Fandom definitions: non-con and dub-con

[ratherastory]

Hola, flist!

Okay, I can no longer claim to be new to fandom (damn, has it really been almost a year and a half?), but there are still aspects that I find hard to define/quantify/whatever.

This has popped up lately because of a problematic fic (which I haven't read, I will hasten to point out), in which there is apparently an issue of consent. Without getting into the actual debate about posting warnings (for the record, in fandom my rule of thumb is "better safe than sorry" and "add warnings if your readers inform you that they found the material triggering"), I would like to clarify the whole notion of dub-con and non-con.



"Dub-con" is something I had never heard of before fandom. I used to be a pretty active member of a feminist group back when I was in university (yes, back in the dark ages), and so as far as I was concerned, until I got into fandom, the issue of consent was pretty cut-and-dried. No means no, is the catchphrase I live by. Being pressured into sex means no. Being drugged unconscious before sex means no. Feeling like you have no choice but to have sex means no. No means that any attempt to have sex with you is an attempted rape. A husband who has sex with his wife when she tells him she's not in the mood is, in fact, committing rape. In short, I err on the side of caution when it comes to that.

Okay, so rape is not a term I see often in the warnings for fic. Rape usually gets translated into "non-con." Which, okay, I can understand, because the term itself can be triggery.

So what, exactly, constitutes dub-con? I figure this HAS to be a grey area, so I'm curious to hear opinions on the matter. Readers, what do you consider dub-con? Writers, when do you decide to warn for dub-con?

Also, if you feel like staying anonymous, that's fine, just keep it civilized. :)

Comments

[nwspaprtaxis.livejournal.com]

noncon has always been cut-and-dried to me -- it means, essentially, as you pointed out NO on someone's part.

dubcon kind of means the gray area of is-or-isn't it, where the NO may not seem as clear. I know this is making me sound like a douche, but dubcon is kind of a situation where a person says YES in a situation where it normally would've been NO (much like shinysylver's drunk sex example...)

[nwspaprtaxis.livejournal.com]

or if a person gives consent but judgement is impaired -- de_nugis explains better than I can. And I have no analysis -- just observations.

In an original story I wrote, I had a character give consent while intoxicated -- that is something I'd classify as dubcon because she *did* give consent in THAT MOMENT, even though she otherwise probably wouldn't...

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it sounds like one of those case-by-case things rather than there being a straightforward rule about it all.

[nwspaprtaxis.livejournal.com]

That's how I tend to approach it -- noncon is as straightforward as you can get (it means NO), but dubcon is more a gray-ish, case-by-case basis that can be legally argued either way.

[nwspaprtaxis.livejournal.com]

Also? Thank you for this because I'm writing a noncon for ohsam and this is a timely and apt reminder. Although I will try my best to appropriately warn, I am, for the most part, a non-triggered person, which makes warning difficult. Therefore, I will be stalking this thread....