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

[tahirire.livejournal.com]

He said stop, she said 'what for?' And he couldn't come up with a reason, so he jumped her. It was his choice. Did she take advantage of his grief? Yes. (So does any girl trying to hook a guy on the rebound) Does that make it RAPE? I think that would be an extreme over-definition of the word. He didn't have to tell her yes. In fact, he tells her no later just fine lots of times. It was his choice, and I think that viewing Sam/Ruby as 'rape', aka, 'Sam didn't have a choice', totally removes Sam's responsibility for his own actions (aka free will) from the picture, and free will to choose was the whole POINT of s4 and s5 ... wasn't it?

ETA: On the other hand, Gary having sex with that dom chick in Sam's stolen body? RAPE. Yes. Totally.

[bornfromthefoam.livejournal.com]

I kind of agree and kind of disagree... don't forget that at the very beginning of that scene we see him drinking, too. I don't know, I think she's clearly manipulating him (obviously) and that makes it a lot harder to view it as his free choice. Plus, he DOES say no, and she keeps pushing. Whether he "really wants it" (which Show heavily implies, of course) or not, he DID say no and she did keep going. In my mind, that's rape, at least a form of it.

And yeah, the Gary thing, definitely. Which brings up the question of Soulless!Sam... oy, this show. :)

[tahirire.livejournal.com]

But if you spin out that definition, wouldn't every time Dean has been drinking and Sam coerces him into talking about his feelings be emotional rape?

The actual definition of the word according to Webster means 'To seize or take by force.' Dictionary.com adds that rape can also be defined as 'The act of forcing a sexual encounter through physical force or extreme duress.' (Duress being 'compulsion by threat'.)

Was Ruby manipulating Sam? Obviously - that was her goal from day one. Was she tempting him, yeah, absolutely. Was she physically forcing him, threatening him? No. Therefore, not rape by the strict definition of the word.

Ruby never forced Sam, because if she had, he would have bailed. She always, ALWAYS let it be his decision; that's how she hooked him so firmly. ("It wasn't the blood, (or the alcohol or the loneliness or the lust for revenge) it was you, and your choices. I just gave you the options and you chose the right path every time!")

Coercion, temptation and seduction in and of themselves, while certainly wrong, are not rape.

Soulless Sam, now ... that is one I have a theory about, but it's crazy, so I'm waiting to see what happens with it. ;)