(no subject)

[badstar]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-zealots/2006/08/18/1155408026089.html

The article is about Lumos, the Harry Potter convention.

This part really gets me:

In reference to writing Harry Potter gay slash fiction...

"It's empowering. We are reversing the gender roles. We are saying we like porn: deal with it," Rachael says.

So...what you're saying is that to take a fictional character that you didn't make up- an adolescent character at that- and write stories about said character in pornographic scenes with another character that you didn't make up...is...empowering?

Please. The stupid, it hurts.

If you like porn so much and want to write about it...oh, I dunno...call me crazy, but why on earth not make up your own characters- preferably adult ones- and write stories about them?
(Yes, yes I know, there are adult characters in the Harry Potter book, whatever. I never really understood people's desperate wanting to write fanfiction anyway...and some of the writers that I've seen are so unbelievably talented, why not write their own original stuff? Just. Don't. Get. It.)

Comments

[saratoga80.livejournal.com]

I'll agree with Renee here. I can't get behind gay or lesbian HP porn - written or otherwise.

First of all, nofate301, I think you're in the minority. Fanfic porn, gay or otherwise, may be older than the hills, but the crowd endorsing and reading said is probably very small, especially in the HP world. This is because it's largely challenging reading for children, who are not generally exposed to porn from the HP reading early ages of say 9-12. [I saw my first piece of porno at 13, so I'm going to go with that]

Most adult HP fans are not fanFic readers. It's a subset of a fan culture, and while it's proliferated on the net, most fanfic involves extended adventures and other such. While there may be no statistics on said, I'd be highly suspicious of any claim pronographic fiction based on HP constitutes for any sort of majority - either in general fandom, or in fanfic writings.

Now that said, I'm not saying such writings should be banned or discouraged. It's a free country, write what you will. But understand that criticism of Renee's is not only valid, it's probably the general feeling of many people. Porn isn't empowering, it's about sex. Which is fine - I've seen porn, read pornographic stories, etc. I do not have any current sbscriptions to pronographic services. [General Disclaimer] And assigning pornographic literary license, gay or straight, to beloved juveile reading books will draw criticism. And I'm not even talking wacky religious right criticism, but mainstream literary criticism and fellow fan criticism.

Let's not call porn anything other than what it is - a fantasy to, by and large, self-induce pleasure (physical or otherwise). if we start assigning higher moral authority or "empowerment" (overused phrase) to things like porn - instead of simply letting it be what it is, a pleasurable experience, then we degrade our morality by valuing one item falsely, and assigning morality to that which has no intrinsic moral value.