fun, and eventually trying to throw the entire world into a hell dimension. Buffy is traumatized by the entire situation and blames herself for all the death and destruction. In the season finale, she's forced to stab Angel and throw him through the hell-dimension-portal in order to seal it up - even though he recovers his soul at the last moment and cries out for her.

Second, I get to announce the DFGRR's first unambiguous case of rape. See, the age of consent in California, where BTVS takes place, is 18 years old. This makes the 241-year-old Angel guilty of "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor at least three years younger," which (if it were happening in real life) would mean a felony conviction and a year in jail, plus a $10,000 civil penalty. Although Buffy is the second DFGRR candidate to have sex with a demon possessing a corpse, she is the first to be legally considered a rape victim, because Sam Winchester was of age when Ruby happened to him.

Does the show treat this as the crime that it is?

Nope! Nobody brings up ages of consent or power differentials or how weird it is for a 241-year-old man to be interested in a teenager. In fact, the sex is quite explicitly Buffy's idea, with Angel being the voice of reason who only gives in to her seduction because there's a real possibility the world is going to end the next day.

Moreover, it is Buffy who pursues Angel throughout seasons 1 and 2, and he's portrayed as being a gentleman about it. The age gap is occasionally mentioned, but not as a serious problem. After all, it's true love.

Bryan: This is a male fantasy. I hate that phrase, but Joss Whedon wrote himself a self-insert here.

- My husband's reaction to Buffy/Angel in season 1 of BTVS

To be fair, after Angel loses his soul, his actions are portrayed as abusive and criminal. Before Buffy figures out the curse situation, she initially suspects he's just doing the thing men sometimes do where they are nice to you until they get what they want, and show their true colors later.

Evil!Angel: You know what the worst part was, huh? Pretending that I loved you. If I'd known how easily you'd give it up, I wouldn't have even bothered.

- "Innocence," 1998-01-20

There are even two separate episodes that draw parallels between Buffy/Angel and textbook abusive relationships, including a teacher/student "romance" that resulted in a murder/suicide and a teenaged Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde who is murdering all his girlfriend's friends to isolate her.

So what makes you say we're still supposed to be rooting for them?

None of those parallels are drawn until after we've watched 25 episodes of "true love" unfolding between Buffy and Angel. Nor do any of the parallels exactly last, because here's the thing: Angel and Buffy get back together in season 3. After he loses his soul. After he torments her for months. After she's forced to kill him in order to save the world. After all of that, hell itself spits him back out, and she's inexplicably happy about it. She nurses him back to health, keeping his return a secret from everyone else he's hurt. And then she expects everyone to forgive, forget, and welcome him back into the fold.

Does anyone call out how bad that is?

Yes and no. Nobody brings up the part where Angel lost his soul while committing a sex crime. That might be because, just like my 7th grade teacher, nobody in this universe thinks statutory rape is all that big a deal. Buffy sure doesn't; instead, she blames herself for all the negative fallout caused by Angel's loss-of-soul, and continues to love him unconditionally.

However, the insanity of letting Angel back into her life does get called out. It gets brought up by Buffy's friends:

Buffy Summers: You would just love an excuse to hurt him, wouldn't you?

Xander Harris: I don't need an excuse. I think lots of dead people actually constitutes a reason.

- "Revelations," 1998-11-17

By Giles:

I won't remind you that the fate of the world often lies with the Slayer. What would be the point? Nor shall I remind you that you've jeopardized the lives of all that you hold dear by harboring a known murderer... But sadly, I must remind you that Angel tortured me... for hours... for pleasure. You should have told me he was alive. You didn't.

(Ibid.)

By Buffy's mother, who (upon seeing her daughter's dead abusive ex at their back door) shouts:

Joyce: Get out of here or I will stake you myself!

- "Lovers' Walk," 1998-11-24

And also by another vampire:

Spike: The last time I looked in on you two, you were fightin' to the death. Now you're back making googly-eyes at each other like nothing happened. Makes me want to heave.

(Ibid.)

Does the happy couple listen to any of these completely reasonable objections?

Nope. Eventually, an evil spirit even suggests to Angel that his choices are a) sleep with Buffy again, lose his soul once more, and embrace being a monster; or b) kill himself. When Angel picks B, Buffy won't have it.

Angel: The world wants me gone.

Buffy : What about me? I love you so much... And I tried to make you go away... I killed you, and it didn't help... And I hate it! I hate that it's so hard... and that you can hurt me so much... I *know* everything that you did because you did it to me. Oh, God. I wish that I wished you dead... I don't... I can't.

- "Amends," 1998-12-15

The universe of BTVS won't have it, either: moments after that conversation, Angel gets saved by a literal miracle. He's standing outside at dawn, waiting for the sun to come up and burn him alive, but a freak change in the weather means that the sun doesn't rise.

Are miracles common on this show?

This is the only one we ever see. God isn't supposed to exist in this world, and yet, somehow, when the Buffy/Angel relationship needs a Christmas miracle, one materializes.

True love conquers all, you see.

Now hang tight a minute while I whack my head against the keyboard a couple of times.

via GIPHY

On the bright side, after recovering his soul, Angel never mistreats Buffy again. Even their eventual breakup doesn't shake their love; Buffy specifically tells her friends not to make him the bad guy. And when he later has to drink her blood to save himself, he does so only with consent and then immediately arranges a blood transfusion to save her life.

So. Uh. I guess her love actually redeemed him?

PSA: "Maybe I can change him!" is not a strategy that works in real life.

If it plays out like a love story, why are you so skeeved out by it?

Because when I was Buffy's age, I was the subject of inappropriate attention from adult men, and I've come to a firm conclusion about it: adults do not experience true love with children.

See, my high school required me to wear a uniform that involved dark pantyhose, a fairly short skirt, and a shirt with a cross and the name of the school embroidered on it. Despite this being the least flattering getup I've ever worn, I quickly learned that it was a fetish for some people. And by some people, I mean grown men, who couldn't stop hitting on me and my fellow schoolgirls. The stories were many and varied. One friend's 30-year-old "fiance." Another's 24-year-old prom date (who offered to pay for a hotel room if I'd sleep with him, while still in a relationship with her). The father of a fellow music student who saw me waiting for a voice lesson and tried the following pickup line:

Him: That a Catholic school uniform?

Me: Yeah.

Him: You know what Billy Joel says about Catholic girls?

(If you're not sure why that comment was gross, listen to "Only the Good Die Young." Go ahead, I'll wait.)

I suspected at the time, and now firmly believe, that there's no way every young woman at my high school was somehow "mature for her age." Older men didn't find us "refreshing." They liked us because they were fetishizing our youth, our religious education, and our (presumed) sexual repression and inexperience. In other words, they were creeps.

And so is Angel.