Writing and Reading Rape Fantasy Stories - The Ethical Implications

[HistBuff]

Use of the verb "tortured" in news media is a simple way to imply female detainees were raped without using the R-word. You hear it all the time. Many people will accept the notion of people getting tortured, mutilated and/or slaughtered, even blown to bits and disembowelled, much more readily than the notion of people getting raped. I got hated on on AO3 by people using the same logic as Stephen King being labelled a "murderer" and a "pedophile" (thanks to his teenage orgy in IT -- which was released back in 1986 when artistic freedom of speech was sacred).

When the Hamas attack on the Supernova festival happened, I was shocked by how unwilling people were to believe acts of sexual violence (and mutilation) had taken place in spite of mounting evidence from a growing number of survivors/witnesses. People were a lot quicker to accept that Hamas terrorists threw grenades into bunkers filled with people; but somehow, a great many were reluctant to accept the idea that many young women (and men) were gang-raped before being killed or before/after they were kidnapped.

This recent event shows why I never write on anything current. I want my writing to remain on the artistic side of things, and I've already got hated on quite a lot on AO3 because of the interracial and UA elements in my stories; I've closed my account over there because someone somehow got to my personal email and threatened me directly. I'm not even sure whether I still want to write erotica at this point.

The most recent I went was the war in the Balkans, which is now 30 years old (a French journalist gets gang-raped in a field by Serbian troops). If I'm to write about anything occurring in the 2010s or 2020s it will be something I'm sure there were no rapes in or rapes that were only marginal, and yet the possibility of rape was there and my story draws on "what if..." I wrote a couple of sea pirates stories that fall in this case -- for Chinese friends I had on RU.

Beauty of the victims is absolutely a thing. Not only in movies, but in real life as well. Youth is perhaps an even bigger driver, and loaded with taboos (especially in America). It is very well known since the dawn of times that the ones most likely to become victims of wartime rape are teenage girls. This will happen anytime a large group of men round out enough enemy's women to get the luxury of selecting the girls to be raped. Teenage girls are first, followed by the young wives, then preteen girls, then women in their 30s and 40s and last, the old women. Soviet soldiers raped women from ages 8 to 80 in Germany and Eastern Europe (young and pretty/beautiful first). Americans and British (and Canadians) did likewise in Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Western Germany, without mentioning what both Axis and Allies did to women in North Africa. The Germans had themselves done extensive inseminating everywhere they set foot. Since history gets written by the victors, too little have been said about the atrocities committed by the Allies.

As to me, the story from WW2 I have most in mind would draw from the war where the Allies retook Ethiopia from Italy --- Congolese soldiers fought alongside the British when they began capturing towns and fortresses. Italian nurses fall into the hands of Congolese soldiers.

I grew up in a time when sexploitation was rampant in late-night movies. Before I was 16, I was exposed to a host of movies from the 70s where all sorts of rape scenes were done -- nearly always involving girls under 25 with no clear limits on how young the victim could be; the producers of those movies seemed bent on showing this ugly truth, while making their rape victims as appealing as could be to those dark fantasies that a surprisingly high number of people harbour in the reaches of their souls. I could also mention a host of erotic movies, mostly French, where lovers of all ages go into frolics. The Code had gotten rid of in the late 60s so the producers had one hell of a fuck party and they got richer in the process. Today's morals feel to me like a return to Victorian era. People too young to remember the 1980s simply have no idea how things really were back then, for the best and the worst. Freedom of speech was sacred.

***

The forced orgasm trope is imposed on writers by Literotica, where I now only write in French -- because the French space is incredibly more lax in the way rules are enforced. Literotica English is heavily censored; all rape victims have to experience some degree of pleasure -- it's a requirement and it makes it very difficult to write a rape scene that doesn't feel fake.

In my stories, I now try to feature victims that feel no pleasure, but the Literotica factor has really taken its toll on me. I also use forced orgasm as a form of humiliation, but this one is hard to pull off. My rape victims are often portrayed by classic Hollywood actresses such as Ann Blyth (Mildred Pierce, Red Canyon, etc.) or Margaret Sheridan (The Thing), or it could be someone lesser known such as Anna Maria Alberghetti (the one who portrays Consuelo in The Last Command), but I'll also dig up old pictures of girls next door from the 1940s-1950s. Those girls are usually dark haired with small tits or they'll be the petite blonde -- I feel there are enough large-tits blondes as it is.

I've also noticed that a lot of female writers will depict rapists as being handsome and usually rugged in some way. During my time on RU, I had female readers telling me they had some unexplainable fantasy about getting raped by ugly men, which often happens in my stories.

[KittyUmbrass]

The forced orgasm trope is imposed on writers by Literotica, where I now only write in French -- because the French space is incredibly more lax in the way rules are enforced. Literotica English is heavily censored; all rape victims have to experience some degree of pleasure -- it's a requirement and it makes it very difficult to write a rape scene that doesn't feel fake.

Honestly, that requirement squicks me quite badly - it feels like it's really playing into the "she responded to it, therefore it wasn't rape" rape myth. Dubcon is fine in itself, but saying "rape fiction is only okay if she feels pleasure" steers a very dodgy path!

It's a big reason why I don't go looking for dubcon/noncon stories on Literotica.

[Vela Nanashi]

I don't think that if your victim orgasms it is okay at all, i know that is reported by many victims and if anything that fucks them up more mentally than if it had only been pain. I do hate it being a requirement on lit.

[skuttrusk]

The only way the enjoyment rule makes any sense is if we're to assume it was consensual all along, she wanted it and he knew she wanted it. Which makes it old-school romance fiction, Gone with the Wind stuff, not rape fantasy. And really it opens an ethical can of worms that doesn't resolve the immorality or taboo nature of the fantasy at all, is troublingly ambiguous, and feeds into the false idea that girls want to be raped.

Genuine nonconsent is essential to me, and the girl cums it has to be still against her will and adds to her defeat and humiliation. But I prefer no pleasure for her at all. There is some value in having her start to get into it, then escalating the cruelty until she can't. The Straw Dogs rape scene is enjoyable for how it starts violent, then she comes onto him because she's always been attracted, they make love, then his friend comes in and rapes her in the ass. A satisfying reversal! The joke's on her!

[Shocker]

The whole question is boiling down to what is a site willing to host, quite similarly as ne not signing my stories with my real name either. There was s a stigma associated with these kind of fantasies, if you write about this stuff you “must” have the wish to enact them, same with people reading the stories. And while I won’t deny that there are real predators out there, I’m perfectly happy to watch the movie playing in my mind It’s much cleaner, none of all of those messy bodily fluids involved or any of those pesky risks.

Joking aside, more and more websites are cutting down in the content they are allowing and what kind of tags they allow. A couple of months ago motherless.com put rape on the banned list. People are talking about CNC instead of rape role play, for the same reason.

I don’t think that my stories enable or edge on those real live predators, but others might believe differently.

[skuttrusk]

I don't think stories make people do anything. The worst they might do is give an evil person an idea they hadn't already thought of, but I think that evil person would still have done something evil.

Another ethical question I'm curious about: the use of real people's names/personae in rape fiction. What do you all think about this? Celebrity stories are very common and apparently perfectly legal.

[Vela Nanashi]

I get uncomfortable even with fanfiction based on characters that are not mine, real people is even worse.

[Lucius]

I get uncomfortable even with fanfiction based on characters that are not mine, real people is even worse.

You aren't that fond of the whole historical novel business, are you? Historical domain characters getting it on has been a staple of the genre for centuries, although it used to be 'off-page' for the most part.

[Vela Nanashi]

Well I mean I am not that fond of stories taking place on earth so I am special there lol.

[Claire]

Honestly, that requirement squicks me quite badly - it feels like it's really playing into the "she responded to it, therefore it wasn't rape" rape myth. Dubcon is fine in itself, but saying "rape fiction is only okay if she feels pleasure" steers a very dodgy path!

It's a big reason why I don't go looking for dubcon/noncon stories on Literotica.

I don't like it easier. To me, this requirement reads like "We don't want rape fantasy here unless it downplays the severity of it." and I find that potentially dangerous. I can't help but think that this does the exact damage the rule is trying to prevent: It normalizes rape as just one more form of normal lustful sex.

The whole question is boiling down to what is a site willing to host, quite similarly as ne not signing my stories with my real name either.

I agree with you, but I would like to reframe that a little. The rape fantasy community has this tendency to turn debates about what a site is willing to host into an issue of "free speech" (which it is not). And it is also not just about what a site is willing to host and what not. The question is: What is the community you want to build about? And defining a clear niche for what your site is about is important. Usually, if you try to open up your site for everything it ends up being about nothing. If you want to build a Stars Wars fanfiction community, you probably won't allow Harry Potter fanfiction on your site. In our case: There are tons of sites for porn videos or games. There are also giants in the erotic writing space in general like Literotica. But there seem to be few spaces that focus specifically on written rape fantasy and actual community engagement around that topic.

Literotica allows for noncon stories, but the community seems at least in part hostile to noncon stories and their authors (got some very hostile PMs there recently). Then you have AO3 which focuses primarily on fanfiction. It allows original stories there too, but having published quite a few stories there over the course of the last two weeks, I can tell you that the comment sections there is a barren wasteland. If you compare the engagement that the recent contest stories here got with what the average story gets on AO3, then the difference is enormous.

So what is our brand? It is written rape fantasy that people actually engage with and do not just consume. And while the latter part might still be somewhat underdeveloped, it is miles ahead already of what you see on Literotica and AO3 and other sites. So if you think about whether certain type of stories should be allowed or not, I would encourage people to think about this in terms of: What community are you trying to build? How many people will you draw in by allowing that type of content? How many people will you alienate by allowing that type of content? These are the relevant questions in my opinion that should be asked first and foremost.