(i assume you mean men AREN'T objectified like women and that was a typo, just saying here in case anyone notices lol)

"Do people know these aren't real people?" THAT'S THE BIGGEST THING THAT DRIVES ME CRAZY. these aren't real women who made these choices for themselves. these are character design/story choices made by MEN. and i GET being sensitive about it if you've come to like the character but i think it's very possible to have a "i like this character despite it but i really wish they had done better for her" approach -- or even just plain ignore it! i do that. but actively trying to spin it as a feminist choice of a (fictional) woman and fighting back against any criticism of it is crazy. whatever choices were made were made FOR A REASON. use your brains 😭 😭

that said, this kind of argument has definitely been a problem with queer/liberal feminism for a while lol... the damage choice feminism has wrought goes so deep

Kitanai Kimi ga Ichiban Kawaii !!!!!!!!!! it's truly genuinely Bad Things with Bad End (zero heterosexuality tho don't worry) and at one point in the beginning you might be like "is this just torture porn" but then halfway through there's something that flips and makes it interesting.

WARNINGS IF YOU WANT THEM:
dubcon, abuse (emotional and physical), emeto, watersports, choking, murder/death... there might be a couple i'm missing but this gives you a good idea lol

akuma no riddle is one of my favorites, and it's more "messed up scenario that complicates the relationships" than actually like fucked up, but i still really love it.

i have a couple others on my to-read list that look promising, but i can't actually say how good they are yet:
- kill me now / haegu
- immortal parody
- Destroy It All and Love Me in Hell
- Black Snow. White Moon. Eternal Blossom
- happy sugar life
- love and hate and love (this is an anthology that includes the kitakawa mangaka)

if anyone else has any recs i would LOVE them please

not just fandom itself but everyone! it's one thing to have an interpretation (obviously fine, there's many possible interpretations of characters - like while i see arashi as a gnc gay dude, and i think that's the intention in canon, i also think jp media often intentionally gives this Character Type a little bit of ambiguity, and eng fandoms just cannot handle that or different interpretations...) but it's crazy how basically anyone on the english side of twitter that even tangentially touches enstars fandom is convinced it's 100% canon Representation.

(although honorary mention to the ones who are like "yeah actually it's not canon but they're wrong so i'm going to harass the enstars twitter/customer support to fix it." like they're at least real with themselves but they still rank high for the bonkers follow-up. )

anyway. i think it's a widespread problem that fandoms value what they can label as "rep" more than characters (individually or as their Roles) and stories, but usually it's harmless and just annoying. but i don't think i've ever seen the level of misinformation spreading and harassment over it that engstars fandom has. it's insane

cw for descriptions of specific scenarios and whether they qualify as dubcon or noncon in fiction

-

yeah it IS hard to pinpoint lol. i think obviously the first thing is making clear any discussion of dubcon in fiction is in the realm of fiction only, and there is no such thing irl. it would be fucked up if we applied these rules to rl and i never want anyone to get that inkling from anything i say.

but to actually answer the question, i'd say my basic description of it is "a scenario in fiction where consent may not be 100% freely given and informed, but no tangible force is applied and no party actually says no."

on the noncon scale, where 1 is "enthusiastic continuous consent" and 10 is "physical force applied despite repeated refusals" then dubcon is like #4-7.

so for examples...
- undernegotiated kink between an established couple to me is a 2, and not dubcon, though i've definitely seen it tagged that way once or twice laksjdalsdkf.

- when specific situations are sprung onto someone without warning or they're lured or persuaded into it (but they do consent to the sex once it happens), i often consider that mild dubious consent.
- identity porn where one person knows the other person's true identity but the other person doesn't is also dubcon imo. (this is a personal squick for me and irl it would be rape by deception, but in fiction when we're talking about like superheroes and stuff, that's dubcon).
- power dynamics that are able to be more complicated in fiction could fall under dubcon as well (say, a student blackmailing a teacher into sex).
- any kind of coercion in general usually falls under dubcon.
- sometimes stuff that starts with "soft" refusal that turns into consent/both parties written to be enjoying it could be classed as more dubcon.

there's definitely some where it's kinda just depending on the specifics and how it's written. like is "locked in a room until they have sex" dubcon? or sex pollen? if the consequences are mild and both parties know that, and the locking/pollen is just a an inconvenience, i don't think it is. if there's more of a threat (fuck or die) then yeah that's dubcon.

what some people do or don't class as it can be so crazy though. i will NEVER, ever forget the time i read a hybrid au that had no warnings at all, and then it turned out that all the hybrids were kept in farm pens, had no idea what sex was beyond "feels nice," and had no idea how they were getting pregnant or where the babies were coming from. HELLO... THAT NEEDS DUBCON AT THE LEAST. like i would probably term that extremely dubious consent since as far as i remember they "consented" to the sex but it was in no way with any understanding.

but also i think it's rly helpful when people give tags that clue in to what kind of dubcon it is too. i feel like if you tag "kuya is his own warning" in nucarnival along with dubcon then it's probably obvious lol. sex pollen, fuck or die, etc. will also give you hints and those are more useful than mild vs. extreme.

so imo if you actually try to worldbuild, and you want to maintain a "primary sex" and then a "secondary gender" (rather than creating a universe where there are 6+ different sexes), then omegaverse would be more like different hormonal balances. so rather than all female alphas having dicks, here's some possibilities:

• female alphas have external female organs, but lack the internal ones. they would still go into a rut. prob the most boring one, but possible.

• female alphas have external female organs, and internally their body develops so that the are more likely to produce large amounts of juices/cum, and that is able to impregnate female omegas. no difference externally though - impregnation has to happen by putting it in with fingers or other tools. (i have an oomf who has written omegaverse yuri of this kind!)

• same as above, except when in rut, female alphas also have enlarged clits. not enough to fully insert/be mistaken as a dick, but enough that they could maybe like rub the cum inside

• ok this has never been done afaik because omegaverse is so wolf-inspired, but i do see people give a/b/o to alien races, so why not do alpha tentapussy??? tentacles are sexy... then she can really knock her omega up and there are zero dicks involved!!

so i have two past questions (a bit old, so this is not a "why didn't you check before asking" passive aggressive comment or anything) that are about disagreeing with this angle, so i'm just gonna link those

https://retrospring.net/@plumeriade/a/112250139459196431
https://retrospring.net/@plumeriade/a/112272257913605668

all that above said, there are definitely fujos out there who are solely male-focused or who make really misogynistic posts, etc. and we all know i've complained about pro-life rhetoric in mpreg (especially omegaverse), which definitely counts as supporting patriarchy!! but that's more about specific people, specific attitudes or tropes, not just being a fujo.

i see it SOOOOOO often... and it's ok to have lines!! like i said in another answer, i don't vibe with a lot of "dead dove" fandom (tho i do have oomfs who consider themselves that) because i don't like stuff that's like... dark or meant to make you feel bad, most of the time. i want my age gap incest to be HAPPY AND SWEET, ok? but i don't think that makes me more moral than people who go the other direction with it.

also not to get on a tangent, but it's kind of worrisome when people do this in a way. i don't know what the person you saw writes specifically, but for example, if someone writes lord/servant type fiction, that is essentially dubcon! that is a problematic power dynamic! like you say. boss/employee creates a dynamic where you can't guarantee consent either, and is a common trope even among anti types. so if you DON'T recognize that and think it's perfectly equal and healthy... that's concerning to me

HEY NEW BFF... ok i've finally looked at the ao3 tag:

• can i just say it's one of the most beautiful ratios i've witnessed... 1045 f/f to 137 m/f lmao. as expected since i know f!chief is most popular!!!
• the way the general fandom tag is like 50/50 english and chinese but if i filter to any of the "problematic" major archive warnings, it's a majority chinese fics. 😭
• yep... a lot of characters given dicks and pretty much who i would expect too.
• also my fav f!chief ship is mcqueen and there's a total of 2 fics. as usual i suffer. 😔
• nevermind there's tetracilla gun kink on the first page, so sometimes i win! and
• i HAVE chameleon but don't rly know much about her.. gonna check that out and then look at the fics you recommended!

I KNOW. i think there's a few things that go into the how/why of yuri fandoms being like this, but the end result is just that it's really holding it back imo. i know SO many lesbians (or the occasional bi woman whose primary interest is women) who really don't publicly interact with yuri fandoms because it's so unwelcoming if you ship anything remotely problematic. like obviously i ship incest ships and can enjoy dub/noncon when it fits, and i wouldn't disavow the label or anything, but i barely consider myself "proship" and i don't vibe with "dead dove" people! i just want to be able to enjoy fictional content without 18 year old shut-in morality police banging down my door to send death threats lol.

they moan about f/f not ranking higher on ao3 and but freak out when someone wants to write f/f where it isn't soft-glow fully pre-negotiated lovemaking between two people who are the exact same age down to the minute that occurs after the characters have had dna tests and signed a contract stating they were never childhood friends.

THAT SAID... going back to the why/how this happens in yuri fandoms, pro-ship spaces are often very lesbophobic as well, which can alienate lesbians/yuri fans (to the point where i keep a folder of screenshots of all the shit they've said). so where do we go 😖

are you a gay man (actual question) because in my experience knowing gay men personally, reading gay male guides to writing m/m (which i actually do link to some in my f/f guide!), and reading extensively on like r/AskGayMen: 70% is a vast overestimate. extensive 1-2-3 finger prepping is pretty rare, "cleaning" beforehand is common but not a requirement for everyone, and while mess eventually happens to almost everyone, it's not even like... half the time. and despite that i definitely still see cleaning and 1-2-3 fingering a LOT!

plus, either way, there's definitely a difference between "people can't even describe the vulva/pussy accurately" and "doesn't mention the occasional mishap of getting excrement on his dick" 😭

OMG SHANE!!!! i was 100% a shane girl and at the time i hadn't seen anyone on tv with her level of andro swag so i got it but also she's the reason the term fuckboi was invented. (this is during the original airing anyway, i have no idea what generation q got up to.)

i don't necessarily agree that it's SOLELY "always butch/masculine labels that need to be stretched unrecognized and made palatable" because i think a lot of it is the fact that it's LESBIAN too since "femme" gets co-opted like crazy by bisexual women in m/f relationships 🥴 . but butch/masc lesbians definitely get the worst end of it because of exactly what you say. people do not want to think about women voluntarily and happily being gender non-conforming and opting out of the base level of femininity expected.

omg seriously re arlecchino. i try to ignore parts of the canon design and make her butch in my HEART but you're right she's not even - but regardless it's still explicitly stated she does not like dresses and has never worn one, and i nearly have a stroke whenever i have to see fanart that STILL PUTS HER IN DRESSES. some people really can't comprehend a woman who doesn't want to be hyper-feminine even when she outright states it. it drives me crazy

thinking about the first part... i think it goes back to what i've talked about before where people think butch is a failure to do femininity and/or just a mimicry of male masculinity (which yikes, but a common belief even if people don't admit it). so if you believe that makeup and dresses are genderless (which of course is fine to have as a goal) or can be masculine, then butches can wear those things and it's actually close-minded for you to disagree! but that's NOT what butchness is, so they completely get it wrong and it's really offensive!!

"glad you agree that we need more lesbian kings while still very much being women bc a lot of people get mad at that stuff for some reason, for tons of reasons lol."

IT'S SO SEXY! when will people realize! especially with the popularity of things like HOD and or whatever lesbian period drama of the moment.

"you find just the right balance between actually having standards but also letting loose every single time it's so refreshing"

YOU'RE SOOOO SWEET THANK YOU... i'm glad it comes across as this and not just me being a libra refusing to commit solidly LMAO (not so much in this context but like the feminist fujo convos sometimes)

"even when drawing femme lesbians they're almost always super long haired full faces of trendy makeup..come on now"

RIGHT IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. it's why so much is just soulless for me. if you're DRAWING it there needs to be some kind of intentionality to it and not u just picking the current #1 straight (white western) girl look

i haven't but my wife plans to make me watch it this weekend!!!

but from what i've seen (read: plenty of gifsets of her with her shirt off...plus a few others), ok first let me say there's basically 3 categories of butch for me, almost on a slight scale. it goes

1 - fiction only: this character is as close to butch as we're gonna get. (if she's paired with a femme, it definitely strikes as butch/femme) (this is often my gacha game cope category)

2 - woman who is pretty masc-leaning but i wouldn't go "WHOAAA BUTCH MCBUTCH" on first sight (often these women give the impression of just vibing and not giving much thought to butch presentation/identity, which is fine!)

3 - WHOAAAA BUTCH "MCDREAMY" MCBUTCH SR.

and from what i've SEEN i'd prob put her on like a 1.5. that may or may not change lol

i have a love/hate relationship only because I HATE THAT THEY HAVE TO BE HEADCANONS!!!! sobbing on the floor. i'm sick of it. can we get some actual butch characters so we can stop headcanoning (as much).

but to actually answer the question... i feel like i see more of it in art than fanfic? or maybe that's just a result of me being more casually into f/f art than fanfic and thus seeing more of it, but i guess maybe it seems easier to portray in art than in writing, but i wish i did see more of it in writing.

OH also i can't normally say this because it would make me sound like an asshole BUT SINCE I'VE BEEN ASKED. i've been seeing more art of butches with top surgery which i'm fine with, this isn't a complaint about that! but FREE BUTCHES FROM THE DEEP THICK RED JAGGED SCARS THAT LOOK LIKE IT WAS DONE BY A CHILD WITH A SAW. GET HER A BETTER SURGEON AND BETTER SCAR AFTERCARE I'M BEGGING. (signed someone who's had similar surgery (reduction)).

and i wish i saw more KINDS of butches... i feel like a lot of what i see is like... a step up from tomboy you know what i mean? or kinda alternative... where are the grandpa butches at. also more actually masculine haircuts.

in terms of fic i would love to see more butch lesbians using masculine terms/titles without identifying as anything other than woman. lesbian husbands... lesbian kings... handsome ones.

and really my biggest/thought wish is just more of an understanding of butch and how to portray that overall. like putting her in a suit doesn't count if it's cut like a women's trendy suit. i've seen a character called butch when she wears eye shadow, lipstick, and hoop earrings daily just because she has a shaved head... pleaseeeee use your brains to read

what about you!! tell me your thoughts too

thank you for this question!! my answer is: i doubt it, and i don't feel like it's any kind of -pilled, it's just being realistic. of course, there's no one way to define "success" here, but let's say it's "enough women participating in the tenets of 4B, even if not by name, that it is a recognizable movement with an actual impact on marriage and birth rates." and with that definition, i think no. imo, there's 2 reasons that are connected: mainstream american feminism is highly individualistic, and also highly against being inconvenienced.

extreme individualism prevents organizing; they look out for themselves and their future, and also suggesting that women exist as a class with shared interests will get you called out. you can't even suggest that maybe 12 year old girls don't need to be wearing false eyelashes daily without someone coming in about how saying so is anti-feminist because it's femmephobic appearance-shaming or whatever. every time separatism gets brought up in the past, straight feminists have meltdowns about how lesbians just want them to suffer and that suggesting that maybe they stop sleeping with their oppressors is misogynistic. imo american mainstream straight feminists tend to want change without having to do any introspection or work for it.

i'm not an expert on korean feminism, but from what i do know, it seems like there's less backlash/watering down from a mainstream liberal feminism wing than there would be in american feminism, because feminism is already more fringe? obviously many women will push back against it regardless of what country it's in, but like, as far as i know, feminist-leaning korean women who don't personally adhere to 4b still aren't trashing it like straight feminists have done to separatism in the past here.

i do think a lot of heterosexual women might get on with the idea of a "sex strike," without even associating it with any kind of feminist/4b movement themselves, or more seriously insisting on birth control/condoms/vasectomies/etc or no sex. but that's only one part of it. a sex strike isn't as effective if you're still married to them and supporting a man as his girlfriend or wife, raising his children, etc.

oh it drives me crazy! if you're writing a fic where they have sex, tag (or otherwise somehow indicate) what kind they are having -- that includes who tops and bottoms! and yeah people can say it doesn't matter, but 1) it does, people absolutely write characters differently based on how they imagine it, and often i can detect which way someone ships something even when looking at sfw art or fic, and 2) even if that wasn't true, IF THAT'S JUST WHAT I WANT TO SEE, THAT'S STILL VALID. you're not going to trick someone into switching how they ship things by not tagging it, so why do you refuse lol

for how it used to be done i think it depends based on a couple things:
1) anime fandoms did tend to do name order. like everyone knew 1x2 was different from 2x1!
2) with there being less obsession with reversible "equality," many fandoms did tend to go a majority one way, and you might only see it mentioned in the author notes if it was out of the norm
3) since fics were archived and promote differently, that mattered... like a fic might not have had "bottom draco" in the summary but if it was on the Bottom!Draco Emporium (real archive) and promoted in the bottom_draco livejournal community, and you found it that way, you knew lol

but yeah, it's never been perfectly done anywhere. but the active backlash against it is more recent imo and super annoying