Am I really the only person who finds

[WCSGarland]

There's your NC story then. A Rapist dies and goes to hell where he can't find anybody unwilling.

 

[EvaLane]

This thread has been really eye opening and revealed a huge irk I have with most NC stories. Resist, then suddenly melt into desire and rainbows. It feels forced, unrealistic, and honestly kind of lazy when there's no real depth behind it.

I hope now is an alright time to chime in, because I’d love to bring up my favourite subgenre - the tension of inevitability.

For me, the most compelling dynamic isn't about someone realizing they want it midway through. It's about the aggressor fighting himself and losing, about the one being overpowered not just giving in, but feeling something they don't want to name - something that makes it worse, not easier.

The moment shouldn't feel like a convenient excuse to shift into lust; it should feel like something neither of them can stop, something that hurts in its inevitability.

It’s not just about dominance or control, it's about failing to resist something that was always going to happen.

So, I'm curious does this still fall into the same problems people have with this trope, or does inevitability shift the dynamic in a way that feels different?

 

[WCSGarland]

This thread has been really eye opening and revealed a huge irk I have with most NC stories. Resist, then suddenly melt into desire and rainbows. It feels forced, unrealistic, and honestly kind of lazy when there's no real depth behind it.

I hope now is an alright time to chime in, because I’d love to bring up my favourite subgenre - the tension of inevitability.

For me, the most compelling dynamic isn't about someone realizing they want it midway through. It's about the aggressor fighting himself and losing, about the one being overpowered not just giving in, but feeling something they don't want to name - something that makes it worse, not easier.

The moment shouldn't feel like a convenient excuse to shift into lust; it should feel like something neither of them can stop, something that hurts in its inevitability.

It’s not just about dominance or control, it's about failing to resist something that was always going to happen.

So, I'm curious does this still fall into the same problems people have with this trope, or does inevitability shift the dynamic in a way that feels different?

It may not be exactly what you had in mind, but I tried to write a series that is similar to what you describe. it is called Talia's Legacy

 

[mirafrida]

I totally agree. I just haven't heard any very compelling alternatives that check all those boxes. It feels like something doesn't work no matter what you do.

You certainly can't check "all the boxes" - in the sense that what works in terms of plausibility / suspension-of-disbelief for some people inevitably won't work for all people. The boxes that are perfect for person A will absolutely fail for person X or Y or Z.

As to whether you can check the boxes for yourself, that's really a question for you. Are there NC/R stories, of some flavor or variety, that appeal to you? Are you, at some level, turned on by your NC/R story idea? If so, that gives you some things to work with, or some things to shoot for, in terms of balancing between cultivating enough realism to trigger the kink, but not so much realism that it becomes off-putting. Both that calibration in general, and the types of things you need to achieve plausibility specifically, will probably be unique to you. Though if you do end up writing something you like, there will almost certainly be others who will like it too.

At the end of the day, if this is strictly an intellectual exercise, and doesn't emerge out of some sort of place of visceral excitement, then it's also possible that NC/R just isn't for you.

Of course, even when you have gained a sense of what you'd like the story to achieve, actually making the leap from "I'm going to try to draw some inspiration from this thing I enjoyed reading" or "I'm sort of seeing this idea working in my head" to actually getting it down on paper in an effective way - that is another thing entirely. But honing and developing those skills is the fun of practicing and getting better at writing.

Speaking for myself, there are definitely story ideas that I'm initially excited about, but when I start trying to flesh them out enough to contemplate writing them, they fall apart. In many cases I just don't see how I can do it in a form that I will actually want to write and read. And that's fine, I just toss those ideas, or set them aside until some future time when I can find a different perspective on them.

 

[AngelaSaxon]

You certainly can't check "all the boxes" - in the sense that what works in terms of plausibility / suspension-of-disbelief for some people inevitably won't work for all people. The boxes that are perfect for person A will absolutely fail for person X or Y or Z.

As to whether you can check the boxes for yourself, that's really a question for you. Are there NC/R stories, of some flavor or variety, that appeal to you? Are you, at some level, turned on by your NC/R story idea? If so, that gives you some things to work with, or some things to shoot for, in terms of balancing between cultivating enough realism to trigger the kink, but not so much realism that it becomes off-putting. Both that calibration in general, and the types of things you need to achieve plausibility specifically, will probably be unique to you. Though if you do end up writing something you like, there will almost certainly be others who will like it too.

At the end of the day, if this is strictly an intellectual exercise, and doesn't emerge out of some sort of place of visceral excitement, then it's also possible that NC/R just isn't for you.

Of course, even when you have gained a sense of what you'd like the story to achieve, actually making the leap from "I'm going to try to draw some inspiration from this thing I enjoyed reading" or "I'm sort of seeing this idea working in my head" to actually getting it down on paper in an effective way - that is another thing entirely. But honing and developing those skills is the fun of practicing and getting better at writing.

Speaking for myself, there are definitely story ideas that I'm initially excited about, but when I start trying to flesh them out enough to contemplate writing them, they fall apart. In many cases I just don't see how I can do it in a form that I will actually want to write and read. And that's fine, I just toss those ideas, or set them aside until some future time when I can find a different perspective on them.

One of the reasons I started this thread was to get some sense of how some other people felt about these issues in relation to NC/R fiction here, in part because I'm trying to write a story engaging with many of these tropes but felt pretty isolated, dare I say subject to atomisation, in relation to the site and its many users.

And I'm really happy with the range of views expressed and the willingness of people to reflect upon these questions. Though I suspect there's some people who are silent or self-censoring because of a sense that the entire NC/R section is viewed as morally problematic in a way that extends at least implicit judgement to those who write, comment or even just read.

I'm not an expert on the statistics of story consumption here, but the NC/R section does seem to have a few reasonably substantial but less than talkative niches amongst the readers, collectively making quite a large but not terribly visible audience for the section. I think that tendency to silence might be unfortunate for discussions like this one, but not necessarily irrational from the perspectives of those choosing less visibility.

Still, the true rape could be the friends we made along the way.

 

[H. Jekyll]

This thread has been really eye opening and revealed a huge irk I have with most NC stories. Resist, then suddenly melt into desire and rainbows. It feels forced, unrealistic, and honestly kind of lazy when there's no real depth behind it.

I hope now is an alright time to chime in, because I’d love to bring up my favourite subgenre - the tension of inevitability.

For me, the most compelling dynamic isn't about someone realizing they want it midway through. It's about the aggressor fighting himself and losing, about the one being overpowered not just giving in, but feeling something they don't want to name - something that makes it worse, not easier.

The moment shouldn't feel like a convenient excuse to shift into lust; it should feel like something neither of them can stop, something that hurts in its inevitability.

It’s not just about dominance or control, it's about failing to resist something that was always going to happen.

So, I'm curious does this still fall into the same problems people have with this trope, or does inevitability shift the dynamic in a way that feels different?

For me, the problem with stories -- not just the NC ones -- is in that unrealism, laziness, sameness, forcedness. The progression you put forward in your post could be fabulous, but even the the common "he rapes her; lo-and-behold, she finds she loves it" story could be fine. It's (for me) how it's told. I once had an e-discussion with a writer on Usenet (yeah, I'm that old) about porn vs. erotica. She was outraged. "There's no such thing!" she yelled via all-caps. "There's just good writing and bad writing." I'd have a hard time disagreeing with that.

Your idea about 'something' that was always lurking, that emerges via the interaction, is wonderful. The problem with it would be where (say) the victim has an epiphany, as in "I suddenly realized I'd always wanted this," or "I loved it!" Blah, blah, and blah. A skilled writer would have it subtly emerging and would reveal it rather than having the narrator talk it to death. The same with the aggressor.

 

[H. Jekyll]

There's your NC story then. A Rapist dies and goes to hell where he can't find anybody unwilling.

That reminds me of the best film from the golden age of porn, "The Devil in Miss Jones." It's from the same time period as "Deep Throat" (which has forever ruined fellatio sequences). In it, Miss Jones' eternal torment is to be in hell, not burning in torment, but desperately wanting to cum, BUT being caged with a guy who has no interest in that, who only wants to eat flies. It's actually very Sartrean. An eternity of enforced non-orgasming.

 

[GoodnessO]

I get your point completely.

Remember however that the peculiar rules that Lit has regarding the nonconsent stories where only stories where the victim ends up enjoying the encounter can be published. There are more subtle ways to achieve this, but it does kind of push a lot of writers towards using 'wetness' as a clear sign that they are meeting this rule. (which has been discussed a lot on the forums.)

But this also begs the question: Why so many stories about men raping women? Is that a hugely popular male fantasy? If so, that's a very sad state of affairs.

 

[GoodnessO]

For me, the problem with stories -- not just the NC ones -- is in that unrealism, laziness, sameness, forcedness. The progression you put forward in your post could be fabulous, but even the the common "he rapes her; lo-and-behold, she finds she loves it" story could be fine. It's (for me) how it's told. I once had an e-discussion with a writer on Usenet (yeah, I'm that old) about porn vs. erotica. She was outraged. "There's no such thing!" she yelled via all-caps. "There's just good writing and bad writing." I'd have a hard time disagreeing with that.
Your idea about 'something' that was always lurking, that emerges via the interaction, is wonderful. The problem with it would be where (say) the victim has an epiphany, as in "I suddenly realized I'd always wanted this," or "I loved it!" Blah, blah, and blah. A skilled writer would have it subtly emerging and would reveal it rather than having the narrator talk it to death. The same with the aggressor.

Something "emerges via the interaction" & that's "wonderful"?? You think it just needs to be more "subtly emerging"??
I'm not nieve enough to think you don't realize, what you're talking is most women's worst nightmare.

 

[H. Jekyll]

But this also begs the question: Why so many stories about men raping women? Is that a hugely popular male fantasy? If so, that's a very sad state of affairs.

Thinking of it as "just" a male fantasy is a mistake. Whether it represents a sad state of affairs isn't an opinion I share. A friend's daughter did her senior thesis on representations of rape in romance novels -- using the legal definition of rape. She went through the previous year's fifty most popular romance novels and found rape depictions to be très common. She found two major variants. Some were committed by villains, for whom the end was always very, very unhappy. Others were committed by the eventual romantic interest, because of misunderstandings or a surfeit of alcohol or whatever. In those, the couple typically ended up together and happy. NC/R stories, along with those of more consensual sexual dominance, are bi-gender guilty pleasures.

 

[H. Jekyll]

Something "emerges via the interaction" & that's "wonderful"?? You think it just needs to be more "subtly emerging"??
I'm not nieve enough to think you don't realize, what you're talking is most women's worst nightmare.

In real life. Not in fiction. If it were, NC/R stories would not be so popular with women.

 

[GoodnessO]

In real life. Not in fiction. If it were, NC/R stories would not be so popular with women.

Hmmm, in your mind, what qualifies as "so popular"? Not popular with me, nor numerous other women posting here.

 

[GoodnessO]

Thinking of it as "just" a male fantasy is a mistake. Whether it represents a sad state of affairs isn't an opinion I share. A friend's daughter did her senior thesis on representations of rape in romance novels -- using the legal definition of rape. She went through the previous year's fifty most popular romance novels and found rape depictions to be très common. She found two major variants. Some were committed by villains, for whom the end was always very, very unhappy. Others were committed by the eventual romantic interest, because of misunderstandings or a surfeit of alcohol or whatever. In those, the couple typically ended up together and happy. NC/R stories, along with those of more consensual sexual dominance, are bi-gender guilty pleasures.

In my opinion, consensual sexual dominance is an entirely different critter.
Although I'm not into formal role-play, I am very much turned on by sharing power back & forth, playfully... & a little begging can go a long way to add heat.

 

[AlinaX]

I guess many romantic plots seek to end with the right sex with the right sig. other. If sex happens earlier, then it's the wrong other (a villain to be punished) or the wrong sex (obstacles to be overcome before reaching the ideal end). Or both, I guess.

It's not gender neutral, however. Woe betide any woman other than the heroine having sex with the hero...

ETA: Thinking about Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. Imagine being able to insert yourself into a story... Seduce Georgiana at Pemberley and make love to her on the piano - just in time for Elizabeth and Mr Darcy to stroll into the room and discover you... and have this scene read by millions of confused readers. (Ooh, public sex, another non-con delight.)

 

[EvaLane]

I'm not nieve enough to think you don't realize, what you're talking is most women's worst nightmare.

I understand, but just because something is a nightmare scenario in real life doesn't mean people can't explore it in fiction without wanting it to happen. People read about murder, war, suffering, things they'd never want to experience firsthand. Dark fantasy is no different.

It's about feeling something from it.

Power, fear, loss of control - presented in a way that's safe (fiction) - it can feel thrilling, fascinating, even cathartic. Even arousing.

 

[Lost_Writer01]

I understand, but just because something is a nightmare scenario in real life doesn't mean people can't explore it in fiction without wanting it to happen. People read about murder, war, suffering, things they'd never want to experience firsthand. Dark fantasy is no different.

It's about feeling something from it.

Power, fear, loss of control - presented in a way that's safe (fiction) - it can feel thrilling, fascinating, even cathartic. Even arousing.

Very well said

 

[H. Jekyll]

Hmmm, in your mind, what qualifies as "so popular"? Not popular with me, nor numerous other women posting here.

I wouldn't ever assume everyone likes (or even can stand) the same things, GoodnessO. These, though, were the 50 best-selling romance novels of the year. The student had read a lot of romance fiction, and liked it, so nothing there surprised her, but she got pretty burnt out on it by the end of the year.

 

[AngelaSaxon]

Kristina Busse tried to in some sense address questions of realism and noncon fiction, in relation to its prevalence in fanfic, in her 2017 book, Framing Fan Fiction: Literary And Social Practices In Fan Fiction Communities:

Rape and noncon are a popular theme in fan fiction, at times part of a hurt/comfort scenario but often as a sexual fantasy in its own right. While there are occasional demands among some fans to prohibit or censor rape and noncon entirely, most fans seem to agree on not only the option to depict sexual violence but also the choice to read and write rape as a form of textual kink. What is important here is that the defense is not one that relies on a realist argument, as literary contexts tend to use it—that is, sexual violence is a part of our society and thus should not be a taboo topic in fiction.

Instead, the defense is indeed for actual rape fantasies and the eroticization of fictional rape. The argument is one of antirealism, where the appeal is directly dependent on the transgression of shared community norms and the eroticization of sexual acts that are clearly only acceptable within a fictional space. In other words, the very reason rape fiction can be eroticized safely within fan fiction spaces is that everyone agrees that rape and sexual violence are truly despicable crimes in need of punishment.

 

[mirafrida]

The argument is one of antirealism, where the appeal is directly dependent on the transgression of shared community norms and the eroticization of sexual acts that are clearly only acceptable within a fictional space. In other words, the very reason rape fiction can be eroticized safely within fan fiction spaces is that everyone agrees that rape and sexual violence are truly despicable crimes in need of punishment.

This is a very good point, which sometimes gets lost in the discussion (and does mark one link between NC and kinks like incest which garner a similar amount of eww from folks that don't share them, yet genrate less opprobrium in general)

 

[mirafrida]

This is a very good point, which sometimes gets lost in the discussion (and does mark one link between NC and kinks like incest which garner a similar amount of eww from folks that don't share them, yet genrate less opprobrium in general)

I will add by way of illustration that a very similar kink for me, personally, is bad behavior in marriage (fantasy, not real life). And it's 100% the fantasy transgression of a strong societal taboo, and consequential triggering of emotions, that i like. It doesn't work for me when the "cheating" is mutually consensual (hotwife), nor in a lowish commitment GF/BF situation.

Unfortunately, this seems even more reviled than NC. Rape may be bad, but heaven help us if a fictional story should be written about a wife cheating on her husband and not getting cosmic comeuppance!

Still, i suppose if people didn't feel that way, there wouldn't be a taboo for me to enjoy being broken?

 

[beliefofmine]

I will add by way of illustration that a very similar kink for me, personally, is bad behavior in marriage (fantasy, not real life). And it's 100% the fantasy transgression of a strong societal taboo, and consequential triggering of emotions, that i like. It doesn't work for me when the "cheating" is mutually consensual (hotwife), nor in a lowish commitment GF/BF situation.

Unfortunately, this seems even more reviled than NC. Rape may be bad, but heaven help us if a fictional story should be written about a wife cheating on her husband and not getting cosmic comeuppance!

Still, i suppose if people didn't feel that way, there wouldn't be a taboo for me to enjoy being broken?

It's an interesting observation. I would be willing to bet that you're get a better general reception on hotwife cheating stories from female readers, and worse from male readers. But then you don't hear as much backlash about men cheating in stories.

I think that just paints a picture of the demographics.

 

[AngelaSaxon]

I will add by way of illustration that a very similar kink for me, personally, is bad behavior in marriage (fantasy, not real life). And it's 100% the fantasy transgression of a strong societal taboo, and consequential triggering of emotions, that i like. It doesn't work for me when the "cheating" is mutually consensual (hotwife), nor in a lowish commitment GF/BF situation.

Unfortunately, this seems even more reviled than NC. Rape may be bad, but heaven help us if a fictional story should be written about a wife cheating on her husband and not getting cosmic comeuppance!

Still, i suppose if people didn't feel that way, there wouldn't be a taboo for me to enjoy being broken?

If I had to choose one tendency on this site that feels to me like it might correlate to actual threats to the well-being of actual, not fictional women, it would definitely be the tendency represented by the rage of anti-cheating Loving Wives commenters much more than the people writing, reading or commenting on the NC/R page... and despite my ambivalent feelings about some comments and stories and people in the NC/R section, it's not even close.

 

[beliefofmine]

If I had to choose one tendency on this site that feels to me like it might correlate to actual threats to the well-being of actual, not fictional women, it would definitely be the tendency represented by the rage of anti-cheating Loving Wives commenters much more than the people writing, reading or commenting on the NC/R page... and despite my ambivalent feelings about some comments and stories and people in the NC/R section, it's not even close.

Some people are looking for a crusade. I try to take the approach of avoiding the stories with topics that I have no interest in, or don't agree with (which there are many).

 

[AngelaSaxon]

Still, i suppose if people didn't feel that way, there wouldn't be a taboo for me to enjoy being broken?

Kinks are indeed formed in socio-historical specific contexts. They can survive the erosion of such contexts, in part precisely because of the gap between enjoying a fantasy kink and any IRL version, but probably not forever.

Over the last fifteen years I feel like I've witnessed the ENF kink become less and less comprehensible to people as the social taboo against nudity in most public situations, and in general, has eroded. The dom-sub parallels persist, I think because body-shaming and slut-shaming still intersect with people's anxieties or people's desire to reassert those ideas, but ENF per se surely has to disappear.

I spoke to a fetish performer-turned-producer a few years ago and she was very much aware of the aging demographics of the people purchasing her ENF fetish videos, and so was adding other niches. Vore, and such...

 

[AngelaSaxon]

Some people are looking for a crusade. I try to take the approach of avoiding the stories with topics that I have no interest in, or don't agree with (which there are many).

I agree that those men are probably seeking out stories to be enraged by as much as they're looking for stories to enjoy sans fury...