I've noticed something about gay porn. Stories, videos, comics, everything. A common theme is two alpha males fighting each other and then one ends up taking the other's dick, often unwillingly, and then accepts it in defeat at the climax—hey, it felt good for everyone, so all is well.

I wasn't aware of this trope until quite recently. Hell, I even wrote a couple stories along these lines. At the time, I accepted it as just exaggerations of dominance/submission. You can see this theme play out in numerous stories in different forms (including one current comic I'm following which shall remain unlinked and unnamed). Subs being abused and forced into bottoming; doms being subdued into taking dick by another dom or even a sub...

I don't think we realize what we're writing about.

It's rape.

Yeah, funny how it can go unnoticed within this context. I've even seen it in straight porn a few times, but no matter how you frame it, it really is rape.

Looking back on a couple of my old stories, I realize I've fallen into this trope as well.

Granted, what's being displayed is dominance and submission. Those two things are heavily fetishized in gay porn, and nothing is more entertaining than watching a couple alpha males duke it out for dominance and then one triumphs. There's a deeply instinctual desire to see this kind of thing.

In my case, I suppose it comes from the fact that it happened to me once. What started off as lying in bed together turned into sudden penetration. I didn't stop him because it was kinda hot and what I had fantasized about. It was mutual, but sort of justified after the fact. The portrayal in gay porn, however, is often not. It isn't until the climax that everyone comes to terms with what just happened—hey, it's ok because it felt good for everyone involved.

But... does it have to involve rape? It shouldn't. Nonconsensual sex should not be glorified, or even justified after the fact. Exaggerating dominance/submission is one thing, but it doesn't have to be rape.

How could I not realize this before? It should have been obvious. I'm a little embarrassed by a few of my old stories now (some of them were commission work). It never occurred to me what was happening until someone pointed it out to me. I urge all writers to take a hard look at what they're portraying. There should be a clear difference between dominance/submission as a fetish, and rape. Colloquially, the word rape is often used to describe surprise sex, but as portrayed, it's still mutual and therefore it's not rape. Don't confuse the two. Nonconsensual sex, by definition, does not feel good and cannot be justified after the fact. I think we need to take a good look at what we're writing about and realize what we're describing. There must be a way to portray this without resorting to nonconsensual sex.