Dubcon and noncon: A Rant

[misscam]

You know what really, really bugs me of late, fanfic-wise?

A certain kind of dubcon and noncon that isn't at all labelled as such and the author doesn't even seem to be aware she/he is writing it, that's what.

Now, for various obvious reasons if you know, noncon and dubcon is just not going to appeal to me at all. But I know some authors who write it and are aware of what they're writing and it's a kink of theirs and - well, it will always squick me but domination fantasies are not that uncommon and hey, as long as it's labelled I can avoid it.

(So if you labelled your fic either of those in advance, I am not talking about you. Kay?)

But reading fanfic for a long time, I often come across fics - often with the adjective of "possessive" attached to the guy - where one of the pairing is very dominating and essentially forces the other to have sex. Heck, I've even read fics where the point is made even more painful by the sex actually being painful to the other, sometimes extremely so. (I don't refer here to the chick maybe getting a few bruises because they bumped into furniture or that sort of thing. It's more a level above rough sex and close to violence I had in mind.) It's not labelled as anything but smut, and is often sold as hot and yay and nothing disturning about how passive one partner is at all and hai, author, you've written dubious consent at best and rape at worst.

Granted, society feeds us a whole lot of shitty attitudes about women and sex and being passive and we're not always aware of how they lurk in our minds, but argh argh ARGH. Reading a fic that is essential rape without the author acknownledging it and seeming to find it the height of sexy just really, really disturbs me. Even more so when people comment on how hot and sexy it is and seems equally unaware. (And don't give me any 'oh but she discovered afterwards she really wanted it' bladida. Consent is giving before and not after for a damn good reason, and also, that treads dangerously close to 'but she really wanted it really' rape apology bullshit.) I've read things that literally make me want to throw up in Doctor Who fandom, BSG fandom, CSI fandom (some more than others) and... I don't know. Am I alone in spotting these and finding them disturbing?

This was your Friday evening rant.

Comments

[aj.livejournal.com]

Nope, definitely not alone. Lord knows I've read some stuff and gone "Wait.. WAIT. THEY DID NOT." And honestly, I can buy that as a kink. Admittedly one I don't truck with. And while the argument can be made that at least those attitudes play out in fiction and not real life... er.. We have no way of knowing whether or not that COMES from real life on another end.

And yeah, I'm hitting that stage of life where I'm realizing just HOW screwed up attitudes towards (and BY) women are. *drops head in hands* Can I go curl up under a blanket for the next sixty years?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

No. I do not believe you're alone at all. It is also disturbing when it happens in published fiction as well, as I've been discovering (The Fifth Sorceress and now Twilight), being portrayed as romantic. Or in Fifth Sorceress' case, a woman's place.

I'm not sure what to make of it, really.

[dragonlet.livejournal.com]

Yeaahhh. I mean hey, writing about it's fine, it's one way to indulge yourself without hurting anyone (unless you know people misread it and think 'oh this is okay' and do something but I don't want to get into a 'THE INTERNET MADE ME DO THIS' debate, but that they don't actually recognize it in that light? That's a little bit worrisome.

It might be, though, that if they actually label it as rape or dubious consent, they're admitting that they have fantasies about that and they're not ready to. Which isn't to say that it's still a little, uh, dubious. All around.

[trialia]

*grimace* Uh-huh. Not appreciated.

Question, though - where in BSG fandom have you seen this? So I know what to avoid, aside from a certain semi-incestuous weird thing I already hate?

[juliet-demarcus.livejournal.com]

No, not at all. That would bother me too. I say would, because as of yet I don't think I've run into anything like that in the BSG fandom. Though I do not read nearly as much fic as I used to. I am sure I've seen examples of this though in other fandoms, even if I can't bring any specific examples to the forefront of my mind. I usually don't finish those. It's just not my thing.

It is really concerning, if you think about it. I'm glad I haven't come across any in the BSG fandom yet personally. Would you say it's very common?

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's creepy as all fuck.

(THANK YOU FOR THE POST CARD :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD )

[superri.livejournal.com]

Is dubcon "dubious consent"? I've never heard that term before.

[fondued-jicama.livejournal.com]

What I think is really frightening is how, as you say, people may not actually realise what they're writing. And most fanfic writers I know are women, and they're just feeding the sexual myths that society seems to have.

Sure, it's just fantasy -- but fantasy is only healthy when people truly understand it's not real (or that, in this case, it doesn't pan out in reality like it does in fantasy), and I wonder how many of them stop to think about it in regards to their own lives.

[siraj.livejournal.com]

Not alone at all. I have literally screamed out loud in horror and scrambled to click the back button.

[phdelicious.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to a bit of a dubcon/possesive kink, but it only comes into play with certain fandoms/characters. So my threshold is probably a little higher than yours but I still prefer things to be labeled and even then there's a line that some authors leap right over.

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

SAME. SAME. Oh good I'm not the only one who shouts and screams at fanfic hurr.

[bloodanna.livejournal.com]

I admit to liking a little D/s action in my fic at times, but yeah, I've read some that take it way too far. In fact lately I've found DW/TW Captain Jack fics to be like that more often than not and it disturbs the hell out of me.
I mean, I'm not a prude, I get fetishes and love things that break taboos. Heck, as long as everyone involved is an adult and no one's getting hurt (or is at least agreeing to and wanting the hurt before hand [as is often the case in Villain!fic]) I say more power to them! In these fics though people are unwantingly getting hurt and yeah they're "just fictional characters", but these authors are still writing (often quite graphic) scenes as though nothing's wrong with it. Worse than that they (and often gads of commenters) are finding these fics to be the hottest thing ever and truthfully? That kind of scares me.

[tencrush]

I can't say I've noticed. But then you're talking about things here like domination and passive women and neither of those things are necessarily a sign of noncon or even dubcon. Nor is anything being painful a sign of either of those things, so I'd really have to read it to see your point. (I think I'm getting distracted by your use of the word domination here, and the term "domination fantasies". Domination fantasies and rape fantasies are nowhere near the same thing. I'm a sexually submissive person but that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion on whether or not I want to fuck, and can articulate that opinion very clearly. No is no.) Can you point me to an example of something you've run away from?

Personally, despite my predilection for D/s stories, I abhor noncon, but I can't say I've seen that much of it (but then I mostly read slash if and when I read fic at all). Funnily enough the only one I can remember running away from was m/m D/s and it was a BDSM fic that even included a story about the D/s contract involved. Problem was, the first chapter made it quite clear that the sub had signed the D/s contract under duress, thus rendering the entire fic noncon. Which was gross and made for really uncomfortable reading. It was pointed out to the author by myself and several other people, at which point in time she suddenly pastedede in a flasback chapter about safewords and getout clauses which pretty much killed the already abhorrently badly written fic stone dead. I'm proud to have played a part in killing that one.

What I'm trying to say is there's a context for everything. If I hadn't read the first chapter of that fic I would have skipped away from it thinking "bad BDSM written by vanilla virgin" and left it at that. Because it was noncon I wouldn't let it lie until she understood WHY it was noncon and FIXED IT. Which, thankfully also killed it off and hopefully made the author think twice about writing about that sort of thing again when she obviously didn't grasp the subleties of consent, non-consent, dubious consent, consensual nonconsent and everything in between.

There was a point to my story, but I've lost it. No, wait, it's this: If you think something is noncon, don't run away screaming but engage the author and find out what they intended. Make them at least think about what they've written again, and make yourself articulate exactly what it is that bothers you about the description or situation. The way you tell it now, I can't really tell you if you're alone in what you're spotting and finding disturbing because I can't quite tell what it is you find disturbing. Apart from "passive women". And as a passive woman I can tell you that consent doesn't have anything to do with that personality trait, it's a separate issue.