Category? Non-Con?

[Bramblethorn]

The female protagonist is not submissive. She is the kind of girl who does not expect to be pampered, or quit when things get hard. When she takes a hard body check playing hockey she gets back up and gives her opponent a harder one next time.

I have no difficulty believing her request. There are plenty of people who are submissive in bed but forthright about explaining how they want to be topped, enough so that "topping from the bottom" is a well-known expression in BDSM.

I do think there's a bit of dissonance there between what she's asking of him, and the way she's asking it. The content is intense: being taken forcefully, maybe even impregnated, and usually I'd expect somebody expressing that kind of desire to be flustered. But she's oddly verbose and in places her phrasing is unexpectedly ornate. Things like these:

I'm not asking you to do this. I am telling you ...

This structure tells me she's planning her words at least two sentences ahead.

totally and completely without regard for my feelings. I don't want kindness… you must understand that I cannot have kindness… I cannot have sweetness in any form.

And here she's taking the time to throw in synonyms ("totally and completely", "kindness"/"sweetness"). Somebody who's flustered would normally be more terse: "Don't worry about my feelings. Don't be kind."

And I’m specifically saying that you don’t have to stand up for the aftermath if you don’t want to

And again she's thinking well into the future here.

If I heard somebody talking like this, in a moment like this, I would think they'd probably planned this speech in advance. And that's not at all impossible in a scene like this! It's a scary conversation and many people do plan and rehearse that kind of thing. But if it was meant to be impromptu dialogue, I'd find that harder to swallow.

 

[Eviehere]

It's hard, because I can't post enough of the story to give it context. And my question was basically asking where it would be best received-- in N/C-R or BDSM. The passage I posted seemed to be indicative of that dilemma.

Hers was a carefully planned conversation, asking for something far out of the ordinary, not an impulsive or impromptu one. She is smart, and planning her words carefully so that she can maximize her chances of getting what she needs.

 

[Auden James]

But the male and female protagonists are boyfriend-girlfriend. He is not submissive, but he is not a sadist. Prior to a major event they had a fairly vanilla sexual relationship, but something happened to her and now she feels the need to regain the autonomy she lost in that event.

Bramblethorn already mentioned "topping from the bottom," and I can see how one may come to think that your scenario could provide an example of just that. However, as it seems, your couple isn't yet in a decisive D/s relationship at the point of the dialog above, right? And in that case I'm not sure whether the BDSM term Bramblethorn introduced would even be applicable here since the bf probably wouldn't qualify as a dominant anyhow. Still, that doesn't solve your dilemma—and it also doesn't make your dialog more natural.

I guess I don't understand (but I want to understand) your point here.

Well, frankly, your female first-person narrator is apparently trying to coerce her bf into becoming a dominant, but from all appearances (going by your dialog) it is actually she who is the dominant here, which makes your story's premise rather lopsided—if not downright incoherent. Now, I don't know where you want to take this, but if the bf becomes a kind of "vicarious agent" to fulfill each and every whim of the gf, no matter how outrageous (take the impregnation request as one example), or otherwise face the consequences of getting cheated on or outright losing his gf, then I'd indeed have a hard time seeing how the bf would be different from a "wimp" or pushover in any substantial way. Certainly, he wouldn't qualify as dominant!

The female protagonist is not submissive. She is the kind of girl who does not expect to be pampered, or quit when things get hard. When she takes a hard body check playing hockey she gets back up and gives her opponent a harder one next time.

Sounds pretty lezzie or "dykey" to me, especially the last part about her hockey playing preferences . . .

Because I pay attention to verbal cues while talking. Studies suggest that women are better than this than men-- but I have taught my brother and close male friends that it is incredibly valuable to pay attention to body language as you talk to people. Words often lie-- but body language often gives those lies away as well as alerting you to times when you are receiving a truthful, but redacted or edited, account.

That said, I'm certain I could do better and say, "I could read the confusion in his facial expression." Or something similar.

The limitations of a POV in fiction have nothing to do with studies on attention to verbal or nonverbal cues, it is simply a matter of fact that a first-person narrator, unless she is a mind reader (which your first-person narrator doesn't seem to be), cannot perceive and hence not directly state another character's thoughts or internal state the way you repeatedly do in the excerpt posted above.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's hard, because I can't post enough of the story to give it context. And my question was basically asking where it would be best received-- in N/C-R or BDSM. The passage I posted seemed to be indicative of that dilemma.

Hers was a carefully planned conversation, asking for something far out of the ordinary, not an impulsive or impromptu one. She is smart, and planning her words carefully so that she can maximize her chances of getting what she needs.

With that context, it works for me.

 

[PhiloDaddy]

Aside from all the "mistakes" already pointed out by Michel Foucault and his colleagues above, I think you're going in the right direction. People are complex and rarely stay in the fucking lines. Keep up the good work!

 

[djrip]

Also I find all of Auden's complaints ridiculous.

 

[lc69hunter]

I am not qualified to comment. I will not even open up that section, and don't even like non-con within the realm of Loving Wives, because at that point there is no loving wife.