I'm sure there have been some discussions on this before, but it's something that always bothered me about the show- not that the assault occurred, but that it was denied as assault.

I know things were different back in Edwardian times and it would have been uncommon for a virgin woman to accept a man's advances outright, even if she was interested. But Mary denied Mr. Pamuk three times and concedes only when he's practically having his way with her. He kisses her forcefully in the dining room- she rejects him thoroughly and leaves, clearly no longer flirting with him.

Then he sneaks into her bedroom, uninvited, even to go so far as to enlist Barrow on his covert ops. As soon as the door closes behind him, Mary demands he leaves.

And when he's kissing her again, she asks him to kindly stop and go at once. Three times she asks him to leave her alone, with absolute solemnity each time, and he completely disregards her. True, she eventually kisses him back, but at that point she probably felt that doing what he wanted was safer and easier and less humiliating than fighting back.

The thing that bugs me about this is that Mary never says that it was forced (although it's difficult to see how it could have been anything else), she says it was her choice. What?! If a strange man barges into your room at night and throws himself on you while you protest, that's hardly consensual. To me, it looks like she concedes not because she actually wants to have sex with him but because she doesn't know what to do in that position.

I don't know, perhaps standards were different at the time, but I can't help but feel that such a 'seduction' would be considered sexual assault even back then, especially when the woman was young and naive.

What are your thoughts?