What this comes down to is, are expressions of power necessarily connected to gender?
My gut feeling is that the answer is yes. I personally feel that fantasies involving non-consent are, on a deep level, reflective of internalized kyriarchal values. For one thing, rape fantasies reflect the idea that rape is rough sex, rather than a crime of violence and power, which is exactly how sexual predators want rape to be seen.
IMO this is reflected even in accounts i've seen of lesbian rape and battering, in that the rapist/batterer uses the prevailing social climate of sexism/homophobia to her advantage. For example, the batterer might threaten to "out" the survivor if she does not remain silent.
I'm not willing to engage in victim-blaming, however, and say that it is 'bad' for people to have rape fantasies. We react to injustice in our society and in our experiences in ways that best suit our survival.
As a person who has non-consent fantasies, i recognize their strong potency. A lot of the material i wrote during my own brief exploration of a career as a smut writer dealt with the fuzzy boundary between consent and non-consent.
no subject
My gut feeling is that the answer is yes. I personally feel that fantasies involving non-consent are, on a deep level, reflective of internalized kyriarchal values. For one thing, rape fantasies reflect the idea that rape is rough sex, rather than a crime of violence and power, which is exactly how sexual predators want rape to be seen.
IMO this is reflected even in accounts i've seen of lesbian rape and battering, in that the rapist/batterer uses the prevailing social climate of sexism/homophobia to her advantage. For example, the batterer might threaten to "out" the survivor if she does not remain silent.
I'm not willing to engage in victim-blaming, however, and say that it is 'bad' for people to have rape fantasies. We react to injustice in our society and in our experiences in ways that best suit our survival.
As a person who has non-consent fantasies, i recognize their strong potency. A lot of the material i wrote during my own brief exploration of a career as a smut writer dealt with the fuzzy boundary between consent and non-consent.