[warning: festering weepy bottom angst ahead]

[reenka]

I think the thing that's holding me up with a lot of fanfic these days is that to me, even fantasy porn is supposed to make sense. And it doesn't make sense on the most basic of levels if the boys act like empty-minded, desperate, weak, hapless little girls who need a big strong hand to pull of them of any little puddle, who're so bloody "delicate", they always need gentle touches and soft words and a nice massage after sex.

All right, let me just state something for the record, which I hope is forgiven for harping on the obvious: Harry Potter is not delicate. He is not helpless. He is not clingy. He is not a fearful cringing sex-kitten in need of some tender lovin'. Please. He is a boy (...and a Gryffindor, at that). Of course he has feelings and insecurities and vulnerabilities and weak moments and such-- we all do. But there's a long, long, impossibly long road from that to, "please save me, Draco, I need your strong manly arms to hold me tight at night, because otherwise I might cry!!" Because that is... being like that is probably his worst nightmare after Voldemort coming to sit on his face.

And what really disturbs me is the social and psychological forces that create the need to have men act this way. On the one hand, I understand girls who write these stories are frustrated with the guys they know; on the other hand, do we really hate men being men that much?!

People call it 'feminization', but that's really an offensive term all by itself, isn't it. But then, what is it? What drives these fanfic writers to turn formerly quite rambunctious, mischievous, fearless boys into whimpering, clingy, helpless-maiden-stereotype sex-kittens? I go on about wanting 'feminist (fan)fiction', but this isn't even about that-- it's dehumanizing! How can readers (and writers!) not realize this?

Is it some revenge drive to emasculate and humiliate those who have some supposed power over us...? That seems a bit far-fetched, but I really can't see how one would -want- men to be like this; maybe I'm just not being a real card-carrying female here.


I mean, I've read romantic & fairy-tale type fantasy since I was little, and I always thought that it was 'bad' when I wanted to laugh and say 'omg, that would so never happen... ever!' So in fanfic, I feel predisposed to similarly dismiss characterizations and scenarios (in my head) regardless of whether their justification would be 'but it's a fantasy', whether for the reader or the writer. I've gotten to the point where I don't even care if it's my -own- kink and -my- fantasy, because I can't shut off my brain quite that much; so these days, even when I write porn myself I try to think of what's believable rather than what I want to happen. That's probably my problem.

Okay, so it's porn; but just because it's porn doesn't mean it has to be bad or rather, indiscriminate in regards to all believability in such basic things as gender (...and personality-type... and common sense probability...). In fantasy stories of any kind, I still feel that something has to hook me... something about it has to convince me to let go and believe. It could be that the writing is just that skillful all on its own, and perhaps the issue I have is that I'm not reading people whose writing is good enough-- or it could be that the situation makes sense to me on a rational level in any way, shape or form.

Basically, I'm saying all this to try and convince myself that fantasy-porn-type writing doesn't have to be the polar opposite of rationality and common sense. And yet when I read fanfic expecting a pleasant diversion, instead I find that it's almost offensive because while aiming purely for my pleasure, it's expecting me to disregard my mind entirely. And yes, it's deeply offensive when characters I like act like brain-damaged girl-children (because real girls, they're not only made of sugar and spice); I'm sorry, is that weird? And then... and then these things are recced and there's no con-crit anywhere in sight and then my reaction disintegrates into wailing and gnashing of teeth, pretty much.

I mean, so many people don't care, obviously, judging from the number of adoring comments-- meaning, I'm just being uptight, right. But I can't not care; perhaps because the characters matter to me, and it matters that I can truly recognize it as these characters when I read gratuitous fluffy smut too. But how can I, when I can't even recognize either of them as a guy? Sure, they have cocks, but how can I feel good about a story when it's like, "oh my god... these two people are mutant females with dicks... but no, because most girls I know aren't this mushy! Because if this was a girl I knew, I'd tell her to snap the hell out of it and get a grip!"

I just... I know I'm going overboard, but the more I think about this phenomenon, the more it makes me rather sick to my stomach and my rationality ebbs away. I should probably start over and try to ponder why in the world society or fandom needs these fantasies, why readers respond so well to them, why the need to mutilate perfectly healthy male psyches is really natural and good.... but I think I'll just stop thinking about this and read some manga instead. Sure, the boys are often over-emotional, ridiculously needy, weepy, clingy and soppy, and don't even get me started on the 'uke' phenomenon, but somehow it seems laughable and easily avoided (or ignored, 'cause hey look, pretty art! shiny!) instead of painful when this is done to characters I -know- aren't like that. Hahaha, this reminds me of all those fanfics with Duo-the-slutty-weepy-cutter-prostitute in Gundam Wing. Those were more funny than upsetting too, but then, I was a lot more frugal in my reading in GW last time around, too, so I avoided most writers I didn't trust completely. Alas.

Comments

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Fascinating question, but I won't even guess at an answer because I think the question is necessarily addressed to women, and speculation from the male side is going to be detached and maybe inevitably a bit tongue-in-cheek.

But I do want to propose maybe one spin on the way you've formulated the issue. You've talked about your frustration with certain "feminizing" fantasies in terms of their lack of realism. But I wonder if realism is the true issue. Could it be that you're just sick and tired of the banality of that particular fantasy, and what you want is profounder, hotter fantasy, rather than actual realism?

It's probably possible for a skilled writer to construct a convincing literary analysis of some character's sexuality. But the difference between writing about sex and writing about, say, life on the NASCAR circuit is that the NASCAR writer has an objective set of experiences to write about, to measure the truth of his writing against. Whereas when you're writing about sex, unless you're confining yourself to journalistic descriptions of the act, you sort of have to engage the unlimited way people fantasize, create scenarios, the way they reach out beyond their actual experience and knowledge and visualize something more. I don't think anyone ever escapes the feeling that there's better, wilder sex somewhere around the corner and hmmm, let's imagine what it might be like. (Maybe now I'm exposing my vanilla side. Someone, tie me up!)

What it sounds like to me is that you want to imagine, as concretely as you can, a kind of erotic situation that is more consonant with your vision of "rambunctious, mischievous, fearless boys." And I think that's extremely cool and worth doing. When we were talking yesterday, I made fun of "fightsex" on the grounds of realism, but that might have been unfair of me, because "fightsex" may be a way of groping toward making that fantasy concrete. I guess like any imaginative effort, it takes work and it requires some real-life data, not necessarily to mirror but to do some imaginative work on. If I were a writer, I might try it; since I'm not, I certainly can only respect anyone's efforts to work their way toward that.

Ideally, now, I would cite examples from gay literature as possible models. But gay literature sucks so badly that I've stopped reading it and can't think of any good examples. Maybe some Alan Hollinghurst. David Leavitt is to angsty, Edmund White is too artsy and abstract. Samuel Delaney's autobiography has some grimly, painfully funny scenes that feel right but there's a lot of trauma in it which, come to think of it, is the vice of a lot of classic "gay" literature. Anyway, even those examples shouldn't be confining, they should just be raw material to take off from. Fantasy is good, or at least, it's as good as it is sincere and intelligent.

At least that's how I feel right now. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a different opinion!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Somehow inadvertently you've stumbled upon one of my quirks of personality (or perhaps you just knew, heheh). Oh yes, what I want is more profound fantasy, since that's what it always comes down to with me-- that is, the desire to be enlightened and transfigured and moved in some real way. But I think I connect 'real' in terms of 'emotionally real' (to me) with 'real' as in, 'how it really is', because to me the mundane isn't necessarily 'really real', if you know what I mean? But yes! What I want is a depth this little false dream is lacking-- because to me there are 'true' dreams and false dreams/fantasies-- and the truth comes from emotional depth and profundity rather than something as surface as pure realism (ie, 'he went to the store to get eggs for 99 cents, and was really bored at the check-out counter').

Heheh it wasn't even the vanilla sex that bothered me so much with that particular story-- which was a rentboy!Harry story, btw-- it was how the situation (Harry the sad, sad rentboy) was dealt with -so- impossibly lightly and melodramatically that I couldn't give -any- credence to any emotions described. Yes, of course there's a large fantasy component with writing about sex, but I figure fantasy works a hell of a lot better when it's grounded in something-- hopefully the characters' traits. In this case, there was -no- reference to the actual (canon) traits of the characters, or their even the more general typology of gendered behavior. There was nothing, so the fantasy just seemed ridiculous (...and really frustrating to me). It's not that I wanted it to be -wilder- or hotter but rather at least vaguely believable in this particular situation (that is, what would rentboy!Harry down in the dumps fucking Draco be like? And why, why, whyyyy is Draco kind and gentle and why doesn't that freak Harry out since that means some pod person's taken over Malfoy??)

But you're right that in general, I want "in character" sex that's in line with my idea of what boys are like, and these particular boys in specific... I don't demand it of every story, of course. I just want the story to make sense according to its own set-up, generally. And if it won't make sense in its own world, what can it offer? And then of course I want it to make sense in a more general context of gender and overall human behavior and so on (which it didn't!).

Yes, it's the sincerity and intelligence I'm looking for and not finding in this kind of 'feminized' and a lot of other types of slash-- what I'm finding is lots of empty dreams of boys that could never exist in worlds that seem created merely for emotional kink and hurt/comfort. It's that very intelligent sincerity I look for in fiction above all else, and which I find so damned rare even as I realize sincerity alone is not in short supply. So perhaps it does all come down to intelligence, as usual. -.-

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I think I connect 'real' in terms of 'emotionally real' (to me) with 'real' as in, 'how it really is', because to me the mundane isn't necessarily 'really real', if you know what I mean? . . . because to me there are 'true' dreams and false dreams/fantasies-- and the truth comes from emotional depth and profundity rather than something as surface as pure realism . . . I figure fantasy works a hell of a lot better when it's grounded in something-- . . . In this case . . . There was nothing, so the fantasy just seemed ridiculous

I love the way you put this, and I just totally agree with all of it. I mean, I think we're on to one of the fundamental questions in literature and art, in that the artist's job is to somehow take real things and re-imagine them as forms that have their own solidity and integrity and power, that feel absolutely right as freestanding things to contemplate, so the work is a work of imagination, absolutely, not just some mundane recording or transcription. But at the same time it has to be grounded or tethered in reality, in some hard-to-express way, so that it reflects real knowledge, isn't just arbitrary or frivolous or childish. (Are you a fan of Wallace Stevens, by any chance?)

I wish I knew an adequate way of even talking about this balance or connection, beyond "I (sometimes) know it when I see it," :) I think you're absolutely right, though, that it comes down to just the intelligence and power of the writer.

I don't remember if you were part of Magpie's discussion last week on what makes a classic a classic, or distinguishes a work of serious literature from hackwork. And we pivoted in circles around our intuitions there, too, but I think it's the same question, and it's endlessly fun to try to answer.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think I get so frustrated with stories (no matter if they're fanfic or acclaimed pieces of 'literature') that I think people are just deluded about them. It's odd, I'm more certain about the things I dislike than the things I like, 'cause while it's obvious that my likes are almost totally subjective and dependent on certain priorities and preferences I have in terms of style and subject-matter, my dislikes are almost always based on two things: some stylistic harshness (that is, not that it's written in a style I dislike but that it's written in that style unsubtly or discordantly) and a sense of falseness or unreality. (Like, WTF is this writer thinking? What world are they living on?? AND WHY ARE THEY LIVING THERE??!)

Now, this isn't what makes a 'classic' if by that one means an enduring work with many different readers. I think, for that, quality isn't as important as the possession of certain 'lowest common denominator' characteristics and themes. I think if one tackles popular, hot-button topics in a way that's accessible and dramatic, that captures the imagination by being surprising and yet familiar (thus comforting) at the same time-- that's what makes a work people will return to across the generation, it seems like. Quality in and of itself isn't exactly chased after by most people or necessarily recognized.

However, it does all come down to "I know it when I see it", when I stop justifying myself :D The problem is that things I find to be shallow dreck (even if I enjoy them!) are apparently so emotionally touching and satisfying to many people (say, soap-operas and reality shows as well as bad rentboy!Harry fics). All these readers are touched and moved, and apparently this is how their perceive reality (...though I'm not sure if that's what's going on-- that is, do they really find those fics/shows 'realistic' even on an emotional level-- or would they care?)

So, I mean... no matter how you slice it, people perceive reality differently, right (no duh)-- it's like in SM's latest post about All in the Family, and the wildly different versions people have of the same incident, and of course everyone's totally certain they're right. I mean, a classic or 'true' (even emotionally true) to reality story implies there's such a thing as universal truth. And sometimes I'm quite certain there is, and sometimes I despair, because lo, the stupidity of quite a large portion of humanity obscures everything in a dense fog of ... er, WTF, basically.

On the somewhat bright side, while the transmission of people's emotional ideas of 'truth' in fics doesn't sit well with readers of greater, uh, emotional complexity, the meaning seems to stay true with decreasing levels of readership all right. Which is why I was able to read 'classic' literature of all sorts (Balzac, Maupassant, Dumas, Dickens, etc, but not Wallace Stevens, eheh) when I was about 10-12. Not that I'm dumb, but I don't think I was a stunning wunderkind (sadly). It's just that works of greatness compress their meaning well, it seems. The Bible is probably one of the best examples. Also, some seemingly 'simplistic' works (like children's lit, fables & fairy-tales) are actually already very condensed and usually contain several layers of meaning one could unpack (...this is my favorite kind of lit, btw, eheheh). There's a crucial difference between the low-reading-level literature like Hans Christian Andersen and that rentboy!Harry fic, though (which I keep using as my beat-up doll, but then again IT REALLY SUCKED).

And now I'm rambling too :) :P