By J. Tipton
“Oh fuck yeah baby, I want you so bad.” Nice to hear, eh? Consent is a pretty complicated and controversial issue, but I think it’s hot as hell.
This is not to be hating on anyone into DubCon which is a whole different animal. All fetishes are welcome here, and I hope someday your descendants will look proudly at a photo of you and smile. “That’s Nana, she loved herself some DubCon. She was the greatest.”
There are so many stories (books, movies, TV shows) where someone is shown resisting the affection of another. Typically it’s the male lead pursuing the female, but this works with any combination of gender. She says she’s not interested, the lead does a flavor of stalking that only works in fiction and badda bing, badda boom – happily ever after.
It’s tried and true and beautiful and for some reason it always rains on my face during the ending (I’m not crying, I’m allergic to uplifting music cues!) but there’s usually one thing that doesn’t sit right with me. The person being pursued will talk to her friends or the camera or other people about how she secretly DOES like this dude that’s chasing her. Which is wonderful – the audience knows she’s down and can breathe easy knowing they didn’t accidentally end up with a horror story by walking into the wrong theater/opening the wrong book. It is very often the case that AT NO POINT does the guy stalking her hear this. So the reader/viewer knows she wants him, but the interactions from his perspective are:
Guy: “Hey I like you.”
Girl: “No thanks.”
Guy: “I should probably constantly insert myself into your life.”
Girl: “Go away.”
Guy: “She wants me. Where’s my boombox*?”
If it’s building to a romantic relationship or just some sexy, sexy sex, I love it when everybody is clear about their intentions. In real life, there’s actually legislation like the California Affirmative Consent Law to help protect people from unwanted contact. I think they have a good point-who doesn’t like to hear that their partner(s) are totally into it? Right there baby, I want it.
*for you youngsters, a boombox is like a huge cell phone whose only function is to play music very loudly. These weighed roughly 5,000 lbs and men in the 80s and 90s hurled them at each other to impress potential mates.
AJ Tipton 