[i'm such a geek]

[reenka]

Thinking about reading het... it occurs to me that if you can -only- bear to read slash (in general, I don't mean specific pairings), then you're really in the same boat as the people who can only bear to read het. I mean, there's that default setting of rightness, and everything else is uncomfortable. So if it works that way, then slash is no longer "different"-- it's just the same thing with different equipment. If the important thing is that the equipment remains or that you're turned on by the equipment, then you're not really... er... doing anything special, I guess.

I don't know where this whole "slashers are special" thing comes from, anyway. It's so easy to feel like being a slasher means you're more open-minded and maybe kinkier and more free-spirited. All those het-obsessed people are just prudes, aren't they? Prudes who don't know what they're missing, right?

It's funny, because while I would say it's "all about the dynamic", for me, I -am- shallow. It's not as if I look "beyond the bodies" or whatever. I -like- the bodies. Possibly, it can be equally if not more freeing for girls to write/read a certain kind of het fic rather than slash. Because you're learning to be okay with yourself, to not fall into gender roles, to challenge your assumptions-- right there, where it's difficult. Where you're reminded of yourself. Where there's a -girl- there, and you're not that girl and maybe you want to be and that -hurts- or maybe you -can- pretend you are, and then you remember you aren't and -that- hurts.

It would be hard for me, actually, to imagine a true romantic who's exclusively a slasher (or vice versa). Or a real hedonist, for that matter. And I'm pretty much both. How could you confine yourself to only one arena? How could you pretend the fun's only over -here- and not over -there-? The fun is everywhere, isn't it? People fall in love with other people, and have the same emotions no matter -who- they have them with, right? And bodies are always fun together, aren't they, no matter whose bodies they are? It's the bisexual revolution all over again, man.

Slash for the sake of slash or vice versa just strikes me as sad, really. Anything for the sake of itself can be seen as sad-- sex for the sake of sex, food for the sake of food. Righteousness for the sake of righteousness. I can go on and on. (And most often, I do, don't I.) It's like... meaning may come from within, but it's pointless if there's no larger context. And my larger context tends to be love... hopefully sans the righteousness.

EDIT - Yeah, all right. It's hotter. Slash, that is. Or maybe it's my H/D button. Can never tell, really. *gives up*

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

That was exactly -my- feeling, although I've had het requests and challenges for months now, more than a year... but writing it didn't really relieve me the way reading it did. 'Cause I've found I can write -anything-, 'cause of course it's tailored to my personal tastes, even on request. I can write any pairing I can even remotely envision, so it's not as freeing to suddenly write het.

But reading (and liking) all this B/S, I realize that I'm the same girl who has like, a zillion het OTPs (or at least more than 10). I'm still me. Who'd've thunk it? :>

Re:

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

To clarify, I think the thing that was nice for me was not that I could write the het requests, but because I really enjoyed writing them. :) At least one of them was NOT a pairing I ever would have shipped, either (Oz/Tara). Hee. But yeah. We're still us. It's a crazy world. :)