Non-Consent

PervOtaku said:

I said every women who plays hard to get.

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And it's still bullshit phrased that way, c'mon. The phrase "plays hard to get" can basically be made to mean virtually anything, and yet virtually nothing it can be made to mean can actually be construed as "complicating" consent in any significant way. This is why I don't trust terms like "rape-baiting" from places like Reddit, because I know for a fact it's not being used as measured discussion of actual rape fantasy; it's a red-pillism that most often simply means "girls who dress slutty deserve rape" and I find it pretty hard to believe you can have encountered it without knowing this.

And again, entirely out of context. I did not say rapists are not predators. I said men are not always predators, or not always rapists.

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A propos of nothing since nobody said anything of the kind. So why are you going there? This is that odd sort of defensiveness that tends to raise suspicion.

Look, no matter how much the anti-rape crusaders hate the idea, there are some women who like rape stories, or rape roleplays [et cetera]

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Yeah, look, you're in conversation with a mixed-sex group of NC/R writers and readers FFS. Trying to pretend that there is someone here who is claiming nobody female has rape fantasies will not work. Trying to pretend that you have proprietary knowledge of the extreme kink community that others don't isn't gonna fly either. Don't be fucking stupid.

(Also bleakly amused by the phrase "anti-rape crusaders." Everyone should be an anti-rape crusader, especially those of us who get to see behind the curtain of noncon kink communities that are supposed to know how hard the lines really need to be.)

Your problem is that you keep saying stuff like this:

That's making it all about the rapist. I'm talking about when the victim isn't a victim because she wants it.

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Which again sounds like 100% bog-standard rapist psychology. No, having rape fantasies does not mean wanting rape, no, not even if the fantasies include inviting rough sex or rape "play" -- and yes, rape is all about the rapist. Always. No matter what the victim can be construed to have "invited." The consensual practice of extreme kink is built around understanding hard lines like this and it is a super-bad sign that you keep needing explanations of that.

And yes, your friends who stopped at "no" probably did the wise thing, and if that's what you advised them to do then good for you. I'd like for you not actually to be as dangerously clueless as you are managing to make yourself sound, it's a shame you've had several chances to stop digging and you just repeatedly insist on tunnelling down another six feet.

PervOtaku said:

And frankly my usual advise to men who suspect a girl is playing "no means yes" is to not take the chance, because you don't want to be wrong about that.

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Good. Then we're largely in agreement.

Unfortunately, there are too many guys out there pushing the line that "IRL no sometimes means yes, therefore it's okay to push boundaries". So I was taking the opportunity to vent on that issue in general.

Well it's more a problem for the girl doing it than it is for the guy, frankly. But I mean look, take the sex and rape out of it for a minute. Men and women have been slinging bullshit at each other during courtship since time immemorial, including "playing hard to get". Nobody's saying "Yeah! Rape the bitch!", but these are games that some women do play on varying levels.

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Problem is, there are guys saying "rape the bitch" who mean it :-/

Bramblethorn said:

Problem is, there are guys saying "rape the bitch" who mean it :-/

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Not only that, but said guys are the leading purveyors of language like "rapebait" that PervOtaku just sort of volunteered to identify himself with. And "said guys" are people like this fucking guy:



Which I'm trying to get across is super-awkward for everyone present.

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CyranoJ said:

And it's still bullshit phrased that way, c'mon. The phrase "plays hard to get" can basically be made to mean virtually anything, and yet virtually nothing it can be made to mean can actually be construed as "complicating" consent in any significant way. This is why I don't trust terms like "rape-baiting" from places like Reddit, because I know for a fact it's not being used as measured discussion of actual rape fantasy; it's a red-pillism that most often simply means "girls who dress slutty deserve rape" and I find it pretty hard to believe you can have encountered it without knowing this.

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I use "plays hard to get" as a non-sexual similar thing that everybody recognizes a non-zero number of women do. As for rape baiting, if it was a bunch of guys sitting around talking about "girls who are asking for it", I would agree with you. However, when women talk about how they deliberately bait to fulfill their nonconsent kink, well, admittedly they are a bit nuts by common standards but I'm come to the conclusion that it is a thing that exists, albeit very, very rare.

Which again sounds like 100% bog-standard rapist psychology. No, having rape fantasies does not mean wanting rape, no, not even if the fantasies include inviting rough sex or rape "play"

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Well, look, having a fantasy does mean "wanting" it, even if you just use it as a fantasy to get off on and don't literally want it.

...except for women that purposefully seek out consensual nonconsent play or things even more extreme, in which case they do literally want it. I'm not saying it's normal, or sane, and I'm not making excuses for them. I'm just saying this is a thing that exists, regardless of the approval or disapproval of others.

and yes, rape is all about the rapist. Always. No matter what the victim can be construed to have "invited." The consensual practice of extreme kink is built around understanding hard lines like this and it is a super-bad sign that you keep needing explanations of that.

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We're talking about the woman's victim fantasies here. The rapist doesn't particularly enter into it other than that he's a necessary element.

Look, when you see women complain that their husbands are too nice and respectful of women to even slap them around a bit in a BDSM context no matter how much she asks for it, much less indulge her in a full-on consensual nonconsent scene, you can't convince me that a woman's rape kink is about the rapist and not her.

it's a shame you've had several chances to stop digging and you just repeatedly insist on tunnelling down another six feet.

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Haven't hit bottom quite yet. If you don't want the truth about women with rape/nonconsent fantasies, then you shouldn't ask about it. (Not to imply they are a monolithic group, even within the kink there is wide variation in how far the fantasies go and how far the women will go to feed them.)

Bramblethorn said:

Unfortunately, there are too many guys out there pushing the line that "IRL no sometimes means yes, therefore it's okay to push boundaries". So I was taking the opportunity to vent on that issue in general.

Problem is, there are guys saying "rape the bitch" who mean it :-/

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Yes, it's always a fine line when talking about these things. A fantasy about a bad thing happening to you is pretty twisted in the end. Plenty of women like some rough sex now and then but don't take it to the extreme of "rape".

Of course we still all root for couples on TV shows where the guy is overtly in romantic pursuit of the girl while she makes a point of being not interested, until later on in the show's run when she admits yeah, she's been in love with him too for a while now. Which is decidedly not involving rape, of course.

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PervOtaku said:

I use "plays hard to get" as a non-sexual similar thing that everybody recognizes a non-zero number of women do.

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You shouldn't. Blurring that line as an excuse to promote actual rape is something a non-zero number of creepy-assed red-pillers do and it makes you come off exactly like one.

However, when women talk about how they deliberately bait to fulfill their nonconsent kink

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... they are still not actually talking about literally wanting rape in the vast majority of cases. And in that minority of cases where there is someone appearing to invite rape or some kind of irresponsible non-con "play" in front of one -- yes I know they exist -- that's still not an excuse for raping someone. You should still be able to recognize and say "no" to dodgy and unsafe circumstances. The rapist is always responsible for the act of rape. No, there is never an exception.

Look, I'm saying this as someone who literally has a story posted right now about a character with a passive rape fetish who "baits" people into fucking her. I got the idea from a woman at another site -- the kind of site in the extreme kink community that would quite likely have booted your toxic, disingenuous ass by now -- who described having that fetish and what it took to satisfy it. She's as close as anyone I've ever encountered to actual "baiting," and yet even for her the act was about baiting a facsimile of rape which was about the marks believing they were having their way while she was still secure and in control of the situation.

That's how extreme people can get about noncon kink while still not fitting your half-assed, deliberately blurred-lines red-piller definition of "rape-baiting." So when I tell you that I have reason to know how utterly full of shit you and your pretensions to being an aficionado about women's rape fantasies are, I really mean it.

Well, look, having a fantasy does mean "wanting" it, even if you just use it as a fantasy to get off on and don't literally want it.

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If you find yourself retreating into desperate sophistry and semantics like this, you're being full of shit and should stop.

...except for women that purposefully seek out consensual nonconsent play or things even more extreme, in which case they do literally want it.

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Yep, that's strike three for moronic recycling of rapist psychology. No, someone seeking out consensual nonconsent play does not literally want actual rape. That you keep trying over and over and over to blur that distinction tells me your sounding like a creepy redpiller is no accident.

Haven't hit bottom quite yet.

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Brother, you ain't kiddin'. Talking smack on how you're an authority on women's rape fantasies directly to a bunch of said women who are in process of trying to gently point out what a creep you're being is certainly pretty fucking low, though. And the truly sad thing is that you're probably deluded enough to be proud of it.

Too bad.

LeandraNyx said:

It really is amazing what you can learn from a person just by the vocabulary they have on standby.

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Clearly.

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate this thread and all the work CyranoJ put into explaining eloquently, the differences between non-consent play and actual rape. Thank you.

light_shiva said:

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate this thread and all the work CyranoJ put into explaining eloquently, the differences between non-consent play and actual rape. Thank you.

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But this isn't a thread about non-consent play vs actual rape (and I'm also pretty sure the average person could see the difference just on the words alone), it's about what is liked in non-consent/reluctance stories by the people who read and write in that category.

LOAnnie2 said:

But this isn't a thread about non-consent play vs actual rape (and I'm also pretty sure the average person could see the difference just on the words alone), it's about what is liked in non-consent/reluctance stories by the people who read and write in that category.

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I originally came here to post what I liked about non-consent, but was becoming very off-put by some of the things some people were writing, so I kind of lost the enthusiasm to say it. *shrug* I felt like the thread was somewhat saved by CyranoJ and felt like I should say so. I was going to send a PM but I don't think I can send to him. If my post was wrong, the moderator can delete it.

LOAnnie2 said:

But this isn't a thread about non-consent play vs actual rape

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Well, it certainly shouldn't be, and there should be no rape apologists or false pretenses about the "complexity" of consent in a thread like this. I get shiva feeling put off, I felt the same way.

(Thanks for the kind words, shiva. For my part I think LeandraNyx, Bramblethorn and clisternova have all done a lot to elevate the thread above where it otherwise might have gone with all these diversions, and I thank them for doing so. I hope you feel able to come back and bring the thread on-topic once again at some point.)

Gotham_Central said:

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?

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Assuming the girl is a victim, what's important for me is:
- Her feelings, an insight in her head. Both her suffering and contradiction of physical pleasure she gets.
- Her helplessness to stop anything
- no death, no blood, no heavy violence (broken teeth and stuff)
- a very neat setting - no mice-eaten mattresses and dirty toilets.
- no disgusting elements like bad smell of the rapist, him being ugly or repulsive (other than by character).
- I don't like rape for the sake of pure sadism, desire to see someone suffering or personal gratification. I like non-consentual sex where the aim is something other than sexual gratification of the rapist. It can be revenge or the need to train a slave, but not just the need tog et free pussy - I don't find it hot.

I need a rape fantasy, a fantasy of being a helpless victim, sexually used and abused.
I don't like rapist fantasy, one of a man who will get free cunt and do what he wants with it.

On the topic of non-con in general, I think that it could and should be written. We (mankind) write and enjoy horror scenarios like "The Saw" or Stephen King novels. Non-con is the horror section of Erotica, and so it has the right to exist.
Non-con is the genre to tickle your nerves and fears in a certain way, that can be eroticized by some.

What you need to be wary of is promoting rape. Just like Stephen King novels will never promote sinister cults or maniacs as something good, just like "The Saw" doesn't promote the villain as a good role model - Non-Con should never promote the rapist as something that could be tolerated or allowed to exist.
With that in mind, it doesn't mean that the rapist should never win. He could, if you want to end the story on a dark note. But the reader should understand that it's a bad ending and wish death (or imprisonment) to the villain or be left fearing him and his eventual return in the sequel.

One other twist could be a reformed villain trope - where a Non-con story sees the rapist to realize his mistakes and try to make up for it, possibly falling in love with the victim.
In this case, the non-con scenes and his actions will need to be portrayed as mistakes and the readers should have a clear understanding that it's the case and they were bad.

While in mainstream literature you can find "lovable killer" (John Wick) or a protagonist thief (Stainless Steel Rat) - you can't currently do this with rapists or assaulters from a non-con genre. That's pretty much the limit here that is dictated by public's current tolerance levels. You are welcome to try, but be ready to get a lot of negativity in return.
Otherwise Non-con should be treated like an equivalent of horror or dark bloody action. Where it's clear that murder is wrong, but you still can write a book about it and make an interesting and exciting read out of juicy details.

These are my two cents as an (among everything else) non-con writer.

Nezhul, very interesting comments on dark erotica, vs murder thrillers. Especially regarding the vast number of books and films and TV series that centre around murder, even sadistic murder (I can't stand a lot of that, but I do love thrillers/horrors where the stakes are high but no one's losing limbs).

In some ways, I'm quite glad there's a public opposition to presenting non-con and dub-con in the same context, in terms of mainstream fiction... but I would be even happier if that disgust spilled over into harsher sentencing for those who commit those crimes, including those where the victim was stupified. It seems to be me, to be arse about face.

I write non-con for similar reasons to others, I suspect - the exploration of the loss of power, or, in what I write, often the exchange of power which can be a fluid dynamic depending on the situation. And I very rarely write the victim as completely helpless, unless there's a good reason (making a point; after which, generally the bad guys gets a beating, innit).

I'm also big on the aggressor 'learning a lesson', within the context of a world where the rules are accepted as 'outside' healthy norms. Very like you see with TV shows like Dexter (a comparison that's been made) - I haven't watched it, but I have friends who rave about it. As far as I know, the premise is someone who kills bad guys. But that's still... murder, right? This person is still a serial killer. But everyone loves him.

I think humanity as a whole has a sense of justice that has a fair amount of give in it when it comes to the idea of doing bad things for the greater good (in fiction). We can thrill to the idea of someone doing terrible things to someone we hate (I often use the example of Joffrey - who DIDN'T want that guy to suffer?), and we can accept all manner of things in a world were 'x, y and z' are the rules of that world. 'Accept' meaning, enjoy the story, without accepting the act itself as okay - even enjoy the bad guy - without ever condoning the things he (or she) does.

But I see that as a kind of roller coaster for the mind. Traversing into dark territory to get that thrill you're speaking of, losing control, experiencing that flutter of fear, immersed in the idea of being sexually controlled and 'unsafe', without having to lose our safety in the real world.

I am 99% certain that no one reads a Stephen King novel and thinks, 'Oh gosh, I'd really love to be carved up by a clown tonight!' (except maybe a couple of crazy German guys). And while maybe one in a million people read IT and thought, 'Gosh, I'd really like to be a clown and carve someone up tonight!', most people are riding the fear for the thrill of that moment when they hit the light again.

I think as a society, given the prevalence of dark fantasy, it's clearly an escape we need. Like porn... it has its place.

I think a lot of people - writers, critics, readers - fear rape scenes way too much.
It seems that they think that by writing a sexy rape scene you are promoting rape, justifying it and making it "allright" to do in a real world. As if by making a rape scene exciting and sexy you are actually making more people to commit rape, or making other people hate rapists less and let the bastards do their thing.

That's not the case at all.**

You can write a brutal murder scene to be exciting to read and imagine. You can describe the cracking of bones of a torture victim, and it will be okay in literature. You can even make the reader derive pleasure from such scene of brutal punishment, especially if the victim is a scumbag.
And even if not pleasure - you can definitely produce lots of thrill, which such scenes are mainly being made to achieve.
But even if you are thrilled, excited or happy for a well-written murder scene, it does not mean that the reader OR the author justifies it or make it seem okay.

This is never the case, because every sane human being will understand how wrong it is - but will accept it as a part of the fantasy, because it does not hurt anyone. Fictional characters can be murdered by the dozen, and all you end up with - is a set of letters that your readers will enjoy spending time with.
What I can't do, of course, is propagate those topics as something good and right - but that's a whole different story. In a rape story (a good one) it is always shown that rape is bad and delivers suffering for the victim - in which case the story is OK. So as long as I don't try to convince the reader that this suffering is an acceptable sacrifice or something - my villain may think it is, but it would be clear for the reader that it's not, that the logic is flawed.

**Of course there are always people who get hurt, driven insane or pushed to commit crime by the most common scenes. Nor only murder or rape scene - ABSOLUTELY ANY scene can push an ill mind into collapse.
This doesn't justify banning certain topics from being published. Limiting such books for kids - definitely. But banning some topics entirely? I don't think it's a right choice.
I can write a book about rape or about racism as part of the plot. I can even make racism justified for the main character, I can make the reader sympathise with him while understanding that he's a misguided man. My readers will enjoy my story, but will despise those things as much as I do.
I can write a story about children running among sunny flower fields - and some maniac with pedophilic tendencies will get tipped over and go kidnap a kid. Does that mean we should ban sunny fields in books? Or children depiction? No.

LOAnnie2 said:

But this isn't a thread about non-consent play vs actual rape (and I'm also pretty sure the average person could see the difference just on the words alone), it's about what is liked in non-consent/reluctance stories by the people who read and write in that category.

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Thank You!

Yes, it seems like the difference should be obvious and the amount of pontification required less than minimal.

Nezhul said:

I think a lot of people - writers, critics, readers - fear rape scenes way too much.:

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I could not agree more! I have a piece of "straight" fiction (post spoc SviFi) in the pipeline for publication that I have walked away from no less than three times now because the catalyst moment for the plot, the development of two of the main characters as well as changes in the setting all hinge on a sexual assault and the entitlement mind set that allows it to happen.

The story is one I would publish to a general audience, not erotica. I've rewritten the scene numerous times, tried to simple suggest the act, even tried to change the catalyst itself. But in a story that looks at the dual standards of polite society in general, it has to be what it is to fit.

In the end, it feels like it has to be there, it has to reflect the impact it has; it has to be the moment it becomes for the female protagonist, causing her to challenge societal norms. But damn, I have never felt comfortable with it.

Authors basically have no choice but to work under the assumption that our readers can tell fiction from the real world. Without that assumption it's basically not possible to write any form of fiction that doesn't dwell mostly in the drawing room at tea-time. We can't control how our words will be received and used, and we have to have a certain level of trust in our readership.

Of course in practice people fail to distinguish truth from fiction all the time and pernicious myths swarm around topics that on the face of them should not occasion any sort of controversy. I think creators can always do more to hold themselves to the standard "if I'm exploiting some form of dark fantasy in my writing, I have an even greater responsibility to separate fact from myth outside it." (I actually think rape fantasy and violent "action" fantasy have way closer connections than are often admitted, but that's a subject for another day.)

Well, on the point of separating things, I'm always writing non-con sci-fi so far. Or otherwise settings and situations that you know are fictional - like for example a high-end slave training facility that looks and functions like a space lab on the inside.

I doubt I'll ever write a non-con about casual maniac in a park or even a realistic kidnapping of any sorts.

Consensual Non-Consent is more than fiction for me, it's been an active kink as well for over twenty years.

Being asked to play the role of "rapist" is no easier than writing the scenes needed. And, honestly, sometimes it's bothersome to realize that you can think like a rapist well enough to a) writer a scene as such and/or b) meet the needs of a partner into NC play.

No doubt. Actually most of the commentary on this thread about face-to-face RP has been really interesting.

The responses have been very useful, both those directly on point as well as most of the discussion. Time to write!

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CyranoJ said:

For my part I think LeandraNyx, Bramblethorn and clisternova have all done a lot to elevate the thread above where it otherwise might have gone with all these diversions, and I thank them for doing so.

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I appreciate the kind words from you, Cyrano, about my contribution here. But it's been you, along with the posters your mentioned, that have certainly added the interesting here. Of course, it's Gotham's fault for starting the discussion.

CyranoJ said:

...there should be no rape apologists or false pretenses about the "complexity" of consent in a thread like this. I get shiva feeling put off, I felt the same way.

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I think if a topic such as this didn't create unsettled feelings, something would be very wrong.

And everything Nezhul said- spot on! These words though...

Nezhul said:

I think a lot of people - writers, critics, readers - fear rape scenes way too much.

**Of course there are always people who get hurt, driven insane or pushed to commit crime by the most common scenes. Nor only murder or rape scene - ABSOLUTELY ANY scene can push an ill mind into collapse.

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Quite insightful. Every word.

So, to run with this idea, because some random mind goes berserk because of the words written let's assume all controversial issues are now banned from all text. No more cruelty, torture, sexual assault, murder...no violence whatsoever, because it offends the sensibilities of a few. (If that's you, don't read Lee Child's Make Me. Fuck. That was a disturbing read. )

But really. Censorship much?? Who decides what's allowable? And where does it stop? No thanks.

Gotham_Central said:

In the end, it feels like it has to be there, it has to reflect the impact it has... But damn, I have never felt comfortable with it.

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I think the moment an author is comfortable with writing violence and brutality is the day the disturbed flip has been switched.

CyranoJ said:

Authors basically have no choice but to work under the assumption that our readers can tell fiction from the real world. Without that assumption it's basically not possible to write any form of fiction that doesn't dwell mostly in the drawing room at tea-time.

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And even if the setting is the drawing room at tea time, who's to say even that seemingly banal circumstance won't be taken and used in some unintended way should the reader choose to go in that direction? Because as Cyrano said, "We can't control how our words will be received and used..."

To paraphrase Nezhul, we fear the extreme too much. Of course, there's good reason to approach with caution, however, when writing about what is reality (whether we want it to be or not), it's going to get tricky. Or icky. Depending on one's perspective.

CyranoJ said:

I think creators can always do more to hold themselves to the standard "if I'm exploiting some form of dark fantasy in my writing, I have an even greater responsibility to separate fact from myth outside it." (I actually think rape fantasy and violent "action" fantasy have way closer connections than are often admitted, but that's a subject for another day.)

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A fascinating idea for a new thread!

Gotham_Central said:

Being asked to play the role of "rapist" is no easier than writing the scenes needed. And, honestly, sometimes it's bothersome to realize that you can think like a rapist well enough to a) writer a scene as such and/or b) meet the needs of a partner into NC play.

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~nods vigorously in agreement~ It is a...particular mindset for sure, one that can sink claws in a bit too deeply, whatever side of the coin one calls.

CyranoJ said:

Actually most of the commentary on this thread about face-to-face RP has been really interesting.

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Whether it be writing fiction or the actual face-to-face, I find the entirety of this conversation most intriguing. But even in here, a porn site that easily lends itself to the concept, feathers get ruffled and judgments are made. I find myself thinking and re-thinking every word I type when the topic is controversial. I have to do that outside these non-conservative walls every single day. I resent having to do it here. But I get it. Real is real, online or off.

CyranoJ said:

Authors basically have no choice but to work under the assumption that our readers can tell fiction from the real world. Without that assumption it's basically not possible to write any form of fiction that doesn't dwell mostly in the drawing room at tea-time. We can't control how our words will be received and used, and we have to have a certain level of trust in our readership.

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Hmm, I can't entirely agree with that. I think it's a little more complex. Readers are generally good about receiving the events narrated in fiction as fiction. But quite often they absorb other aspects of the work as if they were truth, because most fiction authors do try to be truthful about a lot of things.

Random example: Arthur C. Clarke's "Hide and Seek". Secret agent K-15 is being pursued by a space cruiser. He lands on Phobos, a moon of Mars, and then avoids the cruiser simply by walking around Phobos; although the cruiser can move much faster, it can't turn as quickly as a man on foot.

I don't think anybody who read that story believed that this pursuit ever happened. We know the Second Jovian War is complete fiction, and that no human has ever gone to Mars. But when Clarke mentions in the course of the story that Phobos has a diameter of about twenty kilometres and rotates every seven hours and thirty-nine minutes, and that the escape velocity is about ten metres per second... most readers are going to assume that these are the real numbers, and they would be right. Because Clarke is the sort of author who cares about that stuff, and that story was written in a genre where it would be as unthinkable to fake those numbers as it would be for Agatha Christie to write a mystery that never gets solved.

Similarly, if I'm reading "Hunt for Red October" or "Pride and Prejudice", I know that Lizzie Bennett and the Red October aren't real. But I tend to assume that Tom Clancy's presentation of the military chain of command is accurate, and likewise Jane Austen's presentation of 19th-century upper-middle-class social norms.

These expectations vary widely from genre to genre and author to author. But almost all authors are interested in human nature, and try to present it as they understand it, and it's easy for readers to be influenced by that even when it appears in a fictional context.

So I try to be careful about that side of my writing. That's definitely not a blanket "I only write nice people who are nice to one another"; I like a good villain as much as anybody. It's more the little, insidious stuff where I feel the need to police myself.

For example, I don't see "woman ravished by burglar" fiction as particularly problematic. Everybody understands that this is bad IRL, and there's little risk of anybody missing the distinction between reality and fantasy.

But there are plenty of other areas where people don't share an understanding of what counts as "consent". There are thousands, probably millions of RL rapists who live with themselves by massaging the definition of "rape" to make excuses for their actions. I don't want to support that kind of mindset, even through fiction. If I'm writing in one of those areas - guy has sex with drunk woman, professor has sex with grad student, etc. etc. - then I want to be sure my readers know this is Not Okay.

(And when I'm writing consensual sex, I try to model that too - people talk to one another, occasionally somebody says "I'm not comfortable doing this right now" and the other person respects that, etc. etc.)

gah, this is less coherent than I'd like, but I really need to get on with other stuff so I'm just going to hit post. TLDR I think "trust readers to distinguish between fantasy and reality" is viable for some things but insufficient for others; writing is complex.

This is a great explanation and I second it