Fic rec and discussion of Somnophilia as a kink

[amanuensis1]

I read atdelphi's The Ravenclaw Girl (Filch/Luna, NC-17) (look, it's another Filch pairing rec! What can I say. ^_^ ) and one of the things that tickled me most about this very funny story was Delphi's take on somnophilia. Which got me to thinking.


Somnophilia, which can broadly be defined as pleasure taken from sexual activity where one partner is sleeping, has a lot of permutations in fantasy. And I love some of those takes but others cross my line. Thing about somnophilia is, if one person is in a natural sleep state, eventually they're going to wake up if the activity gets too, well, active. For some people, I think part of the pleasure of the fantasy is imagining how far they can go before the sleeping person wakes. And I like that but I can't really write that into a story, because I reach a point where I no longer believe the person would still be asleep. Can't buy it.

On the other hand, some people might find the pleasure of the fantasy is that the sleeping person can feign sleep all through, enjoy it and be awake but pretend to stay asleep--be blameless, if you will. Problem I have with this is that I think it has to assume that both parties know they are conspirators in the act. The "sleeping" participant knows s/he's awake and the active participant has to know that too, but both of them are pretending they don't. Except that they do both know it. That kills it for me. The point of being "blameless" is lost for me in that one. I think that's not the point for those who do find this version of it sexy, mind--they think the "conspiracy" is part and parcel of the sexiness of the act. In fact, some might find it an important part, for if they couldn't think that both parties are enjoying themselves and know that both of them have consented to the act, they might not enjoy the fantasy at all, would consider it just another twist on rape (if that turns them off).

Some might conquer both of these problems by imagining a drugged sleeper, who will be sure not to wake. But this implies a few things: 1) Loss of spontanaeity and undeniably dark intentions. The whole "oh, I've just come across you sleeping" innocence is gone if the active participant actually drugged the sleeper. 2) Even if the active participant didn't do the drugging--if the sleeper perhaps took something to help him/her get to sleep, for example--if the active participant knows this, there's still something dark about it. 3) If we can feel assured the sleeper won't wake up because of drugs, that removes the whole "how far can I go before they wake?" excitement of the fantasy, if that's the part you like.

For some the enjoyment is in imagining the sleeper's verge-of-sleep stirrings and murmurs that never quite cross the line into wakefulness. For some it's being the sleeper, feeling what's happening but perhaps thinking it's just part of their dreams. Sometimes I'll imagine a drug so tailored that it lets me believe the sleeper could really stay under but still have those responses--the problem I have is believing such a drug could exist in the first place. Soon, I'm saying, "Gimme a break, that's not a drug, that's an effing potion." And that's fine if I'm imagining a magical universe, but it's laughable if I'm not.

You see how complicated this is?

So this is why somnophilia, in the flavors I enjoy it, often stays within the confines of a fleeting fantasy and why I don't try to fit it into an actual written story. My suspension of disbelief falls to pieces at every turn.

Which means, of course, I'm thinking hard about how to make it work in a story anyway.

Comments

[silverhielm.livejournal.com]

I'd like to read that story :/
It sure is complicated! Maybe a solution would be a good and slow preparation before starting with the sex, but that too would mean that the thing was planned.
Most of this kink's charme must be in this paradox. As for me, somnophilia is related to slowness, with holding back before the orgasm... mmm sexy!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Heh, there coulda been a poll on this one. Do you like it, and what appeals about it, and all that.

[viverra-libro.livejournal.com]

Somnophilia is really an interesting kink, and I like how you've described it; it is really hard to make it believeable for any length of time in a story. I think there can be something a little darker underneath it, though, which of course I feel compelled to explain to you, oh Princess of Darkest Kinks Ever. ;) You probably know all this, but you might be interested in the book so I'll talk about it anyway.

I've been re-reading a book on the depiction of women in 1880s - 1920s art, called "Idols of Perversity". It has a huge section on the fetishization of sleeping/dead/drowned women, which were prevalent in art from that period. Women's sexuality was seen as being powerful and tending to overcome and consume men. So the Victorians divided women into evil/sexual/active or good/virtuous/nonsexual/passive. Only the latter were safe to be attracted to. And when is a woman most passive and virtuous? When dyingn (or dead) from unfulfilled (nonsexual) love. But it was considered inappropriate to be attracted to dead women, of course, so the artist played with the line and made paintings of women that could be seen as either dead or asleep.

I got the impression that death was seen as erotic because it embodies ultimate helplessness. So sleeping women were fetishized because the viewer could imagine that the woman was safely, virtuously dead, and therefore completely unable to exert influence on the man to do whatever evil, sexual women do, yet there was real no harm (or anything truly appropriate) because she was just asleep. Maybe it just boils down to a variation of a submission kink. . .

Anyway, hope that made a shred of sense. It's terribly complicated, and I'm sure I've botched it all up, but the book is truly fascinating.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, that's interesting how much that idea disturbs me! I like the idea that the artist would keep things nice and vague so you could just say, "Oh, she's just sleeping. Sexy, isn't it? Not like if she were dead; that'd be twisted and creepy, of course, ha ha." Yup, gotta try to normalize our fetishes, don't we. ^_^

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I hope atdelphi posts it at pornish_pixies. The current version is apparently friends-locked, but the pairing just sounds so intriguing!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

It's not friendslocked on her lj, as far as I can see...

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

How strange. It appeared to be yesterday, but I can see it now. Oh well, yay for new fic, and thanks for the update!

[mneomosyne.livejournal.com]

I wish you'll find a good way to make it work, I'd love to read that story.

Why not a combination of the above?

What if someone acts very subtle and gets away with it?

Or when the sleeper has been acting from the start fooling the other?

Or if the sleeper is ill and has a fever warm enough to sleep trough a lot?

Or the sleeper is too insecure / intimidated to do something about it and feigns sleep to avoid more trouble?

Or there's a spinning wheel and Harry turns seventeen but forgets to ask Snape for his party. :p

I really like somnophilia, I should make a fanart piece for it. :) Thanks for bringing it up.

[phantomminuet.livejournal.com]

Or there's a spinning wheel and Harry turns seventeen but forgets to ask Snape for his party. :p

If Lucius is handsome Prince Philip in that scenario, I am so there.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

They made a Disney Pin of that shot in your icon and I not only bought it, I bought two in case I lose one. :D

[phantomminuet.livejournal.com]

You must have been a Girl Scout. ;-)

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Or when the sleeper has been acting from the start fooling the other?

Ha, there's a bit of a twist on this that I'm working on!

And all of these are delicious. Bunny bunny bunny! Especially the Sleeping Beauty version, heh.

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

There's a use for sleep that I've put in a couple unfinished stories that I find really sexy, to wit:

Someone who is afraid of being rejected tries to seduce the object of desire when he (the object) is asleep (say, reaches out to stroke genitals through trousers...). The idea being that, if the beloved wakes up aroused, he'll go with it in a sleepy state- his resistance will be down. It will not be coercion- just a way to make the object more approachable (especially in an "but I'm not gay!" situation). The danger, though, is that the person will wake up and be furious and insulting and doubly insulted because of the sneakiness...

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that definitely has somnophilia kink written all over it, even though the seducer's intent is that the sleeper should wake at some point. Still has "how far can I go, how far should I go?" as the key portion! (And it sounds yummy too.)

[whitealchemist.livejournal.com]

I think the real trick of somnophilia is in the pacing and stages of the act. Speaking from a sleeping-participant position, of course the waking-up is inevitable, but there's a great many stages from genuine sleep to waking up to the sensation of touch whilst still being too much almost-asleep to question it, gradual gaining of awareness, and then it actually becomes a game of skill on the part of the sleeper-now-awake to feign sleep and see how long one can entice the active partner into thinking you're still asleep before this evolves into something full-on. That, at least, is where I find the appeal in the kink. There's a trading-off of power partway that can be quite fun.

That's my take on it, at least *coughs*

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Pacing is very key. Especially if there's a point at which the suspension of disbelief becomes difficult (as in my case). And the trading-off, mmm, sounds like the moment in a song where it moves from a major key to minor or vice versa. ^_^

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I have a few problems with most somnophilia I read, and yes, the suspension of disbelief is often one of them, but the consent issue is usually bigger, to me.

The main thing (and I've seen this in main-line romance novels, too) is that it often seems to be used in order to write a classic rape fantasy without having to treat it as a rape. Which is to say - I want either for the sleeper to have given at least implicit consent at some point while concious, or I want the story to acknowledge that it *wasn't* consensual.

Not that I have anything against bodice rippers. I just - if that's what you're writing, admit you're writing it, and deal with it. Being asleep doesn't give you any more (or less) right to fall in love with him after than being tumbled in the rye with a knife against your stays.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Hee, love the wit of that last image. I'm with you on this--I think there's a sweet benign kind of somnophilia that can be imagined, like one lover slowly awakening the other in the nicest way, which implies consent. It's far too vanilla to hit my own kink buttons which is probably why I failed to include it in the post. Otherwise somnophilia pretty much implies lack of consent, taking-advantage-of, seduction in the negative sense. If lack of consent disturbs one, OR, if it's bothersome to imagine someone breezing past the non-consensual nature of the act, it's going to ring wrong.

[geniusartist.livejournal.com]

I have a kink for non-con as it is, but when non-con is triggered by somnophilia, it hits a double-delicious kink for me. Part of what I find enjoyable about somnophilia in certain scenarios is where there's a power play involved and the person who is awake is essentially taking advatage of the person sleeping and knows that the sleeping person wouldn't necessarily welcome those advances if awake. And so, I enjoy the point at which the person on the receiving end wakes up to find that his/her body has been ravaged (heh) and that it responded to the sexual advances. And then from there it's either non-con or dubious con the rest of the way because, of course, that person must then be brought to orgasm regardless. Sufficed to say, I find the scenario where someone is drugged and never awakens the entire time to be unsatisfying. However, if the person who is drugged and later awakens, and then resists ... *licks*

In any case -- if you write it, I'll read it.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'm licking all the scenarios you've outlined. Me being a fan of non-con, you could probably have guessed that. ^_^

[christwise.livejournal.com]

Now, I've never had the pleasure to read anything with this particular kink so this got me to thinking, how would I write this? Could I pull it off?

I don't think I did. I don't think this is strictly somnophilia. I think it's worse and probably goes way beyond any squick boundaries but here it is (http://community.livejournal.com/holyperv/4552.html#cutid1) if you're so inclined.

/pimp

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Aiee. No, I don't think it's somnophilia quite, but it's eerie and ever so wrong. Anything that challenges squick barriers is to be commended!

[christwise.livejournal.com]

Heh, thank you! And thanks for reading. And not running away screaming in terror.

Awake while sleeping

[rectpropagation.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I'll imagine a drug so tailored that it lets me believe the sleeper could really stay under but still have those responses--the problem I have is believing such a drug could exist in the first place.

I can think of three times I've 'woken up' while sleeping but been too asleep to actually get up or even open my eyes and it's been caused by drugs (there's a fourth time but I can't remember why it happened).

1) Waking up from surgery I could here a woman and a man talking about me. I remember the woman saying I could probably be moved soon since it looked like I was waking up but it seemed like a long time before I could open my eyes. I couldn't speed up waking up even though I wanted to wake up. I can't remember if I was able to say anything or move.

2) I had to get what the nurse called a push of some medication because the drug they used to put me under made me feel sick. (It hurts, BTW, as it is injected into your IV.) I was able to talk when I half awoke from that drug induced sleep. I tried to ask my mom if the Fugees were on whatever she was watching on TV since I couldn't wake up enough to open my eyes and she thought I was talking in my sleep. I guess I was.

3) The third time I think I overdosed on Benadryl or I took a Benadryl after taking something else that causes drowsiness.

I think a somnophilia story could work if the person who's awake only touched the sleeping person and got off on what they imagined the sleeping person was dreaming about. I don't know if that's a cheat since sex wouldn't actually occur in the story but it could be believable.

Re: Awake while sleeping

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I remember going under for anesthesia once and trying to ask a question and I couldn't, so I started to cry in frustration, and I tried to say, "It's okay, I'm only crying because I can't speak" and of course I couldn't say that aloud either so I started to cry harder! And after that I was out.

Yeah, sex doesn't have to actually occur--you don't have to go all the way; sometimes just a forbidden touch or two can be made highly sexy in narrative or fantasy. Good point.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

I think the "how far can I go?" kink is the tastiest trigger... I'd love to see more of these that don't feel the need to result in penetration. Even without that, it sounds really hot. ;)

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I like imagining the next day, the active participant looking at the sleeper, going about the normal day, wondering how much s/he remembers...

Sleeping Beauty, anyone?

[persephone-blue.livejournal.com]

The first thought I had after reading your essay is the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. I have no idea if you've ever read about this, so I'm just going to go ahead and launch into a little lecture: In more than one older variation of the story, the king or prince comes across the sleeping princess, is unable to resist her, and, rather than kissing her, goes ahead and has his wicked, wicked way with her. There's never really a question of concience; the king is smitten with her beauty and, well, he's the king.

A creepy twist on the tale, sometimes, is the implication of necrophilia; the king/prince thinks Sleeping Beauty isn't under a sleeping spell, she's just dead. So it's perfectly okay.

In some versions, the girl awakes during the sex. In others, she wakes up when the king's long gone and she's giving birth to the children (usually twins) he impregnated her with. In others still, our heroine is out cold until one of her children attempts to nurse, and ends up sucking on her finger, thereby dislodging the poisoned needle. Magically comatose main character or not, you can see the implausibility of the somnophilia kink has a history.

All variations end with the princess uniting with the king. Sometimes he's already married to another woman, usually an ogre or, worse, a barren queen. The woman tries to kill the strange princess and the children because she is a Very Evil Queen, and, when found out, she's put to death. The princess then takes her rightful place as ruler, though I find her eagerness to marry the man who well, raped her one of the more disturbing things about the story.

Re: Sleeping Beauty, anyone?

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

In others still, our heroine is out cold until one of her children attempts to nurse, and ends up sucking on her finger, thereby dislodging the poisoned needle.

Oh, man, in all my fairy tale reads, how did I miss that one? That's fabulous.

[persephone-blue.livejournal.com]

Very possibly, it's much more rare than I thought. Did it prompt any somnophilia ideas, I hope?

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Well, some warming thoughts, certainly. ^_^

[persephone-blue.livejournal.com]

Ha!! Wonderful news!