It's selfish. It's extremely hurtful to Jean. It's not abusive, though.
He is actually being a victim of abuse himself. We just don't see it because, as a society, we don't take abuse seriously when the victim is a man.
Please, read this as if X was woman and Y was a man. Really imagine X is a woman and Y is a man, please. Let’s go.
…
X had asked Y to be his therapist. Y agreed.
Some time after this request is made, X is talking to her buddy, while flying a jet. Y gets into her mind uninvited. X's friend voice goes to the background, to show X's mind is being somewhat sequestred/distracted.
- Y: That's better... You simply have to relax. You're with me now, X. And I'm looking out through your eyes.
Y starts to create visual images in X's mind.
- X: No, it's... it's more like yellow. The light turns yellow in the Ruby Quarz shield, Y.
- Y: Oh, I knew that. I'm trying to get you in the mood, X. Stop being so literal. Fly with Y.
Y brings X to an airplane with him. Both are wearing parachutes and they're supposed to sky dive.
- Y: I summered here in those long hot days following the incident which left my ghastly finishing school in flames and my headmistress penniless. South Provence. Or at least my memory of it. And now I'm mixing your own memories of wind and air pressure to make it seem more convincing. Aren't I clever? It's just long-range super-telepathy, X. Made possible by this lovely Cerebra machine. I'm quite drunk on the sensation of ten times the prying power!
Y jumps. X, still is still on the plane.
- X: I need a little marriage guidance, Y. That's all.
- Y: And that's exactly what we're going to do, X. Trust me.
- X: I've heard that one before. Why can't you just be straight with me?
X jumps off the plane.
- X: Why can't everyone just be straight with me?
- Y: Because we live in a bendy world, dear. Let go. Tell all your troubles to Mister Y.
X tries to open her parachute, but all her previous uniforms are ejected from the backpack, insted of the parachute. Clearly distressed, X says:
- X: Y? This isn't funny. Is this supposed to be symbolic? Because really feels like... gravity. I'm falling, Y! Stop this!
- Y: Save your breath for impact. Let's aim for my cousin W... that's a memory of her wedding bellow and I've always wanted to ruin it.
They're sliding down a slide with lots of cushions, landing on a bed, with candles around it.
- Y: Good heaves! How did we end up here? How terribly meaningful.
- X: I only wanted to talk.
Back in the real world, X's budy realises X is not okay and tells X to go rest. X thanks her buddy.
- Y: Take your buddy's advice. Your left brain can handle them yapping away like a dog. Your right brain needs all the help it can get. Which is where I, as the X-Men's only qualified sex therapist, come to the rescue.
X is moving away from Y. Y is leaning on her direction.
- X: I don't feel safe here. That's all. Wherever here is... It's like everyone's watching me. Like I'm doing something wrong.
Y gets closer.
- Y: We're swapping thoughts, that's all. Telepaths do it all the time. How do you think your spouse and mentor while away the long hours abroad together?
- X: I don't need this! What do you know about me or my spouse or any of us?
Y gives her some space.
- Y: Rather a lot, as a matter of fact, Mrs. X. Your spouse is a human furnace of violent emotions... it can be quite horrific to experience.
- X: I know he has a temper...
- Y: A temper? For God's sake, X, he almost erased my brain! I was left drooling and incontinent for a month. I'd think very carefully before crossing swords with your spouse again, believe me.
- X: He's never been that way with me...
- Y: Well, we've seen his worst and survived it. But you... No one really knows what volcanic passion X struggles to repress. He's afraid of you.
- X: I'd never hurt him. No matter what. I think he knows that too.
- Y: You think he knows, but you've never really told him. Why is that, X? What's the big optic blast you're holding back from us this time? Are you afraid you'll blow your spouse to smithereens if you tell him you don't love him anymore?
- X: I'll always love him... it's just...
The lettering becomes really small to show X's voice is really quiet.
- X: We've both changed so much... everything's changed.
The letterring becomes normal sized again.
- X: I used to think I was so special. I tried to be a good wife. But underneath all the lies and the acting I'm just like everyone else.
- Y: Spare me the bloody obvious, X. So you were possessed for five minutes by an evil spirit. He showed you dark corners in your soul that you never knew you had blah, blah, blah. But when do we reach the scandal, X? The real dirt. In its more pure, concentrated and embarrassing little nuggets?
- X: Give me a break, Y. This is hard enough.
Y starts to look inside a closet, choosing a change of clothes.
- Y: The perfect marriage of the world's most beloved mutant heroes has fallen into ruin. Where? How? Why and when did it all go so wrong? I think there's only one way to find out. We'll play a game of super heroes and heroines, shall we?
Y is wearing the uniform of X's spouse that represents his most intense, corrupted self.
- Y: You be X. I'll be your spouse.
Again, X is leaning back and Y is leaning in her direction seductively.
- X: Is this still telepathy therapy, Y? Or are we having some kind of weird affair now?
There's a break in the scene. Who knows how much back and forth and taunting happens. Anyway, when we go back to it, X is standing and Y is on bed, still wearing the uniform, looking at X, lying on bed on a suggestive pose.
- Y: So anyway... I am power and song and fire incarnate but the the truth is no matter how hard I try, I can't help playing with fire. How about you, darling?
X's face is miserable, grumpy, angry, as she starts to take her jacket off in a clearly upset way.
- X: Sure, spouse. why not?
…
X is Scott. Y is Emma.
True: Emma didn't take his free will. But Scott was in no condition to be strong enough to resist the temptation of escaping his miserable reality. Yes, it is selfish. But, emotionally, the guy isn't super human. He's just human and he's at this lowest point of his emotional fortitude.
If Scott was a female character and Y was Charles Xavier, people would be calling Xavier a rapist.
And that is particularly harmful because Scott had asked Emma to be his therapist and she tells him that what they're doing is therapy. Again, she's a telepath and his mind is sequestered. This is even worse than if she was physically seducing him while she accepted him as a patient of hers: in their mind, she doesn't only have the authoritative power of a health provider, she has *all* the power.
This is how the affair starts. In all the other depictions of it, Scott tells Emma it feels like he's cheating and he's clearly not comfortable with it, but she's in his mind, telling him whatever it takes to get him to engage in the betrayal again.
That's not to say he didn't have his free will. But ask yourself:
a) How much of a chance he stood after she didn’t stop that intervention when he expressed he didn’t want that and he didn’t fell safe, at least, three times?
b) Was Emma trying at all to treat him when she’s clearly trying to seduce him (“I'm trying to get you in the mood, Scott”)? When she dismisses his trauma telling him: “So you were possessed for five minutes by an evil spirit.”. Or when categorises his marriage and feelings by saying things like: “She’s afraid of you”, “Are you afraid you'll blow Jean to smithereens if you tell her you don't love her anymore?”, “The perfect marriage of the world's most beloved mutant heroes has fallen into ruin”?
c) How fair it is to judge him when you consider that Emma had sequestered his mind without his consent, ignored when he expressed he didn’t want to be there, plucked his mind away while he was flying a jet (one of his favourite hobbies) and created an atmosphere of adventure and excitement, taunting him with the representation of Jean’s most corrupted and emotionally intense state, at the moment when he feels most desperate to connect with Jean, during a the time when he’s at his most corrupt, emotionally empty and feeble state?
Yes, it’s selfish. It’s really hard not to be selfish when you’re really depressed. It’s really hard to resist temptations when you’re feeling so miserable. That’s why so many people throw everything away when they start to use hard drugs…
Now, I’m not trying to bash Emma here. She was dealing with her own traumas and lashing out, reverting to some behaviours that were natural to her. But that’s a whole different discussion.