@unknownfactor
@vexelpops
@chietcom
Well, you guys are right. What could otherwise have been have been a (fairly well done) sex scene starting with light foreplay via mutual bathing and haircare turns into a nightmare once you remember Roxanne is a chattel slave, not his lover, who's apparently been raised to believe she has to sit and eat on the floor, and one of her purposes in life is to sexually satisfy whoever her master is.
To be entirely fair, it's probably getting the positive audience reaction it is for a few reasons (I don't endorse these reasons, but they're interesting to analyze):
There's so much goddamn isekai (and multiple other genres, but it's really bad with the 'slave isekai' stuff) where the entire female cast could throw themselves at the MC's feet, begging him for sex, then (when that inevitably failed), strip him and chain him to a bed, line up to take their turns with him - and somehow the MC or the author would find a way to make sure the MC didn't get any. Everybody's fucking sick of that shit (except, apparently, most authors/publishers for the JP audience), and people like stuff like this because
the MC actually went for it and got some, even though the situation is, by all standards of consent, completely reprehensible. It's a contrast to the more usual genre stuff, so people like it just for being that. (They could go read
Gun-Ota or some other stuff that has an MC get his dick soaked with full consent instead, though.)
It's very easy to do the mental dodge of "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" - hell, I've got to continually do it for Wuxia/xianxia stuff where people routinely kill over insults. And the MC has continually been noting "ok, the rules are different here - guess I'll have to live with that, and I might as well enjoy some of the benefits", ever since he killed the first set of bandits. We're all fine with him going to a bandit hideout and slaughtering sleeping people unprovoked because they had "Bandit" set as their class, since that's how this world apparently works. It's been noted twice now that you can apparently just walk up to the "Chivalric" guild and turn in cards indicating you killed people, and they don't ask any questions, because those guys had the "Bandit" class - EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW YOU CAN GET THE "BANDIT" CLASS FOR PUTTING ON SANDALS THAT DON'T BELONG TO YOU (like the MC did, seconds after arriving in this world). That's apparently fine with everybody in the comments, somehow.
Narratively, readers feel like the MC earned her, since the bulk of the story so far has been him constantly trying to get the money through dangerous means. This is arguably the
most disturbing reason to be ok with what happened here, since it's tied inextricably to the chattel slavery and utter negation of consent at play here, and shows how an author can set stuff up so even things like that feel reasonable in a story.
Roxanne is consistently depicted in the art (and noted in the MC's internal monologue) as being pretty into the whole thing, from about halfway through the hair-washing onward. She even gives verbal 'consent' at least once, and consistent physical consent. We don't actually know how slavery fully works in this setting. I think the only things we know for certain is that slaves die when their masters do (unless there's a will in place), runaways can be hunted, and masters are legally required to provide for their slaves. There doesn't appear to be any magical compulsion involved otherwise, and there's no explicit coercion or threats from the MC. (This is completely negated by the fact that she has apparently been taught that her purposes in life are sexually serving her master and fighting. So cultural/learned compulsion, rather than magical.)
This is a fucking fantasy. People read it because it's
not like our world. I'm very on the fence about this reasoning, but I doubt everybody who helped make
Fifty Shades of Grey a bestseller actually thinks manipulative relationships involving forcing people over their boundaries without a safeword are a good thing and they'd love to be on the receiving end of that, same as I doubt everyone who likes this thinks anything like what's happening here is near appropriate.
I've gotten a bit longwinded, but it's been an interesting journey thinking through how the author manages to sell a concept that's this offputting.
@MasterPannya
8-ish for an established couple that's been comfortable with each other for a while (probably would have been a bit more foreplay unless the girl got really turned on by the bathing thing. Tbh, that kind of contact can really get people going).
I'd give it a 2-3 for two nervous first-timers. (Particularly given the whole "can't not give consent" slavery thing on Roxanne's part, which would just ratchet up anxiety.)
Although the waking up and being all over each other (and then getting even more all over each other and never wanting to get out of the bed) thing is absolutely accurate. (I'm with
@eureur on this one. There's no way in hell those two would make it into the labyrinth before noon. Even if they didn't go for another round, just lying lazily in bed kind of mixed up with someone else who's half asleep is great.)