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

[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]

Because of the disgusting and time-honoured human inclination to measure ourselves against other people and say, "Well, I may be freaky, but X is even freakier so I'm okay."

[gmth.livejournal.com]

I do, too. That was one of the things that bothered me most about the Guardian article post-Lumos. I expected the reporter to be an idiot; I didn't expect other fans to be idiots and call slash fen "freaks."