Couldn't be…Littlefinger is pulling off his life's work in what, three years of real time? GRR working on two decades for his opus.

I was with this essay up until the conclusion. If the showrunners made this change specifically to appeal to the male demographic's wish for skin, why would showing it as rape be preferable to showing it as consensual sex? Hell, with the consensual sex scenes, they get to linger even longer on skin as they wouldn't be…