pornish_pixies

Fandom rocks *so* very much!
You've all seen the long-overdue post, I guess.

Ecstatic as I am, though, I have two - well, two-and-a-half - issues with things as they are:

1) Some fanfiction communities and fannish personal journals still remain suspended (you can see the details here). Though LJ might be working on those.

2) I won't breathe easily until there are safeguards in place to prevent something like this from happening again - I don't want to have to look over my shoulder (or want anyone else to) for fear of being targetted for writing stories/producing art.

2 1/2) I'm still pissed off over the way last week's "hoax" was laughed off publicly by LJ people, when they were in the process of setting up *exactly* what has been described. I would love to apologise to the brave soul who leaked this for disbelieving along with everybody else when the dementi came...

Of course what I'm still pissed about to no end (and have been for a long time) is the way people throw those of us who write about the darker/illegal sides of sexuality into the same pot with those who actually commit crimes. If I'm be interested in the discussion of incest, it doesn't mean I'll go and, heck, proposition my mother! The several hundreds of LJ users listing 'crime' in their LJ interests are not promoting the committing of it, nor will they shut off their computers and embark on mobster careers!

Sometimes I wonder if there's something more to this sort of thinking than just prudishness and a distinct inability to differentiate between reality and fiction, discussion and practice... Is there something so intimidating in women (and it is to a large degree women) exploring sexuality, light and dark sides, through fiction-writing that leads to such irrational responses? Because really, they talk about fandom escaping into a fictional/unreal world to hide from reality? Fandom at least has enough of a grip on reality (with some few exceptions, that is...) to distinguish between fiction and fact.

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if you know you're operating near the edge of the cliff, checking over your shoulder from time to time is something you naturally want to do to avoid plunging onto the rocks, it's just common sense.

That's exactly the point that annoys me so - writing fictional stories should *not* place anyone at the edge of a cliff. And in almost any other context, it doesn't - anyone can write fiction (and get published) on anything from serial killers to the Mafia to war and the atomic bomb and whatnot. It's only illegality in a fictional *sexual* context that sends up the outcry.

Now I *am* a feminist, and I have huge issues with the exploitative nature of visual pornography, for example (not just the illegal stuff like child porn, that goes without saying, but also - to a lesser degree, of course - with legit porn in film/photograpy. Which, coincidentally, is produced mainly for men. On the other hand, *written* porn is produced (at least in fanfictive form on the net) largely (though not exclusively!) by women, for women. Visual pornography is exploitative because it's objectifying *real* people, while the feminine version is, well, focussing almost completely on the fictional *and* does not only see bodies, but pays attention to character.

I see that as a very good thing for two reasons: one, because no real people are harmed/degraded. No matter how dark stories get, they remain safely fictional. And two, because I see it as a reclaiming of pornography by women, who have, by the male version, been both objectified and excluded (as customers, or personalities). Fanfic porn is a non-commercial sharing between (not only, but mostly, you get it) women, and also a rejection of the (equally oppressive) concept of female purity/passivity/whatnot. I'm honestly not surprised that those stories can get dark, even very dark, because there's a lot there that simply hasn't been explored before to remotely such a degree. Especially since it takes the commercial aspect out of the issue, where the social pressures towards conformity would come in.

Though there's still a double-standard - I mean if John Norman's Gor novels could get published, why go up in arms against some Snarry rapefic on the net... (not saying you would - just comparing).

Ok, sorry for the would-be treatise - that's an issue I've been mulling over for a long time, and once it gets triggered I can't shut up :).

That's exactly the point that annoys me so - writing fictional stories should *not* place anyone at the edge of a cliff. And in almost any other context, it doesn't - anyone can write fiction (and get published) on anything from serial killers to the Mafia to war and the atomic bomb and whatnot. It's only illegality in a fictional *sexual* context that sends up the outcry.

I'm not sure that's quite right, you know -- I'd say it's more generally illegality in (a) an emotive context where (b) that might be a reflection of the author's RL intentions that causes outcry. I think you'd need both (a) and (b) to get the effect. As a thought experiment, consider what might happen if someone wanted to publish fiction from the point of view of Al-Qaeda types, in which they were the 'good guys', their 'kill the infidels' mindset was treated positively by the author, and they succeeded in their goals in the story. The shitstorm that would follow would be immense.

More to the point, the nature of fanfic as opposed to published fiction is relevant here. If John Norman (or George RR Martin, for that matter) writes about these things, there may be a certain amount of concern, but the author is a known public figure to an extent. There's probably a tacit assumption that the publishers have determined that they are not in fact likely to do these sorts of things in actuality, or they would have been rejected. On the other hand, if some pseudonymous author on the Internet writes about them, it's hard to know where they might be coming from, especially if the story isn't well-written enough to be obviously 'literary' rather than personal. It wouldn't be an unreasonable attitude, even if we 'insiders' might identify it as merely fannish exploration or the kink-writing equivalent of a pissing contest.

About your first point, yes, I see where you're coming from, but I'm still unable to make that jump fiction=author's real intentions (perhaps it sounds more outlandish to me than to others because I've been trained in literature studies, where the point author=/=narrator gets hammered into you from the start. And turned around, we've had tons and tons of positive depictions of 'kill the indians/commies/enemies of choice'... And there wasn't enough of a shitstorm (if much of any), over 'Silence of the Lambs', for example. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I still see a huge double standard when the issue of sex comes in (and not only with fictional portrayals of outright illegal things).

Of course you're right about one being unable to really distinguish between stories and intentions in anonymous net posts, but again, equating those seems (also from a personal pov) totally alien to me.

I've been thinking about that off and on -- I probably shouldn't have got into this whole strikethrough'07 subject, as I have a number of different and often contradictory reactions to it -- but regarding the fiction=author's real intentions thing, well I suspect that's a perfectly reasonable assumption a lot of the time. It may seem alien to you because the field you're in doesn't habitually look at texts with that assumption?

All right, the author=narrator equivalence doesn't hold as a general result. It does hold rather often however, sometimes quite explicitly -- to use your 'kill the baddies' example, I happened to just be re-skimming a Tom Clancy story, and his authorial commentary is frequently quite obvious. From what I remember of Dickens, he's frequently the same (a standard Victorian style?). Even first-person in-character stuff can be -- if you read a lot of Dick Francis thrillers, although they're all first person, they all seem pretty much like the same person, having a sort of detached-observer feel (that can get irritating after a while). And as far as fanfic goes, there are certainly writers whose personal agendas scream at you from the text (including me sometimes, I imagine).

Therefore regarding anonymous net posts where you have little information but the post itself, and

pornish_pixies specifically, well ... it does bill itself as 'The Community You Wank Off To'. Someone approaching it from outside could hardly be blamed for taking this at face value and thinking that chan/incest fics were included in that, and therefore that the comm contained some genuine paedophiles. (Among the 5000+ watchers, it very possibly does, but that's just bad luck.) As

nineveh_uk said in a comment to my post on the subject, "re. the interest lists, part of me is inclined to think that if people choose to pour steaming yellow liquid into a swimming pool, they can't complain about being sent back to the changing rooms without chemical analysis being done first to discover that it's merely food colouring".

I love this a lot. It spells out a bunch of messy thoughts in my brain. Would you mind if I quoted it on my LJ crediting you, babe? And, hey, do you still need me to do that beta? My hd_hols is all done and submitted.

Well, it *is* pretty much a bunch of messy thoughts in my brain - which perhaps at one point I should turn into an essay, so that I don't waffle on every time I have the chance :). But sure you can quote!

Beta... *ducks*... I got a bit of extension, and it looks as if it'll be late (RL has suddenly turned into a vortex/rollercoaster, *shivers*). Would you still be willing if it comes in a couple of days?

You should totally turn it into an essay ~~so then I can just link to your post instead of bothering to write my own~~. Hee.

Send it over whenever it's ready. I'm doing loads of Sectus and autsim stuff, but I have no fic commitments at the moment, so it should be fine. :D

WE BATE THEM!!!

pornish_pixies

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