~~ maybe we all miss the screaming :>

Lasair just linked to isiscolo's post saying she's reading a Snape/Hermione & enjoying it. Well, this doesn't even come close to describing -my- pain, man. I had a Harry/Snape dream. I was Harry, and then I became a girl because I couldn't really -do- male/male sex and I panicked. Not to worry, I woke up before I could be actually traumatized, there. I mean. Do I get H/D dreams? Noooo. I have to be like, "omg, dream!Snape is so hotttt". Embarrassing. ('Course, the truth is, I'd go for Snape before Draco, ahahahah, um. Change subject!)
~~

I think what it comes down to is, there are some things I don't -want- to understand. So there are questions I return to, simply because the questions are easier to handle than any answer. I think people in general are well-known for avoiding certain aspects of reality and for not wanting to understand those aspects. Something about me makes me keep poking, though.

Getting off on others' or your own pain, for instance. On some level, I just don't -want- to get it. I can see that pain and pleasure can have a blurry physiological boundary in one's brain at some point-- but this doesn't apply to psychological pain, to another person's pain or tellingly, to fictional pain.

I understand that some people have drastically different mental landscapes and needs than I, and that on some level I will just never understand what it's really like to live a life made of choices that are truly alien to me. I'm not sure whether I should just make peace with that or whether I should keep trying to find that hidden point of contact. I do understand enjoying violence-- tied as that is with anger in my mind. I understand rage and the fear that can fuel it. Anger can be such a release, such a burst of endorphins and a heady feeling that one's invincible. There's a near-universal attraction to that, I think.

What I'm actually thinking about is-- people who want to hurt characters they love in their fiction, and this whole connection of love with the infliction of torture, mental or physical.

( And here I go on about all the things that I -don't- mean, heh. )

I just don't know. I think I'd need to actually do research for this. Thoughts?