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

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

Hmm, no, I think that any scenario in which one participant is a conscious, perpetrating agent reads as something very different to me than the scenarios I mentioned, all of which explicitly involve situations where neither party was overriding or disregarding a known or suspected lack of consent in the other party. So if Sam coerces of manipulates consort Dean into sex, regardless of whether Dean "really wants it," I'd call that noncon. In the situation where Dean explicitly consents to sex with Sam, and Sam has no reason to believe that Dean isn't doing so in the same way that Sam is, but Dean in his heart of hearts is only taking this step in their relationship because it's season 1 and he hopes it will make Sam stay, or it's s3 and he's guilty about the deal, I'd label that dubcon. But the instant that Sam could reasonably be expected to be aware that that is what is going on, I'd switch the label to noncon. And for drunk sex? If the sober party has reason to expect that consent would be withheld if the person were sober, like if Dean had propositioned Sam before and Sam had said not a good idea, but then Sam consented or even initiated when drunk, I'd call that noncon. Any first-time scenario with one party sober and another impaired, I'd at least call very dark dubcon. But in the scenario I raised in a later comment, where there is an established, consensual relationship, and a particular instance of consensual sex where one party is impaired, that I would call dubcon.


I don't know, I might label some of your scenarios dark!dubcon, if we are thinking of a kink and not a legal or ethical distinction. Mine should maybe just be labeled as the only things that I'd label dubcon and would also read or maybe right, because the "really wants it" rape trope isn't something I can stand. The only exception is sex pollen, where it doesn't involve an imbalance of consent between the partners.

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

Put more simply, I'm only listing scenarios in which I could still like both characters in the morning.

[maraceles.livejournal.com]

That's an understandable definition. I'm kind of coming at this from the opposite direction, as someone who really likes the "really wants it" rape kink trope (even while I recognize it as highly problematic), and that's how I've seen it labeled around in the communities I've been frequenting.

ETA: I mean, communities like the spnkink_meme and blindfold_spn, and the examples of warrior/slave and antichrist/consort--they are labeled as dubcon in these communities. I agree with you in that I'd personally call them non-con, full stop, but they're labeled as dubcon, so I've gone with that labeling system. If people actually consider those to be in any way consensual, I'm going to cry.

ETA2: Gah. I'm done editing. Sorry.

[de-nugis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a messy distinction for me of what squicks me and what doesn't. Strapped to the rack with guts being torn out is noncon to me, even if the racked party has an emotional bond to the torturer or physical desire for the sexual act. But that's a dark, dark fic, a hell fic, and of course it assumes an already raped and tortured Dean, not one starting off from a position of power and consent. And that scenario remains less disturbing to me than a fic in which one uses emotional power over the other to get sex that he knows the other desires, but doesn't want. If the desiring/wanting distinction makes sense.