Dub-con

Dub-con refers to sex involving Dubious Consent in fanworks. This indicates that consent is unknown, not established with certainty, or gained through questionable circumstances. Dubious consent is distinguished from consent being definitively absent, as in rape, non-con (non-consensual), or rapefic, as used in fanworks. While storylines in the genre of dub-con are often rape in a real-life context, they are semantically different from non-con in a fictional context because of the fictional setting's privileged insight into the motivations and desires of the characters. Labeling a work 'dub-con' often serves to indicate the genre or tone the story will take, rather than being an indication that the events within are consensual.
Often, a character involved is uncertain about whether they want to participate or may be willing to participate but unwilling for whatever reason to verbalize it. Unlike in the real world, where a lack of a clear yes means a no, in fiction, the author can show the character's internal thoughts, such as a tangle of yes-no-maybe-I-don't-know feelings which complicate the dynamics of the interaction. 
Dub-con can also be used for stories from one character's point of view, in which they do not know for certain whether the other character is consenting or enjoying the situation. This is common in Fuck or Die, Sex pollen, and similar stories, where some kind of external mechanism is requiring or forcing the characters to have sex. Dub-con can be used to explore the differences between physical pleasure and emotional enjoyment without the explicit, realistic trauma involved in forced sex.
Dub-con is also used to indicate a relationship (or incident) that precludes the ability to give meaningful consent, such as master/slave, student/teacher, prisoner/guard, patient/doctor, or child/adult. In these situations, the character with less authority, while sometimes an intelligent adult, is presumed incapable of giving informed, meaningful consent to a sexual relationship because the power imbalance is too prone to abuse.
The phrase is more commonly used in the US media fandom tradition. An unscientific review of porn sites reveals that "rape" or noncon is the tag most typically used.Alt.sex.stories archive accessed June 20, 2013.
Not all uses of dub-con include sex. For example, on AO3 some fics have been bookmarked under the tag dubcon cuddling, which is often described as one person cuddling a reluctant partner.reference link (accessed June 21, 2013).
== History ==
The earliest use of dub-con as a distinct tag is hard to pin down. In a search of public Google entries, the term was used in 2003 by both Harry Potter fans in Keeping Him Safereference link (accessed June 21, 2003). dated November 9, 2003, and in The Cat and the Ferret dated October 10, 2003The Cat and the Ferret used the phrase "dubious consent"; reference link (accessed June 21, 2003)., and The Phantom Menace story Be Careful What You Dream Of dated July 11, 2003.reference link (accessed June 21, 2013).
In April 2004, again in Harry Potter fandom, the phrase "dubious consent" was used in switchknife's stories.Weapons of Choice entry page, which lists . The phrase "ambiguous consent" appeared in one of her earlier stories in 2002, but since many authors add warnings when they post their fiction to website or archives, dating is difficult. In switchknife's case, the website was last updated in May 2004 which helps with dating. In November 2004, a Harry Potter Livejournal used both "ambiguous consent" and "dubious consent" to describe stories in Scouting for Ron: 6 New Fics; x-posted to fic_fairy.reference link (accessed June 21, 2013. Other fandoms also used the phrase "dubious consent", such as The Lord of the Rings story Warmth dated April 2004.reference link (accessed June 21, 2013). By December 2004, a fan discussing the TV show Sentinel on the Prospect-L mailing list used the phrase "dubious consent" when describing Blair's decision to give up his academic career and become a police officer.Source: Morgan Dawn's personal notes (accessed June 21, 2013). 
By 2005, many fans had shortened the phrase to its current form "dub-con" as in "In the realm plausible of Snarry, non-con and dub-con are my friends."Ship meme. Part one. dated March 25, 2005; reference link (accessed June 21, 2013. In the 2005 pornish pixies Fantasy Fest, one fan reported there were 46 requests for "dub-con/coersion [sic]".The poster admitted that distinguishing between dub-con and non-con was difficult: "When a requestor said "coersion" I ticked dub-con, and when they said "rape" I ticked non-con, but people can argue over the precise meanings of these terms all day." From Tally ho! (or, the kink count) dated May 9, 2005; reference link (accessed June 21, 2013.
By 2006, the term had been defined on Urban Dictionary as: "Used in fanfiction to describe sexual situations of "dubious consent", where it's not exactly noncon (nonconsentual, e.g. rape), nor is it consentual [sic]."reference link (accessed June 21, 2013.
Complicating dating is that many authors back-date their warnings, so a master list of fan fiction dated 2003, which lists a dub-con tag, may be referring to a story written in 2010. See a post for J-Rock fanfic that listed "Hakuei (Penicillin) x Byou (SCREW), various others implied // [NC-17] Alice in Wonderland AU, not-quite-dubcon, (s)light humiliation" with a date of October 28, 2003.. Since most early fandom mailing lists and forums were subscription only, the term may certainly have been in use much earlier than 2003.
== Controversy ==
Some fans feel that dub-con, like non-con, is a meaningless term and should be labeled rapefic. They believe all sex without clear consent is rape, and "non-con" and "dub-con" are just euphemisms attempting to gain public acceptance for a sharply stigmatized kink. Some claim that dub-con and non-con are harmful genres in that they promote the idea that sex doesn't need to be consensual.
The debate over the dub-con tag and its use began to crystallize in 2008. For example, one fan writer argued that what qualifies as "dub-con" is much smaller than how fandom often uses it. Also, fandom's familiarity with the characters sometimes allows writers from showing the readers the necessary explicit consent "....because we already "know" that the character involved is someone who wouldn't rape." comment in Fanfic pet peeves #4: Rape fics dated July 2008, describing Thoughts on "dub-con" as a fanfic kink dated June 26, 2008; reference link; reference link.
Others argued that dub-con is rape by any other name: 
Yet others seemed to be calling for fandom to realize that their "dub-con" story is most likely going to seen as a rape story by readers, no matter how they position it:
Even in 2008, writers struggled with how to label a story that, when taken out of context, could be labeled as non-con when it was, in both the writer's as well as the character's minds, properly dub-con: 
Many of these early discussions focused on non-con and dub-con equally as both readers and writers navigated their way through the unfamiliar trope terrain.
More recently, in June 2013, thingswithwings, the moderator of kink bingo, a kink meme hosted on Livejournal and Dreamwidth, argued that fandom was 'misusing' the dub-con tag and that was (a) harmful to readers who were trying to avoid being triggered by depictions of sexual violence and (b) was detrimental to society as a whole.
The discussion spilled over to many other journals, including a thread at fail-fandomanon. Below are a few randomly selected comments from those discussions to illustrate the debate's diversity and complexity.
==Additional Reading==
*Thoughts on "dub-con" as a fanfic kink dated June 26, 2008 ("There's an obvious conflict here betwen "dub-con" as a warning of potentially triggering material, and "dub-con" as a kink.") reference link(accessed June 21, 2013.
*Fandom Warnings Wank: A Comprehensive Linkspam dated June 23, 2009 reference link (accessed June 20, 2013).
*I Can See the Wank at the Doorstep, but I Just Gotta Ask... dated June 23, 2009 ("With regard to dub-con, I feel like my sense of the word is a bit nebulous. It's a bit like the Supreme Court on pornography--I can't tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it")reference link (accessed June 20, 2013).
*AoOO Thoughs dated Nov 17, 2009 ("I'm very uncomfortable with the implication, given by the existence of the primary warning tag "noncon/rape," that dubcon isn't rape.")reference link (accessed June 20, 2013.
*Fandom Definitions: Noncon vs Dubcon dated March 2, 2011 (""Dub-con" is something I had never heard of before fandom. )reference link. 
*Force Me, Please: On Noncon and Noncon Play in Fanfic posted at the kink bingo community dated May 31, 2011 ("This is an essay about nonconsensual sex (noncon) and noncon roleplay in fanfic, why I love them, why they may work for other people, and how approximately one zillion kinks complement them. With 45 recs sprinkled throughout.") (accessed June 20, 2013.
*Dub-con or not? post in the avengersanon meme dated September 18, 2012 ("A prompt just got reported for unwarned dub-con. Do you agree with the need for warning?")reference link (accessed June 22, 2013).
*Dubious speculation on dubious consent dated Feb 20, 2013 ("In the infamous tumblr ‘disturbed by the amount of noncon in our fandom’ debacle, I recall reading a comment stating that dubcon didn’t exist. There was only consent or not.") (accessed June 20, 2013).
*The Consent Debate dated Nov 18, 2011 ("In real life dubious consent can’t happen.....It cannot happen in real life, because the narrative in our heads can’t be shared. We can’t know if our partner is conflicted, or not comfortable, unless they tell us.")reference link (accessed June 20, 2013).
*The difference between dub con and non con. dated May 31, 2013 ("I know dub con doesn't exist in real life. It's a fic-only term that exists only because I can get into a character's head and not only know what they're thinking, but also make them think whatever I want.") (accessed June 20, 2013).
* dated Sept 26, 2016 ("As for the question, “What exactly is dubcon?” I think the best answer I can give is that, at least in a practical sense, dubcon is a tag authors use when consent is unclear or undermined somehow, but not to the extent that the author believes it warrants a rape/noncon tag.")
*‘all dubcon is just rape’ In the real world: Yes. In fanfiction: No, dated July 16, 2016 (While ‘dubious consent’ cannot possibly describe a real life situation of any kind, the word ‘dubcon’ has very specific connotations within the realm of fanfiction. Like its close sister ‘noncon’, it is a safe word used to describe a variety of rape fantasies without using the word ‘rape’... it’s a safe way to interact with a concept that real world rape culture forces on all of us.)
* See also the metanews noncon tag here which contains many references to dub-con.
==References==
Category:Glossary
Category:Sexual Tropes & Kinks