As someone who is neither white nor a dude, I am quite happy that the show chooses to portray an ethnically and religiously diverse cast as well as having a woman in an authoritative position. It's about time :) But it's almost as though the creators are anticipating that someone will complain so they are trying to…

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition says that miscegenation is "a mixture of races, especially marriage, cohabitation or sexual intercourse between a white person and a member of another race". I was using the term in its historical sense only to describe the imbalance of power in the relationships between the…

That 's what brainwashing is after all. Again, I don't think she actually wanted to have sex with him, but she may have thought that that was the only "commodity" she had worth transacting with. One of the earlier commenters mentioned that usually missionaries go out in pairs and are with each other 24/7 so if his…

Why is it irrelevant? If you believe that the other person is a child who deserves protection and not exploitation, as we all do, then yes his actions constitute rape. Packer wouldn't have done the same thing here, given his religion and the constraints on his behavior. What happens when there are no constraints?…

Ah, I am getting there. Part of that force of colonization I am sure included actual rape of Native American girls and women, although it's more formally called miscegenation. That's where the mestizo population came from. It was a more widespread form of victimization but still the same crime that led to the…

You are assuming that the relationship will be negative. I did agree that economic necessity is a form of coercion. A girl may be considered an economic burden to her family. To alleviate that burden, she is "traded" off to someone who can accept the responsibility for her care. If the choice is, "I can choose not to…

True, economic necessity is often a form of coercion. How we define rape is irrelevant; what we do to solve the problem and help its victims is more important. Often, we don't have time to evaluate whether an individual is truly able to give consent. Someone intent on rape doesn't really care and someone who enters…

Abusers persuade their victims not to leave knowing full well that they CAN leave for something better, they just don't believe they can or should. In an abusive marriage or relationship where 1 partner has total control over the other in all aspects of the relationship, even if the victim leaves, they need to have…

Only because we are used to thinking of individuals under the age of 18 as children, who lack the capacity to give consent, to understand consequences or to assume responsibility for their actions. That's why we don't allow them to sign contracts, or get married at 18 or even get an outside paid job until the age of…

Rape is a situation where one party has control and the other party is physically and emotionally harmed as a result of that control, because the interaction was not one of mutual consent or mutual benefit. A marital relationship between a man and a girl is not one of equals but one where each has something to trade…

If you don't have to be a natural-born citizen to join the FBI, wouldn't that itself make an interesting storyline? Supposing that a character like Simon Asher for example, is a naturalized citizen, but was born in Israel and spent a large part of his life there. Where would that put his loyalties if he for example…

Morality is what you do when no one is watching and is an internal code of behavior. Moral strength is what the Mormon Church hopes to instill by their instruction and missionary work so technically, Packer should have exhibited it no matter where he was. However, he was in a country where no one was watching his…

I agree with you. As I have stated earlier, any imbalance in power that leads one party to take advantage of another is wrong. Yes, he did rape her ("take advantage" being a watered down euphemism) knowing she was in a vulnerable position whether or not she had the knowledge or awareness of what an interaction between…

Let's look at it another way. In some non-Western cultures in Asia and the Middle East, it used to be the custom to marry young girls of 12 to much older men. The girls had no say in who their partners were, their parents chose for them. They might or might not have understood what the interaction was and their…

Yes, having a more diverse cast does make for a variety of interesting potential storylines, I agree. If you were talking about a show focused on the general population, like any one of the legal shows then that diversity would make sense. However, this is a show about the FBI, a specific population which I believe…

Yeah, well the makeup of the class does seem to be a bit of overkill just to make a point of making every cultural, sexual, political, economic and religious group in America happy.

I am not clear about what you mean when you say that "seduction is the only way he could have initiated sex." So first, define what you mean by seduction.You can theorize what she might have needed from him. If he did set out to seduce her, what did he need from her specifically for him to choose to seduce her,…

You're assuming that the 14 year old was both educated and mature enough to understand the connection between sex and pregnancy and also had access to methods of birth control. In spite of extensive efforts at sexual education and easy access to birth control in this country, which theoretically should result in no…

Ok, well, I might put his words a little differently. I don't know what the current demographic composition of the FBI is, but I am willing to bet it is largely white and male and dare I say, mostly Christian. Yet in this show, the new recruits include several women (one South Asian and 1-2 Muslims and a later episode…

It is an abuse of power, absolutely. It always is when someone who is older or wealthier or more powerful takes advantage of someone else who isn't. I am talking about the "culture" of absolute poverty that the girl comes from. It leads people to do things they would not otherwise do, if they had better options.…