I wasn't aware I was writing nonfiction

[jlh]

There's another one of those posts/articles going around talking about how sex scenes in fanfic, specifically slash, is unrealistic. As usual, the blame for this is place on the presumed ignorance of heteronormative women writers. But I find this criticism to be unfair.

After all, we don't expect realistic sex from:
1. Mainstream films that are not comedies
2. Pornographic/erotic films (even the lady-friendly ones)
3. Pornographic/erotic stories (Penthouse Forum, Anaïs Nin, whatever your flavor)
4. Romance novels
5. Other novels that are not comedies
6. Manga and anime of whatever stripe
7. [insert your own example here]

I don't really understand the idea that fanfiction should be more realistic than just about any other sort of fiction that depicts sex explicitly. Romance novels, especially Regencies, nearly all have the same sex scene and I think we generally recognize that as a trope, a style point, part of the form. It's heightened, like many other things in fiction. Can't we say that slash also has its tropes, that there are certain things that come up frequently? And can't we stop castigating ourselves for that?

Comments

[dana_kujan]

Honestly! I agree 100%. If anyone wrote/filmed realistic sex, the porn industry would fold overnight. I think even those folk in "amateur porn" vids are playing to the camera. Real (consensual) sex is pleasurable because "Whee! I'm having sex." Fictional sex needs to try harder to be sexy. And if that means stylized tropes, that's okay with me. I want entertainment, maybe arousal, not a short course in biology.

[jlh]

That's a really good point about how sex is pleasurable because you're having sex. Mediocre sex is still some sex.

I had a convo in the LJ comments with a friend who brought up the whole fetishizing argument that's behind this and I think, you know, sex writing fetishizes everyone. That's how it works. Hopefully what people do is not bring that into their contact with people in the real world, sexual or not.