*considers* Well, it's been a while since I watched "Who Are You?", so I'll have to take your word for it. And, yeah, a couple of people have said that it's more that Joss can't leave well enough alone, everyone has to be miserable, which is, well, true; but I also think there is a distinct correlation between sex and female sexuality, and a kind of moral ambiguity or evil. Allow me to reproduce something I said to someone else this evening:
(weyrlady was quibbling with my examples, which were not best thought out and specifically said that when Buffy & Angel have sex Angel is the one who's punished, and I responded: I played pretty fast and loose with the examples, but Buffy sleeps with Angel -> Angel loses his soul -> major angst for Buffy. Angel threatens and stalks Buffy, etc etc etc; I mean, yes, technically it happens to Angel, but Angel losing his soul is really about Buffy: the consequences of Buffy sleeping with Angel are dreadful, and I think associating Bad Things with Sex is a repeating pattern. Riley's pretty dodgy, agreed (but then, Riley bored me so intensely I don't really remember anything about his eps. :P) Buffy gets condemned by everyone for sleeping with Spike, a demon; by contrast, when Xander sleeps with demons, it's either funny or it's not an issue. And Faith... I'm going to go back and rewatch all of Faith's arcs sometime soon. I love her to pieces. But almost without exception, when Faith is shown as being sexually powerful - Bad Girls, Dirty Girls, the episodes in Angel where she shows up - her sexuality is associated with her moral ambiguity. And thinking about it I can come up with a few other examples of that, too; Vamp!Willow is more highly sexualised than demure trainee witch!Willow; Lilah, another evil woman, is strongly sexualised (and also comes to a sticky end.)
I guess if I were to rephrase the whole thing, I would say that overwhelmingly in the Jossverse women having sex and women with strong sexualities are associated with bad stuff happening; they may be evil or morally ambiguous women (Faith & Lilah), the sex may have unpleasant consequences (Cordelia & Buffy) or there may just be a simple double standard, but I think there's enough evidence there to suggest that there is a problem.
Basically I think it's a trend thing. *shrug* ymmv, as ever.
Re: Joss Whedon and Bechdel's law
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I played pretty fast and loose with the examples, but Buffy sleeps with Angel -> Angel loses his soul -> major angst for Buffy. Angel threatens and stalks Buffy, etc etc etc; I mean, yes, technically it happens to Angel, but Angel losing his soul is really about Buffy: the consequences of Buffy sleeping with Angel are dreadful, and I think associating Bad Things with Sex is a repeating pattern. Riley's pretty dodgy, agreed (but then, Riley bored me so intensely I don't really remember anything about his eps. :P) Buffy gets condemned by everyone for sleeping with Spike, a demon; by contrast, when Xander sleeps with demons, it's either funny or it's not an issue. And Faith... I'm going to go back and rewatch all of Faith's arcs sometime soon. I love her to pieces. But almost without exception, when Faith is shown as being sexually powerful - Bad Girls, Dirty Girls, the episodes in Angel where she shows up - her sexuality is associated with her moral ambiguity. And thinking about it I can come up with a few other examples of that, too; Vamp!Willow is more highly sexualised than demure trainee witch!Willow; Lilah, another evil woman, is strongly sexualised (and also comes to a sticky end.)
I guess if I were to rephrase the whole thing, I would say that overwhelmingly in the Jossverse women having sex and women with strong sexualities are associated with bad stuff happening; they may be evil or morally ambiguous women (Faith & Lilah), the sex may have unpleasant consequences (Cordelia & Buffy) or there may just be a simple double standard, but I think there's enough evidence there to suggest that there is a problem.
Basically I think it's a trend thing. *shrug* ymmv, as ever.