Consent: Romance vs BDSM Erotica

I've mentioned elsewhere how, when I was young, my parents would let me buy the books I wanted. They trusted my judgement when it came to what I could handle, and they were right to do so. I never appreciated how much freedom they gave me in that regard, because I didn't know how other parents censored their kids' reading. But I appreciate it now, and I give my kids the same freedom when it comes to choosing books.

This doesn't mean that back then, I could get my hands on any book I wanted--or that I even knew about all the books out there. I was limited to what was available inside my local bookstores. Barnes and Noble carried a LOT of romance, but erotica? Not so much. (This is true to this day, by the way. Borders carries more erotica than B&N, but even they don't shelve that much.)

So I read a lot of romance books by the likes of Johanna Lindsey, Karen Robards, and Jude Deveraux. I fell in love with so many of those books. Jude Deveraux's A Knight in Shining Armor has the most satisfying ending I have ever seen in a romance novel; if I can ever get one of my stories to end with such fulfillment for the reader, I will consider myself a successful author.

But many of the books, particularly Lindsey's, contain a lot of non-consensual sex. And I'm not talking about forced seduction; I'm talking about rape. Two books in particular I'm thinking about have the heroine's first sexual encounter be in a rape scene. Now, the women weren't physically hurt, they didn't struggle and get beat up or anything, but they didn't have a choice about it either. They submitted to what was being done to them, that was all.

As I got older and learned how to get my hands on erotica, particularly BDSM erotica, I moved away from purple-prose romance and stuck with that.

So here's the thing: I have never seen a non-con scene in any BDSM novel I have ever read like I did in so many romance books.


In BDSM erotica, the woman is usually made to submit, yes. She is often restrained, she is usually spanked, or belted, or slapped. Sometimes she is serviced into pleasuring more than one man at once. She may be degraded, humiliated, beaten and used.

But always, always, at some point, she has given consent for these things to be done to her. She is a willing participant in each and every scene. I have never seen a BDSM novel where the woman/sub doesn't have at least the Right of Last Refusal--the chance to walk away completely. The reader understands that this choice may be painful for her, it may be hard, but the choice is still there, and she can do it at any time. Most books also include a safeword for the woman/sub: a word she can use to take a break in the scene, or even stop it completely.

This, at least to me, is very different from a novel in which a man is forcing a woman to have sex with him, either through manipulation or physical advantage. Even if the author tries to make us, the reader, think the woman somehow enjoyed it in the end, or at least didn't mind it, it's still non-con sex. She had no choice, none at all.

This may be titillating to many. I mean, obviously--these books still sell thousands of copies. I certainly didn't have a problem with it, until I got older and began to understand what was really going on in those scenes.

But I'm trying to point out the difference here between the kinds of scenes you see in "innocent" romance, described in purple prose and flowery language, where a woman is forced to submit to a penetration against her will, and BDSM erotica, where a woman may be caned and sodomized and leave the scene covered in welts, but she is satisfied. She wanted everything done to her. She wasn't abused, and she certainly wasn't raped.

I don't understand why romance is sold in all bookstores, and no one has a problem with it, but BDSM erotica has to be ordered elsewhere and handled with kid gloves because it's somehow more dirty and controversial. Isn't it more important we teach girls about responsibility, and dignity, and making informed choices, than remaining "pure" and "innocent" and only letting men "take" us in a certain way?