Entry tags:

birthdays, meta

Birthday Meta for regan_v: "It's for Your Own Good, Severus"
I like to write meta for regan_v's birthday, though because of my other committments this one is coming quite late! This year I want explore some themes that I've seen in fandom, a certain dynamic that I've observed in Snape slash and in my own reading of it. It's an extension of the meaning of dubious consent.

"It's for Your Own Good, Severus"



Why do we like to read fan fiction stories about Severus Snape in sexual or other pleasurable situations which involve dubious consent?

By dubious consent, I mean situations in which characters are forced to have sex (or as you'll see, do something like that) but not, as the reader knows, entirely against their will. Dubious consent also includes scenes in which the character would have consented if they had been free to do so, but because they couldn't truly consent--were underage, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, or had a teacher-student or other coersive relationship--it's dub con.

Dubious consent is a literary phenomenon. It cannot exist in real life because it depends on dramatic irony for its being. In real life, dubious consent is non-consent, is rape. For dub con to work in a story, the reader has to know more than the characters do about what motivates them and what they really want and enjoy. Dubious consent is a dangerous motif in literature, because it can look like a justification for real-life coercion, sexual or otherwise.

Since I've been reading and writing erotic fan fiction, I've come to understand that dubious consent stories can have positive psychological function for the people who are writing and reading them. Looking at why people enjoy stories in which Snape is coerced into experiencing pleasure, or consents without his full faculties, I can see how this works for me as a reader, and perhaps for others as well.

For example, I recced a story in which McGonagall makes Snape eat ice cream. There is nothing sexual about this dub con, but it's not clear that Snape wants to eat ice cream. One of my flisters was squicked by the story, for a few reasons--one is, she doesn't like ice cream and people give her a hard time about it.

I know regan_v has the same feeling I do about Lovesong of Bastard and Idiot because it was her review that got me to read it in the first place. A classic case of dubious consent--Snape is forced by withdrawal from a potion he's been taking into sexual life again, violently and rapidly. There's a frisson of humiliation, which Snape needs like a hole in the head after all the horrible stuff he's been through in canon, but apparently fans need to see him cope with humiliation again and again. Perhaps it's the grace with which he does it, or the fact that he usually emerges stronger and wiser for it.

I have a tag on my LiveJournal for stories in which I've written Snape drunk or high. I love to do that to him--to force him to stop controlling himself and generally, to have sex with someone he might not approach when sober. This is pretty much the opposite of what I think people should do in real life. I do not believe that people should attempt to make informed consent to sex when drunk or high. Not only that--I don't really use alcohol or other drugs very much. (No judgment on people who do--it just fell out that way because of who my friends are and what my life experience has been.) But I love to see Snape lose inhibitions, to see him have to tell the truth about his feelings, so I write him drunk and high on alcohol, drugs and potions, even though that creates situations of dubious consent.

Why? Why do we insist on subjecting Snape to coercion and humiliation? What's so exciting about dubious consent stories, stories in which someone is made to feel pleasure--and why do we want that person to be Snape?

To some extent, because Snape in canon is an authority figure whose entire social presence is a buzz kill. Though I'm no adolescent rebel--the truth is, probably even in adolescence I would have enjoyed Snape as a teacher, provided he didn't dislike me on sight for no reason--I can get into Harry's mindset. It would be so much more fun if instead of periodically losing his cool and foaming at the mouth at Harry because of stuff Harry can't control, he would lose control because of pleasure. This is one of the root appeals of Snarry as a pairing. It's not just that Snape loves Harry after all, doesn't hate him--we all get why that is a major pleasure for the reader, since we all had adults in our childhoods who just disliked us for no reason, were abusive, etc. No, that's not all--Harry makes Snape lose control from pleasure and desire. The guy finally has fun.

And there's the other piece, which is the extent to which Snape-fen identify with Snape. Yes, most of the fen are female and he's male, I suppose. But he's also got a sad childhood, a sarcastic tongue, and not one but two creepy bossses--many of us have experienced some variation on that, even if the sarcasm stays firmly in our heads. So sometimes we identify with Snape, and when we do, seeing him give up his control and experience pleasure is deeply gratifying. If only we could temporarily give up control--but that would be irresponsible, and we wouldn't identify with Snape if we weren't actually quite responsible. Snapely dubious consent stories allow the readers to project themselves into Snape's overly controlled life and then feel what it would be like to break that control.

I think this can be beneficial if we are aware of what we are doing and which buttons we are pushing--but that's how I feel about most erotica. What can we know about ourselves from what gives us pleasure, and how can we use that information to be better human beings? I'm always curious to learn.