I actually didn't find any underlying questions in the essay itself, aside from a lot that were more world-building prompts and less discussion points -- unless the essay itself was meant to be more along the lines of "let's have a worldbuilding brainstorming party", but it really doesn't come across that way. There are a lot of interesting questions that the existence of the whole A/B/O thing brings up. But I haven't actually seen people genuinely ask them in the open, though I have seen them be implied and even even answered implicitly.
As far as "A/B/O doesn't have to be full of consent issues", I think that really depends on what you're referencing when you refer to A/B/O. If you mean "A/B/O as an abstract concept", sure! That's true. That's entirely possible. There are fics that don't touch on several problematic elements of the universe. But they are in the minority and they have always been in the minority.
If you take into consideration the original prompts from the SPN fandom and the general trend of the A/B/O works base, the underlying themes have in the vast majority of the time been those of consent issues, with further worldbuilding usually incorporating rape, sex pollen, internalized and biologically encouraged sexism/misogyny (with emphasized rape culture being an element of this), and some degree of slavery. And of those themes, they do tend to be written in a fetishized/eroticized way.
That is how the universe has developed in its infant stages, guided in that direction by its earliest prompters and writers. This is the core aspect of the universe that differs it from other alternate universes. I'm not making a moral judgment here, but the A/B/O universe is very fundamentally about rape, rape culture, and the fetishization of quite a few elements of misogyny.
To acknowledge the strong trend that A oftentimes contains B (often by definition, as in the cases where the prompter specifically requests B), so strongly that when the average person sees A they expect to also see B, does not imply anything about about those who are aware of that pattern, and I'm... not really sure where you're getting that from?
The question is, then, and the question that I want answered is:
What is your argument? What are you saying?
Are you saying that when people expect an A/B/O fic to contain dubcon/noncon, or when a writer writes an A/B/O fic and expects their readers to assume it's going to contain consent issues, they are buying into rape culture?
Why?
I mean, I think it's pretty annoying and a little rude that people don't also tag their A/B/O fics with dubcon/noncon when appropriate. Sometimes people don't know what A/B/O is and sometimes people want to write or read A/B/O without dubcon/noncon. For the latter group, it seems pretty ridiculous that there's no way to easily tell (aside from the summary, but those are hardly standardized) if an A/B/O fic doesn't contain dubcon/noncon.
But I don't really see why that means the author or reader is buying into rape culture.
Also, if you're interested in talking about it, I'd love to know why you think there's a problem with writers writing about or including rape culture in fics! If someone wants to write that (or read that), especially in a kinky or otherwise eroticized context, is there a reason they shouldn't?
Sorry for the dealy in replying, I as out in the wilds with no real internets for a while!
Ok so - First off I have to admit that I have zero experience witht he Supernatural origins of the trope because SPN has never been my fandom. I have, however, read it pretty extensively in a lot of other fandoms so I've seen a lot of things done with it.
Basically, from my point of view making the assumption that anyone reading A/B/O will automatically know there willbe consent issues and even more so, recognize those consent issues is propagating rape culture. A bit like Twilight - those of us who already know better see it as a horrible abusive controlling mess, but a lot of people romanticize the hell out of it. By writing eroticized/romanticized descriptions of acts that lack consent without a frame of reference where this is noted, the lack of consent is given an air of normalcy. As much as we'd like to think everyone in fandom is a well-read feminist, etc, that is simply not the case.
I am definitely not saying that people should not want to write or read such things. I am not a hypocrite, after all. But I think these things should come with the acknowledgement that there are issues within. Literary equivalent of don't try this at home. Does that make sense?
NOTE: OH GOD I'M SORRY I TYPE SO MUCH I JUST LIKE WORDS AND THIS IS AN INTERESTING CONVERSATION AND YEAH. :x
I'm not saying there aren't people (writers and readers alike) who aren't, uh, confused (to put it lightly) about what constitutes consent and what doesn't, because I've definitely had my share of "WHOA HEY SURPRISE GRAPHIC RAPE SCENE OUT OF NOWHERE WTF" moments. But I don't think that's a problem inherent only to ABO fics as a genre, so much as it is "this is something that happens in fics, and ABO fics are not an exception to that". It happens a lot in non-AU fics and it happens an appalling amount in BDSM fics.
It's still pretty discourteous to not warn your ABO fic if it's going to have explicit dubcon/noncon. I'd really like people to stop being bad about labelling things with warnings (or explicitly choosing not to warn).
I think another point I'd like to bring up (I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I think it's worth considering anyways) is that ABO verses with overt dubcon/noncon scenes (as these are the ones we're talking about) often contain enough worldbuilding such that it's overtly dystopian ("In an AU where Xs are considered property..." or "In an AU where Xs are required to go to suchandsuch for breeding...") as opposed to subtle ("And I realized he truly loved me, because he broke my car and told me never to speak to my male friend again"). And I feel like that change (the fact that the rape culture is basically turned up to dystopian extremes) is overt enough that the reader knows that the societal structure displayed is not normal/acceptable and is basically used for worldbuilding/exploration concepts or kink.
To throw in a real-world analogy, I guess, this would be something like a sketchy porn shop stocking "XXXTREME BACKDOOR SLUTS 9" vs a mainstream magazine in a grocery store with the headline "Women, here's how to not act too smart! You won't get a husband if you're too smart!"
However, I do agree with you fundamentally in that there should be a tag or warning or something, somewhere on fics just to be like "hey, fyi, I'm aware this is totally an eroticized rapefic" ("NC-17, noncon" usually works just fine, it's not even hard, guys) because otherwise sometimes you do come across moments where you're reading something and suddenly you have that moment in your head where you're like, "uhhhh does the author know she just wrote a rapefic? A warning would have been nice, thanks!"
But I don't think in this case that it's a propagation of rape culture or that it serves to normalize rape culture. I just think it's lazy, discourteous, and inconvenient for other people who might want to write in the verse without making it, you know, all about the dubcon kinkfic. But then, that's also not 'cause they're writing ABO fic. That's because they're bad at warning things that should be warned for.
tl;dr:
I don't think it propagates rape culture for ABO fics to be considered inherently about dubcon because a) ABO is really just fandom shorthand for "dystopian rape culture AU with a lot of dubcon and always these kinks and sometimes those kinks" and fandom/fans know this, contrast with twilight where it's known as "a love story" instead of "a creepy story about some stalker guy" and b) no really, it's a massive dystopian AU, no one has ever said they (reader or writer) didn't see it as somewhat dystopian/fucked up, so there's less room for "oh i wish my boyfriend was like edward". So I think there IS the innate "don't do this at home, kids" assumption around its very name.
But I totally agree that people get confused sometimes and seem to think (in a meta, outside the scope of the fic universe context) that something coercive and rapey isn't actually coercive and rapey (BDSM fics, whyyyyyy), and to separate the "this is about rape but it's sexy so i read it anyways" group from the "this isn't rape, it's ~romance~" group, we should just make everyone warn for noncon and dubcon even if it's implied, because seriously guys, wtf, it's not that hard to have good warnings.
As far as "A/B/O doesn't have to be full of consent issues", I think that really depends on what you're referencing when you refer to A/B/O. If you mean "A/B/O as an abstract concept", sure! That's true. That's entirely possible. There are fics that don't touch on several problematic elements of the universe. But they are in the minority and they have always been in the minority.
If you take into consideration the original prompts from the SPN fandom and the general trend of the A/B/O works base, the underlying themes have in the vast majority of the time been those of consent issues, with further worldbuilding usually incorporating rape, sex pollen, internalized and biologically encouraged sexism/misogyny (with emphasized rape culture being an element of this), and some degree of slavery. And of those themes, they do tend to be written in a fetishized/eroticized way.
That is how the universe has developed in its infant stages, guided in that direction by its earliest prompters and writers. This is the core aspect of the universe that differs it from other alternate universes. I'm not making a moral judgment here, but the A/B/O universe is very fundamentally about rape, rape culture, and the fetishization of quite a few elements of misogyny.
To acknowledge the strong trend that A oftentimes contains B (often by definition, as in the cases where the prompter specifically requests B), so strongly that when the average person sees A they expect to also see B, does not imply anything about about those who are aware of that pattern, and I'm... not really sure where you're getting that from?
The question is, then, and the question that I want answered is:
What is your argument? What are you saying?
Are you saying that when people expect an A/B/O fic to contain dubcon/noncon, or when a writer writes an A/B/O fic and expects their readers to assume it's going to contain consent issues, they are buying into rape culture?
Why?
I mean, I think it's pretty annoying and a little rude that people don't also tag their A/B/O fics with dubcon/noncon when appropriate. Sometimes people don't know what A/B/O is and sometimes people want to write or read A/B/O without dubcon/noncon. For the latter group, it seems pretty ridiculous that there's no way to easily tell (aside from the summary, but those are hardly standardized) if an A/B/O fic doesn't contain dubcon/noncon.
But I don't really see why that means the author or reader is buying into rape culture.
Also, if you're interested in talking about it, I'd love to know why you think there's a problem with writers writing about or including rape culture in fics! If someone wants to write that (or read that), especially in a kinky or otherwise eroticized context, is there a reason they shouldn't?
Reply
Ok so - First off I have to admit that I have zero experience witht he Supernatural origins of the trope because SPN has never been my fandom. I have, however, read it pretty extensively in a lot of other fandoms so I've seen a lot of things done with it.
Basically, from my point of view making the assumption that anyone reading A/B/O will automatically know there willbe consent issues and even more so, recognize those consent issues is propagating rape culture. A bit like Twilight - those of us who already know better see it as a horrible abusive controlling mess, but a lot of people romanticize the hell out of it. By writing eroticized/romanticized descriptions of acts that lack consent without a frame of reference where this is noted, the lack of consent is given an air of normalcy. As much as we'd like to think everyone in fandom is a well-read feminist, etc, that is simply not the case.
I am definitely not saying that people should not want to write or read such things. I am not a hypocrite, after all. But I think these things should come with the acknowledgement that there are issues within. Literary equivalent of don't try this at home. Does that make sense?
Reply
I'm not saying there aren't people (writers and readers alike) who aren't, uh, confused (to put it lightly) about what constitutes consent and what doesn't, because I've definitely had my share of "WHOA HEY SURPRISE GRAPHIC RAPE SCENE OUT OF NOWHERE WTF" moments. But I don't think that's a problem inherent only to ABO fics as a genre, so much as it is "this is something that happens in fics, and ABO fics are not an exception to that". It happens a lot in non-AU fics and it happens an appalling amount in BDSM fics.
It's still pretty discourteous to not warn your ABO fic if it's going to have explicit dubcon/noncon. I'd really like people to stop being bad about labelling things with warnings (or explicitly choosing not to warn).
I think another point I'd like to bring up (I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I think it's worth considering anyways) is that ABO verses with overt dubcon/noncon scenes (as these are the ones we're talking about) often contain enough worldbuilding such that it's overtly dystopian ("In an AU where Xs are considered property..." or "In an AU where Xs are required to go to suchandsuch for breeding...") as opposed to subtle ("And I realized he truly loved me, because he broke my car and told me never to speak to my male friend again"). And I feel like that change (the fact that the rape culture is basically turned up to dystopian extremes) is overt enough that the reader knows that the societal structure displayed is not normal/acceptable and is basically used for worldbuilding/exploration concepts or kink.
To throw in a real-world analogy, I guess, this would be something like a sketchy porn shop stocking "XXXTREME BACKDOOR SLUTS 9" vs a mainstream magazine in a grocery store with the headline "Women, here's how to not act too smart! You won't get a husband if you're too smart!"
However, I do agree with you fundamentally in that there should be a tag or warning or something, somewhere on fics just to be like "hey, fyi, I'm aware this is totally an eroticized rapefic" ("NC-17, noncon" usually works just fine, it's not even hard, guys) because otherwise sometimes you do come across moments where you're reading something and suddenly you have that moment in your head where you're like, "uhhhh does the author know she just wrote a rapefic? A warning would have been nice, thanks!"
But I don't think in this case that it's a propagation of rape culture or that it serves to normalize rape culture. I just think it's lazy, discourteous, and inconvenient for other people who might want to write in the verse without making it, you know, all about the dubcon kinkfic. But then, that's also not 'cause they're writing ABO fic. That's because they're bad at warning things that should be warned for.
tl;dr:
I don't think it propagates rape culture for ABO fics to be considered inherently about dubcon because a) ABO is really just fandom shorthand for "dystopian rape culture AU with a lot of dubcon and always these kinks and sometimes those kinks" and fandom/fans know this, contrast with twilight where it's known as "a love story" instead of "a creepy story about some stalker guy" and b) no really, it's a massive dystopian AU, no one has ever said they (reader or writer) didn't see it as somewhat dystopian/fucked up, so there's less room for "oh i wish my boyfriend was like edward". So I think there IS the innate "don't do this at home, kids" assumption around its very name.
But I totally agree that people get confused sometimes and seem to think (in a meta, outside the scope of the fic universe context) that something coercive and rapey isn't actually coercive and rapey (BDSM fics, whyyyyyy), and to separate the "this is about rape but it's sexy so i read it anyways" group from the "this isn't rape, it's ~romance~" group, we should just make everyone warn for noncon and dubcon even if it's implied, because seriously guys, wtf, it's not that hard to have good warnings.
Reply
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