It says a lot about Owen Harpers levels of professionalism that he date-rapes two people in an establishing character moment and perhaps more about the writers of Torchwood that this is portrayed as an amusing thing he did on a night out rather than a sex crime. Which is essentially what it is: do a find replace on 'alien aphrodisiac' to 'rohypnol' and you have a very different episode and yet the result is essentially the same. And while we're talking about professional conduct, let's not forget that this was alien technology and therefore grossly irresponsible to take on a night out. Even discounting the idea that it might get lost or broken, I doubt they've had time to do extensive clinical trials to make sure that it's not only safe for human use but that there's zero chance of it reacting badly with any of the thousands of potential combinations of medication, supplements or birth control any given person might be on. Even if they had it would be grossly irresponsible to go around spraying it into random people's faces when you're drunk. Other examples include the time that Owen is discovered naked in the office (or rather the holding cells under the office) after attempting to have sex with a young woman possessed by a cloud of purple gas which fed by killing men at the point of orgasm. Not only am I sensing a pattern here but the fact that he knew what had happened to her previous sexual partners implies an unbelievable level of recklessness. Ironically it takes death to make Owen pay attention: after he is killed and reanimated he becomes more focussed and motivated, possibly because that without a beating heart he can't sustain the blood pressure necessary to get an erection.
Kate Taylor has a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing and an MRes in Creative Writing. Her nonfiction, reviews and other articles have appeared on Cuckoo Review and Mookychick as well as WhatCulture. Her fiction has been published in Luna Station Quarterly, Eternal Haunted Summer and in anthologies by Paizo and Northumbria University Press. She is 23 and lives in the North of England.
