Criminal Minds 
TV Show
Crime
Drama
Mystery
Thriller
TV Show
Crime
Drama
Mystery
Thriller
Updated: May 28, 2023
No rape or sexual assault
Rape or sexual assault mentioned, discussed, implied
Sexual harassment e.g non-consensual grabbing, touching, cat-calling)
Sexual relationship between adult and teenager
Child sex abuse
Incest
Attempted rape
Rape off-screen or strongly implied
Rape on-screen

Description

The show is a crime procedural and, as a result, goes into detail regarding incidents of sexual violence (and pedophilia) on many occasions. One plotline involves a main character who must repeatedly confront a man who once molested him, along with many other pre-pubescent boys. S2E3: parents are sent a video of their daughter being raped in the first few minutes of the episode. S2E5: a serial rapist ist caught. However, the victims offer insight into the hardships faced by victims of assault and as a result, he may hit home. S2E12: one of the main characters is revealed to have been molested by his football coach, who was a father figure to him for a time, during his childhood. The man who hurt him has also hurt many other young boys. He has to confront this man later in the episode. This topic is handled relatively sensitively. S4E7: a main character believes his father raped and murdered his childhood friend when the main character was four years old and the friend was six. The main character goes to hypnotherapy to try to remember the time of the murder, and while there he becomes distressed by a memory of his father coming into his room and telling him that he loves him. He also remembers seeing his father burning clothes that had blood on them. The main character becomes convinced that his father did assault and kill his friend, and goes to confront him along with two other main characters. Over the course of the episode it becomes clear that the main character's father was not involved in the child's death and assault, but helped to cover up the murder of the man who was actually responsible. The main character stays convinced of his father's involvement until there is irrefutable evidence otherwise. Despite all of this, it is implied that the memory which distressed him during hypnotherapy was not a memory of abuse. S4E20: a person with dissociative identity disorder has a protector alter who rapes a man who reminds her of his father who abused his mother and then himself as a child (no images). S5E1: a man is physically assaulted (stabbed repeatedly) in a scene with sexual overtones (the assaulter mentions sex explicitly while stabbing him, after removing his own shirt). There is an implication that this ends with rape, but it is extremely ambiguous and never confirmed one way or another. S8E12: a main character's girlfriend is abducted by her stalker, a woman who is obsessed with the main character and jealous of the girlfriend. While attempting to save his girlfriend, the main character allows the stalker to kiss and grope him, but he has trouble pretending to be into it which angers the stalker. Similar occurrences of non-consensual kissing and/or groping happen with this specific main character many times throughout the series, and he is visibly upset by it, but none of his trauma is ever addressed. S8E18: the man from S2E12 has to confront the man who sexually abused him. He has to shake the hand of this man at one point. The details surrounding his sexual abuse are discussed, but there are no graphic descriptions of the act itself. Once again, the topic is handled relatively sensitively. Several episodes features serial rapists, who sometimes seeks to impregnate their victims. One of them kills herself because she is pregnant. Another episode involves a woman who was raped and becomes a serial killer (narrative of victim blaming). Seasons 11-15: a recurring female character is a serial killer obsessed with one of the main characters. In later seasons there are multiple episodes where she kisses and gropes him without his consent. At one point it is revealed he believes she had drugged and raped him years prior, which she denies, but the truth is never actually told to the audience (i.e., it ie unknown whether she actually raped him and was gaslighting him or if she was truthful in her denial and he was mistaken.) After she denies that she raped him, the main character is shown to be very angry and upset, although he never talks about it. In the same episode where she denies raping him, she manipulates him into taking her on a "date", forces him to dance with her intimately (not the first time she has done so), and later he kisses her consensually in an effort to manipulate her back.

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