My nerdiness comes forth again

[starbright73]

I think it was kattahj who steered me to Transformative Works and Cultures a while ago and have been reading stuff there on and off. Well lo and behold! There is a special volume out about SPN fandom and fanfic - yes, it's now established that the fandom is more interesting than the show. *g*

I didn't read much because most of what's discussed I kinda discovered a long time ago, but I do like the fact that more scholars have actually taken on to look into it. Heh. I love when fandom looks at itself in a meta-y way.

But this one peaked my interest:

Annihilating love and heterosexuality without women: Romance, generic difference, and queer politics in "Supernatural" fan fiction

What really strikes me in this time and age is that all love is sexualized. And that is an archetypal icon in most fanfiction. It's like love without the sexual aspect is somehow lesser and that saddens me immensely. Love is apparently so yesterday.

Soon I am going to discuss LoTS because wow, the morality is so much more interesting when mirrored against the fandom formulated morality of SPN. Fandom can be really detrimental to storytelling by adhering to the most common denominators.

Comments

[darkemeralds]

Personally, I think the fandom has almost always been more interesting than the show. The fic is better written, too.

I was just thinking about the emphasis on sex--well, on porn, really--in SPN fic. I don't like to read a lot of it because I'm asexual and I find it a bit boring, but I agree with you that there's a strong correlation between getting Sam and Dean into an orgasm-producing situation and their undying love for each other.

In broader terms, though, I'm not sure I agree that there's anything especially unique to "this time and age" in the sexualization of all love--in fanfic, in storytelling in general, or in life. Romantic love virtually always has a sexual component.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you were driving at here, but I found it interesting!

[starbright73]

Yes, maybe I should have used 'pornified'? *g* It is heavily emphasized that sexual acts are the truest form to express the complex emotion of love. I think it's so easy to equate the two that everybody's jumped on board. That's why everything from shoes to food is sold with sexual innuendo. Granted, there's always a sexual aspect in any romance but sex does not equal love and it's not, IMHO, the only act that expresses love.

I was reading the TWOP eaier and found so much contempt for the act that love saved the day that I'm stunned. Love is one powerful emotion but if it's just expressed as 'pornified tales', it loses plenty of the power.

I do think it has relevance with the emancipation of female sexuality that happened as a result of the introduction of mostly reliable contraception. We're not quite there culturally yet and that may be why we write so much about it. *g* Earlier sexual acts were much more tied to possible procreation (for f/m relationships or possible condemnation and marginalization for same sex relationships). Today it's more or less still used as a tool for power just as much as an expressions of love, or at least that is the implication I read in many fics.

And I think it's the power-aspect of sexuality that still bothers me.

[darkemeralds]

Ah, I think I see more clearly what you mean now. Fandom qua fandom, it seems to me, has always expressed a minority view of sexuality at its leading edge, and has celebrated its own ability to break taboos and throw the pieces all over the room. Fifteen years ago, m/m slash was still pretty eyebrow raising, and ten years ago, RPF of any kind was expressly forbidden on certain archives. Now both are tame in fandom and being mainstreamed.

So as the formerly-shocking becomes mainstream, it seems that a segment of fandom reaches out farther (or in deeper) to find parts of the id they haven't explored yet, and that looks like pornier and pornier porn to some people (me included).

At the same time, I hear more people expressing boredom with porn per se in fanfic, so while one branch of fandom branches out into extreme or rare kinks, another seems to be craving the emotional high they get from really romantic stories.

I worried over what rating to give a recent story of mine because it has decidedly erotic content, and was assured that unless it was really hardcore porn, I would be guilty of false advertisement if I called it "explicit". I was worried that people looking for an "R" story would be offended, but the overwhelming consensus was that people looking for an "NC17" story would be disappointed!

So I gave it the Mature rating and figured it would have a limited audience. Nothing could be farther the truth. People have commented EXTREMELY favorably on the emotional, romantic, and non-porn erotic aspects of the story, and have been very engaged in precisely the question of whether love will be the saving power.

My tentative conclusion, at length, is that while some who've jumped on the fandom bandwagon recently are still very excited at the liberating aspects of really porny porn (and I agree--it can be very liberating), a lot of people who've been around fandom awhile seem to be relishing the return of love.

[starbright73]

Yes, I've long since met my quota of soulless porn, both slash and het. I do think the soul needs to come back but since it, IMHO, was lacking from the show itself, it's hard to ask for something that isn't even in the source material.

And I agree, I was the first to post a (very light) NC-17 fic in my first fandom and I almost got tarred and feathered and that was approx. 10 years ago. I have since written slash in the same fandom and it wasn't as abhorred as my first het smut was.

Some time ago I stumbled on a SPN kink meme and wow! The boundaries have totally dissolved and everything seems accepted and even craved. I think fandom is a safe haven of trying your wings when it comes to kinks. I though, am a prude and I want at least some emotionality if I read porn so I think you're absolutely right: porny porn may be very liberating for newcomers but in the long run, you will crave more substance.