He Sends His Regrets by Huck Pilgrim

[HuckPilgrim]

Been thinking about how I might do this differently to give more across - the - board reader satisfaction while still maintaining the dark core of your character. I think it's all about power.

His initial rape, like all rapes, is about power. He does it not because he wants her but because he is in a situation, however brief, where he can bypass her economic power over him. In the second described encounter with the student dancer, he has power over her as her professor but she has power over him by controlling the kinds of encounters they have. I'd still say that's about an 80/20, since she wouldn't otherwise have any sexual contact with him. I think you wanted to show a reversal of that with Natasha, with her primarily in control, pushing him, helplessly, further down the path she wanted. I think it comes off more as a joint endeavor, since he never seems to be doing what she wants to keep her so much as doing what she wants to keep doing what he also wants. If she were in a stronger position to begin with, I.e. a fellow professor and he was in love with her or infatuated by something other than the sex, I think her pushing his surrender would be stronger and more narratively satisfying.

Yep, it's the power dynamics. That's exactly what rape is. He didn't so much bypass her economic power over him (she wasn't his employer) as much as bypass the power he'd surrendered to her in his mind. That's how he rationalized it.

It's an interesting idea that the dynamic between him and Natasha might change if she were more of a peer and less of a student. I'll have to give that some thought, though I am loathe to go back to edit this one, I would like to better understand how these stories work.

I recently read a forced sex story by Selena Kitt where a priest rapes a rebellious student in an attempt to discipline her. It sounds terrible but it got HIGH marks here and I can see why. It was a turn on. There is a way to present these kinds of stories that allows people to connect with the power exchange on a sexual level, but doesn't offend to the core. It's like you know it's a story somehow and you give it a pass. I just don't know the secret of how to write non-consent, I suppose. But I hope to figure it out, or at least get better at it.

Thank you for engaging with me on this stlgoddessfreya!