A post-script on the non-con issue

[emmagrant01]

In my last post, I asked people to give their opinions on non-con in fanfic, and the results surprised me. I knew that the label meant different things to different people, but some of the perspectives that were expressed in comments really caught me off guard.

1. Some people think all non-con is about sexual gratification. That surprised me. While I do get that people have rape fantasies and fic fulfills that particular kink, I don't think it's fair to assume that all or even most non-con in fic is there to be sexually arousing. There are other reasons for inserting non-con scenarios into stories, and many of them have much more more to do with power and providing a catalyst for character development than they do with getting the reader off. Just because it's about sex doesn't mean it's a PWP.

2. Some people think there is only one kind of non-con, and it's all violent rape. I don't want to get into a huge discussion about what rape is and isn't. I have some personal experience with the issue that I don't want to get into, and besides -- that's not the point. The point is that this is about people (mostly women) exploring fears and fantasies or dealing with their own particular traumas through writing fiction. To put all of those fics into a category of "evil bad stuff I don't read cause who wants to get off on that" seems strange to me, considering how much kink there is in the fandom. We're usually all quite open-minded about people's motivations for writing a particular kink in a live-and-let-live sort of way, so why do we make assumptions about people's motivations in this case? I'm not saying people shouldn't read what they want, of course. I just find it interesting that people feel that way.

3. The label "non-con" means different things to different people. Yes, duh. But still, it's made me question how useful that label even is. Depending on who you ask, I have either never written non-con, or I've written a ton of it. At this point, I'm leaning toward the first, because I haven't ever written a sex act that would classify as rape according to my own definition. Even in situations where there was dubious consent at best, it always was worked out between the characters before they got to any actual sex. Either that, or in the cases when consent wasn't given, the "victim" was able to fight back and turn the tables. For me, writing those stories is about empowerment, not stripping people of power. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with flat-out rape in fic, because that is something many people clearly want to read and write. But should all of those fics be classified in the same way? I just don't think so.

Anyway, those are some thoughts I had as I was reading over comments on that post last night. And now, off to a meeting...

Comments

hear, hear

[ellie-nor.livejournal.com]

Well said, that woman.

[sorion.livejournal.com]

The label "non-con" means different things to different people.

As far as I know, there's a legal difference... (At least in Germany.)

I know, because there was a huge uproar about YaoiGer (http://www.yaoi.de), a while back. They got in trouble with the authorities, and had to change their archive.
Since they didn't want to install a legally certified password protection (ID, credit card, etc.), the adult material is only available after 10 p.m.

But they also had to kick off certain fics. No PWP, no degradation, no chan, no bestiality, etc...
And no rape. But non-con is still game. The distinction is simple: If the "victim" changes their mind during the happenings, it qualifies as non-con.

[sorion.livejournal.com]

Oh... and of course, it counts as non-con, when it is clear that the submissive "really wants it"... Though that might be a bit sketchy, if you ask me ^-^''''

[boogieshoes.livejournal.com]

that would be when it's bdsm-y fic, and the safeword isn't 'no', but 'red'.... but i don't often see that in fanfic, even in a bdsm-y setting....

-bs, abusing the ellipses today, for lack of anyone else to abuse

[zedmeister.livejournal.com]

The distinction is simple: If the "victim" changes their mind during the happenings, it qualifies as non-con.

How on earth did they come up with that definition? *boggles* If I understand you corectly, what they're saying is something along the lines of "a)this is non-consensual (hence the label), but b)it's not rape, and c)it's actually consensual by the end." Isn't that rather contradictory? How can it be non-consensual and consensual at the same time?

I'm actually really curious here - I've read a lot of debates on this topic, and I have never, ever heard the term 'non-con' defined like that. I've always seen this sort of fic labeled as dubious consent ("dub con"), with the understanding that it may or may not be rape, depending on your POV.

Of course, I may be thinking of a different kind of story here than they are - what do they mean by "the character changing their mind"? That they come to enjoy it grudgingly, but there is still an element of violation (as in most stories I've read), or that it turns into fluffy, consensual sex with the victim not minding at all that it started as an assault? I assume it's the latter, but then how would it justify the label "non consensual"?

[sorion.livejournal.com]

Isn't that rather contradictory? How can it be non-consensual and consensual at the same time?

It's not contradictory, it's a graduation...
I mean, there are two expressions. Rape and non-con. If they were exactly the same thing, why use both of them?

A rapist doesn't care whether the victim enjoys what happens. It is purely about control, not about sex.

With non-con, two people don't come together and decide to have sex, as it would be with consensual sex. One of them forces the issue...

Now, I would agree that non-con is completely fictional. (Or at least, I'd have problems imagining a real situation, where the "subject" would come to agree to the sex.) And I believe the writers/readers are aware of that.


In fics, I understand the appeal of non-con. About giving up control, completely, without having a rape victim that at no point is able to enjoy what happens.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard about that in Germany. In the US, the case law is up in the air about fanfic as porn, as far as I know. There haven't been any cases in which written materials were classified as the sort you have to restrict access to. Visual images are different, but I believe that may only be restricted to visuals of real people, so fanart might not count.

[rubymiene.livejournal.com]

US law is quite convoluted. For example, two sixteen year olds who decide to have some fun and tape themselves having sex would be guilty of child pornography.
Under the First Amendment, sexual visual depiction of minors that do not contain as real minor (including digital manipulations) are protected as 'free speech', however, the burden has been placed on defendants to prove that the production of the depictions didn't actually harm a minor.

[gmth.livejournal.com]

We're usually all quite open-minded about people's motivations for writing a particular kink in a live-and-let-live sort of way, so why do we make assumptions about people's motivations in this case?

This is a question I've been asking myself for years. In fact, I almost posted a lengthy rant on it myself a while back, but decided it wasn't worth the bother and the high blood pressure I was sure to get as people commented.

Anyway, the biggest issue I have with people's attitudes toward non-con is not that it's a squick for a lot of people; I already know that. Everyone's entitled to their squicks, and that's why I label my non-con fics appropriately. But what bugs me about this whole thing is that having an interest in non-con seems to instantly set you up for a LOT of personal attacks. If you write it, or confess to enjoying it/being aroused by it, you are automatically a "sick fuck" who makes other people "weep for humanity" or should be "locked away for the good of society" (and yes, those are actual quotes I've seen around in a bunch of different discussions on non-con fic). WTF?

Every few months or so, meta discussion on LJ seems to come around to the issue of fluff/light fic vs. darkfic. And every time it does, the fluff/light fic writers complain that their fics are not taken as seriously as darkfic is, and that people seem to think fluff fics are like cotton candy: a moment on the tongue, and then it's gone. But you know what? I would MUCH prefer to have my fics looked down or dismissed than to have my character -- i.e., me, as a person -- judged negatively simply because of my interest in a particular genre of fan fic. That? Just sucks.

Sorry. Hot button.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Heh, that is an issue with posting something like this. The odds of people you don't know coming in and trolling are a bit high for my liking. :-P

I would MUCH prefer to have my fics looked down or dismissed than to have my character -- i.e., me, as a person -- judged negatively simply because of my interest in a particular genre of fan fic.

Yes, that really bothers me too. It's ironic, because people outside of fandom do exactly that to anyone who writes any kind of fanfic at all. So why would people who ought to know better use that same tactic to shut down fellow fen? I despise that sort of hypocrisy.

[cleverthylacine]

I really wish people would stop using "darkfic" as a synonym for "non-con" because I don't like non-con and I love dark stories--stories of Creeping Horror, stories of fascism, stories of what happens when the bad guys win...and I'm sorry, there ought to be more interesting stories about what happens if the DE's win that are about something more than "Gryffindor X is forced to be Slytherin X's sex slave." That's a kink, and kinks are OK, but darkness doesn't have to be sexual in nature.

Now I do love dub-con, or what I call "fantasy rape"--the kind where the victim sekritly wants it and the aggressor is someone they want. I know how you feel about the character-bashing. I've had someone tell me that people like me were responsible for the fact that some men think women want to be raped. And I like chan, and incest, and I've been called a paedophile, and people have asked me in public forums if my father raped me, which is behind the loathing that I have for a lot of the canonwhores who think they own fandom, because while I'm well aware MS SCRIBE goaded me and Arabella into that fight for her own amusement the people who commented from the Quill still said what they said and until they apologise I'm not going to be huggy with 'em.

I agree with you, being dismissed as a person because of what you like is hurtful. But it's a characteristic of HP fandom, or didn't you know that all Slytherin lovers secretly are racists and hate the poor? I'm sorry, there's a reason I left the fandom. It's the meanest fandom I've ever been in, and I'm 42 and have been in fandom one way or another since I was 13.

[auctasinistra.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't drag us fluffernutters into it! ;-) I would never say darkficcers need to be locked up or assume they practice what they write!

People like that need to get a grip on the difference between imagination and reality.

[phoenixw.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It sounds as though some folks feel that all fanfic (or perhaps all fiction?) is written to be, and can be experienced as, sexually arousing.

This sort of runs into the ideas of the writer's intention (which the reader assumes but doesn't actually know) and the purpose of a scenario. In horror, for example, a non-con scene generally would be seen as intended to inspire horror or fear. In romance, the intention is generally assumed to be arousal. Do most people read most fanfic as romance? Is there an assumption that if a fanfic story is grim, it must be intended to arouse though a kink?

Thanks for writing on this subject. Very interesting, and I hadn't thought about it before.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting point, and I'm not sure what the answer is. It's probably true that here on LJ, people associate "kink" with PWP in general, because the vast majority of fics we see that contain anything other than vanilla sex are intended to be porn.

I don't really get any reading pleasure from non-con alone -- for me it's all about the power dynamic between the two people and how it affects them. I want to know why they're in that position and how it affects them, more than what specifically happens. In fact, I find exessive detail in non-con scenes a big distraction, because to me, it's not the sex act that is the most interesting thing there. Rapists generally aren't just horny. It's about power.

[cleverthylacine]

I think most fanfic is intended to arouse either sexually or emotionally--though some is clearly not.

I'm also afraid I might be one of the people Emma got the impression thinks all non-con is meant to be porn. The problem is, I have read non-con that the writer said wasn't meant to be porn that read...rather a lot like porn.

That is to say, the story was very clear on the fact that rape is wrong and a bad thing and that it causes suffering, but it still read, even though this was a published novel, that the victim's suffering was being fetishised. Mercedes Lackey is in my opinion particularly guilty of this.

[dartmouthtongue.livejournal.com]

If I ever became a fanfic writer, which I won't, I'd use both the terms: "rape" and "non-con" to mean different things. While rape means rape, "non-con" (as fanfiction seems to employ it) is about gratification since it's been used so much to describe "fantasy rape" or "mock rape."

i.e.

Warnings: Rape

The horror!

Warnings: Non-con

Ohhh-ahh, the horror, oh yes, give it to me hard horror, I don't want it, yes!

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

I was really surprised that some people saw the label "non-con" as being about turn-on for the reader. You know that most of my Remus/Sirius fic is non-connish in nature, and it is not at all intended to be a turn-on. (Whether some readers are in fact turned on by it is kinda beside the point.) I definitely distinguish between rape and non-con, and I've written both. "De/Reconstruction" was definitely about rape and was in no way meant to be a turn-on. But I wouldn't say that any of my Remus/Sirius was rape.

FOr me, the non-con label (or dub-con or ambiguous consent) is about the complexities of why people have sex, the conflicting emotions, the doubts and uncertainties - the fact that people do indeed sometimes have sex even if they aren't entirely sure it's a good idea. And that is why I do think there is a distinction between rape and non-con. Rape is a clear-cut issue of intentional and forceful violation. Non-con is about the grey areas of sex.

As for your own fic, I'd say most of it is more non-connish. Even the Qui-raping-Obi scene in QAJ, or "The Bodyguard," or even Lucius taking advantage of a polyjuiced Draco in STG - I'd call all of that non-con. All of those are grey, even though a court of law might rule some of them to be rape.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yes, I really agree with what you've said here. For me, non-con is much more a plot device than anything else. I don't doubt that there are people who find it erotic (cause look at my poll), but there are other reasons that people find it interesting to read and write.

I think most of what I've written that fits into the non-con category is indeed in that grey area where consent isn't really completely obvious. In a few cases, I was intentionally making it unclear that one of the characters had consented, because it was powerful for the story. Sex for my characters is about emotions more than physical sensations, and that's quite an emotional situation to be in.

[brumeux77.livejournal.com]

Taking your points in a slightly different order--

3. The label "non-con" means different things to different people. I think this may have been how we got to talking at cross purposes in your last post. If it's worked out between the characters, or the "victim" turns the tables, then in my eyes it's not a non-con story. To me, "non-con" means one of the parties did not consent to whatever sex act took place, not before, during, nor after it. Which to me means they were forced to do it, whether physically, emotionally, or some other way. Which to me makes it rape. Which brings us to

2. Some people think there is only one kind of non-con, and it's all violent rape. As I just explained, yes, to me non-con and rape are equivalent terms. Not necessarily violent--there are more ways than violence to force someone to do something they don't wish to do. This does not mean that I think non-con stories should never be written. As you rightly point out, they can be written by people exploring fears or dealing with traumas. It does mean that, in general, I don't want to read them. I don't put all of those fics into a category of "evil bad stuff I don't read cause who wants to get off on that"; I put them in a category of "disturbing things that I don't want to read, but may in the hands of authors I've learned to trust". I also, in general, choose not to read stories featuring bloodplay, breathplay, bodily wastes, and character death. But I'm still planning to read book 7; I do make exceptions.

1. Some people think all non-con is about sexual gratification. No, non-con [= rape, to me, remember] is not about sexual gratification. It's about power and control and hatred; and trying to make it sexually arousing makes it even less palatable to me.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

If it's worked out between the characters, or the "victim" turns the tables, then in my eyes it's not a non-con story.

But I'd bet you're in the minority there. In my fic "Still the Sun", if I hadn't put a non-con label on that, I'm sure people would have complained. I think there is an element of non-con to the fic, and the fact that it gets resolved doesn't mean it was never non-con in the first place.

And even in RL, that can happen. It's entirely possible for two people to be having consensual sex, and then for something to happen that one of them doesn't consent to. Even if it stops and they work it out, it happened. Not labeling that as non-con seems extreme.

Of course, at this point, I'm swinging back towards not warning for anything at all, consequences be damned.

[scarah2.livejournal.com]

To put all of those fics into a category of "evil bad stuff I don't read cause who wants to get off on that" seems strange to me

Yes. Let's face it, assuming most of the readers of this are female, something like 25% of us have had firsthand experience with "non-con." And no, they're not all violent scenarios in dark alleys with knives. I'd probably give more props to a story about drinking to the point of passing out, or being slipped a mickey, for realism.

Who the hell am I to tell someone they can't work through their baggage using fanfiction? Even if they're in the other 75%, I'm not anyone to tell people they can't have whatever fantasies they can have, either.

I'm not sure what point I have. Oh wait, I remember. I prefer to work from a standpoint of "no sacred cows," always. The only thing left is taste. I like bad taste, but I hate really really horrible really bad taste. I think any subject is fair game always, but you can't do it in a way that you know will piss most people off. If you piss off 5% of people, 30% like it and the rest hate it, you are in good shape.

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

If you want to warn for non-con, be specific. That way I know whether it's that the villain has raped the main character, or the main character is engaging in a little roleplay in that room with all the handcuffs, and the handcuffed one says "no" quietly.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

people have rape fantasies and fic fulfills that particular kink

Yes, that's another whole issue, she said after posting two screens of commentary in your poll post. :) I only focused on the other side before.

Actual rape fantasies are different, definitely, from more realistic stories about rape. The way I think of it, there are two different worlds we write this stuff in. One is a close analogy to realspace, where someone who's been forced to have sex has been raped and it's always a bad thing, although there are degrees of badness. The other is what I think of as the erotic fantasy universe, where all the things we pretend are true when we're playing kinky games actually are true, and kinks can be acted out safely.

In the realspace universe, if you want to write about a rape scene (emphasis on the scene) then you have the character who initiates it discuss it with their partner, they set boundaries, make sure the agressive partner knows the other person's safeword, and generally make sure that there are rules in place to keep everyone safe. In the erotic fantasy universe, you write as though the rape is a real rape and the victim is truly being forced, at least in the beginning, but you can have them end up liking it and getting off on it if you want to. You can write the top as someone who just "knows" what the bottom wants and needs and is always right, and the bottom as someone who wants and needs to be forced, even if they don't know it when the story starts. Or you can write the bottom as someone who doesn't want it and the sex as violent and coercive from beginning to end, and there's still an understanding that this is the fantasy universe and no "real" characters were harmed in the writing of this story. [rueful smile]

I think a lot of problems occur when the writer doesn't make clear which universe they're writing in, or perhaps doesn't even understand the difference. A story which feels like it's in the "real" world, but which ends up with rape victim begging their assailant for more, or even lying there shivering in a pool of blood, is going to turn off more people than a story where it's clear from the beginning that this is meant to be a fantasy.

What happens in the fantasy world is what we pretend is real when we're playing games in the real world. If a story is set in the real world and the non-con occurs within the context of an agreed-upon scene, with safewords and boundaries, I don't think of that as non-con. And a non-con story which is set in the fantasy world is definitely a lesser variety of non-con to me, because it is all a fantasy, no more meant to be real than the bullet-time fight scenes in the Matrix movies.

Angie

[meghan70.livejournal.com]

linked here from metafandom

i don't read non-con because it's a major squick for me. i find it odd that bdsm fics are paired with non-con in categories. to me, being submissive is a gift, it's not against consent so it's a little strange that they're grouped together. anyway, interesting post.

[godlikepiro.livejournal.com]

Non-con is about the grey areas of sex.
That's good! That's my thoughts on it as well.
When someone puts rape up as a warning it's alot more sensitive for the reader to touch on, and sometimes it even happens unconsciously. I usually jump on non-con, because I tend to enjoy the power struggle, but a rape isn't a power struggle to me, it's a power well,..rape. So I don't think I'd get the same gratification (mostly not sexual) from someone who labeled a fic as "rape" rather than "non-con", though that doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy a fic with "rape" in the warning.
Non-con can encompass eventual consent, but it's rare for me to see it that way, though sometimes I do. That would be just dub consent in most cases. Confusing huh? But ultimately there's a difference between the body liking what the mind abhors, and I think non con explicates that beautifully.