[natterings] kara, lee, and rough yet consensual sex

[bantha_fodder]

I know we (as a fandom) haven't existed that long, but the last week or so I've noticed a new (and interesting) phenomenon:

When Kara and Lee Have Sex, It Is Rough Yet Consensual, by Pen, aged 22 and a bit.


The Evidence:
Good Guys (sometimes) Do Bad Things by leda13. Kara's feeling edgy, makes some insinuations, Lee takes her up on it, she freaks out, he pushes, there is intimidation, and then rough yet consensual sex. 06/03/05.
All the While by sloanesomething. There's lots of fighting, and then sex, and then sex whilst fighting. 07/03/05.
Battle Tactics by misdeed. Wherein Lee pushes Kara up against a locker door. 08/03/05.

I know there are only three pieces of evidence but, come on! That's one a day!

Look, this was going to be an actual essay, with picture evidence and theories and such, but I am SO TIRED, so, alas, you just get my random mumblings, and then you get to discuss it amongst yourselves whilst I do that thing where I sleep.

Lee really only obeys the rules when they suit him. Bastille Day with Tom Zarek and all that searching for Starbuck in You Can't Go Home Again. KLG2 when he pulled his gun on Tigh, if he'd been going by the book he would either have obeyed Tigh's orders (and, in fact, not pulled the gun), or if he'd been really against it, he'd have said so on Galactica and been taken off the job. Going to Colonial One and THEN pulling the gun on Tigh shows deliberation and an intent to mutiny. Because the rules didn't suit him.

He gets so angry when he wants to/needs to. Anyone who thinks he's weak...well, I have to respectfully disagree. He is so strong (and I'm obviously not just talking about his arms here), and he pretty much knows how to go about getting what he wants. He may not always get it, but he knows how to get there.

And he loves Kara. Look, I'm just saying!

So, that's Lee, right, and I know it doesn't make sense, but someone else can elaborate. Kara, as we know, likes to hit first and ask questions later. She'd totally be into it. The only problem I have is that when she was doing that thing that made us all blind (aka shagging the evil doctor), she was on the bottom. Kara doesn't strike me as a missionary type of girl, so I'm not sure what was going on there.

I guess I think that with their personalities, and all that they know of eachother, the whole thing would be a power struggle.

Right, less than coherant ramblings over. Go forth and mumble at me, nuggets. I'd like to know if you think I'm correct, or if you think that I am a crack monkey.

Comments

[leda13.livejournal.com]

I think it is bound to be on the rougher side if they are getting into it from an argument or confrontational situation. But there is too much emotion underlying all this: they'll probably turn around right after and do it again with all the oozy sweetness our little shipper hearts can desire.

I think it's easy to equate them both with action and agression. Lee keeps a lid on it, but he's one angry dude, and Kara tends to have him on edge. Kara, on the other hand, I have mixed notions of. Her fantasy of Lee when in the sack with Doctor Insanity was not kinky. It was romantic. She'd have to BE angry to fuck angry, and usually if she is angry, so is Lee.

My not very coherent conclusion: they come off a patrol, adrenaline up, they bang each other into the bulkheads and go hard. They fight and frack, its rough. They look longingly into each oher's eyes, like they've been doing since the mini, and its all worshipful bed-of-roses sweet.

[leda13.livejournal.com]

just wanted to point out too - having reread my fic a bit more critically after the glow of completion wore off *G* - that I didn't write it to be particularly rough. The bits with the locker weren't gentle but wouldn't have hurt her. Only the bit where he grabs her arms was suggestive of use of force.

Unless of course you count a good hard fast fuck as 'rough'. I don't =)

[raffaella.livejournal.com]

I've seen your fic recced everywhere as a very hot thing and I definitely have to read it. He grabs her arms and there's a hard fast fuck? *Guh*. I just wanted to say that my post wasn't discussing a particular fic, just how I'd see the character's reactions in such a situation. But I'm ready to have my assumptions challenged. :)

[raffaella.livejournal.com]

I can perfectly see it happening that way, because Lee tends to explode sometimes, but I think that afterwards, he would be all "OMG! What have I done?". He's one conflicted guy, after all.

Because while we've seen him flout the rules before, in two of the situations you mentioned, he was convinced he was right, he was letting his convictions guide him, and he was actually enforcing higher rules. In Bastille day, he reminded the President and Adama that they had to uphold the Colonial articles and organise elections. And in KLG 2, what he did was mutiny, yes, but he was also trying to prevent a military coup. So he wasn't really rejecting rules that didn't suit him, he reminded Tigh that you couldn't throw a President in the brig just because she had made a bad decision. Basically, there was a conflict between his duties as a Captain and his duties as a citizen witnessing a military coup and he made a choice. I'm not sure I'm clear here, but there is usually a certain logic to his decisions. It's sometimes "frack the rules", like when Kara was stranded on that moon, but it's usually because of some principles, because he thinks that something isn't right.

But I don't think that Lee is convinced that having a relationship with Kara (or just sleeping with her) would be a good idea. He's scared of his attraction to her and the regulations are only part of what would make a relationship with Kara difficult. There is Zak, and I don't think it's something that Lee would easily wave aside. There's the fact that Lee's a control freak, and this would be a situation where he couldn't be in control all the time. Kara? Wild card. And the regulations are actually important, whatever he thinks of them, because Lee takes his job seriously, wants to do the right thing, wants to respect himself (which explains Bastille Day and the mutiny in KLG2) and his credibility would fly out of the window if they were found out.

A one-off thing could definitely happen, yes. Desperate, angry sex? I buy it, because he's usually so tightly wound. I can see Lee flipping out and deciding "frack the rules" for a few minutes, but I think there would be guilt and embarrassment afterwards, particularly if the sex was rough. Lee has a certain idea of himself, probably thinks of himself as a gentleman -witness his behaviour with Ellen Tigh - and I don't think he'd be particularly proud of that. Which would be fun to watch, because I'm cruel. He would at the very least be very conflicted about it, while Kara, despite any reluctance she could have beforehand, would definitely be all for it afterwards. But I think Lee would pull back, and still be attracted and madly in love, and they would be sad/pissed-off at one another.

[ilanala]

Going to Colonial One and THEN pulling the gun on Tigh shows deliberation and an intent to mutiny.

It could, or it could just mean that he was trying to be good and follow orders, and it wasn't until they got to Colonial One and were facing off with the president that he decided he couldn't do it. Before he turns on Tigh, he looks really torn, so I got the feeling that he hadn't made the decision until the last second.

Maybe that's why when I read these fics they tend to strike me as somewhat out of character. It's well established that Lee overthinks things, so I feel like it would take some pretty extreme circumstances for him to say "Screw it" and go have sex with Kara, and it would take even more extreme circumstances for him to be all rough and angry. It's not that he doesn't get mad, but I won't believe him being rough unless there's a very good reason for him to be in that kind of a mood.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I tend to not like these sort of fics. They just don't work with the characters as I see them in the circumstances that people put them in.

[leda13.livejournal.com]

I think you'd be right about Lee being overcontrolled at the start of the series, ilana, but by the time we move around to KLG 2, he's not thinking too clearly about anything much. Yeah, he's torn. He's a soldier, his instincts are generally to follow orders, but Lee has two sets of rules to follow: military rules, and the Articles. And then there's a third set of rules - Lee's own - which we can see clearly when he gets angry.

When he's playing by Lee's rules, he does things like offer Tom Zarek democracy or a bullet, stands up to both his father and the president without hesitation, hauls Tigh up by the collar, beats the crap out of idiots in a bar and conspiracists in a cell, & confronts Kara about Baltar in front of the entire deck crew. There's not much overthinking in any of those things, and they all point to one thing: get Lee mad, or push past his tolerance, and he isn't going to think real hard about anything. Those are his instinctive acts, and like his father says in the start of KLG1, when you drop your control, you are sometimes so much stronger.

With the story arc the way its heading, I don't see Lee's mood settling back into calm collected overthinking anytime soon. He's on edge, all the time, he's mad at just about everyone, and somewhere that's going to leak out. And I think, once that happens a few times, there will be no doubt in anyone's mind that Lee is perfectly capable of being a bit rough.

That is not to say, however, he doesn't angst over it afterwards. In fact, he probably does, but that won't stop it happening.

Kara angry with anyone is rough. Kara hits first and asks stupid fracking questions later. If Kara and Lee were on the verge of throwing punches and someone kissed someone instead, it's not going to be violent, but I don't think it's going to be feather-gentle, either.

OTOH, if they languish in longstanding UST for a while and realise they're in lurve and waltz their way into the bedroom, we'll have fairytale!sex. I personally don't see anything out of character in either of those scenarios.

[ilanala]

When he's playing by Lee's rules, he does things like offer Tom Zarek democracy or a bullet, stands up to both his father and the president without hesitation, hauls Tigh up by the collar, beats the crap out of idiots in a bar and conspiracists in a cell, & confronts Kara about Baltar in front of the entire deck crew. There's not much overthinking in any of those things

I would argue that the first two of those are exactly him thinking things out and deciding what's best to do. He grabs his opportunity to point the gun at Zarek, but it's pretty clear that he's already put a lot of thought into whether he agrees with Zarek enough to give him what he says he wants. And the bar fight and beating up their prisoner were more examples of doing what he had to do, as opposed to just getting mad and beating people up.

With Tigh and Kara, though, you're right. Lee can get angry, and Kara brings that out in him more than anyone else except maybe his father (who he's been getting along with much better lately, so Kara is probably the worst). So I can see him getting mad, and I can see him doing something stupid, but I don't know if I can see him jumping into bed (or wherever) with Kara while pissed off. I think I could see them kissing instead of punching, like you said, but I don't know how far it would go.

(For the record, this isn't meant as criticism of your story in any way. It's just that I have a hard time finding this general idea believable with my perception of the characters, which is, obviously, different from a lot of other people's.)

OTOH, if they languish in longstanding UST for a while and realise they're in lurve and waltz their way into the bedroom, we'll have fairytale!sex. I personally don't see anything out of character in either of those scenarios.

Well, that would very much depend on how it was done. They would definitely have to deal with some of those issues they've got before having any sort of fairy tale ending, so I can't see that happening without a lot of character development and a lot of time passing. Give it a few seasons, maybe, and then I'll be able to believe that, in either scenario, they could put aside their issues long enough to act on their feelings.

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

Cause it's hot, yo. Don't you want those arms to throw you around?

Thing is, we got mad wiggle room when it comes to his sex life, and you have canon support for him being both pensive mc thinkington and Mr. Punch a girl back. So much of a stretch from a punch to a kiss? Not much IMHO. Seriously, though, she's got an explosive temper, he's shown a jealous streak a parsec wide and their most shippy moments have been either confrontations or deer in headlights eyefucks that last ten minutes.

Deer in headlights eyefucks only go so far, with the porning.