I Can See the Wank at the Doorstep, but I Just Gotta Ask...

[solarcat]

((Note: This post is semi-related to the discussion about warnings and triggers that has been going on. For other people's much more informative and well-thought posts on these subjects, see metafandom.))

I hope this post isn't triggery, but I don't have triggers of my own that I've found, so I can't be sure. Please enter at your own risk.




On the warnings issue itself, I'm all in favor of warning for potential triggers. IMHO, a 'surprise plot twist' or purposeful manipulation of emotion is fine, but not when it results in actually traumatized readers (I'm not talking about the "omg you've scarred me for life!" type of trauma, here). "LOL SURPRISE BUTTSECKS" is funny on an icon, not so funny when it shows up unexpectedly in a fic (and yes, I have asked for warnings to be put on fics before--it's not a trigger for me, but surprise!rapefic is not my favorite thing). I don't expect to change my mind on this one, and I'm also not particularly interested in dipping into that discussion, because my own thoughts are clear but I certainly don't feel equipped with the language to discuss it in a way that won't cause further problems, and I don't have personal experience with triggers/triggering to speak from. So I respectfully ask that we leave the issue of whether authors should warn for these sorts of triggery things aside for the moment, please.


What I want to talk about is how we define things, because it seems like fandom has added nuances to terms that are uniquely ours (the nuances, more than the terms). Specifically, I want to talk about the terms dub-con, non-con, and rape, and I want to know what you think, f-list (and anyone else who may get linked to this--it's public, go for it).

One of the key things I'm pulling out of this, at least regarding the original fics/authors/readers/discussions that sparked it, is that (at least one of) the authors didn't warn for dub-con in a fic because the author felt that it was not dub-con. This was due, as far as I can tell, to the reader's knowledge of Character A's thoughts/feelings, which may not have been known to Character B (I will confess here, I have not read the fic in question).

So I guess this post isn't really me sharing my thoughts, but rather, asking you for yours.


It's a bit disingenuous to ask for opinions without sharing my own, so I will try to do so briefly (and I will apologize in advance if I don't explain things very well).

With regard to dub-con, I feel like my sense of the word is a bit nebulous. It's a bit like the Supreme Court on pornography--I can't tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it. I know that when I see a warning for dub-con on a story, that I expect that both Character A and Character B are interested in having sex with each other, or at least not opposed to the idea. To me, dub-con is drunk!sex, aliens-made-us-do-it, one partner is a coercive little bastard but doesn't realize the other wants to be coerced... I guess maybe the line where it cuts out for me is when one of the partners does NOT want to be involved in any way, and the audience knows that (whereas, for instance, in aliens-made-us-do-it fic, I generally work with the underlying assumption that the characters involved are attracted to each other in some way, that the dub-con is revelatory of that attraction and/or deeper feelings, etc). With dub-con, I generally expect, to some extent, that Character A and Character B will have a rocky road but a (moderately, at least) happy ending.

Where it gets more difficult for me is when it comes to non-con. I suppose an alternate title for this post might be: "Non-Con: When is it Rape?" Because this is a line I am not so clear on. How do people feel about the fact that we often warn for non-con, rather than calling it rape? Is there a difference in the way you think about/react to those specific terms?

As far as these things go in fics, I know that it really squicks me if the characters involved in non-con/rape fic end up together, where in dub-con fic I often expect it. But as far as slicing the hair between "non-con" and "rape", if a division exists at all, I find myself at a loss. I honestly don't know what I think about whether a distinction should be made between the terms or not.


So what are your thoughts on this, guys? How do you parse these terms? Is it "dub-con" to you when you as the reader are fully aware that both characters are mentally consenting but one character isn't aware of the other's consent? Are "non-con" and "rape" the same thing, or is there a difference?



(I will pre-emptively ask that everyone in the comments be respectful of one another, especially if/when disagreeing. I will not delete comments, but I reserve the right to freeze threads if necessary to keep this journal a relatively free space for discourse. Thank you.)

(ETA: For the sake of those who like to follow multiple discussions:
Dreamwidth version of this post (with comments): HERE
LiveJournal version of this post (with comments): HERE
Both are public, feel free to participate in either, both, or neither as you like. ^^ )

Comments

[senmut]

Dub-Con, for me, implies situation that's might easily be prosecuted as date-rape in the real world, or situations where one of the parties might not truly be in a position or right frame of mind to knowingly consent. I've seen it go back and forth, but for me, that's where I park the line. Either there was some heavy pressure on one party to consent, or one party might not have had the authority/right to consent.

Non-con, in my opinion, is rape. It is sex against the will of a participant. I just think fandom as a whole has this tendency to avoid the really ugly words of life and find new, less emotive ones.

Mileage varies. I've seen it argued that what happened on the rooftop between Catalina and Dick in Nightwing was non-con/rape...and others who only see it as dub-con because Dick's frame of mind at that point had rendered him incapable of a sensible decision. (I say non-con, but that's me)

[solarcat]

Okay, I must confess that I have not been into comics as much of late--can you explain in a bit more detail what was going on in Nightwing? (I just want to understand where you're coming from, really.)

Non-con, in my opinion, is rape. It is sex against the will of a participant. I just think fandom as a whole has this tendency to avoid the really ugly words of life and find new, less emotive ones.
I think I do sort of agree with you on this one. But then I also feel that there's some hairline distinction that I can't quite articulate. (It's troublesome to me, which is why I asked the question.)

But I agree 100% that we (meaning "fandom in general") like to skirt around calling rape "rape". There have been several fics I've read that were obviously and completely rape, that didn't hit that hairline that I sorta-maybe feel is there, but that were labeled as "non-con". I wonder if the authors in question considered the words to be equivalent (as you do), or if that was a conscious choice to "not scare off" readers? Hmm. Well, this is why I asked the question!

[senmut]

This was a couple year back in Nightwing. He'd been running hard, losing people right and left, and then his big bad guy was killed right in front of him by the chic he'd been working with. A panel after the killing implied she got off on the act of killing, and may have taken advantage of Dick's state of shock.

Hmm. Hairline distinction...hang on. Nope, neither of the girls in the house currently see a difference between non-con and rape.

[solarcat]

Thank you for the background, that's very helpful. ^^

I think my very trusty meepalicious managed to articulate some of that hairline for me over on my LJ, actually (I love her for being all smart and stuff):

I think that "rape" is when it's, well, rape; in the real world, rape is not about sex, it's about power. I suppose "non-con," then, would be non-consensual sex that is, from the attacker's point of view, about the sex. This is one of those definitions that can only exist in fandomland.

Just to fill in the discussion with my own new information/perspective/etc. But I think what she got to there was a good chunk of what was floating around in the back of my skull. YMMV, most obviously, and I certainly won't attempt to change anyone's mind on the issue.

[senmut]

Yeah, saw that, and think that it works, for fandom.

[solarcat]

Oh, most definitely! I wouldn't think to apply this discussion to real life, at ALL. This is pretty much purely fannish speculation, with regard to how we view and define these things in fic (and other fanwork, I suppose I should include).

[rainchild]

I can almost guarantee that the authors weren't deliberately leaving off warnings in order to get more readers. Most websites and LJ comms have a drop-down menu or list of tags for warnings that include "dub-con" and "non-con" but not "rape." It would never occur to me warn for rape if I already had a non-con warning, it's just not a fandom convention.

[solarcat]

It's true that it's not conventional for fandom. I guess I wonder less whether authors are being intentionally misleading (SOME might be, but I agree with you that the vast majority are not) and more whether anyone finds it to be an issue. Rather, whether people feel that it's just a "nicer" way to say "rape" (for whatever reason that we may decide, collectively, that we want a nicer way to say it), or if there's a meaningful difference in definition between the two terms.

[erinptah]

for whatever reason that we may decide, collectively, that we want a nicer way to say it

I've heard some people say that the word "rape" itself is triggering for them. (One person said that being hit by the word, out of the blue, is worse for them than coming to a fictional scene about it in context.) Thus the need for a different term which gets across the same meaning ("stay away from this one").

/$0.02

[solarcat]

You are now the second person to mention that, which is interesting to me. I had never heard of the word itself as a trigger (though I was certainly aware that consent issues in fic were a trigger). Which is not to say that I doubt it's true, just that I had never heard it before.

(Thank you for your $0.02!)

[meepalicious]

I hope you don't mind me jumping in here, and I might've misunderstood, but ...

If it's "easily ... prosecuted as date rape," wouldn't that make it, y'know, rape(/non-con)? Again, I could be misunderstanding what specific scenarios you're referring to, but I think this is the sort of attitude that minimizes date rape as, well, rape. If it's rape, it's rape, so why would date rape be considered something different?

[senmut]

I should have come back and clarified, because in talking it out in my household, I realized I worded it poorly.

There's a scene in a book by a Big Name Speculative Fiction Author. Her Male Lead realizes the Female Lead is a Virgin, and is in a situation (sci-fantasy, now) where that could pose a problem. He also realized she's holding out because she's at least half in love with him.

His solution? Convince her to sleep with him. Over her initial and repeated protests. The choice, at first, is not hers, though she does consent that yes, that was what she needed/wanted by the end of it.

I call it dub-con. And the cases I was referring to as 'can be prosecuted as date rape' are cases like that. Where the initial choice is not present in the affirmative, but eventual consent (true consent, with a full change of mind) is given. I've heard of a few cases (mostly statutory) where the girl admitted not wanting to at first, but then did consent of her free will, and every one agreed she did fully consent...but it's still date rape for the pressure applied after the first 'I don't think so'.

+sighs+ I hate that I cannot use English to convey the thoughts I want to effectively, because I still feel like I am failing to explain.

Also, yes Date Rape is Rape...and for me, after talking everything over in my household, I'm going with dub and non con both being forms of rape, but it being the difference between coercion by charisma and coercion by force.

[azurelunatic]

I read dub-con as including scenarios where people are legally unable to give consent (such as being drunk) and wanting to have sex, and liking it, and waking up in the morning being perfectly A-OK with it ... but it could, in the real world, be prosecuted as rape even though all parties involved were fine and did not consider it to be rape.

[reginagiraffe]

One difference I've heard of between non-con and rape is "actual penetration". Or rather, all rape is non-con but non-con is rape only if there's penetration.

It seems that it would be better to label things as non-con, which appears to cover a wider array of actions, than labeling things rape.

But this is only my vague impression. If others have more concrete opinions, feel free to correct me.

[solarcat]

That's interesting. I wonder if the people who hold that opinion also hold that oral sex/frottage/handjobs/etc. aren't "sex". (Obviously I don't expect you to know the answer to that, I'm just musing.)

I can definitely see where you're coming from on the "wider array of actions" point. Do you think there would be a certain point (certain actions taking place, whatever) where you would find it more accurate to include a "rape" warning? Or would "non-con" cover it for you in all circumstances?

[reginagiraffe]

For me *only* (and, for the record, I'm trigger-free and have never been raped so I'm in no way the expert), non-con would cover rape and any lesser action which was clearly not wanted. Groping, kissing, even "sexy" talk, which the recipient Did Not Want.

As long as the non-con wasn't coming from one of "the good guys" (i.e. it was someone else non-coning John, and not Rodney) I would probably still read it.

If it was actual rape... I might qualify it with "extreme", i.e. "extreme non-con".

I'm kinda pulling this out of my ass, so I would welcome more opinions.

[dira]

I had a different distinction between non-con and rape, below, but I think this one works, too--or at least, I would be readier to label non-consensual sexual-but-not-genital contact as non-con than rape.

[dira]

My personal line--applying only to fic as it does not cohere especially well with, for instance, the legal definition of rape--is dub-con when there is consent but it's in some way pressured or coerced or otherwise possibly invalid (due to the consenting person being unable to give proper consent--drunk or drugged or sex-pollinated or attempting to give relief to someone suffering sex-pollination, for instance), and non-con when there's no consent at all. Non-con=rape and my own linguistic intuition is to call it non-con when it's a sexual fantasy and there's supposed to be something hot or compelling about it despite the non-consent, and rape when it's portrayed more as a trauma--more like representing the experience of actual rape than a rape fantasy. Obviously the two can and do blur, in fiction.

I wrote a story once which I resorted to describing in the warning as having "many and various problems of consent which do not, in the opinion of the author, amount to rape" therefore hopefully indicating that some readers might well disagree with me. It was, uh, basically dub-con on both sides. I didn't consider it non-con because when it came to the actual sex they both did consent right up to the standard of "enthusiastic participation", but one was unable to give meaningful consent and the other had been pressured into consenting in the first place. For whatever that data point is worth.

[solarcat]

Non-con=rape and my own linguistic intuition is to call it non-con when it's a sexual fantasy and there's supposed to be something hot or compelling about it despite the non-consent, and rape when it's portrayed more as a trauma--more like representing the experience of actual rape than a rape fantasy. Obviously the two can and do blur, in fiction.

So for you, the line between non-con and rape in fic is more about the authorial intent of the scene than the specific actions taken by the characters?

For whatever that data point is worth.
It's definitely worth something. This is one of my "Oh great F-list, help me form my opinions!" sort of posts, so everything is of interest as far as I'm concerned. ^^ Which fic, if you don't mind my asking? I'd be interested to read it and see where my thoughts fall.

[dira]

So for you, the line between non-con and rape in fic is more about the authorial intent of the scene than the specific actions taken by the characters?

Yes, I think so. Because I don't think there's a meaningful distinction between the two in terms of the actual action of the story.

To describe it another way: when Buffy was invisible and jumped Spike and he didn't know who was jumping him and could not fight that person off and it was all set to "ha! this is hilarious!" incidental music, that was non-con, and when Spike jumped Buffy and she couldn't fight him off and it was shot in stark light from "THIS IS SCARY AND BAD" camera angles and in silence, that was rape.


Also, er, idk if you actually want to read it, as it's a... bit of a time commitment, but the story in question is Missing Persons (from Numb3rs fandom).

[solarcat]

Oh, but it's Don/Charlie! I can make time for Eppescest. (And also, I'm going to devolve into fangirling here, but I really do love your writing, so I do not by any means consider it a hardship to read one of your fics! ...Even though it does appear rather long, so it may have to wait until the weekend. XD )

Thank you for the example! That's very helpful (at least to me) to clarify what you were getting at. I may have to go rewatch those scenes later.

[dira]

Heee! I had no idea you were into Don/Charlie! Well, enjoy, if you decide to wade in. :)

And I haven't watched those scenes in a long time myself, so apologies if they are not exactly as I recall.

[solarcat]

I think I have many, many fandoms that people don't know I have. ^^;;; (I'm a bit of a fannish omnivore, really, but I don't talk about the vast majority of the Fandoms I Have Loved and Keep Loving Very Quietly. So I get a lot of that "I had no idea ____!" reaction. XDDD *is lame*)

I remember them roughly the way you described them, so there may be minor differences but I think you caught the jist of it pretty well. ^^

[azurelunatic]

Rape has multiple definitions for me.

Definition 1: Sexual intercourse (oral, vaginal, anal, including with objects, and including scenarios where the partner with the penis that's stuck in something is unwilling) that the party that's being subjected to it did not give their consent and/or withdrew consent in the middle and it did not stop, and does not retroactively agree that it was ok, whether or not they took trauma from it. This definition applies to both the real world and to fic.

Definition 2: Local-area legal definition of rape, which includes scenarios where all parties involved did not object either at the time or after the fact, but were nonetheless unable to legally give consent, as well as situations where the raped party is clearly NOT OK with things. This applies to the real world, and to fic, although it is probably a subject for debate whose jurisdiction this should be: local to the writer, local to the reader, local to the fic's setting.


Rape is an awfully big description. To me, consent descriptions are a little more targeted, and apply to fiction only.


Dubious consent for me is where the dubiously-consenting party's consent is present (this can be indicated in a number of ways, whether by verbal or nonverbal utterances that could be interpreted as consent, or by the fictional luxury of the reader seeing inside their head, or possibly in other ways) but is either ambiguous (are they not struggling because they want it, or because they're too scared to; did that mm-hmm mean yes sex or I like this massage) or not legally valid (they said yes but they're drunk/drugged/on alien sex pollen).

A pro-fic example of dubious consent (as seen after the fact, by an outside observer) might include the moment from Barrayar where Koudelka attempts to turn himself in for raping Drou, only to learn that Drou was in fact an enthusiastic participant even though he didn't ask permission before starting. (This lack of observation on Koudelka's part makes Drou quite rightfully very angry.)

Dubious consent also, to me, includes situations where the receiving party is unsure whether they were down with all that, for example, if they had only intended to make out with someone and it went further than they had planned in the heat of the moment.

To me, dubious consent is a fic-only term that covers both scenarios where consent is implied but sort of sketchily (and no one gets hurt) and also the sort of situations that one might not be able to prosecute as rape, but sure do leave the recipient feeling skeevy.



Non-consensual is where either consent is not obtained by not even bothering to check and nothing in the recipient's attitude suggests that they'd be giving consent, or where the recipient actively denies consent. This can either be rape fantasy or rape. Either way, it's a fic-only term.



I would warn for rape in a fic in situations where the fic includes, onscreen or off, sex where the recipient is not OK with it (ignoring the parts of the legal definition of rape where you could be perfectly OK with it before, during, and after, and technically raped because you were drunk at the time). I would warn for sexual assault also, if it's not rape.

I would warn for dubious consent or non-consent if these things happen onscreen (fade to black counts if you see enough of it to realize that Things Are Happening).


So I guess that's where I draw the line: if it's depicted onscreen, it's consensual, dubious consent, or non-consensual. If it happens to a character within the course of the fic, it's heavy petting/sex, or sexual assault/rape.

Ha, I was going to leave this in the LJ post, but then I remembered comment limits.

[dysprositos]

(The following represents my opinion and is completely arguable. And possibly/probably triggery with respect to sexual assault issues. FWIW, I read and enjoy dubcon and noncon stories, and depending on my frame of mind, rapefic--the distinction, to my mind, being that the former is pornographic in nature and the latter is, er, fictional-documentary [i.e., serious exploration of the issues]. Also, I am going to use the two-people-have-sex framing because it simplifies my sentence structure; obviously more people can be directly involved.)

Sex between two people who are enthusiastically consenting without fear or confusion = consensual sex.

Sex between two people, one of whom is e.c.w.f.o.c. but the other is not consenting or even "consenting", e.g., force is in play = (a subset of) non-con.

Dub-con comes in two flavors:
1) Situation Made Them Do It. Aliens, elves, sex pollen, Room of Requirement, marriage law, &c. This itself comes in two flavors: the kind where the people involved appear to be consenting but are confused (pollen, love potion), and the kind where the people involved "consent" (i.e., verbal or implied-by-action agreement but not actual true consent except superficially) because the situation requires it (alien diplomacy, much marriage-law). Like a chocolate-vanilla swirl, this can be combined when one character is clear-minded but helping the other character out of fear for them and one is not clear-minded at all; it can also be combined with consensual sex inasmuch as one character is unaware the other is being made to do it and is themself consenting.
The key here to keeping the fic from sliding over into non-con (yes, non-con with more than one victim and maybe even no obvious rapist, it happens) is, basically, that the people involved aren't completely messed up over it later, and maybe also that they wanted consensual sexual activity with each other previously but didn't do it for whatever reason (cue understanding of this in the aftermath, long talks, romance, happily ever after).

2) Coercion. One character is into this, is in fact so into this they don't care that the other isn't, and is perfectly willing to use blackmail material or some other power they have over the other (um, not magically-mind-changing in nature--I'd consider love potion fic to be split be consensual, if the potioned character would've done it anyway [including if love-potioned], or non-con if not; the former categorization is probably idiosyncratic enough to warn for consent issues anyway), and the other one agrees but doesn't like it. (Including if they come to like it over the course of the sex or in hindsight--the important part is that the agreement at any point is NOT consent, although it could superficially appear to be to an outside observer.) The key here to keeping it from being non-con is that force or the threat of force is not involved.

The second flavor is a little iffier--some people may draw the line farther over on the spectrum, so that Coercive Character may not initiate the coercion. (I.e., student can come up to teacher with a suggestion for an "extra credit" activity to bring a grade up in a class they absolutely need to pass--but the teacher can't suggest it to the student.) Also some people consider Dub-Con Type 2 to be straight non-con. This is just how I label these in my head; YMMV.

Hooker!fic and master/slave (or slave/slave initiated by the master) sex if the slave doesn't feel they can say no should be labeled dub-con (or non-con if it heads that direction)--even though for some strange reason I don't classify it as such in my head--because the power difference is sooo dramatic. At the very least, some sort of "plays with consent issues" warning would be advisable.

The final thing to note is that I have never seen a dub-con scenario which I would not consider rape (and in some cases, the law would agree with me; and with some smaller subset of cases, so would a jury) and definitely never a non-con scenario ditto (and the law would agree with me in all cases, I would hope, and a jury likewise). But I think the non-con and dub-con labels are useful inasmuch as there are differing conventions and assumptions native to each category (frex, I get more disturbed if the victim gets off during non-con than dub-con type 2; and in dub-con type 1, the victims should be able to get together afterwards without Huge Mental Trauma [particularly for the readers!] whereas if that happened in [almost all; I can think of exceptions for a very particular type of fic*] non-con I would again be fairly disturbed), and I think that the two labels together are useful to distinguish fic about rape (--again, any of these scenarios, but more realistically depicted, basically; and the carefully-engineered rape where neither person is really to blame and it wouldn't be too bad if they got together afterwards, a la dub-con type 1, isn't very realistic) from fic about a rape fantasy. I, for one, have to be in a particular mindset to enjoy (...you know what I mean) reading the former, and I'm sure for people who think the latter shouldn't exist seeing it mixed in labels-wise with serious explorations of rape as an issue must be a hundred times worse.

O.K., no, that's not the final thing, this is the final thing: it occurs to me that Dub-con Type 1 Fear Edition is identical to Dub-con Type 2 except that the coercer is not one of the characters directly involved in the sex (if the coercer exists at all and can be pinned down to a discrete group of people currently alive) in the former while they are in the latter. I think it may be the various types of AMTDI being lumped together in the same category (are they Making Them Do It by virtue of sneakily forcing our heroes into a soulbond which requires regular sex of the bonded? Or are they holding guns, literal or metaphorical, to our heroes' heads?) that makes me split them into Situation Makes Them Do It and [Internal-to-the-Pairing] Coercion. Hmm.

*If you absolutely must know, there are situations in which one character rapes another (with force/restraints and everything, hence "non-con") because the situation is such that if that character refused, the other character would be much worse off. Yes, it's the "he rapes because he CARES" canard, granted weight by a fictional setup in which it is possible. Examples (triggery as hell, as one would expect): alien justice requires that one character (Jack or Daniel, in what I've seen) be raped because they were accused (falsely, of course, but that doesn't do much good when one side has all the guns and/or a member of the team as prisoner) of raping a local, and another character (Daniel or Jack) steps in to do it because the person (man) who would do it otherwise is not inclined to be gentle. Or in Death-Eaters-capture-Harry (replace Harry with Draco if so inclined) fic, Severus Snape (replace with Draco if inclined) steps in to "claim" the capturee as a slave (complete with at least one "performance" for the DEs and Dark Lord) so as to prevent the much worse gang-rape-until-dead type scenario from occurring. And so on. These scenarios are pretty much Situation Made Them Do It (Fear Edition) for Character 1 and totally non-con for the other; when in doubt, label for the worse one (I don't know, is there anyone who specifically reads non-con for the Evil Rapist mindset? I mean, it's fandom, so the answer is "yes", but...), yet this leaves us in the paradoxical position of having non-con in which (call it Stockholm, call it blindfold off oh it's you and I trust you, syndrome, but it's common) a romance may bloom without being totally disturbing. I mean, if you're not disturbed by the premise, obv.

Via Metafandom

[ten]

Note: This is only my subjective expectations and it only applies to unpublished fiction (mostly fanfiction) in this blogging sphere. I do not have the same expectations for, say, the porn fic you can find through Google, or published erotic fiction.

What I expect when I see those warnings, and how I myself would use them:

Dub-Con is exactly what the word says: the consent of both parties is dubious... to the reader. From dub-con, I expect stories of reluctance (but eventual approval) but also stories that deliberately mislead the reader for at least a while about the consent of the parties involved (like sexual roleplay, or as a literary device), as long as the actual consent is eventually made clear through the course of the story (and not just as the final sentence). In the latter, 'dub-con' not only serves as a warning but also as an assurance. "It's not as it looks to you right now."
Dub-con may also be used for SM stories/scenes, because for many people, the utter consent between Master and Slave/Dom and Sub is hard to understand.

Non-Con is what is in some circles called 'sexual rape'. It is a story about non-consensual sex with the emphasis on the sex. As far as I know (though I admit I don't know all the sexual fetishes in the world) this is only possible in fic. Despite the lack of consent from one party, the fic is 'only' about sex, in fact, sometimes the 'victim' may end up enjoying it. Non-Con is the kind of fic that gets a lot of people up in arms because they believe it sexualizes real rape and makes it look like a not so negative thing. (Which is a different discussion for a different place.)

Rape is about actual rape... the assertion of power through the means of sexual actions. The topic is treated with a certain amount of realism and in a serious context, be it as a source of trauma, as means of characterization or as a tool to describe a certain social situation or atmosphere.

0.02

[katarik]

Here from Merfilly.

For me? Noncon and dubcon are both rape/assault.

Noncon is lack of consent and lack of choice. Someone threatened your friends and/or family if you didn't have sex with them, someone threatened your own life, someone held you down and physically forced you, etc. You do, *theoretically*, have the choice to say no in the first situation, but that's splitting hairs.

Dubcon is consent, but not choice. Someone wasn't going to look after "your ass without an investment in it, you hear what I'm saying?" Someone's offering some other kind of deal, and it would be, shall we say, a better idea than not to have sex. There's no *immediate* fallout from not doing so, but you might, later, want them to remember you... fondly.

Both versions are skeevy as all get-out, but that's my basic summation. Noncon is not having chosen the sex *and* not having given consent to the sex; dubcon is not having chosen the sex, for whatever reason, but you're down to the wire, and so you say yes.