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Non-con in stories
9 years ago
General
I think I may have brought this before, but I am too lazy ATM to look.
I've been thinking again about my novel, and wanting to go back to writing it.* I want to write a story that pulls no punches, and that it may tug at some people's feelings. Characters will die, either by enemies or at the hand of traitors. Others may go MIA. Some may wish they were dead already, or die sooner.
People seem to accept death, violent or not, but when it comes to non-con sex, people get scared and turned off. I know it can be touchy for some, even more so if they have gone through it in real life. But the intention is not for arousal. The world of the archosaurs is sometimes violent, and to pretend that archosaurs are very civilized and that such things would never happen is only fooling oneself. Sort of like when I see some non-con pics in here and the uploader states that the victim is "secretly enjoying it". Makes me wanna smack someone when I see that. :P
I put a poll in my Twitter page, for those with it. They don't last long, 20 hours left at the time I'm writing this. https://twitter.com/bakensobek
Mind you, I don't plan to censor anything (but still would like to gauge people's opinion). It is my story, and it will be written as I want it to be. I don't want to pull any punches. If readers feel a knot on their throat or a visceral hit to their guts, then that was the intention. (The late James Horner once said that ge tried to tug at viewers' strings with his music when possible, and that if it made them feel bad, then he feels he did his job.) The first scene would be Softwind's capture, and that does not go nice for her. (BTW, pterosaurs will be changed in this universe. They will be really primitive, more so than the terrorclaws, and their speech will reflect this.) But I still think if one could somehow mark those passages so people can avoid them if they wish.
Suggestions are welcome.
* - I wish I didn't have so many frigging ideas and no time to work on them all? Anyone wants to adopt a Carnotaur so he doesn't have to work for a living? :P )
I wish you luck. This is a moral morass into which many an erotic writer has ventured, and not all of them have emerged unscathed.
Look, if you can say rape is okay, but throat fucking a decapitated body is too much...
Well, maybe you need to be very impressionable. I played silent hill and watched the series in my teens, and it helped motivate me for obscure and delightfully horrific ways of using a body.
Don't give me that tripe.
Unfortunately, if you have any issue with what my perspectives are, those issues are yours, and not mine.
I wouldn't call asking the person who asked the question for more detail "complaining"....
I don't care who you are, rape is a traumatic event for the victim. Whether male or female, rape is a power play by the perpetrator and most often it is perpetrated by someone with whom the victim is familiar. So for me if an author intends to put one of his characters through that, I really want to see the character deal with some form of PTSD, over the event. If I were writing this, I'd have Softwind never be able to be comfortable around males of the same species as the rapist and maybe even have her leave the room if one of them enters. It's minute details like that that I really like to see. I want to see an author have continuity in their story. So if you do decide to put Softwind through this, put her through the whole process. The event--it doesn't need to be graphic, the immediate aftermath, and how she ends up dealing with it.
So I guess what I'm saying is that if you're going to not pull any punches, don't pull any punches. XP
She discusses sexual violence in literature and the way it's depicted. You might find it useful when thinking about how you want to portray the scenes you want to.
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I'd definitely warn people that a story wouldn't be sweetness and light, but if it fitted, I'd put it in. You want to challenge the reader and get them rooting for the characters, if a non-con event is one of those things, then so be it.
I wouldn't however, just put one in because you want one. I read something, trying to remember what. Girl the the Dragon Tattoo I think it was. That had a couple of non-con/rape/sex scenes, one or two of them were good, made you realise what was going through the characters minds. One or two of them, to me at least, felt like they were there because the author just wanted to put them in. They didn't add anything to the story and actually turned me off it a bit.
"Rape isn't about sex. It's about power. Saying that rape is about sex is like saying that being hit over the head with a shovel is about gardening."
There have been many well-regarded works which deal with the topic without going into graphical detail. The movie "The Lovely Bones" deals with the rape and murder of a young girl, but doesn't feel the need to actually SHOW the act on screen. It didn't need to - the audience still managed to feel empathy for the victim without seeing the event itself.
We know from your past works that Softwind had a traumatic past, but will explicitly describing exactly what happened to her...every act, every position, every sensation....make us feel more for her? Or push some of your audience away entirely? I don't know. I'm just thinking aloud here.
I had planned a similar approach for one archosaur who finds himself as one of those "spoils of war".
I think I will post the chapter for everyone to judge (I have only shown it to one person before, who said it was not gruesome).