warnings question

[arcanetrivia]

Would you consider gaining of sexual favors by use of a straightforward aphrodisiac/lust potion/love potion, used specifically by one person on another for this purpose (rather than by accident), to be dub-con or non-con?

Me, I'd consider this dub-con. The subject is conscious and otherwise in possession of all his faculties; he might do things he otherwise wouldn't have done, but they aren't being directly or violently forced. You might call it coercion, I guess.

Anyway, I don't want to under-warn so I thought I'd ask y'all's opinions?

Comments

[takemyrevolution]

Sounds like the situation is similar to getting someone drunk, yes? As long as they're conscious and aware and they're not being forced, I would say dub-con.

[arcanetrivia]

Funny, because someone on LJ made the same comparison and said that clearly made it non-con (to get someone drunk is rape)!

This is really complicated because I know the outcome of the story, but am trying to warn based on what it would look like at first (and I know some people who are triggered by what looks like consent issues would not be reassured by knowing it comes out a bit different in the end).

[takemyrevolution]

There's a difference between drunk and passed out/unaware and drunk but still conscious and making their own decisions.

You could warn for both dub-con and love potions (or what have you). I think people would have a pretty good idea of what they're getting into at that point.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Non-con, although I suppose it depends how powerful the potion is.

[fenm.livejournal.com]

but they aren't being directly or violently forced

That are being "directly" forced, though, by the potion.

You might call it coercion

That's because it is coercion.

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

I think you look at it in a similar way to getting someone drunk specifically to have sex with them. That's rape, so I'd make it non-con.

[arcanetrivia]

This seems to be shaping up to be the general opinion. I'm surprised that apparently I'm either more liberalin definitions, more deviant, or less self-protective (?) than I thought (dunno what I mean there - like, what would I consider it if someone did it to me, I guess?). And yours is an opinion I especially credit on this topic, so, yeah.

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

I also think it's fair enough to be specific in a warning and say something like "non-con as the result of a love potion". :)

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I'd call it rape (non-con, if you want to be prissily fannish about it). If you use Rohypnol (or any 'date rape drug' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug) to coerce someone into sex against their will then the law in most civilised countries would call that rape.

Of course, if you're talking about a fantasy world it may have different views on the use of love potions.

It sort of worries me that anyone would even have to ask this question.

[arcanetrivia]

Of course, if you're talking about a fantasy world it may have different views on the use of love potions.

Erm, well, I would think it was apparent I was referring to Harry Potter fandom? (Not that we're given much information, but.)

It sort of worries me that anyone would even have to ask this question.

I guess it depends on the potion, as someone else said? I mean, there's unerring compulsion (er, is there? with Potterverse love potions? fanon aside, I mean?) and then there's lowering of inhibitions. It's possible that my knowledge of the ultimate outcome of the story (which is less dire) is coloring my phrasing of the question here. Suffice it to say it's not a real "rape, making some random person have sex with me just because I want to" scenario.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Sorry if that came over as a bit stern - I seem to be channeling Minerva a lot lately ;)

I don't think it depends on the potion - what matters is the intention. And whether both participants consent.

I can understand someone who is inhibited perhaps taking the potion themselves before approaching their inamorata, - that would be 'dub-con', or otherwise making it clear that they wouldn't object to some chemical enhancement in order to go through with a sex act (mental lube, if you like) - I've read a number of very good stories with that premise.

And the Wizarding World seems to have a very strange legal system - so they may not recognise magic-assisted assault in the same way the Muggles do.

Hmmm. There's a story there.

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

The key to dub-con is dramatic irony. If the reader knows that the person who has been compelled to have sex really wants to have sex, you get to call it dub-con. In real life, every dub-con situation (that I can think of) is rape. The dub-con warning is something you only get to use in a story because you can know the character's mind.

For example, any situation in which the participants can't fully consent, like one is a minor and the other is an adult, or there is a huge power imbalance of some kind, or one or both of the participants is under an aphrodisiac spell or has taken a potion, but we have insider knowledge of their thoughts, that's dub-con. (You also get to have the possibility of one character knowing the other's motivations in a way they couldn't in real life, say with legilimency.)

If one character slips the other a potion without his or her consent in order to compel them to want sex even though they're actually unwilling or at best neutral, that's a non-con warning.

Have you been following the public outcry against the Republican party in the House of Representatives trying to redefine rape in order to limit funding for abortions? It bears on your question!

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

You can delete my comment too if you want!

[arcanetrivia]

I screened them.

[arcanetrivia]

And I wouldn't think ill of you if you wanted to write a story in which one character slipped another a drug.

I don't mean that, more like "you mean she doesn't think that's rape???", sort of like inamac's remark that she found it a bit scary I needed to ask.

[albalark.livejournal.com]

Everyone else has pretty much said it all, but I really did want to say that I like schemingreader's clarification about dub-con vs. non-con - beautifully stated. And I like your idea about highlighting for spoilers after a warning. Some readers have real trouble (sadly, often because of personal experience) with dub-con/non-con scenarios, and thus should have the chance to either mentally gird themselves or to hit the back button to save themselves the pain.

That said - I'm looking forward to your fic!

[valkyriur.livejournal.com]

Definitely non-con.

Unless the person agreed to take the potion themselves. Then dub-con.

[fire-everything.livejournal.com]

The WIP I'm writing contains (in an as yet unposted chapter) the exact sort of love-potion scenario you've described, and I had the very same internal dialogue with myself about the warning I should use. My gut response was to go with dub-con, and after duly consulting my feminist bona fides on the subjects of rape and sexual consent, I stuck with my original impulse.

In my fic, amortentia is pretty much used as wizarding rohypnol, so how could I have had this gut response? Partly because - without getting too spoiler-y - the amortentia contains one particular ingredient that creates a small but real degree of doubt about the non-ness of the consent. Partly because the amortentia is a non-standard, experimental brew, and the brewer is half-convinced it won't work (and scared half-shitless when it does). And partly, I suppose, because using "non-con" would have reduced the complex and conflicted emotions of two sympathetic characters to something hopelessly black and white. As schemingreader suggested, I know the characters' minds and thus felt justified in calling it what I did. I'm betting there are similar factors at work in your fic.

Honestly, there are shades of gray in real-life scenarios of sexual coercion too - and as my choice of words implies, I don't think all sexual coercion is rape, pure and simple. Though it doesn't make one offense less serious or less punishable than the other, I do think there are legally meaningful distinctions between giving someone a roofie and physically forcing sex on them, and there ought to be a space in which it's safe to acknowledge that without giving comfort to the enemy (or being accused of so doing). As for the attempted "redefinition of rape" in the House, its authors were only interested in using it as a legal bludgeon against the funding of "undeserving" abortion-seekers, in which guise it was bullshit on its face. Once it became clear how much more complicated it is to implement hairsplitting judginess in courts of law than it is in a God-fearing Christian mind, they lost interest in such distinctions right quick. People in fandom will on the whole be less intellectually lazy AND better able to practice nuanced thinking for nonjudgy purposes, I'm guessing.

All of which is to say that I don't think you're an asshole for wondering about the ambiguity of consent out loud. Though perhaps I'll be electronically tarred and feathered and have my feminist license revoked when my amortentia chapter is finally posted. :(

[arcanetrivia]

the exact sort of love-potion scenario you've described, and I had the very same internal dialogue with myself about the warning I should use. My gut response was to go with dub-con

Hmm... I dunno then. I think my knowledge of the outcome of the story is coloring it. I'm trying to think how it would look to the ignorant reader (in the pure sense: un-knowing of all the facts), and wondering if they're going to go OMG A IS DOING THIS TO B?? RAEP!!!. And I can totally see where that is coming from. Maybe I feel like certain kinds of potions don't take away decision making as much as Rohypnol or passed-out drunkenness do? I don't know.

All of which is to say that I don't think you're an asshole for wondering about the ambiguity of consent out loud.

Heh. I was concerned, after inamac's comment, that others might be thinking "OMG she doesn't recognize this kind of activity as rape? what's wrong with her???"

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

If the subject is using the potion of their own free will (and know all of the potion's effects on them), then there's nothing wrong going on. But if the subject doesn't know how the potion can affect them, then it's non con, and I'd call that rape).