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Fantasy analogue to racial domination fetishization (please try to keep this SFW)

I think one of the more interesting subplots in Invisible Man is the relationship between the narrator, a friendly and innocuous black man, and Sybil, a sheltered white woman who fantasizes about being raped and brutalized by a black man, and who views the narrator in line with the myths she's built up in her head about what black men are like. I'd like to include a relationship like this in one of my fantasy stories, albeit between members of two entirely fictional races (after all, I'm not brave enough to write it between real races like Ellison did.)

At the moment, however, I'm having difficulty writing the mixture of fear, fascination, and ignorant racism that the "white woman" should possess. I just can't fit it together in a way that makes sense. Does anyone have any advice on how to write this type of character?

Although the story itself will be NSFW, I'd like to keep this topic as close to SFW as is reasonable considering the subject matter, so try not to get too lewd.

Wall of text explaining the situation below. Skip or skim it as you please:

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The fleshcrafter (the "black man" in this case) is mixed-race, and can pass for a soulcrafter ("white.") The soulcrafter woman has been dating him for years, and has been engaged to him for six days when he admits his secret at the start of the story. She guessed early on that he was mixed-race, but guessed wrong as to the other race, assuming he was half-brute (uh, "Mongol", I guess?) Brutes also have a bad reputation in her country, albeit not quite as horrendous, so she already fetishizes him to some degree. He's too spineless to put up much resistance if she wants him to pretend to dominate her, but he can do a passable job at the pretense. And if it matters, she's against sex before marriage, but not against anything related to sex.

Again, fleshcrafters and soulcrafters aren't black and white, and a lot of things differ in the comparison. For starters, at no point did soulcrafters ever enslave fleshcrafters--in fact, for forty years, an exiled fleshcrafter ruled over the soulcrafters, commanding an army of brutes to enforce absolute control over their land. (I guess in some ways, it's more like Nazi fetishism, although the fleshcrafter king never killed noncombatants unless they broke his laws.) Anyways, said fleshcrafter was assassinated just a few months ago, and the soulcrafters and brutes are now engaged in a civil war. Soulcrafters are slaughtering brute noncombatants, and although not many people are aware the king even had any bastard children, both the man and the woman know (but don't discuss) that if she reported him, he'd be killed as well.

I can get as far as when he admits his heritage, but it breaks down when I try to write what she thinks and feels once the shock wears off enough for her to fully process it. (I'd like to use her as the viewpoint character, if I can manage it.)
 

Amanita

Maester
I don't know your story and setting, therefore I can only give limited advice but maybe, it will still help a bit. It feels to me as if you should try and move away from the story set in our world with real-world issues and get to know the fantasy-world cultures more deeply. The relationship between your different groups seems to be quite different from the one in the real world and therefore they will be affected and fascinated by quite different things, have different fears and so on. You'll have to figure out what exactly those are rather than think "the white woman equivalent" or anything along those lines.
If the fantasy cultures aspects don't really interest you and you really want to write the real-world version, do that. You don't have to publish your work if you feel it's too problematic and controversial, maybe you only want to show it to close friends, but a fantasy version that's only fantasy because you want to avoid that probably will not work.
If you're fascinated by some aspect of the relationship between the fantasy cultures, go for it and try to move beyond your real world inspiration.
 

Ophiucha

Auror
Hmm, some general thoughts about fetishism, fantasies, and stereotypes:

1) There are two things that drive the fetishization of black men: exoticism and, erm, size, let's say. To the former, black men are seen as 'exotic', indeed, 'animalistic'. Barbarians. Primitive. In a modern setting, this has been transferred to, 'aggressive' and 'criminals'. Black men have been stereotyped first as the animal-skin warriors, then as the slaves that carry the modern world on their back, and now as thugs and gangsters. They have always been seen as more primal and more strong than white men. The second one, well... I don't think I really need to explain why that is fetishized. These two stereotypes (as, of course, neither are grounded in reality) are basically essential to understanding the nature of not just the fetishization of black men, but the specific fantasy of being dominated by a black man.

2) It's also important to realize the possible roots of the rape fantasy. Studies done have gotten numbers as high as 50% of women admitting to having rape fantasies - and given the sort of fantasy that is, it's entirely possible the actual number is higher. The reasons for this almost all are linked to societal misogyny. Women are told they cannot want sex, but being forced into it... well, that's beyond their control. You can't blame them for it. (The trend to label black men as criminals and rapists in Western media further ties the two together, since many women simply see rapists as black. They can't imagine a white man as a rapist.) The world telling women that they are submissive and internalizing that so much that it plays into their fantasies. Some have also speculated that it could be tied to a woman's "need" to be desired (that a man couldn't resist when he saw her), but that's a problematic interpretation needless to say.

3) In order to create a similar scenario between two fantasy races, these sorts of conditions need to exist. There should be a societal reason for her to have these sorts of fantasies, and there should be a societal reason for a fleshcrafter to be object of her fantasies. The sorts of fantasies we have about other races and nationalities are not all the same, and they are based on the stereotypes around them. I doubt anyone has rape fantasies about French men, you know?

4) As an aside, though you mentioned the leader of the rebellion was a fleshcrafter, the fact that his army was made up of brutes would generally indicate the Nazi to Brute fetishization, as opposed to Nazi to Fleshcrafter. Also, I think the only reason anyone fetishizes the Nazis is because of their uniforms.

5) Finally, if she is your focus character, it's also worth considering how often a fantasy plays out successfully. Needless to say, actual rape is traumatic and undesirable, and even women who come away from it without physical or emotional scars couldn't be said to have enjoyed it. But rape roleplay - well, a lot of people find them kinda 'meh'. The forbidden nature of the fantasy makes it hard to play out, even if you've got yourself safe words and an agreeable partner. If you get to a point where they decide to play the scenario, particularly if the guy doesn't have his heart in it, she could very well be unsatisfied.

Just some thoughts. Do with that what you will.
 
I'd like to thank Ophiucha for reminding me that I'd established years ago that soulcrafters, as a race, are less likely to be comfortable with sex (since all the other races have some way they can obviously use their magic to facilitate sex, whereas soulcrafting is too invasive to facilitate anything other than rape.) A rule against sex before marriage is something that could be bent--after all, they're already engaged--but a cultural fear of sex, in conjunction with a still-existing desire for sex, means the heroine would probably need some manner of self-justification even for regular sex, let alone for the kinky stuff a fleshcrafter is capable of. The fleshcrafter king was well-known to be a rapist, so that fills in the rest of the blanks--the heroine expects the hero to dominate her because she's less afraid of being dominated than of actually admitting her sexuality, and the hero goes along with it because hey, at least she's not reporting him to the authorities.
 
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