I would agree with you, Jeff -- that scene with Hud's nephew laying in bed all naked, and Alma coming in to get him up for breakfast, and the sheets kind of being pulled away... Pretty risque stuff for the day. Perhaps we were meant to realize that Alma preferred the nephews' innocent type over Huds' overtly-sexual type, as foreshadowing of who would eventually be the attacker and who would be the rescuer? Dunno...
Spoilers ahead, and I swear I'm not trying to open up a debate about rape here, and I'll try to word this cautiously to prevent it...
Does anybody who's seen the film think that Hud actually raped Alma? Obviously the scene was intense and fast and darkened, but I've always liked to think (probably just because I always love Paul Newman), that there was only groping going on there, without actual penetration. So perhaps it was attempted rape, at worst. I don't know. Hud was way beyond drunk, and feeling violent, and wanting to take his anger out on just about anybody, and she seemed like the obvious target simply because she was female and within sight at that moment when he was most enraged. She appeared frightened, but her character didn't really portray a feeling of absolute disgust or true fear for her life, or any such thing. Unfortunately, we've seen scenes like this play out hundreds of times, especially in older films -- where the man attacks, and the woman resists at first, and then suddenly the director does a close-up on the woman's hands that were once beating her attacker off, changing into pulling him in and encouraging him, instead. Scenes like that seem to degrade a woman's strength and power, in my mind. Still and all, in this film I think it must have definitely FELT like a rape to Alma -- albeit, perhaps it was an emotional rape of her trust and loyalty and commitment to that little family, rather than a physical one -- or she wouldn't have so quickly left town. I was always on the middle-of-the-fence about that scene. I surely don't think that if he'd actually physically raped her, that she'd have been able to carry on a calm and rational and wise conversation with him at the bus stop soon after. What does anybody else think?