Lease Bound is still going - now with bonus sexual assault.
I haven't talked much about Lease Bound here, apart from a post focusing on Blaire Hopburn and one reblog. But the latest page update left me so shocked, so disturbed, that I had to say something about it.
Quick bit of context: It's Chapter 13, and we're back at Yonique, the lesbian bar where bouncer Jaden had that infamous encounter with three trans women. Tonight is Ballroom Night, where both single women and women in relationships can learn to partner dance. But there's an odd number of people, so Jaden is pulled off door duty and enlisted to take part by her fellow bouncers Parniya and Shez:
Jaden: You can't just call "shotty not" before one party is even present! I wasn't even working on that day! Parniya: (hates dancing) Our mistake. We'll take note for next time. Jaden: B-But I'm wearing shorts, so I'm the most under-dressed! Shez: (hates wearing sleeves) That's no worries. Ari's gotcha there! Parniya and Shez: (tossing Jaden into Ari's arms) GOOD LUCK!
Already we've got Jaden being forced to do something against her will. But it gets worse.
Jaden is pulled up on stage in front of the guests and other Yonique staff. Ari, the club's DJ and social media manager, does a quick little magic trick and produces a screen.
And then this happens.
Ari: For my next trick: I'm gonna turn this dweeby bouncer... (moves behind the screen) ...Into a dreamboat! (Ari removes Jaden's t-shirt, shorts and shoes, which fly into the air, along with the chair Jaden had been sitting on) Jaden: HEY! W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! (Additional items of clothing fly into the audience) Jaden: ACK! Where are you getting all those clothes?! Ari: Oooh! This one is perfect...!
Ari is giving Jaden a new outfit for Ballroom Night. Before she does that, though, Ari suddenly and without warning removes Jaden's clothes. In front of an audience. Behind a screen, yes, but still very publicly (you can even still see their silhouettes through the screen).
This is sexual assault.
That's not hyperbole. This Australian website explains that "being exposed to sexual behaviour without your consent, such as forcing someone to take their clothes off" (emphasis mine) counts as sexual assault.
Now, technically Ari is taking Jaden's clothes off for her, rather than making Jaden take them off herself, but it's the same principle, isn't it?
And what makes it even worse is that ... I don't think Jaden even wears a bra.
Because in Chapter 10, in a flashback to a make-out scene, her then-girlfriend Alexis cups Jaden's breast, and there's no indication that Jaden had needed to take a bra off first - implying that she doesn't always wear a bra.
What if she happened to not be wearing a bra on Ballroom Night? What if her breasts got exposed to Ari when Ari stripped her of her t-shirt? Wouldn't that be humiliating and degrading?
And Ari is a character we're supposed to like! She's a lesbian working for Yonique, and the Yonique staff are supposed to be the good guys! (Or good gyns, I guess?) The author clearly wants her audience to like these lesbians and bi women more than the trans and enby characters. And yet she has one of her lesbians sexually assault another?!
Compare this to the QT Collective (the LGBTQIA+ university club that Blaire is part of). The worst thing the trans men and enbies do is speculate on Jaden's gender identity based on one photo and a few comments from Blaire, who's only just met her. Prying into the gender identity of a real person, a stranger, is pretty iffy. But it's nowhere near as bad as forcibly taking someone's clothes off.
Not even the trans women in Chapter 3 do anything like this! True, Ginger threatens to assault Jaden, but Jaden is able to stop Ginger before that happens. She's in Bouncer Mode, and prepared to defend herself.
Here, though, not only has she been thrust into a situation she never agreed to be in, but she's been stripped of her clothes by a coworker in front of an audience.
Actually, this isn't the first time Jaden has been in these awkward situations. In Chapter 12, Shez brings Jaden in to assist with her self-defence class, without telling Jaden that's what she's doing, prompting Jaden to think, "What the hell have I gotten myself into...?"
And earlier in Chapter 3, a trio of women flirt with Jaden and try to draw her away from her post. They get pretty touchy, leaning against her. At the time, one could brush it off as a comedy moment, with Jaden being portrayed as a heartthrob who doesn't realise how handsome she is to others, but now it hits different.
But even after everything that had happened with the comic so far, I didn't expect this. At best, it's a comic makeover moment that falls flat. (The Cast Page does say Ari has a "juvenile sense of humour".) At worst, it's a revival of the Predatory Lesbian trope.
In any other story, this behaviour would not be okay. It would be called out, and Ari would face some sort of consequences for her actions, and Jaden would get support. But here, I strongly suspect this will be brushed aside as "just Ari being Ari". Or maybe a commentor will argue that it's not sexual assault and say, "Heaven forbid a woman do anything."
Then again, Blaire did looked pretty shocked at the spectacle. Maybe she'll speak up in future pages, and tell Ari it's not okay to do that to someone. She can be pretty stubborn when she strongly believes in something.
Come on, Blaire! Do it for feminism!
Sexual Assault Resources
For the UK: https://survivorsnetwork.org.uk/resources/
For the US: https://www.nsvrc.org/survivors
For Australia: https://www.nasasv.org.au/support-directory
Feel free to reblog and add more for other countries.
