My guess would be that aggressive dubcon toward women -- while a delicious fantasy, I agree -- can very easily feel like it's condoning domestic violence against women. Same way slapstick comedy is very, very rarely used on a female subject. It's just safer to keep the violence trained on men, because everyone knows men can handle it and you're less likely to get whiners coming after you.
Mia/Phoenix is almost always written in that order; the problem with writing it the other way around is that it'd be so stunningly out of character that it would overshadow everything else.
I think you've got a point there. I think it's sad, in a way, that we don't think women can- we don't think we can- y'know, man up and take it- and also a little disappointing that we'll let violence against the whole other half of the species stand.
Funny thing about gender and its power imbalance is that the longer you think about it, the more wrong everything seems. I've mused on it plenty at work, where other waitresses sometimes get $100 tips just for flaunting their cleavage a little.
I guess it all boils down to consent. No matter what real world history has to say about women and power, a fic can present women and power however it wants. It's just that sexual shades-of-grey consent must be an intimidating prospect for less confident writers. And the idea probably hasn't even occurred to less experienced writers who are going by porn tropes.
Now I want to write Mia teaching Phoenix how to top her. It'd be hilarious. "No, really, Nick, it's alright."
I'd speculate because people who portray violence against women as something that is condoned by the text, or mistake 'relationship with unequal power dynamics and consent issues' for 'normal/ideal male/female relationship' exist and get published. I'd hazard that it makes it difficult to write something like that when you want to go for 'this is effed up and that's what I like about it' -- the author worries about people getting that fact, and the reader is always wondering 'okay, is the author writing this because kinky time is sexy, or does s/he think that this is not as effed up as it actually is'. (I'd hazard a guess it's easier to write het D/s porn if you could show that it was just something the couple did in the bedroom -- they had an egalitarian relationship, but non-egalitarian sex because that was what got them both off
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I started writing a response to this, like, hours ago, then just wandered off with the window open. Hmph.
That's a problem that I've run up on a number of times in writing fic- not ever being able to be sure if your audience realizes what you're going for. I mean, not even with things that might be controversial- even twist endings or subtext. Usually, it's just funny when people don't get it, but this all seems too srs biznes for my tastes.
I actually don't have anything intelligent to say, in part because I think you've already expressed very well a predominant, but much ignored, trend in erotic fiction in general. Go you. I just want to say that reading this makes me want to go write you some really hot chick!sub hardcore D/s.
Dunno, but I spent *years* mentally beating myself up (and not in the good way) over the fact that I thought I couldn't be a good feminist and a masochist. My mom is a Dworkin-era feminist -- I love her, but sex-positive she ain't
( ... )
Everybody's hot for bug!Shep. I'm not sure why it is. Possibly it involves pheromones.
That's something I didn't think about, but it's so true- modern romance, even the really tame stuff, can get so dubcon-y at points that I don't get why vanilla women read it. Same thing for popular stuff like Twilight, which has total "why you gotta make me hit you, baby" overtones.
Y'know, I wrote this essay, and then I started writing some McKay/Weir dubcon (it wasn't even, really, because at some point in the fic it becomes clear that it's consensual fantasy play), but then I got weirded out and couldn't finish it. (Though possibly this is because it was McKay POV, and I'm about as dom as a bowl of cheese grits.) So I don't know. Maybe it's something we've been socialized into.
And hey, I'm totally okay with being trawled for fic. That's what I'm here for!
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Mia/Phoenix is almost always written in that order; the problem with writing it the other way around is that it'd be so stunningly out of character that it would overshadow everything else.
It's so freaking true. XD
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Man, Phoenix couldn't dubcon a paper bag.
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I guess it all boils down to consent. No matter what real world history has to say about women and power, a fic can present women and power however it wants. It's just that sexual shades-of-grey consent must be an intimidating prospect for less confident writers. And the idea probably hasn't even occurred to less experienced writers who are going by porn tropes.
Now I want to write Mia teaching Phoenix how to top her. It'd be hilarious. "No, really, Nick, it's alright."
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That's a problem that I've run up on a number of times in writing fic- not ever being able to be sure if your audience realizes what you're going for. I mean, not even with things that might be controversial- even twist endings or subtext. Usually, it's just funny when people don't get it, but this all seems too srs biznes for my tastes.
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My brain sort of lives in the gutter.
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(The comment has been removed)
That's something I didn't think about, but it's so true- modern romance, even the really tame stuff, can get so dubcon-y at points that I don't get why vanilla women read it. Same thing for popular stuff like Twilight, which has total "why you gotta make me hit you, baby" overtones.
Y'know, I wrote this essay, and then I started writing some McKay/Weir dubcon (it wasn't even, really, because at some point in the fic it becomes clear that it's consensual fantasy play), but then I got weirded out and couldn't finish it. (Though possibly this is because it was McKay POV, and I'm about as dom as a bowl of cheese grits.) So I don't know. Maybe it's something we've been socialized into.
And hey, I'm totally okay with being trawled for fic. That's what I'm here for!
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