ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2011-03-02 06:20 pm
ratherastory) wrote2011-03-02 06:20 pm
Entry tags:
Fandom definitions: non-con and dub-con
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. :)
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. :)
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But Non/con? VERY CLEARLY the inability to give specific consent. I recently came across a story were one party was... incapacitated and beyond ability to give consent. There was a warning of dub/con. This is not dub/con! The the author now has a shiny new note beside their name to warn me ahead of time because I do not want to be reading that sort of situation and frankly I'm a little pissed not to have been warned. Sadly this is not the first time this has happened and I am sure it will not be the last time.
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The thing I think people lose travck of when they are deciding about warnings is that 'con' is short for consent. That's the whole point right. It is either consensual sex or it isn't.
And coerced consent is the same as none.
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