~~gay male porn. ferret porn. other porn. just, porn. (and eeek, that word is scary)

[reenka]

sharing porn is a weird thing, isn't it? the sort of frank discussion of it, forming friendships that include squeeing over it, getting to know people who write it -because- they write it.... i know people say that writing slash isn't exactly political, and it isn't, really. but isn't there something about all this overload of writing and desire and fantasy and the way it seems to range from one's highest to one's basest impulses, all combined and interwoven?


i suppose movies and books are pretty "loose" these days, and maybe it's just that the united states is sort of schizoid culturally in being both puritan and extremely decadent. i still feel this is a bit on the weird side, though. usually, discussion of porn/sexual fantasy comes in two flavors, historically, i think-- clinical psychoanalysis and discussion of history and culture, and just cybersex and dirty talk and bad jokes-- i suppose there's a range there between kind of subdued flirting and straight out attempts to seduce.

and yet i'm pretty sure (most) times that fannish talk turns to porny subjects and sex and preferences and everything squee-inducing and "hot", we're not really trying to flirt (er... directly?), and we're not being all academic, either, because it gets pretty personal a lot of the time. simply by -writing- porn that people -read-, i feel i'm doing something strange and exhibitionist and "liberated". i'm curious as to how other people (who write or talk about it) feel about it. i personally am just sort of...okay with talking/saying anything to anyone, to start with. maybe it's because i usually don't find people i know see me "that way" (and vice versa), so it's all kind of... separate from my self even if i refer to myself.

but really now. saying, "you write such great porn", or "that story was/is so hot", or even, write porn for me! ...there's just something... hard to pin down, but -different- about that, isn't there? something that doesn't really happen in quite such a safe and positive way outside of fandom. i mean, honestly, if you wanted to, you could see slash writers as being perverted freaks, i suppose, because it has to do with s-e-x and what a group of people finds sexy, which is embarrassing and not culturally "ok" in most cases. bonding over sex in a non-sexual way... or even in a sexual way, depending (ie, just how unusual your kink is).

but the weird thing is, it -doesn't- really have to do with sex. it's all oblique and weird and -female-, somehow. like romance novels. because there's this aura of romance and a more emotional approach than with male-centric porn, it sort of slips through the cracks and isn't even censored in any way (well, i suppose you can't say cock or whatever in romance novels, and it's all soft-core, but anyway).
    even all the squeeing over actors and such-- i mean, how much of a stretch is it, saying such-and-such 14-year-old actor is HOT and saying that playmate of the month makes you come in your pants?

and all of this is so... vanilla, in a way, so well covered-over by artfulness and the more general interests of writing and reading and the particular book or movie series. there's no barrier, no boundary, really, between the sexual and non-sexual aspect of fandom, and it all kind of flows over. i find that fascinating, because i'm pretty sure that it's not really that we're -all- sexually liberated uber-people of tomorrow. i'm guessing.
    sometimes i get all self-aware with this and it's just a bit embarrassing. is that just me? i mean, it's like-- i'm not -really- in fandom for the porn, i'm in it for the romance and the fantasy-- most precisely, for the romance fantasy. i'm pretty sure if one really wanted porn, one would find it outside of fandom, wouldn't one? unless one's mind gets really skewed and reality-based things just don't seem very hot anymore.
    it just seems that writing something hot and heavy to be read by an anonymous audience is one thing. having written something that your friends or people you know and like find "hot", that turned them on (one assumes), is quite another thing, isn't it?

i mean, on the one hand, i'm proud. i do still want that "i write gay male porn" tshirt, and-- i can only imagine what people would think if i wore it. why am i even proud?? would i be proud if i wrote het porn?? no. is it just that we feel slash is Bigger, Better, Hotter?
    a part of franzeska's post yesterday was saying that slash is great because it allows (straight) women to share their fantasies in a purer, unprecedented way. ahem. while i can see that, it sort of makes me meep. me? sharing fantasies?? eep!

by now it should be obvious that i don't -have- a point, ahahaha. except, i find the whole phenomenon curious and wonder if i'm the only one who sometimes feels a little... ahem. exposed? embarrassed? like i'm stuck in a weird alternate dimension?? yah. not in a bad way. but-- i mean. seriously now. all those people i have affection for, think are great writers, wonderful people, i'd want to meet and bring home to meet my mother, what have you-- well, most of them write gay male porn. what to make of that?? *laughs* i mean, okay, nevermind the gay male part, any porn. and okay, i'm not saying all slash is porn, obviously. but almost all slash writers -discuss- it, bond over it, and like it to some degree. ahem.

*coughs* well, back to reading my gay male highlander porn. *laughs and laughs*
~~

and oh. ever since durendal wrote `tickle me pink', i've had a huge weakness for ferret jokes and h/d sex. it is never going away. i am sullied forever and ever. sadly, i thought i'd have to suffer eternities with no more ferret lovin', but serpentigena rescued me from said eternities by writing `a little ferret lovin'', ahahahahah. oh, i adore it. ahahahahah. yes, i have got to get help, but this -may- (or may not) be less "twisted" than my fondness for squid!draco, ahahaha. ferret!draco is much more... er... wholesome, right? right? ahahahahahah. i'm sorry, can't type, twitching too much :D

EDIT - ali_wildgoose's `duel' is the only armchair challenge fic i've let myself read yet (must... finish... own.... fic... gah...!). but. um. well, i can't help it, the waiting, that -waiting- for more `sins of the father'. gah. anyway. so good. yes. of course.

Comments

[addictedkitten.livejournal.com]

I only feel weird about having people beta my porn. -.- Cos like, what if they don't like it? What if I'm really really horrid at writing sex and just no one ever told me? Wibble, etc.

The first time I sent someone porn to beta I was just like ohmygod, this is my friend and now she's going to read this explicit sex scene I wrote. Eek. Over time that's dissipated. I mean, I write porn for friends now. Not just like, online friends I don't see. I wrote Take It and Like It for Rachel who wasn't even really in fandom 'til I met her, and then I dragged her into HP and then I was writing her porn for Christmas. And she's someone that I like, see on a regular basis. And we occasionaly discuss porn, so. I guess any embarrassment I had has just disappeared over time, and now there's really none left. I talk about porn to my non-fandom friends, even. Yeah, I just have a complete lack of shame at this point.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

well, it's not just embarrassment... i mean... i guess it's a question of whether talking about sex in a personal way, and sharing one's ...er...fantasies, i guess, could be seen as a sexually explicit or sexual act within itself.

i mean, i'm pretty sure in the past it would've been, and it's just weird how separate it all is now. i think there's this stronger connection, with sexual things anyway, between -saying- and -being- and -doing-.

like, you in a way, are summoning/evoking the actual feelings you're describing, by writing sexual fic, and unlike with horror fic (where by writing about horror you're evoking horror), sex is something... er... more personal, more difficult to share and remain "the same" after sharing, well, in real life anyway.

i mean, if they -don't- "just read it", if they get turned on, if you share an affinity that you're using a particular fic as a conduit for-- that's pretty new and different, isn't it? a little bit like watching porn movies together (and i suppose guy friends do that and even jerk off together but we won't go into that, ahahahaha), except you -made- it and so it's a somewhat a -part- of you, and so on.

i just think there are weird dynamics hidden there beyond the simple embarrassment or lack thereof~:)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

for example, think of it as-- the verbal equivalent of showing people this (http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=1801192&uid=971413&members=1), except say-- you took that picture. see? it's a bit... different :D

[zedmeister.livejournal.com]

pssst, Reena? It's "Tickle Me Pink".

And I still owe you that review... *sigh* the joys of procrastination.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*laughs*
thanks. see, this is what happens when i'm lazy and don't want to bother looking things up. gah. trying to fight my bibliographically obsessed nature only gets me in trouble, obviously ><;;

hee~:)

[franzeska]

i know people say that writing slash isn't exactly political, and it isn't, really.

Nonsense. Of course it's political. It's just not about gay rights. I firmly believe that writing/reading slash is a feminist act.

I guess I sort of know what you mean, but since I discuss my actual sexual fantasies in person constantly, I really don't feel exposed online.

I do tend to call slash 'porn' because I think avoiding that word is an insult to pervy men and women alike. Women's pornography is often called 'erotica' or 'romance' but I think this is a difference of flavor not of substance. Maybe women do prefer text to pictures. Maybe we do prefer porn with a bit of context to pure PWP one shots about characters we don't know. *shrug* I'm not like that, but it may be truer on average of women than of men. Refusing to call it porn puts us in a situation where nasty, dirty, creepy men like porn and pure, virginal women don't. I think the truth is that the porno movie industry etc. is aimed at men and so they tend to like it while the romance novel industry is aimed at fulfilling the same need for women.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*nods* i agree with you. though i suppose i meant that the -act- of the writing of porn isn't political, though it may have political consequences or repercussions. and i do like the word porn, though sometimes i wibble about it because it implies it has little meaning or substance outside of people getting off, though i like the aspect where there's a reclaiming of words, rather like bitch and cunt and so on.

plus, there's also the fact the a lot of slash -is- rated pg-13, sadly ^^
i'm not sure, it's like the weird boundary between yaoi and shounen-ai. and the question of what the "majority" of slash writers/readers think of or want from slash is pretty hard to answer off-hand, too. ><

off topic completely. is about me instead.

[griffinjaye.livejournal.com]

you asked about my icon...it's from JoePhillips.com (http://www.joephillips.com). Actually, it's from his 2003 Boys Will Be Boys Calendar (http://www.joephillips.com/joe_boys/calendar_art/boys_2003/FrameSet.htm). As you can see, it's not a HP pic, it's not even H/D...I just took some artistic license with it to satisfy my own slashy preferences. Enjoy!

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Ooh. So fascinating. First off, I see a huge difference between visual porn and written porn, which may not have any logical basis to it, but I still do. I think possibly it's because ordinary books, all over the place, have explicit sex scenes, whereas TV and films (mostly) don't. (I remember when I went to see a French-Canadian film in the Irish Film Centre about a year ago, and I was horrified that it clearly showed an erect penis! Because that was crossing a line, man. That was porn.)
Whereas I've been reading books with explicit sex scenes for ages. And lots of fics aren't just PWPs. I mean, take those two HL fics I rec'd to you. The characters almost never have their clothes on, but I would never, ever call them PWPs. They have a plot, and characterisation, and relationship development, and the fact that they turn me on to an unholy degree coexists quite comfortably with that.

And your point about "Isn't it weird if your friend wrote it?" Well, I've met O a couple of times in real life, and talked quite frankly about smutfics with her, and though I hadn't read Like Gods when I saw her last, I'm sure I'll squee about it when I do see her IRL again. I think she feels a certain discomfort about the porn-writing herself sometimes - when I squee'd madly about Like Gods on LJ, she left a comment saying, part in jest, "you still respect me, don't you?"

And of course I do! And if I tell her that I found something she wrote really hot, it's not like I'm hitting on her or anything. I'm just giving enthusiastic feedback about how the fic made me feel, which is pretty standard, really. People have given me reviews saying that my fics were sexy or hot - I remember Penguin giving me a lovely detailed review about the bits of my Viktor/Cho she found particularly sexy. And I felt happy and not weird about that at all.

unless one's mind gets really skewed and reality-based things just don't seem very hot anymore.

Um, that is pretty much me at the moment. Real men just have way too many drawbacks. And as for reading erotica, vanilla sex in fics (as in, when there isn't any element of conflict or pain at all - it can be mental, it doesn't have to involve rape or anything, though frankly these days with certain pairings rape's a plus) doesn't do anything for me.

Maybe I'm just kinky. Hmm. Though I was pretty content with vanilla sex IRL.

Must go study. Very interesting post.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

yah, i got the sense that mostly, i was just wibbling with that, so i'm er... glad you found it interesting >:D<
i see how it's just evoking emotions just like any other emotions, it's just sometimes it seems to me that sexual emotions are different, unique. they carry more subtext and weird currents and taboos (whether they should or not), so there's just more weirdness. i haven't actually -felt- any weirdness either discussing porn or posting it (since well, i do it often enough, and all that, heh).

it's just, if i step outside myself for a moment, it all seems weird. maybe because i -don't- get to talk about sex with my friends that much (not that i ever quite get to that point in most friendships). so maybe i'm just not sure how people work, and actually this is perfectly within the bounds of "normal interaction", and there's no weirdness there. but it's just, imagining that i'm -turning people on- with my fic is....gar. it's a sort of connection with them. they're words we share, by reading/writing and creating that loop. being happy/sad together is a common thing. is being turned on together (well, not -physically- together, but still), just the same?
is there not some sense of sharing something sexual that's possible? well, i mean, that's all theoretical-- i personally haven't felt it, but it seems possible, is all.

and er. even though i said that about being skewed, really, i am talking about myself, there :D
it's just really scary when only these particular fictional characters are Sex Incarnate anymore. that's just... trouble, right there. yes ^^;