Non-Consent

[DrDelirium]

I'm going to throw a flag on the play here. There is Non-Consent play and then there's over the line. Please elaborate on "forcing her to perform [acts] that she finds abhorrent".

Different people draw the line in different places. Perceptions of 'force,' 'violence,' and 'consent' vary widely. For instance, while most of us agree that pointing a gun at someone to make them do what you want them to is very much force and violence, most people think that a person who engages in prostitution because they have no other way to make a living, or are addicted to crack, is 'consenting' to be used sexually. Blackmail, especially sexual blackmail, is a pretty common porn trope, and when one considers its impact in the real world- where people sometimes commit suicide because of it- it's a pretty strong form of coercion.
I think that it's interesting that the public is inundated, even as children, with constant displays of fictionalized violence, much of it lethal, much of it intended to coerce characters to do things they don't want to do, and much of what they are being coerced into doing in mainstream tv shows is sex. People obviously are attracted to these tales. Yet combining these elements with sex presented in an erotic context is 'over the top.'
My own view- and I am aware that it is not the site's view- is that fiction is fiction, that murder for money is not more acceptable than the threat of murder for sex, that 'condemning' the main attraction of your story does not actually put you on the moral high ground, and that people are turned on by what they're turned on by, not by what somebody, even themselves, thinks they should be turned on by.
I know it's never going to happen, but I wish that people would stop insisting that their own kinks are morally superior to everyone else's kinks and accept the idea that most people can distinguish between fantasy and reality, and leave people who are indulging in the former alone. My own porn, of course, is entirely politically correct. Ajajajaja! Right.

 

[clistenovena]

Note: All my comments below are based on a scenario that involves a "He" barraging "her" with the non-consent.

For those of you who are fans of the genre, what do you look for in a story?

I look for non-consent. Throughout. I'm pretty simple that way.

What are the "must have" elements? What makes it a story you'll come back to time and again?

I don't re-read much (except for articles on neuroscience research- there's one out now about what the brain does to itself due to lack of proper sleep- and, of course, To Kill a Mockingbird), but if I did, again, I must go with "...non-consent. Throughout."

If specifics are what you seek, then as a fan of the genre, one "must have" is humiliation, in as many and varied forms as the author can possibly incorporate (though I prefer more of the mental humiliation side of things). And it doesn't necessarily have to be blatant and obvious; subtle humiliation can wreak just as much havoc.

Another must-have includes lots of mind-fuck talk from the enforcer (for lack of a better word). And by "mind-fuck talk" I mean that "He" never lets up on the deep hacks into "her" psyche with deliberate and devious mental manipulation. For example, when he holds her face down on the floor while she continually struggles (really struggles) to break free, he slowly slides a finger into her and says, "Yeah, keep pretending you don't want this, but your wet cunt is telling me your secrets." Or, when he has her tied down with her legs spread impossibly wide apart, he leans in and whispers, "It's so cooperative of you to spread your legs open for me. You're being such a good girl."

~thinks on the above for a moment~ Yes. I would decidedly re-read stories with elements such as that time and again.

And possibly more important, what ruins it for you?

Oh! Good question!

These would completely ruin a non-consent story for me:
If he ever asks her if she's okay.
If she smiles.
If they snuggle or cuddle.
If he cleans her up.
If he dries her tears.
If there is a lack of intensity on either parties' reactions to one another.
If she talks too much (other than what he wants her to say, or a time or two of tremulously whispered "oh god stop").
If she even once seems like she's enjoying it (involuntary body betrayal excluded 'cause that's just hot).
If "He" ever doubts himself and what he's doing to "her."

Yeah. Any of those would ruin it. For me anyway.

Best of luck to you with your writing.
Nova

 

[LadyMireille]

Personal opinions here...

I like a good reluctance story. When I think of reluctance, I think of a woman not sure she wants to engage in sex, but at some point before the "deed" she makes up her mind or changes her mind, and decides she does want it - or at the very least that she is going to go along with it (willingly - not because of coercion - feeling like she has to or else).

The idea of the woman not being sure she wants sex (often because of social rules), but the man takes the time to get her so aroused (and she allows this - reluctantly...) that she goes with it, often works for me. It can also be a story where the woman is reluctant because she is having an internal war between her desire and what her mind is telling her she shouldn't do (this is usually tied to social rules or what this person believes about when and why you should have sex based on what they have learned from their parents and/or society), but her desire outweighs her mind and she engages.

Non-consent often isn't for me, but some work for me. I have read and enjoyed some non-consent stories involving coercion, usually stories where the woman winds up with some kind of enjoyment out of it, despite her not wanting to be doing what she's doing or feeling forced into it.

Non-consent that is rape is a no-go for me. When the woman is clearly verbalizing or fighting, and clearly does not want to engage, there is nothing in that kind of story that does it for me.

What else I like that I often find in reluctance/non-consent stories... a good dominant/submissive relationship where the man controls or commands the woman - with a firm voice, commands, and actions. However, stories where a man inflicts harm, is abusive, humiliates (spraying his cum on her is just gross), or is physically overpowering, those things are not elements that I enjoy. For me, surrender/loss of control is appealing, but a story where the man seeks power... to overpower the woman, not so much.

I should also note that, regardless of which genre, the stories I enjoy most are:

1) Those that actually HAVE a story (and are at least fairly well-written). Stories where you get to know the characters, sometimes where they draw you in.

2a) Stories with plausibility (the importance of which was stated in another thread). And stories that end well. I can even take a rape scene if the story is clearly going somewhere else and that scene has a purpose. Heck, I have even written one like that.

2b) Stories that are not-plausible can sometimes work if they are written purposely that way for humor's sake.

3) Stories that end well.

 

[Arwen_hadhafang]

I like the force he uses, as long as he respects my limits. I have had him cum over me and I don't mind it. My ex went a bit far sometimes and is the reason we eventually broke up. But I like him having the control.

 

[Larkfield61]

The essential thing to have is mutual trust and a safe word system, also use a safe signal if it is not possible to speak.

 

[ForestFlame]

better off alone, if he doesn't respect you enough to honour your boundaries.

(Sorry this is for Arwen)

 

[srgreene]

For me its the loss of control. Being at the mercy of another, and having no choice, and reveling in the shame of your enjoyment.
-CS

As a woman, I've never relished losing all control over what happens to my own body, or that of anybody for that matter. But I have experienced, and even enjoyed reading stories that ring true to me, of the ambivalence females my experience in sexual situations. We may be turned on, even if we don't entirely like the position we are in at any particular moment, and therein lies the potential for many interesting situations. I am working on a semi-autobiographical story that explores this area.

 

[PervOtaku]

I just gotta say though, there is totally a non-zero number of girls out there for whom the more they don't want whatever is happening or whoever is doing it to them, the more they get off on it. And also girls for whom the more they feel the guy is just using her for his pleasure with no regard to her pleasure or what she wants, the more they get off on it.

For some this is experienced vicariously through non-consent/rape stories. For others it is in reference to their personal real-life experiences.

So yeah, rape is bad and whatever, but rape stories are hot and usually the more horrific the better for people with this fetish.

 

[DrDelirium]

I just gotta say though, there is totally a non-zero number of girls out there for whom the more they don't want whatever is happening or whoever is doing it to them, the more they get off on it. And also girls for whom the more they feel the guy is just using her for his pleasure with no regard to her pleasure or what she wants, the more they get off on it.

For some this is experienced vicariously through non-consent/rape stories. For others it is in reference to their personal real-life experiences.

So yeah, rape is bad and whatever, but rape stories are hot and usually the more horrific the better for people with this fetish.

^^Yes^^
Also, our political culture has some odd ideas about what 'consent' even means. It has come to be more or less equivalent to 'what I want above all other things, for itself alone,' which is not a very realistic view. Our government nominally rules 'with the consent of the governed,' but in fact we can't withdraw that consent. We have, for instance, endless wars that the majority of Americans oppose, but they go on anyway. So in that context, what we don't prevent, we consent to- because we have no means of preventing that don't entail unacceptable costs, if we have any means at all. In the context of individual sexual activity, though, this would be considered rape.
I've known women who 'want' to be 'raped' on many different levels, from reprocessing real trauma to breaking free from social conditioning. Some of them have actually put themselves in the way of being raped, and have been. I think it's useless to argue in such conditions what, exactly, constitutes rape. It's not something you can put in a bottle and subject to scientific tests, it's a matter of perceptions and definitions. And the idea of politically correct porn is just ridiculous.

 

[CyranoJ]

Oookay. Little pause for the cause here:

I'm not at all down with minimizing language like "rape is bad or whatever" or pretending sexual consent is some weird elusive angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin concept. Rape is bad full stop, no qualifiers, and there is no big mystery about what constitutes sexual consent, which means full informed consent at all stages of the act regardless of what situations the various parties may have "put themselves in" initially. Anything that transgresses that standard is in fact rape and no, the victims don't bear responsibility for that, regardless of what fantasies they have or whether they're engaged in a roleplay that goes wrong.

This is not some minor academic point. Danger and transgression of one of the ultimate personal boundaries is what makes the kink hot as fantasy. It's also exactly the same reason that separating fantasy from reality is absolutely necessary as an iron rule.

(That's not to say that ill-advised attempts at RP don't happen -- it's just that the rapist never actually has an excuse. Ever. The flaws of the victim can never mitigate rape any more than victims of murder become deserving just for being jerks or idiots. This should never require explaining, ever, and the conversation about consent is so heated in the present day because of the number of people who refuse to face this fact.)

So, that's all I've got to say about that.

As for what's hot in rape fantasy, there is indeed a lot of it out there -- of both the male- and female-focused varieties -- that leans heavily into the brutality and degradation of the act and sees importing any hint of pleasure as a cop-out. Mostly represented off-Lit, and I get some if the reasons but it's tough for me to get into, personally; that kind of thing is incredibly taxing to write or read for me.

Different strokes, but I personally lean toward the dubious-consent and reluctant-pleasure side of things. If the victim isn't getting off, even if they're conflicted or positively aghast at themselves for doing so, there's not much there for me.

 

[DrDelirium]

I guess it's a good thing you don't have to consent to other people's use of language, then.

 

[CyranoJ]

Having a realistic attitude toward kink is a good thing for anyone, but a necessity for any noncon fantasy community. Interesting to note that on the boards where the more hardcore fantasy fic does get posted, putting up posts claiming that consent is an elusive indefinable unicorn would get you summarily banned. Those things are directly connected.

(Also: this is a pretty unfortunate blind spot for someone with so much to say about the moral implications of other forms of erotica, I gotta tell ya.)

 

[DrDelirium]

Having a realistic attitude toward kink is a good thing for anyone, but a necessity for any for noncon fantasy community. Interesting to note that on the boards where the more hardcore fantasy fic does get posted, putting up posts claiming that consent is an elusive indefinable unicorn would get you summarily banned. Those things are directly connected.

(Also: this is a pretty unfortunate blind spot for someone with so much to say about the moral implications of other forms of erotica, I gotta tell ya.)

Interesting take. Regarding racism, I seem to recall you justifying its tweak value, so I guess you're on board with rape literature that offends- which would it be, rapists or feminists? As I said in the post you reference, we can 'splain things any way we want, and people are going to interpret any way they want, so what the hell? I'm not calling for suppressing anything. It's a fact, though, that 'consent' means a lot of different things at different times to different people, and even in the world of law, where everything is argued and defined and argued and redefined ad infinitum, well, the arguments continue. To the extent that I object to anything here its to people trying to impose their own definitions broadly without any consideration of nuance or specifics. Not long ago, everything on this board would be a criminal act in the US- most of the acts described, and all of the describing of them across interstate lines. Now the denizens of the board wrangle about what kind of porn is acceptable. I think it's funny.

 

[CyranoJ]

Interesting take. Regarding racism, I seem to recall you justifying its tweak value

You should "seem to recall" my saying exactly what I said in that thread, in which I didn't make reference to "justifying" anything and certainly not to "justifying" racism. ("Justifying" would look like someone saying "Well, this word 'racism' gets thrown around a lot but who can say what it truly means? Richard Spencer has one take, Nelson Mandela another, and I certainly know some black people who could stand to be nicer to cops.") I get that you're uncomfortable at being confronted about this but don't try to misrepresent my stances because of your discomfort. It's not honest.

so I guess you're on board with rape literature that offends- which would it be

I write in NC/R more than in Interracial, and what I'm on board with is knowing the difference between fantasy and reality in any category.

It's a fact, though, that 'consent' means a lot of different things at different times to different people

No. It doesn't. Sexual Consent means fully-informed consent at all stages of the act, just as racism means oppression based on abstract concepts of race. Getting these terms meaningfully applied in law or politics might be messy but that does not mean the terminology itself can be construed as ambiguous. There's a fairly truck-sized creep factor in trying to finesse this as regards IRL consent, which is the biggest reason many kink boards take a dim view -- correctly, IMO -- of the kind of mealy-mouthed shit you're attempting to pull here.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

For those of you who are fans of the genre, what do you look for in a story? What are the "must have" elements? What makes it a story you'll come back to time and again? And possibly more important, what ruins it for you?

The stories​ i write​ (and those I prefer to read) usually involve some kind of transaction​ where sex is used as currency to achieve something or avoid a disastrous​ result. There is a choice to make between two or more unpleasant outcomes.

I avoid stories with forcible rape.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[CyranoJ]

The roller-coaster example illustrates the point really well. Thanks for weighing in.

 

[DrDelirium]

You should "seem to recall" my saying exactly what I said in that thread, in which I didn't make reference to "justifying" anything and certainly not to "justifying" racism. ("Justifying" would look like someone saying "Well, this word 'racism' gets thrown around a lot but who can say what it truly means? Richard Spencer has one take, Nelson Mandela another, and I certainly know some black people who could stand to be nicer to cops.") I get that you're uncomfortable at being confronted about this but don't try to misrepresent my stances because of your discomfort. It's not honest.



I write in NC/R more than in Interracial, and what I'm on board with is knowing the difference between fantasy and reality in any category.



No. It doesn't. Sexual Consent means fully-informed consent at all stages of the act, just as racism means oppression based on abstract concepts of race. Getting these terms meaningfully applied in law or politics might be messy but that does not mean the terminology itself can be construed as ambiguous. There's a fairly truck-sized creep factor in trying to finesse this as regards IRL consent, which is the biggest reason many kink boards take a dim view -- correctly, IMO -- of the kind of mealy-mouthed shit you're attempting to pull here.

Fully informed? What does that mean? People simply can't predict the future, people are notoriously bad at evaluating risk. Half of all marriages end in divorce. The world is full of experiences that can't be understood except by having them, no matter how much people tell you about them. Sure, we all like to 'know what's going on' or 'know what's going to happen' but we don't.
And consent- you never want to address the realities in consent, though several posters have raised them. There's one on this page about 'transactions' in which sex is exchanged/coerced to avoid some worse result. THAT is exactly where the law cannot make blanket, a priori decisions about 'consent,' because it is the stuff of life, particularly in a society based on monetary exchanges. At what point is marriage prostitution? How rich does a prostitute have to be for her to be consenting to sex and not a rape victim? Coercion comes in many flavors. "I'll tell your mother you gave Jack a blow job'. "I won't love you anymore". "This is my house, get out." The impact varies by person and circumstance. IF you want to narrow non-consent to those who struggle physically and are nonetheless overpowered, that's an objective standard. I see you making the opposite argument- it's based on what people want. But you refuse to acknowledge what people want if it doesn't fit your paradigm.

 

[CyranoJ]

Fully informed? What does that mean? People simply can't predict the future

Well, first of all, "fully-informed" means -- as you could have worked out for yourself with a little effort and some basic good faith -- "with cognitive capacities intact" and "not being lied to about anything directly germane to the act." I'll leave you to game that out and make whatever further attempts you wish to vanish into the weeds and try to finesse some other way of conflating coercion with consent. (You can probably find an angle in "What could directly mean? Isn't the Big Bang directly germane to us all, in some way?" You just go ahead and have at it.)

Alternatively, you can try relinquishing the need to engage in reductio ad absurdem and instead looking up practical commonsense definitions of the words you're asking about, at which point you'll find most of the rhetorical questions in your post actually have fairly straightforward answers in all but the most esoteric of scenarios. And you can probably work out from there why it's incredibly skeevy to say, "I knew someone with a rape fantasy who then got raped, wow this consent stuff is just suuuper complicated."

For myself, I'm not taking you by the hand through all those answers, because I have limited time in my day and to be motivated to do so I would have to feel like you're engaging in good faith. As it stands responding to two posts in a row from you containing crappy rhetorical Jenga like the above is my limit. But I'll take the time to explain why:

You just put up a post that implies "fully-informed" must indicate "believing people are omniscient." Now, you present as someone with normal cognitive capabilities. You do not honestly believe that I mean "fully-informed" indicates "humans are omniscient and must be able to predict all outcomes or they cannot have sex." That you are pretending otherwise is not useful. It is gamesmanship. It is noise. It is wasting someone else's time. It is not the kind of behaviour that promotes productive and interesting debate.

I'll go further out on a limb here and guess that a fondness for this kind of tactic is why you also -- because I have a feeling, based on your reference to what someone or other "always" does or doesn't do, that this is not a first-time experience for you -- probably find people very quickly losing patience with you in debates about this topic. All I can tell you is, don't do shit like that and who knows but you may find a large percentage of your frustration in trying to discuss this topic melts away.

Good luck with it, and have a better day.

 

[DrDelirium]

Well, first of all, "fully-informed" means -- as you could have worked out for yourself with a little effort and some basic good faith -- "with cognitive capacities intact" and "not being lied to about anything directly germane to the act." I'll leave you to game that out and make whatever further attempts you wish to vanish into the weeds and try to finesse some other way of conflating coercion with consent. (You can probably find an angle in "What could directly mean? Isn't the Big Bang directly germane to us all, in some way?" You just go ahead and have at it.)

Alternatively, you can try relinquishing the need to engage in reductio ad absurdem and instead looking up practical commonsense definitions of the words you're asking about, at which point you'll find most of the rhetorical questions in your post actually have fairly straightforward answers in all but the most esoteric of scenarios.

For myself, I'm not taking you by the hand through all those answers, because I have limited time in my day and to be motivated to do so I would have to feel like you're engaging in good faith. As it stands responding to two posts in a row from you containing crappy rhetorical Jenga like the above is my limit. But I'll take the time to explain why:

You just put up a post that implies "fully-informed" must indicate "believing people are omniscient." Now, you present as someone with normal cognitive capabilities. You do not honestly believe that I mean "fully-informed" indicates "humans are omniscient and must be able to predict all outcomes or they cannot have sex." That you are pretending otherwise is not useful. It is gamesmanship. It is noise. It is wasting someone else's time. It is not the kind of behaviour that promotes productive and interesting debate.

I'll go further out on a limb here and guess that a fondness for this kind of tactic is why you also -- because I have a feeling, based on your reference to what someone or other "always" does or doesn't do, that this is not a first-time experience for you -- probably find people very quickly losing patience with you in debates about this topic. All I can tell you is, don't do shit like that and who knows but you may find a large percentage of your frustration in trying to discuss this topic melts away.

Good luck with it, and have a better day.

Well, now that I've found the gold standard for comprehension, there's no need to seek any further. It's great that whatever it is that you understand is what everyone understands, or ought to. Must be great to be in the center of the herd. Real comfy.
When you dismiss everything you don't immediately grasp or agree with as a 'tactic,' you limit your opportunities to understand new things. It's precisely because I do listen to what other people say that I find your complacent self-satisfaction rather precious.
I think your desire to resort to (unstated) 'practical, common sense definitions' is just a wordy version of 'everybody knows,' but just what it is that everybody knows is exactly what's at issue here. Do crack whores consent to have sex? Put another way, is having paid sex with a crack whore rape? Does the john have to know whether she's on crack or not?
In the 'practical, common sense' world, most people do a lot of things because they think they 'have to.' Because there is a downside to not doing them that they don't want to experience. So they do them, and that implies consent. It involves coercion, but to what degree? At what point does the level of coercion invalidate this operational consent? Loss of job in a boom economy? Loss of a job in a down economy? The prospect of immediate homelessness? Emotional rejection? If sex is the quid pro quo, is the standard different than if it's doing the dishes?
Once again, I don't think there are easy, one-size-fits-all answers for these things, because people are not the same, and what counts to the person involved is their own perceptions. Some of those perceptions don't match mine. Oh well. I'm still not going to agree to one standard of perception to be imposed on everyone. Non-consent, eh?

 

[Gotham_Central]

In the Non-Consent play in which I have engaged, I've found communication, planning, even scripting -after a fashion- to be essential to the success of the scene. While I don't think perfect understanding is possible, it's important to know as much as possible about the limits and fantasies of each h party as popular.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[DrDelirium]

Wow, DD, you are going through a lot of trouble to try and argue that informed consent is a fundamentally ambiguous concept. Marriage is prostitution? The intellectual dishonesty is dripping from your post like hot syrup.



Don't be obtuse, it doesn't suit you. The only debates worth having require both parties to argue in good faith. You honestly think that "fully informed consent" requires the actor to have god-like omniscience? And since we obviously don't, informed consent doesn't exist? Honestly, this reads like a freshman philosophy major's paper and a below average one at that.

Fully informed consent only requires that (a) the actor has the mental capacity and life experience to assess risk (i.e. is not drunk, or a child, or mentally handicapped in a relevant way), (b) has been reasonably made aware of the risks of the activity, and (c) feels no outside pressures/influences to act in a manner that is in conflict with their interests.

I'm not gonna argue that the application of consent to real-world situations isn't difficult because it is, especially once we start getting into discussions of clinical trials, for example. But as Cyrano has mentioned, there is a big difference between arguing that the application of consent is tricky and arguing that the concept itself is problematic.



If you're having sex you don't want to have because otherwise, you'll be hurt/killed, or starve to death, or be subjected to blackmail, then regardless of whether or not you've said 'yes,' the sex is nonconsensual.



Only the kind of people you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

It's intellectually dishonest to denigrate people you're debating rather than address the issues they raise. Since you do both, I'll let it go. You answered my questions, good. And I agree with your answers. Marriage is/can be prostitution if there are material benefits exchanged for sexual favors. This is very often the case in marriages, and the unacknowledged nature of this pattern doesn't make it less real, any more than failing to acknowledge the life or death issues that confront so many prostitutes make them less real. And if marriage can be prostitution, it can also be rape, no matter what people say, when the alternatives to yielding to sex are coercive beyond- whatever measure you choose to apply to the other situations.
All I'm saying is that in reality people are subjected to a very complex, ever changing set of coercive forces, not just about sex, but about survival. For the most part we can abstract or deny them, especially when we are being good victims and going with the flow. But when we stop, when we resist, the coercion becomes more obvious, more direct. Pretending that there are simple, easy to demarcate boundaries around 'consent' and 'coercion' is a pretty high-level privilege. Inflicting the standards that come with your own level of privilege on others is arrogant. What everyone seems to be missing here is that I'm not doing that. I'm not inflicting the standards of my own privilege on others. I'm okay with them speaking for themselves, pursuing their own interests and desires, and while I might have preferences about who I meet in dark alleys, they may not be the same as yours.

 

[clistenovena]

Ah. Non-consent. One of my faves. Another reason I so appreciate Lit- discussions on topics such as this.

I'm still not going to agree to one standard of perception to be imposed on everyone.

Not that I agree with much you've posted, but I do happen to agree with this statement of yours. I mean, how could one standard of perception ever be imposed on each and every individual? It can't be done in religion, personal life beliefs, opinions on the best type of cookie...nothing. Perhaps on the surface, people will pretend to have the same perceptions on a particular topic to keep the peace or fit into a specific paradigm, but underneath, that person's viewpoint is their foundational truth. Perception is reality, whether it's agreed upon or not.

As far as writing non-con erotica, I realize this place has rules on what is published, but the sites which don't have such rules are for those who prefer stories without those limits.

As far as face-to-face goes...

The first play party I went to (2 forevers ago) provides an excellent example on how perception (in this case regarding non-con) affects reality. I was with someone who was much more experienced than me. So when this woman was dragged into the room by her hair (literally) and was screaming and trying in every which way to get away, I was horrified and looked at my date in a panic, ready to insist he call 911. To my shock, he was smiling. Grinning, actually. The scene only got worse...or better, depending on who you asked. To my very inexperienced mind, what I witnessed was rape, plain and simple. To him, it was play. I left the house. He came and got me, calmed me down. He took me back in, and the woman who'd I seen, for all intents and purposes, raped, was sitting back with the man who'd done the deed, relaxed and smiling. I talked to her. She was fine, expressed her fine-ness eloquently. She was okay. I was relieved, but confused. And pissed. It was a mix of emotions. Perception.

In the Non-Consent play in which I have engaged, I've found communication, planning, even scripting -after a fashion- to be essential to the success of the scene. While I don't think perfect understanding is possible, it's important to know as much as possible about the limits and fantasies of each party...

Exactly this. So well stated. The two times I've indulged in this type play, it was all discussed and discussed...and discussed, then basically scripted. Even then, on the first go-around, there were a couple moments when what actually happened differed from my expectations. Inside those moments, my fear kicked in big time, despite knowing I was safe. While that made for an intensely erotic experience, it still left me with the need to deepen the discussion before the next time.

Fully informed consent only requires that (a) the actor has the mental capacity and life experience to assess risk (i.e. is not drunk, or a child, or mentally handicapped in a relevant way), (b) has been reasonably made aware of the risks of the activity, and (c) feels no outside pressures/influences to act in a manner that is in conflict with their interests.

All this, and (b) especially! If only to prepare for a reasonable explanation as to how those bruises came to be.

Only the kind of people you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

Heh.

 

[CyranoJ]

The experience you describe sounds interesting and frightening, clistenova. I never had an interest in face-to-face RP of this sort myself, but I'm glad you were able to find something educational that didn't culminate in anyone getting hurt. I'd probably have complicated emotions about it, too.

I mean, how could one standard of perception ever be imposed on each and every individual?

Standards of perception can't. Mostly. Standards of behaviour OTOH are very much a matter of what a community is willing to tolerate, either by law or loose custom or general agreement. Because of that, this:

Perception is reality, whether it's agreed upon or not.

... is only partly true. Perception is one person's subjective reality. Getting other people to go along with it, which one periodically needs to do, requires those perceptions to be in some way convincing to more people. One of the best ways to do this is to try to make perception work with those kinds of reality that don't budge whether you believe in them or not.

(There are other ways too. One can convince with fantasy, charisma, intimidation, outright fraud or charlatanry and so on, but without any anchor in those stubborn sorts of facts they can only go so far on their own. Convince a million people that there's no such thing as gravity and they'll all still meet the same fate jumping off a cliff.)

So, for example, take the face-to-face scene which you describe ending this way:

He took me back in, and the woman who'd I seen, for all intents and purposes, raped, was sitting back with the man who'd done the deed, relaxed and smiling. I talked to her. She was fine, expressed her fine-ness eloquently. She was okay.

This situation, assuming the woman's fine-ness to be genuine, hints that a basic condition had to have been in place: that the participants were engaging in "play" that was built around acceptance of consent as the rule, no matter how horrifying it looked in the moment. Remove that basic condition and the scene you describe probably ends very differently.

Standards like that are able to exist where people recognise that truth exists and words mean things, where there are shared foundational truths. You can acknowledge complexity, but allowing complexity to be used as an excuse to fog key distinctions or obscure facts is a whole other ball of wax.