'Demon Dash': Kink, Power, and the T4T Appeal of Dubcon
The seduction is beauty, the aim is ecstasy, the consent is dubious.
When I started hormones and moved to New York City in 2016, I was surprised to find one common theme throughout nearly all of my T4T hookups: kink. A lot of queer trans women are kinky. And they're into kink for a wide assortment of reasons, as I've written about previously in my career.
Not every trans woman is into kink, sure. But I’d wager most of us are. Kink provides an outlet for exploring desires that vanilla connection often fails to provide. In kink, we can take on new roles, play around with power and gender expression, and rethink our intimate relationships in unique ways. BDSM also lets us navigate sexuality without genital engagement, and it provides ways to consider erotic relationships without sex. For trans women with genital dysphoria, and for trans girls who are ace, the appeal is obvious.
There are many works out there that scratch the itch of what it’s like to seek out complex D/s engagements, or what it’s like to be T4T, but it’s rare to see a work embrace the two together at the same time and explore feelings of mutual transfeminine desire, longing, and power. Then again, I’m not entirely surprised nadia nova accomplished this with her new visual novel.
Uh oh, I've been captured by a hot bisexual demon woman!
What if demons took over the world, and a wide assortment of humans gained a kink for their new demon rulers? There would be an app for that, of course! In Demon Dash, there's a titular delivery service that lets humans sign up to be owned by a demon. If a demon likes what they see, they can order their human sent to their home and receive a white-glove delivery for their brand new plaything. Cute!
When bisexual demoness Hellebarb Diapensia orders a submissive girl with a pussy named Anabella, the Demon Dash delivery demons accidentally kidnap Anabella's twin sister, Anette. Despite Anette's pleas, Barb doesn't realize the switch-up until after she's forcibly undressed Anette. Luckily, Anette's girldick doesn't faze Barb one bit, and she quickly forces Anette to beg for clothes by calling her Mommy.
So begins this delightfully dubious journey into a mommy domme T4T D/s romp with multiple endings, most of which involve getting spanked.
As far as T4T adult games go, nadia nova is pretty well known for creating devilishly sweet takes on trans kink and desire. I've loved her games for a minute; her work has repeatedly inspired my lesbian adult video games, and Demon Dash really proves no different. Be warned, from here on out, spoilers are ahead, as I'll be talking a bit about the game's endings.
The T4T appeal of dubcon
Demon Dash is all about dubious consent, better known as dubcon, a fiction premise where consent is gained under ethically questionable circumstances. Nova uses this premise to great effect, exploring the tug and pull of owning one's submissive desires as a trans woman, and how the right kind of scenario can allow trans girls to venture into the uncharted territory of submitting to a dominant, powerful woman.
While Barb and Anette's demon-run world is fantastical in nature, both characters are clearly trans-coded. Barb has a penis that she unapologetically uses throughout the game's sex scenes, and Anette has a cock and balls that are so small that they imply ongoing exposure to feminizing hormones.
To a trans girl player such as myself, both of these characters immediately read as the kind of trans female archetypes so common within our own T4T BDSM sexual fantasies—the submissive trans girl with repressed desires that are waiting to be freed, vs. the domineering trans girl top who unabashedly takes what she wants. Demon Dash then reveals what happens when these two women come together. Barb wants to be nurturing and mothering, but largely for her own ends. She wants to be pampered by a human girl, and she will control and command Anette to get what she wants, regardless of Anette's explicit consent. The player guides Anette's actions through the plot, and the player can ultimately lead her in two directions: submit to Barb's demands, or disobey her and face punishment.
Anette's consent is (at best) dubiously obtained throughout the game, but there's an implicit joy that she takes in the submission path, as if Anette surrenders to her disposition. Unlike her twin sister Anabella, she never truly chose to use the "perverted app" Demon Dash, so she can see herself as a victim robbed of innocence. Barb's desires are being forced onto her, even if they're secretly her own. So in dominance, Anette is freed to be a pervert. It's as if Anette is saying, "I don't really want to worship Barb's feet, or I don't really want to be spanked — Mommy is making me do it!"
Because of the shame and anxiety society places on us, many trans lesbians turn to kink to explore our sexualities. There, submission frees us. When we enter a play space where a Dominant commands us to enact our fantasies and fetishes, we simultaneously let go of autonomy and are affirmed in our desires. Dubcon takes this one step further by adding resistance into the equation. In a play space, if a Dominant is forcing us to be kinky, to be perverted, then we can safely tell ourselves that a much more powerful figure made us have kinky sex, and our actions cannot be attributed to us.
In other words, these kinds of consensual nonconsent (CNC) play spaces offer a pathway to facing shame and vanquishing its grip in our lives.
Granted, reality is complicated. Not all CNC play is created equally, and there’s a major difference between light themes of dubious consent, and some of the more advanced CNC play out there (best shied away from by beginners). CNC itself can also bring plenty of shame, and play can even backfire and increase shame. All this points to the fact that one cannot spank their way out of shame; they must find a way to truly own and acknowledge their own desires.
But when done right, D/s play with dubcon themes lets us teter a little closer to the edge, giving many trans lesbian a play space where they have consented to what can be best described as a kinky form of exposure therapy. Face your desires, and realize that partaking in them isn’t quite as bad as it may seem.
Of course, you can also choose to disobey throughout Demon Dash, going so far as to refuse to admit you've been a bad girl mid-spanking, because it's "too embarrassing for [Anette] to say something like that out loud." Barb is clearly frustrated here, but she takes delight in punishing Anette, even as the poor human tries (and fails) to escape from the demon girl's grasp. "Barb's excitement was already massive — just like her erection — and seeing tears start to leak out from Anette's eyes put a smug grin on the demon's face!" the narrator says.
Isn't there a kind of joy in hiding your own desires? Isn't punishment its own reward? In dubcon, certainly. Pain may not be very pleasurable to Anette, but it is to the player. We secretly want to see our in-game avatar shattered by a trans demoness, a woman just like us, except she gets as hard as a diamond from her own cruelty. Her dominance simultaneously shows our potential for transfeminine power, and our capacity for submission to it. In that, we project ourselves onto Anette. Sometimes the greatest longing from a queer trans woman is to simply be pummeled by a greater, more powerful trans woman. A woman just like us, who can put us in our place and keep us there, regardless of whatever we say or do.
All in good fun, of course. In real life, we can stop whenever we want. But why stop when the pain feels so good? Even if I had the choice, I wouldn't rescue Anette. I'd let her be spanked, because I'd like to be spanked like that too. Dubcon is just another way fiction lets us understand our own desires. And nadia nova captures why so well.
Special thanks to Ashley Louis Yeo Payne and Jacqie for their generous Sex-Haver tier contributions.