what this storyline has really made clear is that a lot of people want their media to be simple and and comforting, and not to be put in a position of any kind of conflicting emotion. I saw someone say in an ask that “This way [Ben choosing to get drunk and asking Lewis to go upstairs with him] the audience won’t see the evil in Lewis right away.” .....yeah. that’s the point. the point isn’t to simplify a complicated issue, it’s to show it in one of the many ways that it can happen. especially a way which the attacker and a lot of other people will use to victim blame. most rapes don’t happen randomly in a dark alley by a stranger. they are done by someone you know and trust enough to be alone with, perhaps get drunk with, flirt with. someone who won’t show their true colours until it’s too late. because the case with most shitty people is that you won’t see it right away, especially if they have a reason to initially hide it to get something they want, such as sex. if they had chosen to have this happen as a random attack on Cal (because he wouldn’t have ended up initiating sex with another man), that would have been telling a story about something that also happens, but happens less often, and is a very different story, one that is way simpler. and like Ben says, “men like me don’t get raped.” it’s about that too. the idea that a certain kind of person is the victim in certain types of crime and certain other types of people aren’t. (same as with the idea that men can’t be victims of domestic abuse.) and Cal, being trusting and a bit naïve and innocent, fits that prejudice of “what kind of man/person gets raped” a lot better. that’s why having it happen to Ben makes for a better story and message. there is no so called grey area in someone getting randomly attacked by a stranger. but the point they are making here, which I think is clear but a lot of people are claiming it isn’t, is that even in a case like Ben’s, however the rapist will try to twist it pretend it’s partly the victim’s fault, it isn’t. there isn’t really a grey area. no is no. it doesn’t matter what came before. and of course; you can be a douche who’s done a lot of shit in your life, has victimized other people, is currently planning to cheat on your husband, and you can be a victim at the same time. life is complicated like that. and the fact that some people in the fandom are saying stuff like “people won’t get it because it’s complicated,” bruh. what do you imagine is happening here, that a majority of people - and most people do have common sense although we all doubt it occasionally - are not going to understand that Ben was raped because “uhh but he flirted though”? if that’s the case then those people have issues that a soap wasn’t going to solve anyway.