SEDUCED OR RAPED?

Don Draper Was Raped

Mad Men's non-consensual encounter between a young, frightened Dick Whitman and a prostitute didn't generate as much chatter as its gender-reversed scenario might have. Why?

Abigail Rine Jun 18 2013, 8:02 AM ET

In an episode of Mad Men last month, a prostitute named Aimee has sex with a teenaged Don Draper (née Dick Whitman) after nursing him through a nasty chest cold. Actually, let me rephrase: Aimee doesn't just have sex with young Dick Whitman--she rapes him.
Throughout most of the episode, Aimee serves as a surrogate mother for Dick; she lets him recuperate in her bed and offers him rest, comforting words, spoonfuls of warm broth. However, in their penultimate scene together, Aimee's maternal kindness turns oddly predatory. She approaches her bed where Dick is lying weakly, fever newly broken, and asks, "Don't you want to know what all the fuss is about? "No," Dick replies forcefully, averting his eyes and hugging the blankets tightly against his chest as she reaches under the covers to touch him. "Stop it," he says, clearly uncomfortable, even afraid. But Aimee doesn't stop.
To me, this interaction was an unambiguous depiction of rape--and not simply statutory rape. Dick is in a physically weakened state and repeatedly makes it clear that he does not want Aimee to touch him sexually, much less "take his cherry." As a child of the '80s, I was raised on a healthy diet of "No Means No." Rape isn't just something that happens at gunpoint with a strange man in a dark alley; rape, essentially speaking, is being subjected to sex without consent. And Dick clearly did not consent.
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