the genre doesn't really matter; in fact i think it just overcomplicates the issue. h/c can exist in adventure stories, scifi stories, fantasy stories, religious stories, regular prose stories, or any kind of story at all. the definition i've always used for h/c is when a vulnerable but attractive character is made to Hurt in the course of the story, and is then Comforted by the audience's (or usually the author's) self-insertion character. the identification is almost always with the hero/Comforter, although i hadn't thought about possible audience identification with the victim...interesting.

btw, 'whipping boy' works fine too, imo. :)