beta
yes, the bottom here sexually harassed the top at the start, why does that excuse the top now? they're both in the wrong! with that said, we can acknowledge that the top was able to "opt-out" and express his non-consent to being harassed by the bottom when that happened in a way that the bottom cannot when things are being done to him while he's unconscious and incapacitated. regardless of how much of a fan of somnophilia the bottom is at any other time, or his lack of reaction after the fact, it remains true that the top did something questionable in that moment because the bottom could neither accept nor refuse his actions a.k.a. not consenting because you can't just assume it's there. the bottom being fine with it afterwards doesn't mean that people reading it can't be icked out or think it reflects poorly on the top, it just means that the bottom isn't taking the top to court over it.
even if "they're both freaky," consent to one or even several things doesn't automatically extend to consent to other things, especially when one of those things, like the somnophilia "play" here involves one person being unable to give a response one way or another in the moment. and it's not like the top knows the bottom so well and intimately as to know where his absolute limits are without discussion. even if you don't verbally talk everything out in detail or make a written checklist and draw up contracts, people still indicate what they're okay with using their words and actions. you can't do that when you're unconscious! it's perfectly reasonable have misgivings about unnegotiated somnophilia between people who are barely past being strangers to each other.
regardless of what happens in the story, people can have their immediate reactions to seeing the events of the story and talk about how and why they feel that way. the characters don't have to be perfect paragons of moral virtue and behavior, that's part of the intrigue of the story - it doesn't mean that people can't have moral judgements on the characters' actions and have thoughts and feelings about what they do. it's what you do as a reader!
I decided not to continue this past chapter 2 or so, but I keep seeing annoying takes, so here we are. let's all be annoyed together! there are people dressing up their rape apologism as opposition to purity culture or as being supportive of kink when they're just revealing that they don't know what purity culture is, where it originates from, or why it's a problem, along with their poor understandings of consent. why is it a problem for people to want to see active and enthusiastic participation in sex by every party involved in it and have that as the default?
and you shouldnt get booed for saying that!!!
a flag is a communication tool. a basic and common function is signalling if a path is clear (green) or obstructed/hazardous (red).
imo, many people are using "flags" weirdly because it makes more sense to apply it to behaviors and attitudes rather than to a person or character as whole. that's how I saw the concept used, initially, anyways. so this is in terms of attitudes, behaviors and actions
green flags: emotional intelligence (being able to know/identify one's own feelings and recognize them in others), respect for boundaries, willingness to share, communication skills, anything that facilitates a functional relationship
red flags: being controlling, ignoring and violating boundaries, undermining the autonomy of others, superiority complexes, being invested in hierarchies, self-sacrificing or guilt-tripping, anything that leads to an abusive relationship
stuff like that
you can have conflict in a story, even a romantic one, without resorting to abuse and so-called red/black flag characters. it's as simple as characters having different needs and wants in life, or pressure from external forces. but that kind of thing takes actual writing skills and capacity for complex reasoning.
(there's a question about flags that I'm responding to, but it looks like I'm blocked by the op of that)
Its honestly overused to simplify a complex action, decision, character, development and dumbs down the person assigning it cos they cant comprehend that people (even greatly written characters) are black and white (or green or red for this matter)
Are not* black and white
great point! it oversimplifies things to talk about characters like that! if you've ever seen people bring up "yellow flag", I feel like that's an attempt by people using flags that way at reintroducing the nuance that got lost by reducing characters to red or green.
after thinking about it some more, a point I forgot to mention is that some traits or qualities can be green flags/positive in some contexts or situations, while red/negative in others. is someone ambitious, or a social climbing user? is a person pragmatic, or cynical? are they easygoing, or lacking drive? even the negative interpretations of those traits could potentially work in a relationship with someone on the same wavelength or just drive conflict in a story in a way that's not merely abusive.
Yea, that just shows that different people interprets some actions differently. The key word is “tolerance”, how much a person tolerates the character’s bs and affections. This is why i think many readers may find a character/ action “red flag” only because they dont have personal affections to the person doing it. Meaning, that affection increases a person’s tolerance to bullshits, making some actions acceptable to the person involve. This supports your conclusion of it working in a relationship or driving the conflict. This is also where perspective also comes into play. Different perspectives have different access to information of why and how is an action performed to be labeled as a flag. To anyone reading just one side of the story, it may be a “red flag” but after knowing the whys and hows, it challenges a person’s judgement to adjust, essentially claiming “yellow flag” to redeem themselves and compromise.
Ive actually seen this in Solo for two. It was interesting seeing the different reactions of the readers in real time as they try to label the complex characters. Many have debated where the destructive and clumsy love of the main characters are red flag or not. Watching and entering the debate as people try to label the main character in “flags” summarizes to me that altho these labels are a widely accepted basic descriptive analogies of a person’ character, we cant essentially use it to describe anyone as a whole, especially for humans and humanly written characters. Cos if we do, everyone is a red flag, since human mature is very selfish and self serving. But its also not a red flag. (Btw im anti flags in the debate in this story, the characters are very human to just label them red green yellow)
after thinking about it for a while, i've been wondering if that last explicit scene between seong su and the new black-haired guy could be an introduction to exploring/refuting the way physical arousal and biological urges are so often used to excuse rape and consent violations in a/b/omegaverse stories and bl in general.
the sex scenes are part of the story and how the characters are fleshed out in these stories ( https://www.mangago.me/home/mangatopic/22698160/) so you'd think that seong su's mindset and the new guy's attitude towards him is being shown for a reason. the creator's past works have been consistent about the point that having a physical reaction/experiencing arousal in response to being sexually assaulted doesn't negate the assault. it would also connect with how, despite the kids, seong su is generally inexperienced/naive about sex if he's never had it or experienced intimacy with someone else while fully lucid until he started doing stuff with hyeondo.
could be cope, but i really want to see a story feature characters, especially bottoms, actively and intentionally embracing and deciding their sexual interests and activity in these circumstances.