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Aug. 22nd, 2006 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badstarYa know, I don't really have a problem with porn. I don't especially enjoy it but I don't have a probblem with it.
Apparently I've seen the wrong stuff, but most of the porn that I have seen at some point is either just so hilariously bad that all I can do is laugh at it, or it's just....ewww. Either way, there's no "oh that turns me on" factor. Therefore, I don't go looking for porn. Because I don't go looking for it, what I do run into is incidental, and lather rinse repeat. Each feeds off the other.
That said...no, I'm really not into the idea of people writing porn stories about characters from kids' novels, whether they modify the ages of the characters, only write about adult characters, whatever...(Yes, I know, Harry Potter aren't strictly kids' books, especially once you're past the first three, but a majority of the marketing is still done to kids.)
No...I don't think you're mentally ill if you're writing about adult characters, or modifying the age so that they're "legal", and I don't think you're a pedophile if you're doing that. (Unless the writer is like 14, it's the people that write about underage characters that worry me, and unless I'm sadly mistaken, there's no one on my friends list that does this.)
I was commenting on a story, "Harry Potter Porn" was their phrase, not mine, and there was no bother to clarify which group they were talking about. On the first night, as I stand waiting to go into the Great Hall for dinner,
I ask two women why they are here.
"It's just great to be able to talk to other people about Harry Potter," says the first one, Lisa.
I nod my head earnestly.
"Particularly," she says, "Harry Potter porn."
"Harry Potter porn?" I say.
"Harry Potter gay porn," she corrects me. "We write it. It's called slash fiction.
"You take the characters and you imagine them in different scenarios."
What can I say? Lisa is 38, she's a paralegal and lives in New York. Her friend, Hally, is 26, and a student.
They seem to be perfectly nice, educated, middle-class women - who write homoerotic fiction about wizards.
By Lisa's reckoning, at least half the delegates write fan fiction.
"There's fan fiction with plot, and then there's fan fiction which is just sex," she says.
At dinner I sit next to a fresh-faced pair of sisters: Olivia, a nurse, and Abbi, a teacher, who've driven nine hours from New Mexico to be here.
I try to judge if they, too, are into hardcore wizard-on-wizard porn.
"Do you do . . . 'slash'?" I ask Olivia and Abbi.
"No!" they say. "We're fans, but we're not freaky fans."
The next day, Rachael Livermore, a 25-year-old from London, gives me one of the best explanations of the phenomenon.
It started with Kirk in Star Trek, she says. Fan-fiction writers needed a romantic partner for him, and since there wasn't a suitable female character, he got paired off with Spock. It's slash, as in Kirk/Spock.
"It's empowering. We are reversing the gender roles. We are saying we like porn: deal with it," Rachael says.
"And what do you do for a living?" I ask. "I'm an accountant," she says.
(Side note, I have a very strong dislike for the word "empowering". I think it's overused, and frequently misused. And I think the word is misused in this context.)
And now, I have more pressing things to think about. Like finding a job.
Apparently I've seen the wrong stuff, but most of the porn that I have seen at some point is either just so hilariously bad that all I can do is laugh at it, or it's just....ewww. Either way, there's no "oh that turns me on" factor. Therefore, I don't go looking for porn. Because I don't go looking for it, what I do run into is incidental, and lather rinse repeat. Each feeds off the other.
That said...no, I'm really not into the idea of people writing porn stories about characters from kids' novels, whether they modify the ages of the characters, only write about adult characters, whatever...(Yes, I know, Harry Potter aren't strictly kids' books, especially once you're past the first three, but a majority of the marketing is still done to kids.)
No...I don't think you're mentally ill if you're writing about adult characters, or modifying the age so that they're "legal", and I don't think you're a pedophile if you're doing that. (Unless the writer is like 14, it's the people that write about underage characters that worry me, and unless I'm sadly mistaken, there's no one on my friends list that does this.)
I was commenting on a story, "Harry Potter Porn" was their phrase, not mine, and there was no bother to clarify which group they were talking about. On the first night, as I stand waiting to go into the Great Hall for dinner,
I ask two women why they are here.
"It's just great to be able to talk to other people about Harry Potter," says the first one, Lisa.
I nod my head earnestly.
"Particularly," she says, "Harry Potter porn."
"Harry Potter porn?" I say.
"Harry Potter gay porn," she corrects me. "We write it. It's called slash fiction.
"You take the characters and you imagine them in different scenarios."
What can I say? Lisa is 38, she's a paralegal and lives in New York. Her friend, Hally, is 26, and a student.
They seem to be perfectly nice, educated, middle-class women - who write homoerotic fiction about wizards.
By Lisa's reckoning, at least half the delegates write fan fiction.
"There's fan fiction with plot, and then there's fan fiction which is just sex," she says.
At dinner I sit next to a fresh-faced pair of sisters: Olivia, a nurse, and Abbi, a teacher, who've driven nine hours from New Mexico to be here.
I try to judge if they, too, are into hardcore wizard-on-wizard porn.
"Do you do . . . 'slash'?" I ask Olivia and Abbi.
"No!" they say. "We're fans, but we're not freaky fans."
The next day, Rachael Livermore, a 25-year-old from London, gives me one of the best explanations of the phenomenon.
It started with Kirk in Star Trek, she says. Fan-fiction writers needed a romantic partner for him, and since there wasn't a suitable female character, he got paired off with Spock. It's slash, as in Kirk/Spock.
"It's empowering. We are reversing the gender roles. We are saying we like porn: deal with it," Rachael says.
"And what do you do for a living?" I ask. "I'm an accountant," she says.
(Side note, I have a very strong dislike for the word "empowering". I think it's overused, and frequently misused. And I think the word is misused in this context.)
And now, I have more pressing things to think about. Like finding a job.
