Murder. Mayhem. Mystery. Magic. There are a lot of M words associated with the horror genre. With this installment of my monthly column, though, I'd like to bring attention to another M word that fans of horror, and even its practitioners, may not want to talk about, but unfortunately it's something that I feel has become inexplicably, inexcusably prevalent in this weird, dark entertainment of ours.

That word is misogyny.

To be clear, I'm not talking about the victimization of female characters. Women make up the majority of the world's population; it's only logical, then, that there would be female victims of whatever dark force haunts a horror movie or novel. Indeed, the genre has a long tradition of the "final girl" (the sole surviving character at the end of the story, almost always female) that harkens back to the fairy tale tropes that are the source of so many a dark piece of fiction. Nor am I talking about onscreen nudity. Hell, you should see the sleaze in my DVD collection. I mean, is there any other reason to sit through all ninety mind-numbing minutes of Jess Franco's VAMPYROS LESBOS?

Instead, what I'm talking about is the use of, even the overreliance on, sexualized violence against women.

Much of horror relies on shock value for its power. In the days of classic authors like M.R. James, Arthur Machen and Ambrose Bierce, that shock often took the form of revelation, a final unmasking of the horror that had been lurking in the shadows, or one final, subtle hint that the supernatural was afoot. That doesn't work as well on modern audiences. Today, we find ourselves needing something more visceral, more physical to shock us. It's one of the reasons we find a lot more violence and gore in today's horror entertainment than, say, subtlety and atmosphere. Is it any wonder, then, that murder, mutilation and bloodletting have been joined by rape as a form of shocking violence? Rape can be a powerful plot device when treated as an integral part of the story (witness ROSEMARY'S BABY, for instance, where Rosemary's rape by the Devil is central to the events that follow). The problem, as I see it, comes when authors and filmmakers forget that rape is an act of violence and use it instead as a form of titillation.

The ad for the forthcoming film BLACK DEVIL DOLL reads in its MPAA-style warning box, "This film depicts totally awesome scenes of murder and rape." (Granted, BDD is an over the top, tongue in cheek horror/blaxploitation spoof, but I think my point about the use of rape as titillation stands in this instance.) In J.T. Petty's brilliant and still-unreleased documentary S&MAN, schlock-shock filmmaker Bill Zebub laments that the rape scene in IRREVERSIBLE is the only one he can't jerk off to.

Clearly, something is wrong. Perspective has been lost.

Rape as titillation -- or, perhaps even worse, as an act without consequence -- is hardly a brand new phenomenon. The Italian cannibal movies of the 1970s and early '80s were filled with it. Amando de Ossorio's 1971 zombie film TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD has a scene where the smuggler Pedro (Joseph Thelman) beats and rapes Betty (Lone Fleming) in a cemetery. When the movie cuts back to them, they're sitting quietly next to each other on a crypt, with Betty fixing her clothes while Pedro offers her a cigarette. It's bad enough she doesn't try to run away or clobber him with a rock, but her passivity -- a character trait Betty doesn't exhibit in any other scene -- implies her rape is an act without consequence, and indeed the plot bears that out, as the violent crime is never referred to again. In the first five minutes of Clint Eastwood's 1973 film HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, one of the best meldings of the horror and western genres, the Stranger (played by Eastwood) rapes Callie (Marianna Hill) in a barn. This is particularly head-scratching because the Stranger is ostensibly the hero of the movie, the avenging spirit we're supposed to side with against the corrupt townspeople, and that makes the scene difficult to process. As does the fact that Callie is later shown to be jealous when the Stranger develops a romantic interest in someone else.

And it's not just movies, this issue pops up in books too. One online review I saw laments the fact that it's impossible to read a novel by the late Richard Laymon without suffering through a gratuitous rape scene. Not having ever read Laymon, I don't know how gratuitous the scenes really are. All I know is that if they're truly in every novel he wrote, it doesn't make me want to read his oeuvre.

It's certainly not my place to tell authors or screenwriters what to write, nor is it my place to tell anyone what kind of entertainment to enjoy. But I do think horror fans can ask for better, and I think horror practitioners can do better. It's not too much to ask that some perspective be kept on how what happens to characters affects not just their emotional state but also the ensuing plot. Death, and trying not to be the next one killed, is often the plot device that stays in the characters' minds and drives a horror story forward. If one is going to include rape in one's novel or movie, it ought to do the same thing.

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When he's not watching VAMPYROS LESBOS over and over again, Nicholas Kaufmann is a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author, reviewer and interviewer. For more regular doses of Kaufmannia, visit his blog at http://nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com or his website at http://www.nicholaskaufmann.com.