lunabee34

executrix is pretty much the most awesome of ever and another wonderful package arrived at my house this week. One of the books included in my package is Beyond Heaving Bosoms: the Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan who turned the fame of their site by the same name into a seriously kick ass book. I don't agree with everything they say in the book, but it's a very fun and irreverent read; these are gals I want on my lj flist. Anyone who is interested in the genre of romance in pro and fanfic should read this book.

One of the issues they bring up is what has been called elsewhere "code rape." You know the scenario; it shows up in just about every romance novel you read back in the seventies and eighties, what the Smart Bitches call Old Skool Romances. It goes a little something like this:

( Triggery Material Beneath the Cut )

Caveats: 1. This is only my interpretation of rape in fic and not intended to be representative of what anyone else in fandom thinks. 2. I believe that people can fantasize about and enjoy reading about things that they would never do (or even *want* to do) or experience in actuality. 3. Intellectually, I often really gross myself out with the things that turn me on; my kinks often contradict my feminist sensibilities and my ethical sensibilities. I don't know how to reconcile the differences.

Okay, so here's the thing. I have this kink, this massive massive kink, for non-con in fic. I love it when Kolya captures John and Rodney and subjects them to unspeakable sexual torture (that they both are made to enjoy to their great shame) after which they find comfort in one another's arms. Or when Angelus kidnaps Xander and ties him up and gives him orgasm bites every five minutes and by fic's end, Xander absolutely loves being his pet.

I know where this love comes from. My sexuality was shaped in large part by all the reading I did as a kid. I'd sneak my mom's romance novels and read them under the covers and so as an eight year old, I believed that some day a handsome but ruthless man would kidnap me and force me to have sex with him and while I'd initially resist, the sexing would prove to be so awesome that my "pleasure would crest" at least three times before his did and then we'd have babies and perhaps save a cattle ranch from corrupt coal miners. Now this is nothing I'd like to experience in real life or that I'd wish on anyone else, but it remains a powerfully erotic fantasy for me.

So, here's my question. Non-con seems fairly common in the slash fiction of the fandoms I've been involved in. So, I'm wondering, how frequently does it appear in het fanfic? The reason I ask is that I've just finished attacking Wraithbait; after I read the fic that interested me in the slash section I turned to the het and on a whim set the search engine to non-con. I only got about five hits for all the pairings listed combined. That made me wonder if non-con occurs with the same frequency in het fic and if it seems to be working toward the same purposes as it does in slash fic.

Granted, there's tons of fic out there I haven't read, but most of the non-con I read seems to function in a couple ways in slash fic.

1. To put together two characters that perhaps wouldn't normally get together. Ex--Jayne is overtaken by a lust drug and forces Mal to sleep with him. Or an Ancient piece of technology compels John to take advantage of Rodney. Then, the characters either get together or we are left with a big lovely angsty mess.

2. To make vulnerable a character so that a sexual relationship with someone they wouldn't have considered before is possible. Ex--Rodney and Radek get captured by the Genii and after undergoing abuse at their hands, turn to each other for hope.

3. Then there's the fic that focuses only on the non-con situation, where the goal is not to bring two characters together but to showcase one character's slow unhinging, how his character unravels under extreme duress.

So, how does it work in het fic? Also, if you've got non-con het recs, lay 'em on me.