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Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle
This has always been an intriguing, if disturbing, aspect of the Legendarium to me. I find it interesting that Tolkien so carefully uses the word "torment" to describe what Celebrian went through -- this is an ambiguous word which means simply 'suffering or agony of some kind'. Tolkien could have used the more specific word "torture" to indicate physical assault of a more direct kind (that is, probably not rape), but he did not. Both in the Appendix and in the brief mention of the incident in the tale, he uses the word "torment".
Because of his word choice, Tolkien opens the door to all manner of speculation. And the more you look into the meanings and uses of the word, the more vague it becomes. One can be tormented by oneself (psychological torment), by others physically or emotionally, by an idea, by a weapon, even by God (there are any number of uses in the OED from the Middle Ages in which God "tormentid" both the ungodly and those faithful whom he was testing).
So Tolkien has given us a clear indication that something agonising, painful and which does lasting harm, has happened to Celebrian, but because of the word he uses, he gives us no indication of what form that torment did, or did not, take. So it comes back to one of Tolkien's greatest strengths as a writer, insofar as it would appear that the reader is being given a certain amount of freedom. The question becomes not "what happened to Celebrian" (because all we know is that she was tormented) but "what kind of torment do I think orcs would inflict on Celebrian"?
For my money, I think that there is no form of torment to which an orc would be adverse -- and given their violence, their attitudes toward nature and other peoples, I find it hard to think that they would pass up the chance to rape a beautiful and noble Elf woman. It's one of the sadder ideas I've ever encountered in Tolkien, and I don't like to think of it much, but there it is. Middle-earth is, as we have so often noted elsewhere, a complete world both in its good and in its evil. If we are to have the healthy and productive sexual relationship of Rosie and Sam, there must logically exist the opposite of that somewhere. . .
EDIT
In the Appendix account we read that Celebrian was "seized and carried off" by the orcs. For what it's worth, that phrase is a Victorian euphemism for rape. And at the council of Elrond, we hear that Celebrian suffered torment in the "dens" of the orcs -- again, Victorian connotations around the word "den" are interesting insofas as it is used to refer to vice and sensuality ("dens of iniquity" and so on).
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I suppose I'll have to throw my two cents in now.
You make a good argument, but I think if such a crime really was commited against Celebrian then Tolkien would say so less cryptically. In the
Narn I hin Hurin , there is an incident in which an outlaw pursues a girl through the forest, and gets himself slain by Turin. The meaning of the pursuit is fairly easy to guess from the comments of the other outlaws.
I also wonder if the orcs would be capable of such an act, as they seem to be quite asexual, nothing being said about female orcs or anything else, only that they spawned.
Finally, I believe Tolkien wrote that Celebrian's reason for leaving was "A poisoned wound" not any psychological damage.