General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Just saw 12 years a slave [View all]unblock
(52,503 posts)if you have someone in your family who is under house arrest and who can't leave without a vicious posse hunting them down, beating them up and dragging them (quite possibly literally) back to their "owner".
that knowledge is enough to make any pretense of a nice, cordial, or even friendly relationship a joke. it's more than enough to turn "consensual" sex into rape.
yes, some masters were less brutal than others, i suppose perhaps some masters never inflicted any physical punishment at all (beyond the harsh working conditions themselves). but they quite likely did so because the slaves knew better than to give them any trouble. the threat of violence was always there, because it was encoded into the law.
*everything* slaves did was under duress.