I cannot speak of dub-con’s audiences like some collective entity which approaches and accesses the genre in the same way for the same reasons. However, I argue that dub-con represents as much of a move as the wider genre of slash fiction towards an erotic and active feminist awareness of, and response to, the global impacts which contradictory and restrictive behavioral paradigms have on every person. I propose that in order to better understand dub-con, we should recognize its core as a fantasy of a pleasurable sublimation or exertion of control more than a fantasy about an attack on a person’s agency or a loss of identity.
Spacey, A. (2018) “Dubious Consent: The Revival of Ravishment” in Spacey, A. (Ed.), The Darker Side of Slash Fan Fiction: Essays on Power, Consent, and the Body, Jefferson, NC: McFarland.