Poldark accused of showing a 'rape fantasy scene'
Hit show Poldark has been accused of showing a "rape fantasy" scene that campaigners say could increase confusion over consent in real life.
Sunday's controversial episode saw Ross Poldark, played by Aidan Turner, arrive at the home of his former fiancee Elizabeth and force himself upon her before pushing her onto the bed.
Many viewers called out the scene as romanticising 'blurred lines' over consent and sexual violence.
Broadcast regulator Ofcom said it was assessing seven complaints it had received over the episode.
The BBC insisted that they had stayed true to the novel which left the scene ambiguous as to whether Elizabeth consented.
The scene shows Poldark arriving at the home of his ex Elizabeth, who is played by Heida Reed, to demand that she break off her engagement to his enemy George Warleggan.
When she asks him to leave, he takes his face in her hands and forces several kisses on her before pushing her onto the bed.
"You will not dare. You will not dare," Elizabeth tells Poldark.
He replies: "I would Elizabeth. I would and so will you."
Sarah Green, the co-director at charity End Violence Against Women, said that the show's producers had made an "appalling" decision by making "non-consensual sex" seem "ambiguous".
She believed that the producers had contrived to soften the 'rape' scene as they feared it might dent the popularity of the show's lead character.
Meanwhile the son of the novelist Winston Graham, on whose books the the series is based, said that the scene was always intended to show a fiery but ultimately consensual encounter.
Arthur Graham said his father had depicted a scene which is "consistent with the potential for rape", but a full reading of his novels shows it is not.
"Doing so it becomes clear, from earlier scenes as well as from Elizabeth's immediate reactions and later mixed emotions, that what finally happened was consensual sex born of long-term love and longing."
Poldark star Aidan Turner has also stepped in, telling Radio Times that the scene "feels consensual"and reflects the pair's "unfinished business emotionally".
The scene in question has long been controversial and also caused an outcry when it was screened in a 1970s TV adaptation.
Poldark writer Debbie Horsfield said no two readers would imagine a scene the same way, and that is particularly true of this scene as the action is left entirely to the reader's imagination.
However she said they had worked with Arthur Graham to clarify what his father's intentions were when he wrote the novels.
"What you saw on screen is consistent with what we believe those intentions to have been."