a passing thought
Jun. 13th, 2022 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitI've just read a very good fic that demonstrates (among other things) that consent and good communication can be extremely sexy indeed.
But (and this is not a criticism of that fic, to be clear), it occurs to me that in every fic I've seen do that, the communication is always ultimately yes, and the consent is always ultimately given. Maybe there are issues, maybe someone's traumatized about something or just plain nervous, and overcoming that to get to a place of joyous consent and pleasure is the point.
What I don't think I've ever seen--and I admit I haven't been looking for it, or indeed reading much fic at all for a long time--is a fic that's focused on communication and consent, but where the communication is no. No, I don't want to do this specific act. No I don't want this, I don't enjoy this. And (this is the key part) where the result is still good joyous loving consensual sex. (NB I'm not talking about fic where a character is asexual and doesn't want to have sex at all. That's its own category; I mean characters who want to have sex together but where certain things are off-limits.)
No doubt it exists, because everything exists somewhere in fanfic. But I'll bet it isn't nearly as common as the other kind.
By the way, the very good fic in question is this one. It takes a premise I absolutely do not believe, that I think is implicitly but strongly contradicted by canon (Stede as sexually experienced with men) and makes it work. (The fic is from Ed's POV; it would have been a lot harder to make it work in Stede's POV, I think. But Mia_ugly writes Ed amazingly well, and I can believe inexperienced Ed from her even though my read of Ed in canon is very much the opposite.)
Buttercup (13819 words) by mia_ugly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet
Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet
Additional Tags: Porn with Feelings, Mutual Pining, Bad Sex, But Then Better Sex!, First Time, Inexperienced Ed, Experienced Stede, how the turntables, Pirate-typical violence, Blackbeard-Typical Angst, post-reunion, terms of endearment, Happy Ending
Summary: The thing is, when you’re Blackbeard you’ve got kind of a reputation to uphold. When you captain a ship, when you lead a crew, when people look up to you, tell stories, build a legend – parts of that legend are always more accurate than others.
But (and this is not a criticism of that fic, to be clear), it occurs to me that in every fic I've seen do that, the communication is always ultimately yes, and the consent is always ultimately given. Maybe there are issues, maybe someone's traumatized about something or just plain nervous, and overcoming that to get to a place of joyous consent and pleasure is the point.
What I don't think I've ever seen--and I admit I haven't been looking for it, or indeed reading much fic at all for a long time--is a fic that's focused on communication and consent, but where the communication is no. No, I don't want to do this specific act. No I don't want this, I don't enjoy this. And (this is the key part) where the result is still good joyous loving consensual sex. (NB I'm not talking about fic where a character is asexual and doesn't want to have sex at all. That's its own category; I mean characters who want to have sex together but where certain things are off-limits.)
No doubt it exists, because everything exists somewhere in fanfic. But I'll bet it isn't nearly as common as the other kind.
By the way, the very good fic in question is this one. It takes a premise I absolutely do not believe, that I think is implicitly but strongly contradicted by canon (Stede as sexually experienced with men) and makes it work. (The fic is from Ed's POV; it would have been a lot harder to make it work in Stede's POV, I think. But Mia_ugly writes Ed amazingly well, and I can believe inexperienced Ed from her even though my read of Ed in canon is very much the opposite.)
Buttercup (13819 words) by mia_ugly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet
Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet
Additional Tags: Porn with Feelings, Mutual Pining, Bad Sex, But Then Better Sex!, First Time, Inexperienced Ed, Experienced Stede, how the turntables, Pirate-typical violence, Blackbeard-Typical Angst, post-reunion, terms of endearment, Happy Ending
Summary: The thing is, when you’re Blackbeard you’ve got kind of a reputation to uphold. When you captain a ship, when you lead a crew, when people look up to you, tell stories, build a legend – parts of that legend are always more accurate than others.
And maybe you just let it slide, some of the things people say. Some of the things they assume. Maybe you swagger around and wear black leather and are a handsy bastard and let the stories tell themselves.
Maybe you don't want to talk about it.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-15 01:36 pm (UTC)I've written one fic with a hard no implied--one of the characters seemed canonically, to me, like he would not enjoy penetrative sex (either giving or receiving). But it was never explicitly stated, because these two characters barely managed to talk about the fact that they were having sex at all, so it's very possible that readers didn't get that and assumed penetrative sex would happen eventually.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-15 02:25 pm (UTC)People can write "Characters A and M explore together and learn their limits and hard nos" fic, but I feel that with the demands of the HEA/HFN, that's going to structure the work such that those things are seen as stepping stones asking the way, rather than hard nos and conflict spaces.