@MangaSanctuary

And frankly this is something that I feel like was such wasted potential. Maybe we’ll see it happen in season 2, I doubt it, but we never actually get to see Jaekyung struggle with his jinx. We never get to see him lose a match because of it or perform poorly because of it or anything, to the point where the stupid thing might as well not even be real. Yeah, whatever, Dan’s a totally fucking pushover—even he could’ve still used it as some type of equalizer. Hey, Jaekyung, if you’re not going to treat me halfway decently, I’m just going to drop this whole deal. No, it never happens. Dan is too fucking sad and poor to make any real demands and Jaekyung has literally anyone he wants at his beck and call. No one gives an actual shit what he does. What the fuck kind of stakes are those? Zero tension whatsoever. It’s all so one-fucking-sided and that’s why it’s so LAUGHABLE that this is even a debate that needs to be had. But whatever I guess I and everyone else needs to kneel down and suck Jaekyung’s fat millionaire cock because he was so benevolent as to let his sex toy live with him out of convenience instead of letting him rot on the streets or something. Don’t piss me off.

Things advanced so fast that now we've reached already the 3th page...?
And with my poor frenglish it's not easy to express everything I'd like to say :'> But here I'll give my thoughts.
I like how this discussion is linked to that other we have ("I like Dan, but...').

When I first saw this manhwa of Migwa, tbh I was disappointed by the plot they've picked (you know how artists authors never have only one scenarios to pick from in their pocket): there were already many bl manhwas at the time with this trope (rich big ml/poor endebted mc...). "The art had progressed so much, but why this cliché story...?" But seeing how it gets so popular anyway, I find myself curious about the outcome of this plot and how will progress their relationship. So, I think my pov is pretty neutral compared to vast majority who either hate Jjk with passion or are fans of Jinx/Mingwa.
About the smut, I never found them hot and mostly tried to skip them, but couldn't anyway bc the comments are filled with debats about them, with the topic about rape regularly brought on the table... with already very detailed descriptions of the smut to determin whether there's rape in their s interactions or not done by readers.

As we know, to determin whether there's rape or not in this PRECISE case (Jinx) and other similar cases is not simple, we're really walking on sword's edge here. Though these contracts that engage sexual transactions in exchange of money/favors are just that complicated, unless there's clear boundaries established with no one to break them, under any conditions. The issue, Achille Talon, lies within the nature of transaction itsef, where consent like the rest can be bought. There's no limit to the type of 'services' you want to get, as long as you have the financial means. When there's money, there's always a way, making this sector profundly corrupted and very hard to rescue the victims. Even rescued, victims can go back to their pimp (Stockholm Syndrom), and mostly for the (easy) money. Prostitution is always plagued with abuses, torture even killings ; the ground profits of all the failures of the law and system, fail parenting, fails of society... the struggles of competent structures to find responsabilities, even more when victims refuse to fill complaint...
Yes, this ground is a Big swamp. It requests a lot of human ressources, surveillance, and infortunately police and judges are overpowered and inefficient most of the time. It's like that everywhere, and the fact that's SK doesn't change much that reality aside for sure that gay relationships aren't even acknowledged with their own issues.
I thought it's important to reminds that context regarding sw.

I told about how readers already fought and wrote detailed analyses of the smuts to know whether there's rape or not. In fact, I also avoided them, but yeah, I know like you such 'studies' were already done, certainly more than one time here.
That's why I won't do that and just give my simple and honest opinion about the topic.

Are the smut in Jinx, indeed rape...?
If they're not rape, they're forced to the very least. That's why, personally I don't find them arousing: Jjk just put his huge thing and drill it in mc's butts. It feels dry, rushed and painful to see ; the sex the mma practicer has is only pleasurable to himself and is strictly selfish. And he's not there to care anyway!!
If Dan managed to cum anyway from this, that's certainly from pure physical reactions at first, and bc he started to have feelings for Jjk after.

In regard of their mercantile transactions, there's no rape bc the intercourses are motivated by mutual benefices to both parties, as we're aware. An accord was made and both agreed to the terms: exchanges of money against sex. So, by that, the concept of rape seems out of the question. Though, considering the circumstances of how this contract was made, and the very reason why, the idea that Dan's was forced to accept the offer bc he didn't have any other choice questions effectively if he wasn't forced to agree to the sexual acts against his own will. And this is even more relevant how their first encountering happened: a terrifying Jjk had just beaten a prostitute out of the appartement for the lacking skills of this latter to satisfy his expectations. This constitutes a clear aggraving element: Dan could've felt threatened in the moment (for his life), and was pressured after by the limited time to accept the offer to sleep with the mma guy for money.
The difficulty of the question resides in the fact that even if Dan was pressed and pushed to accept fastly, Jjk gave him also the possibility to refuse at any moment. People still call him a rapist because of how he pressed Dan to have sex with him, his rudeness and violent behavior, although the sportif is always behaving like trash to everybody, not just him...
Though this is transactional intercourses, there can be mutual respect ; respect of boundaries etc... However even if Jjk never Beats him and, in the contrary, had a multiple times helped and saved him... it feels like he just sees the older guy like a servant one time and another time a sexual object another time like his property. Dan never knew, for exemple, about that bdsm-esque situation the asshole has put him through for Heesung to witness...
This entitled and cruel attitude towards Dan, that direspect, is what makes many to still see him as a rapist.

But all this, we already know it all. Right...?
And it's about time I give my avis.
I know that many will hate me for my answer, but strictly regarding their circumstances and the nature of their relationship, I think there's not rape in the strict sense we see it. Rape implies that someone feels violated AND reports it to the authorities ; fills a complaint to gain justice and reparation. Though as we know, this is not what happens with Dan. Forcing him to admit he was raped won't do too. Even less, since he started to like the dude who treated him like that.
That's also why, while prostitution is supposedly banned in a lot of countries, its existence is tolerated or ignored due to the mercantile nature of the sex. Unless the victim themself make a complain, no one will mind this kind of problem that they think entitled to that field.

Though there was forced intercourses under certain no negligeable circumstances from Jjk. He pressured Dan and took advantages of his absolutely misery; there's 0 terms established between them, which is not normal. I'm not very versed in law infortunately so I don't know much, but I think there should be something to punish coercive sex like this.
With indefinite sexual contracts like theirs, there should be some rules established between both parties. It's not some one-shots sw here, but a long term sexual relationship where two persons live understand the same roof, btw. The fact there's no terms like limitations to the intercourses is an open door to abuses of all kinds, which is against basic human rights. Maybe THIS, is the failure where we can start to built arguments against such case. Dan is also at fault for not thinking about them (terms of transaction), and even though he did it's clear Jjk may refuse seeing the amount of money he's given to the guy etc... He likes raw sex, btw, which can be a problem/risk if he's used to sleep with a lot of # people.

In any case, rape or not, ultimately the decision will be for Dan to make. Will he? No, seeing where the story goes. Agree, it's very infortunate that Dan did nothing else apart comply, obey and blame himself even when he's not at fault. He could express, yes, how he dislikes the way he's being treated by that huge dick, but it seems he never did (?)...

Lastly for my long tirades...
In many occasions Dan was roughed up by Jjk, pressed by the mma guy to have intercourses with him. I have no problem to say that under some circumstances he was forced, was raped effectively. But what will make me fight for him more is for him to also express his distress and disgust of being raped. Even understand the s contract thing... I need for Dan to express himself more, even cries in his own corner, but did he? My guy is a victim of misery, and through this striking poverty, of himself

I agree the plot is very cliche and I honestly wouldn’t care this much if not for these types of discussions precisely because it is so cliche. I seriously just cannot stand the way people are arguing for Jaekyung not being a rapist—a lot of their arguments come down to the same rhetoric that ends up blaming victims for their own rape and sexual assault, and some of them will even basically admit to you that they think you can do pretty much anything to anyone as long as you pay them. That, in fact, it’s a wealthy person’s right to exploit underprivileged people if they want or “need” to. It’s too fucked up for me to entertain in-betweens where there are none. So I do genuinely appreciate you pointing out the broader systemic issues and nuances that make Dan’s situation so coercive—a lot of people here won’t or can’t even acknowledge that much. But there’s also a reason why I asked about FRIES and whether or not you think someone should be physically forced to work.

The thing is that maybe if Dan were, I don’t know, somewhat more compliant with what was going on with him, then maybe we’d really exist in more of a grey area. But the fact of the matter is many times, Dan straight up tells Jaekyung to stop. Even moving into the time they established their contract, there’s a chapter where Dan physically hits Jaekyung because he wants it to stop so bad. If you agree with FRIES then you’ve already agreed that consent is REVERSIBLE, it can be taken back at any time. A contract doesn’t negate that. A contract that negates your ability to say NO to work is akin to slavery. Jaekyung at that point would have every right to tell Dan that he won’t pay him anymore and dissolve their contract. He does NOT have the right to force him to work, or have sex with him while he’s non-compliant. That is still just rape.

"Rape implies that someone feels violated AND reports it to the authorities ; fills a complaint to gain justice and reparation."

This is disrespectful not only to the story but to so, so many very real life rape and sexual assault victims. I cannot capitalize on this enough. There are so many reasons why people don't come forward or go through with legal proceedings after they've been raped or sexually assaulted. Like I've been trying to explain to Domosama so many times throughout this thread, the justice system, at least in the US, is shit. And I know for a fact that in South Korea, when it comes to convicting their sexual abusers, things might just be even fucking WORSE there because of the absolutely dogshit state of women's rights over there. Rape/SA victims often feel too ashamed to come forward because of the stigma many societies have around it. Sometimes victims are simply afraid of or even afraid FOR the perpetrator; the perpetrator might have intimidated them into silence, the perpetrator might be a friend or family member or someone beloved in some broader community, so the victim might feel bad about even reporting them, or feel that they will end up being persecuted by their own friends/family/community. Sometimes they just don't want their loved one to be punished even though they NO DOUBT FEEL VIOLATED. The legal process in and of itself can RE-TRAUMATIZE victims. Sometimes there's simply no evidence or not enough evidence for legal action to be taken. ALL KINDS OF REASONS WHY people do not pursue legal action. You want to sit here and tell me the OVERWHELMING amount of people who don't pursue legal action for having been raped simply weren't raped? Then what?

And Dan most definitely did feel violated by what Jaekyung does to him. The first time these two are together, he ends up laying in bed, unable to sleep for like, a week, just because he feels so shitty physically AND emotionally after the fact. Several times when Dan is doing stuff with Jaekyung, he has flashbacks to when his former boss sexually assaulted him/attempted to do so. Do you think it's an arbitrary detail that was added to the story? That Dan thinks of the guy who first sexually assaults him while Jaekyung subjects him to his whims? Why do you think his brain is making that connection? But let's be honest; Mingwa of course isn't interested in exploring a story like that to its fullest, and certainly she's not interested in exploring a story where Dan pursues any legal action. Let me tell you how it works in America at least—Dan would likely still be screwed even if he pressed charges. We have a convicted rapist coming in as our next president of the United States. As if the legal system would give a fuck about some impoverished nobody like Dan over an established and wealthy athlete like Jaekyung. Dan wouldn't even be able to afford himself an attorney here. God don't piss me fucking off.

And Dan DOES express his discomfort with how he's being treated, that first time around and several times afterwards. He tells Jaekyung to wait or to stop or that it hurts or any number of things literally almost every time they're doing shit together, Jaekyung just doesn't give a fuck, he's a selfish and entitled sadist. Even when Jaekyung is the one to ask Dan if he wants anything to change about how they have sex, and Dan asks for them to use condoms, Jaekyung just refuses. If Dan stopped complaining about it it's simply because he learned nothing would change even if he did. Come on.

Like I agree as we get further into the story and Dan develops "feelings" for Jaekyung, things regarding consent might get a bit blurrier, but let's not act like anything before that point wasn't rapey. Oh, and, sex that is coerced is just rape. Let's just get that one down now. And yes I agree the law should recognize it as such and it should be punished more harshly.

You see, maybe my pov concerning some details related to the smut scenes are no very acurate.
You tell how Dan was asking Jjk to stop, but I can't remember that, as I said I skipped most of the smut scenes even though I remember that he was always roughed up whether they were in the bed or outside the bed.
So if Dan had asked him to stop, he should stop and re/negociate the terms later or find someone else. Though let's not forget that Dan can do as much: negociate the conditions and drop their 'cooperation'.
There, Jjk's acting like a basic ml of a bl and Dan also, there's not so much thoughts from author's perspective than this.
However, we're aware that deep down and even though he's mistreated he can't refuse: the life of his grandma is at stake, he needs a lot of money... Looks like I condone their actions, no, that's simply bc Dan has no choice at all and his entire survival dépends on the mma guy, not just for his dying gran...

About what you asked about the sick employee and his employer, of course this latter has no right to force anyone to come to work, less again if the person's sick. It's not like he can't hire other people and there's rules within workplaces for a reason.

No, no, I AGREE with you entirely on this, from this perspective.
I don't know if I can blame it on my frenglish, but I was insensitive there. I didn't consider this question from all aspects and acknowledge that my opinion was poor and lacks empathy. Of course, I totally can understand why a victim won't or couldn't file report to the police.

About the story, I'm less invested than you guys, there's passages that I just look rapidly and others that I forgot a bit unless like here, when you tell them again. So sorry, maybe I'm not the best interlocutor for this topic, but I do feel empathy for the victims of rape and acknowledge that Dan was forced to have sex and comply to Jjks demandes against his will, under his absolute need for money. He was raped, there's no doubt to that, but as we know things are complicated due to the transactional relationship they have, and that's the issue.

Yeah dude let’s try actually reading the scenes before having a full-fledged debate about whether or not what Jaekyung does to Dan actually constitutes rape or not. I even went back and reread while taking NOTES because so many people kept trying to argue that I basically wasn’t seeing and reading what I was seeing and reading with my own two eyes. I can pull out specific bits and pieces of dialogue and the context surrounding them demonstrating my point. I am happy and willing to post those notes and we can really sincerely hash this out down to the line if we want to. I am willing to allot nuance where there is nuance but on several scenes I just can’t; that would be to compromise my own definition of consent and rape and I don’t see any good reason to do that.

And yeah I’m glad we agree a boss also doesn’t have the right to force someone to do work if they can’t and don’t want to—again, this is just what Jaekyung does to Dan. Because simply put if Dan’s work is sex work and he’s forced to have sex then, well. And of course depending on where a sex worker is working there are rules and regulations there, too. So even under the whole paradigm of it being sex work, Jaekyung is still behaving unethically. But yeah of course unfortunately Dan can’t do jack diddly shit about it because he’s so bad off. Even now in season two he doesn’t have any place to call home anymore, his apartment in the projects is no doubt demolished so after his grandma dies he won’t have anywhere to really go. He’s just turbo-fucked.

Okay, thank you for acknowledging this. I appreciate it a lot. You’re reading loud and clear by the way, your English is fine, this part was just a bit ;;

Ok with that too.
Maybe article to punish coercive sex already exist but the thing is: is it applied? Or the victims would need to go to extrem extend to obtain justice?

Jjk needs to change, not just to get Dan's ass back home, but change for himself to become a better version of himself. I'm waiting for the redeeming bc there will be a lot of work to do, lol. The author's made him so undrinkable...

I mean even cases of rape where circumstances are much more clear cut aren’t taken super seriously, at least here in the US. I remember this awful news story about a girl being serially abused by her stepfather(?) who went to the police about it, only for them to spin it around on HER and make HER write a letter of apology to the stepfather. She had to wait and let him do it to her again so she could record it so she had more concrete evidence to show to get that guy charged. It’s just awful. So if a minor in that straightforward of a situation isn’t taken seriously, an adult in a coercive situation…yeah :/

But yeah that’s why despite all my issues with this story I’m sticking around wondering how on earth the author intends to try to spin him into being somehow better than he is right now. To me obviously Jaekyung needs to work through whatever happened to him in the past but like, he needs to be deeply, deeply humbled. From my perspective the guy is just utterly lacking in empathy. I don’t believe he was even born rich, I think he was self-made, but it’s like he’s forgotten where he’s come from, so someone like Dan is utterly beneath him (and I have quotes on this, too ;]). That’s why to me it felt like the ideal redemption for me would’ve been to see this guy truly lose everything, or almost everything—put him in or near Dan’s place so he can experience for himself how awful he’s been to Dan.

And he, no, the story overall needs to seriously acknowledge all of what Dan was put through—this, I have low expectations for, though. It connects back to the whole Dan being passive thing. At this point it doesn’t have to do with Dan himself but the way he’s written, the way these things are treated by the story in general. On one hand yes you have Dan seeming to experience very real trauma from his experience being sexually assaulted by his former doctor, but then on the other hand like…he falls in love with Jaekyung after everything Jaekyung does to him without even questioning his own feelings? Lol? No trauma from all that, supposedly, but he only feels guilt for having “fucked up” with handling Jaekyung? Come on now…

I just think it would be satisfying for Dan to actually show signs of having been fucked up mentally by Jaekyung’s actions, seriously, and for Jaekyung to see the lasting impact he’s had on Dan and feel bad about it, and then go out of his way to try to make up for it, you know? Like they try to have a more equal relationship but Dan keeps flinching away from Jaekyung or Dan very obviously keeps trying to just do whatever he can to please Jaekyung, and Jaekyung sees this and feels awful, and he has to actively keep trying to keep Dan assured that he’s not in any danger anymore, and help make Dan put himself first.

I feel your enthousiasm to demonstrate your arguments and I'm with you on that, but sorry if there's something you can't ask of me is to undergo these smut scenes again
Even for studies purposes!! It'll feel like I'm being punished if I had to look at them again, really. You're so studious and even take notes, that's formidable.
Though I don't know in details the manhwa, I think I know enough to discuss about it, so we can still discuss about it if you want.

If you have the time, maybe you can look at the last video of Omerta and see if it's English translated. It's about prostitution of underage girls. These girls can have till 15 passes (clients) a day! What had lead them to this? It can't be only for money or bags.
When I sée this, it's hard to believe that such thing as ethical behavior can exist in these workplaces where prostitution takes place, or they're apanage of the high-class escorts only (?) I don't want to agree with these people that speak like money can buy someone's life, but when you see so much GREED and underage willing to sell their skin like that for more money is mortifying...

Yes, Dan was made to have absolutely nothing... :'(

Forgot to add that someone of the girls are being trafficked, others are trapped in the circuits by bad people and others are doing it as 'independant' (which is certainly the 'safest' of the 3 options...)

Bahaha I can’t blame you for that. I’m just a crazy person who is desensitized to this type of thing and also likes to be right, that’s why I could go back and reread and take notes. I did this kind of research before too, anyway, so lmao. And I mean, I simply wanted to see if I could see what other people were seeing and just…think about the story more. I seem to have stopped my more detail-oriented reread at chapter 13. Lots to be said even up to that point, about Dan and Jaekyung and their dynamic overall. I think I found myself a bit more curious? Interested in? Jaekyung, but also just…amused by how tone-deaf and dumb he is he’s just such a character.

But yeah sex work is so…ugh it’s a very complex topic there’s so many different things at play when it comes to discussing it. Obviously minors shouldn’t participate at all. But how to make it more ethical, if it’s even possible to make it safer and more ethical, everyone has their own perspective. Ultimately I think yeah there needs to be more rules and regulations and protections for sex workers in general and that anyone in that industry should be in charge of themselves (stuff like OnlyFans where for the most part people are their own boss) otherwise it’s just too too easy for it to slip into exploitation and abuse.

I personally don't give a fk about the law or anything related, I distance myself from reality, I'm a dumb fujoshi waiting for 2 handsome men to make out, I maybe lack of empathy coz I don't care if ukes suffer, authors love to make them weak, I trust them and trust the fact that everything is going to end happily. My questions aren't "what is consent?" but "when are they going to ****???". I'm well aware that this manhua has some illegal things going on and is full of bullshit-_-, nothing can surprise me, coz it's fiction and the author can do whatever the hell she wants, certainly based on real life facts etc but still bullshit, if i want to make a girl with big d or a man getting pregnant I can... I don't analyse this fiction by comparing it to reality, I'm not "ooh that's illegal", "ah, this shouldn't happen like this".C'est se gâcher l'expérience...
People take this too serious and condemn fictional characters by saying he's a rapist, or worst, saying that ppl reading this accept it and enjoy this violence even irl, which is a creepy way of thinking... I don't like debating with Akaito, coz I find myself talking HOURS about the misfortunes of humanity when all I want know is wanting to know wtf happened to Dan's parents... Do I need to understand and read an article of 50 pages about consent and hear this dude show off how "intellectual" he is for me to understand and appreciate this manhua? Mmmmmh I think not! Btw instead of debating with randoms in this illegal website you should publish your thoughts make it a book Akaito

Tu es de France, Shiki ?

I think that whatever... each has their expectations and appreciation of a story. We can only share our view and hope to find some resonance with the other, but it's impossible to make others adhere to our opinion 100%. We're all different, after all.
For me the smut isn't the most important, it's like the cherry on top of the cake. Before that I need to savor the cake and appreciate how the ingredients were all mixed together to obtain such a tasty cake. If the cake doesn't taste good then I can still eat the cherry, but will still feel hungry.

Some like to think of stories as pure fictions, so whatever goes is fine for them, I guess. They don't have much expectations because they're open to everything and many possibilities.
Some others like reading original fictions too, but they need to find in these stories some common grounds in reality and, certainly, pertinence in the resolution of the # problematics.
Both can read the same stuff, but will they everything understand each others?

I'm sorry for just replying now. Actually,I read your first 4 comments above and I agree with them. I don't want to give my personal understanding about consent because I don't want to give false information to other readers. Ofc, it's a sensitive issue after all. And I just wanna say that I have no issues with the readers who stick to " no means no" basis. Well, they're from America or Europe. I don't know in some Asian countries but in my country and in SK there's still no basis as this. In SK,what jk did to Dan can be either imitative rape or indecent act. Still punishable tho. I gave an example about the kind of readers who judged without the full knowledge of the law. And there are readers who joked about rape like " idc if you're raped,gang raped or gang banged" . It's not really funny even if it's just a joke.

Remember that I don't hate you and I won't. We have similarities and differences,and I like that. I don't rely on my own understanding about sensitive issues that's why I'm dependent in the Law.