Blog

Flash: Ten Thousand Generations

Erin Penn

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash – Mother and baby cassava farming

Care never ends. Prepare, plant, weed, harvest, preserve, dry seeds, and restart. Children born, children die, children raised. Clean house, clean clothes, clean bodies. Gather wood, cook, spread the ashes. Women’s work. The never-ending chores.

Tasks would be easier. Things on the to-do list that can be crossed off forever, or at least for months. Not a meal-after-meal-after-meal circle. Thanks to the caregivers for the ten thousand generations of humanity.

(words 70, first published 5/14/2023 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)

Editing Rant: Consent draws the line between Fetish and Rape

Erin Penn

Photo by Deon Black on Unsplash

The line between Fetish and Rape seems hazy, since so many people have a problem presenting Rape as an aspect of Fetish … it isn’t.

Central to the difference is CONSENT. Both the instigator and the chosen partner must have the ability to say “Yes” or “No” throughout the process.

  1. Power imbalances silence the weaker. A noble with the ability to execute the commoner. A manager with the ability to fire someone who needs a roof over their head and food on the table. A very strong person (usually male but could be a female vampire for example) and a less strong individual fearing bodily harm.
  2. Drugs and alcohol interfering with decision-making processes, whether inflicted, pressured by the situation, or self-indulged, means CONSENT is not given. As a tax preparer, I have sent away people visibly drunk and/or drugged because they cannot sign legal paperwork in their altered state. Verbal contracts, such as CONSENT for sex, cannot be entered into while in an altered state.

Yes, rape-play is a fetish …. but before entering into the Scene, safe words and other protections need to be in place for all the partners involved.

Things that have driven me bonkers recently:

  1. Doctor with a mental patient who ties person down and pleasures her with gynecological equipment. The biggest problem: “mental patient”! The person was not in any healthy place to make a choice of any kind, let alone with the power dynamic of a Doctor in play.
  2. Another doctor, this time in a science fiction setting, using a robot to hold the person down and pleasure them to make sure they were “healthy sexually”. Doesn’t matter that the doctor is female, doesn’t matter that no male genitalia were involved. “No” was said. It was a rape.

When writing sex scenes, be aware if the participants are in a position to feel safe saying “No” and stopping the action.

Recently stories are going for CONSENT questions to start, CONSENT ongoing in the process, and CONSENT before penetration. By recent, I mean I’ve only started seeing this heavy level of CONSENT play a role in erotica in the past three years (2020-2023).

Rape is rape.

Fetish requires consent.

Magical Words: Blind Trust

Erin Penn

Photo by Gun Kimm on Unsplash

On a starship, an engineer reports over the comm to the bridge. “Captain, we have a problem.” “What is it, Tools?” “I can’t describe, come down here.”

Really, what the ever-loving frig? The captain is on the bridge, that is where she should be, the center of command, gathering information from all parts of the ship. So she should drop everything and head to a DANGEROUS area by herself to eyewitness something the EXPERT in the matter cannot deal with? Every.sci-fi-TV.show.e.v.e.r.

Fantasy. Romance. Every single genre has the “no time to explain, just follow me.” Like parents telling children, “don’t ask questions, just do what I tell you.”

Misty Massey wrote a full blog (with the related responses from experienced published authors) on the subject for Magical Words on 10/18/2011 called “Blind Trust.”

I’m totally with her on this on how LAZY and UNREAL the lack of explanations is.  – the URL http://www.magicalwords.net/misty-massey/blind-trust/