The Boys, almost by definition, is a raunchy, over-the-top show. Whether they’re dealing with violence or sexual content, that comes straight from the source material, the comic books by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. But the place the TV show has excelled is using those as a backdrop for bigger, more nuanced conversations about the cost of violence, or what happens when sex is non-consensual. At least that was true until the end of Season 4 when the series completely mishandled the character of Hughie Campbell by not addressing that he was sexually assaulted and then raped.
Trigger warning for discussions of sexual assault and rape past this point.
To take a big step back, we initially broached the subject of Hughie (Jack Quaid) getting sexually assaulted during this season’s “Dirty Business.” In the episode, still reeling from the death of his father, Hughie dresses as Supe Webweaver to infiltrate a right-wing shindig being thrown by Tek Knight (Derek Wilson). Instead, Hughie is thrown into a BDSM dungeon where he’s forced to audition for the role of Tek Knight’s new sidekick. That includes engaging in fetishes like cake sitting, cake farting, tickling (via Colby Minifie’s Ashley Barrett), and much more. When Hughie is ultimately discovered, Tek Knight binds him even further and threatens to cut a new hole in his midsection, then have sex with the hole.
Thankfully, Tek Knight is stopped by Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Annie (Erin Moriarty), and subsequently killed. But other than a brief mention of how horrible Ashley was in a private scene between Annie and Hughie, the storyline is mostly played for laughs, and to spur Hughie on to recognize he’s not doing okay after the death of his dad. In fact, showrunner Eric Kripke noted as much in an interview with Variety. When prompted about the events with Hughie being sexually assaulted, Kripke responded, “Well, that’s a dark way to look at it! We view it as hilarious.”
A poor choice of words for Kripke, though as we discussed on the Let’s Hear It For The Boys podcast, that did seem to be the intention of the writer’s room, to put Hughie in a situation where he needs to play along, or die. Whatever the intention was, though, it was sexual assault. RAINN defines sexual assault as, “sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the victim.” That’s what happened with Hughie, and he was, by definition, sexually assaulted.
Before we get to the next step, I’d like to note that when I posted our initial story about this, responses ranged from “the show has always been like this, get over it,” to “he wasn’t penetrated so it wasn’t sexual assault.” The latter is categorically incorrect and even addressed in the same episode during a conversation between Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) and Senator Calhoun (David Andrews). Penetration is not a prerequisite for sexual assault. If you are groped on the train, that is sexual assault. If you are threatened with violence, implicitly or explicitly, as Hughie is, and have to perform sexual acts because of that, that is sexual assault. And certainly, if someone binds you to a table and threatens to cut a new hole in you and then have sex with that hole, that is sexual assault.
As for the show always being like this… No. Sorry. There are raunchy, out-there sexual acts in the show, but they are almost always characterized by one big thing: they are consensual. Probably the most buzzed-about scene in this season was the “Sauna Scene” where Rob Benedict’s Splinter duplicated himself so he could — to use the term Frenchie (Tomer Capone) uses — toss his own salad in a sauna, in some sort of Supe Human Centipede, as he masturbated to a picture of Firecracker (Valorie Curry). Your mileage may vary in terms of how you feel about the Firecracker of it all, but the joke is on Splinter, and it is consensual as he engages in a sexual act with himself.
Similarly, The Deep (Chace Crawford) hooking up with Ambrosius (Tilda Swinton) the octopus was consensual. Termite (Brett Geddes) crawling into another man’s urethra to stimulate him ended poorly — he sneezed and the man exploded — but that was also consensual. Even Homelander (Antony Starr) hooking up with Doppelganger (Dan Darin-Zenco) with the latter changing his body shape to look like Homelander was consensual.
What happened with Hughie was not, and you need to look no further than The Deep sexually assaulting Annie in the first episode of the series to see how the show usually deals with non-consensual sex acts. Over four seasons, not only has the show repeatedly — and laudably — refused to redeem The Deep, but they’ve also figured out ways for Annie to heal, though perhaps never fully; something real survivors of sexual assault go through, as well.
The issue here is that this was compounded in the final two episodes of the season, where Hughie was raped by a shapeshifter (also played by Moriarity) and the show completely whiffed it. While Annie was chained to the floor of a grubby apartment, subsisting on Lean Lad Diet Lunches (an “Excellent Source of Fun”), the Shifter was back at their apartment having sex with Hughie around 20 times in 10 days, and even asking him to marry her. Hughie did ultimately figure out the Shifter wasn’t Annie, based on evidence he presented in his “90% pashmina” speech. But the way the show deals with it is extremely unfortunate.
Annie has been dealing with feelings of inadequacy all season, and has come to realize that her youth of perfection was anything but… She was a mean girl, and maybe still is a mean girl and not the hero she has always thought she was. It all comes out in a monologue to Hughie where she digs into him for going with the “perfect girl” who will always have sex with him, instead of her. That’s when he gives his romantic speech, and they ultimately get back together — though Annie wants him to get “tested for every single disease known to mankind.”
While it’s nice to see Annie get some closure on her arc, I don’t want to mince words here: Hughie was repeatedly raped by the Shifter. The Shifter had sex with him, with him thinking it was someone else, and that’s rape. It was consensual sex, but it was done with the consent that Hughie thought the person he was having sex with was an entirely different person. I do understand on a structural level avoiding this discussion while a lot is going on in the finale, but compounded with the sexual assault a few episodes back, and then making this about Hughie making an “oopsie!” in a rom-com way rather than being raped is, uh, not great. To say the least.
This sort of thing happens a lot in sci-fi and fantasy, too, with characters unknowingly having sex with shapeshifters, robots, or doubles… Any iteration you can think of has likely happened, and it usually is written off in this way, instead of for what it is: rape.
It’s particularly frustrating to see this on The Boys for all the reasons I mentioned above… Hughie getting sexually assaulted because it’s “hilarious,” then doubling down and having him raped for two episodes and passing it off as no big deal is a dereliction of duty on the part of the show.
Also bad, treating female sexual assault seriously and then male sexual assault and rape as a joke plays into the worst stereotypes of our society, that sex is unerringly “cool” for men. Look no further than whenever a teen is statutorily raped by an older woman. The woman is demonized, and the boy winked at and high-fived.
Obviously, we’re talking about a different situation here, but the way society treats male sexual assault minimizes the psychological trauma the act causes to the victim, regardless of gender. And Hughie, an empathetic and emotionally nuanced character, seems to brush off the idea that not only did he repeatedly cheat on Annie, but it was against his will. Why is killing a man this season or dealing with the death of his father something Hughie feels deeply, but getting raped for two episodes is not?
There is one final season of the series to come, and the show does have several seasons of history of treating these ideas admirably. By hopefully recognizing they messed up here at the end of Season 4, they have an opportunity to address this all in Season 5. And yes, there’s still a lot going on in the world of the show, what with Homelander taking over America, and Butcher now loose with a Supe-killing virus. But come on, The Boys. You have one more chance. Don’t fail Hughie again.
If you or someone you know needs to reach out about sexual abuse or assault, RAINN is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE (4673), or online at RAINN.org.
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Sadly we still live in a time when sexual assault of male victims is either played for laughs, not recognized as sexual assault or both.
Agreed, it’s unfortunate. My hope is that the show takes the feedback as it has in the past, and does the right thing in the final season! TV like The Boys has a chance to be better, and do better.
Well he technically got assaulted a second time by the shapeshifter xD this poor boy can’t get a rest.