Privacy in Torchwood

[galadriel1010]

This is a trope that I find a bit disturbing, so I'm probably come across as judgey as a judge, but this is not a post to say “don't do this ever” so much as “please can you think about this and engage with me in discussion about it”.


The trope I'm thinking of is the one where Tosh hacks into the CCTV archives to retrieve deleted or protected footage of Jack and Ianto having sex.

There is no trope in Torchwood fanfiction that makes me backbutton faster. Even if the footage weren't password protected or deleted, that would be weird, but to deliberately and determinedly invade the privacy of not just your friends, but the man who saved you from UNIT's clutches?

That's not just creepy and a betrayal of their friendship, it's also illegal. The extent of the illegality is questionable, as there is no privacy law in England and Wales, but it would be comparable to the current case regarding the News of the World, who hacked into people's answering machines to get stories. As this is a current case, no one knows what the outcome will be (ETA: Four months later and it's bringing down the government), but if you want to look at the legal arguments surrounding it you can look at the arguments being put forwards in the media about that case and then subtract the celebrity element and put friendships in, for added squick.

Not that Torchwood cares about the legality of things like that all that much, but I suspect they would care more if it were their own privacy at question.

If we look at this trope from the start:

Stage 1: Jack and Ianto have sex at work. This could be because they're exhibitionists, or it could be because they live in the Hub. Going with option 2, they live in the Hub because someone has to be there to monitor the Rift and take the night callouts, so they are in the Hub, having sex there, so that Tosh and the others don't have to be.

Stage 2: They, being covered at all hours, delete the recorded footage of them having sex. Or maybe they just put it into a special folder and put a password on it so that they can access it later but no one else can get at it.. Either way, they ensure that their teammates can't get at it.

Stage 3: Tosh (or Gwen, but usually Tosh) breaks through the passwords or retrieves the deleted footage.

On what planet is that okay?

And to top it off, it's with Jack – the one who guards his secrets like Cerberus does the underworld, with lots of growling and not-fun biting if you get too close – and Ianto – the one who guards his secrets like... you can see where this is going.

So before you have Tosh oh-so-cleverly hacking through the layers of passwords, or carefully retrieving the deleted footage, please think about what she's about to do? And maybe how you'd feel if one of your friends – on whom your life often depended – was watching you having sex without your knowledge and consent.

Jack and Ianto have little enough privacy as it is. I'm sure Tosh wouldn't begrudge them what they tried to hold on to.

Tl;dr: There's a reason peeping Toms go to prison or get restraining orders.

Comments

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

See I think the gun training is actually creepy and proper harassment. However I do see as Jack being like these Captain's of old, who harassed and bullied their troops relentlessly. He does have an appalling way of relating to his staff, that in real life would lead to a tribunal pretty quickly.

I'm glad they did pair Jack with Ianto though, as I think if he carried on that way with enough characters he would have worn thin very quickly, and just been this creepy lothario type.

[pocky_slash.livejournal.com]

Drive by comment with no content except to use this super appropriate Jack icon!

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I don't think he was even Torchwood's worst boss. He doesn't torture his employees, for a start.

He's not brilliant, but he's not Alice/Emily, either.

And he's not Yvonne.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I hate all of that episode, pretty much. But I think that they started out fairly professional in the gun range and then they kept reading each other's signals and... They just really wanted to get in each other's pants. Possibly.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

Nah, I don't think that at all. Still of course it's just one of those many things that you can read all sorts of things into. I just think that Jack probably does it to everyone, and it's a way of intimidating people and showing your power over them. Then again I've never seen the Jack/Gwen thing, so when I saw that scene I didn't read it that way, but I'm sure it's a favourite scene for those into the J/G.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I have to confess, I haven't watched Torchwood in over a year, but that was the impression I came away with. Or that was the impression that I got the impression I was supposed to have come away with. Jack/Gwen never really worked for me, but I could see where they were trying to make it work.

[coldwater1010.livejournal.com]

I find that scene a bit creepy too, I suppose, because even in fiction I take the boss/subordinate dynamic seriously and a boss, even an attractive one, or possibly, especially an attractive one because, let's face it, only goodlooking people could get away with that kind of behaviour, using a professional exercise to basically cop a feel strikes me as pretty tacky. And to be honest as much as I like the Jack/Ianto relationship the fact that he's his boss and the power Jack seems to hold in that relationship do make me more than a little uncomfortable about liking the relationship. So fics where Jack pressures or forces Ianto to have sex with him have little appeal for me.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I think this is why I like writing fic where Ianto is more in charge, as well as because he's awesome.

Not that I think Ianto would have any issues with telling Jack where to go if he didn't want sex from the start of S2 onwards, at least, and I don't buy that Jack would want to, either.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

Oh yes I totally agree with you. I think the reason Jack/Ianto appealed to me in canon was that Ianto made all the first moves onscreen. Which does balance out the boss thing, and even though Ianto did look up to Jack, the sexual relationship didn't seem to be relevant to the way he admired him professionally, if that makes any sense at all, but I always felt that it was very seperate. Of course shagging the boss is one of the oldest tropes, in real life as well as fiction, so it's always fraught with cliches anyhow.

I can only see the gun range thing in a very negative light, of Jack being innappropriate, for the reasons that you say. I don't really like that episode anyhow, but there are a few scenes in TW that I never bother to rewatch, and that's one of them. I find it very uncomfortable.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

I agree. In real life those are the guys your friends warn you about. Who become really annoying and end up quite pathetic in the long run. I think TW had a strange way of dealing with it, Jack being all talk and no action, but then again, maybe we were supposed to realise that is exactly what he was.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

Or the scene in the second episode where he records Gwen and Carys kissing. He was such a creeper.

But yeah, I don't think they had things like characterisation, really. Most of what we know of the characters has been built up over the last few years through fanfiction, not through the canon.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I think Jack is supposed to be all talk and no trousers. Possibly even a little threateningly so, so that no one tries to get close.

Someone had to go bugger that up though, didn't they?

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

My fanon is that his vortex manipulator also sort of trained him in the sensibilities and rules for that time period, and it downloaded Victorianism into him before crashing, so he's sort of stuck on Victorian. There is something deep within him that desperately wants to have a large formal lunch and then fall asleep under a copy of the Daily Telegraph every day.

But yeah, 'he's from the future' is a lousy excuse.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

Exactly, he is like an unreconstructed Victorian military type. That's how I see him, who intimidates and bullies people, or flirts with them, whatever works to get his way. I don't mind that, I just wish that they didn't throw the odd thing in to muddle it all.

[coldwater1010.livejournal.com]

I think some people, and probably the show, don't really make much of distinction between liking and enjoying sex and being comfortable with who you are and being basically a letch, who feels entitled to grope people at will. Apparently if you define yourself as the former you must also be the latter. Also apparently in the 51st century groping people at will is acceptable behaviour which, personally, doesn't strike me as all that appealing.

[citrinesunset.livejournal.com]

I find that scene creepy, too. Though, it's possible I'm projecting a bit.

But yeah, Jack isn't the best boss.