~~ the dream of safety....

I was thinking about the reasons why I seem to have such an instinctive need to 'subvert' the dom/sub (or top/bottom) dynamic in most pairings, but especially Harry/Draco. Given, I think a submissive, feminized little Harry (the way he's often written with older characters) is massively OOC so I cringe at bottom!Harry fics a lot of times (so I basically have gotten to the point where I actively only seek out bottom!Draco in pornfic), but I consider that a question of bad writing/characterization as much as anything. I don't think any character -has- to have a pre-defined sexual role in fanfic (any more than a sexual preference in any other sense).

I see the self as fluid, with some definite directions development is most likely to take. So if one works around Harry's natural assertiveness and personal history of dominating over Draco in many ways, one could perhaps write a believable fic where he's the one being penetrated (though seeing him as submissive in other ways is something else entirely).

I don't generally feel the need to use fic I read or write as a means to subvert/resist some dominant meme I see going around, but I make an exception for fics which contain what I see as stagnant, repressive interpersonal power relationships. I don't care if it's just porn or people like it/get off on it/whatever-- it bothers me on some meta level when applied to H/D. In terms of other people/characters, anyone can do what they want as far as I'm concerned (and it'd be great if that was true in general), but in terms of H/D, because of how archetypally heavy and meta-loaded the pairing is for me (i.e., for me, with H/D, it can never be 'just sex' so that's my bias), it just seems -wrong- to confine them to set roles, sexually or otherwise.

This is just me trying to figure out what bothers me, not me saying people should stop what they're doing, of course (though that should go without saying).

It's just.... Harry&Draco's relationship is so intensely -visceral- to me that to make it ritualized and safely confined to completely defined roles is to ruin it completely, since they're already mutually defined as The Enemy or The Gryffindor/Slytherin. Lucius, for instance, is The Father to Draco, that is his role & influence on Draco's life. I don't want Harry to be defined as the equivalent Father or as The Dom Lover because that allows Draco not to think, to just accept. I want him to keep not -accepting- Potter; to keep fighting him and making Harry fight him.

I want their sex scenes (whether shown or not) to be vital, full of energy and power-play dynamic and the sense that they're always trying to get a one-up on the other; that notion of safety & stability, that confidence that a set relationship dynamic gives you-- that's not for them. Not with all the volatile passion between them that could consume them; will consume them. They can never rest, never accept each other all the way-- never be entirely happy even when-- especially when?-- they're together. So I want the porn to contain some smidgen of this fighting energy; otherwise it's just not H/D and I don't get turned on by it, 'cause it becomes just two guys rubbing their cocks together (which is Of The Good-- but not H/D).

( And on and on. )

...
    A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap:
Our dream of safety has to disappear.
     -- W.H. Auden