ratherastory: (George R. R. Martin)
ratherastory ([personal profile] ratherastory) wrote2011-03-02 06:20 pm

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. :)

[identity profile] ratherastory.livejournal.com 2011-03-03 12:03 am (UTC)(link)
Hee! No, it's cool. I was just... mildly confused about whether the second sexual act was generally consensual or not, since I've never actually read that type of fic. Mostly because the idea, as you have said, that "all [a woman] one needs to ~get over~ rape is for a good cock to come along" makes me feel violently sick to my stomach.

[identity profile] shinysylver.livejournal.com 2011-03-03 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
You know I've actually seen the magical cock applied to actual illness. Consensual sex heals the common cold kinda thing. Or more fairly, it heals the epic curse of cursed death in a magical world. The love conquers all thing.

I'd never seen it the other way...and hope not to...*shudder*

[identity profile] 4422shini.livejournal.com 2011-03-03 07:17 am (UTC)(link)
Can I jump in here?

I just wanted to add on the topic of the 'healing cock trope,' that I think it can also occur in dub-con fics where character A is forcing character B into sex. Character B is saying 'no', but they get so into it, they end up saying 'yes' even though it was non-con to begin with.

I see a lot of these fics out there, many of them wincest and they always make me uncomfortable to the point where I will stop reading them and leave my computer.