Work Text:
If you’re presently a student of mine, or if you may be in the future, you really shouldn't be reading this. I'd appreciate it if you'd leave. C'mon now, run along.
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Damn, didn’t work.
Okay then, if you're a friend, a colleague, a family member, or someone who Googled me, this space really isn't for you, and reading these works will probably make you uncomfortable. If you have any doubts, or don't understand fanfiction, you should take off. Seriously, beat it.
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You're still here, aren't you? Well then.
In all honesty, it's not such a big deal for me that people from my offline life might read my fanfic--but it might be a big deal for them, so I thought I should should give some preparation. Here's the thing about fanspaces like Tumblr or this Archive: they're not private, but they can be very personal. If you're here, and you know me, you're about to know me a lot better, in ways that may make you uncomfortable. I've thought about this a lot, and I'm not willing to be secretive about my fannish activities; that's why my real name is on this account. But I don't publicize it, either, because as I said, it's personal. I know some students know of my blog and these fics. The line I take, repeatedly, is that they're officially off limits for current students, and should be treated as part of my private life (though like I said, strictly speaking they're not private, but personal). However, social media means that the lines between public and private are blurred nowadays, especially in forums that don’t use real names. So I tell students that if they find my blog or these fics, I can’t stop them reading, but especially where the fics are concerned I’m not talking about it in class, or to anyone who’s currently a student. And if any of it makes their heads explode, they'll just have to do their own mopping up. Because this is a playground, it's for messing about and fucking around and taking risks, but it's serious play, too; it matters.
In short: what you'll read is pretty much pornography. It's also important.
Nowadays fanfiction has been getting wider exposure, all too often in insulting ways. Not long ago a fandom friend suffered the humiliation of having her fic shoved at Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman by an oafish interviewer who wanted them to read it aloud for laughs. She thought the laughs would be at the author's expense, and they were, until the actors realized where the scene was going and stopped. (Freeman, bless him, was sanguine about it, but Cumberbatch was visibly offended.) Fangirls, of course, were outraged. Fanfic isn't for or about the actors, it's about their characters, and it's not for them to read. We write with and for each other and no one else, and we write things that, despite mass media prejudices, do very smart, very important, very meaningful work. That’s one of the marvelous things about fandom, that we’ve created a space in which we can share these desires that we fear might be shameful, and learn that they’re beautiful. We have a compact with each other to honor ourselves in our pleasure, and that compact is a treasure. It’s beyond cruel to have that carefully constructed security kicked apart like a sandcastle by bullies.
I'm afraid of that happening here. For anyone, having your pleasures ridiculed is traumatic. It's an intimate damage: the erotic writing I do here is my pleasure distilled into language by a craft I’m never totally confident in, through skills I’m always perfecting and that I always doubt. To be exposed in one’s desire is frightening, and to have the imperfect expression of that desire scorned is cruel. I beg you here to be careful, to be generous, to be open, and more than anything to be respectful. Every pleasure, even the ones you don't share or don't get, deserves to be taken seriously.
So to be clear: I'm a fangirl, and I'm not ashamed of that. For me personally, shame is deadly poisonous, especially where sexuality is concerned. My position:
1) Fandom is a important cultural force that deserves respect and serious consideration;
2) Fanfiction and fanart are important artistic movements that deserve respect and critical attention; and
3) Erotic writing like slashfiction is a legitimate genre that deserves respect and literary regard, and the best erotic writing is happening in fandom. The fact that so much fanfic is slash does not take away from its serious cultural and artistic value.
As a matter of fact, fandom is creating a genre of erotic writing by women that rarely existed before, and that is beautiful and valuable and smart as all fucking get-out. The slashfic I’ve read is one of the most powerful and productive tools I’ve seen for looking at sexuality, psychology, and social dynamics.
Finally, to address the heart of many people's derision: yes, we are writing men in love, and often in unabashedly sentimental ways. Some people, especially men, say this is ridiculous. Sherlock Holmes in tears from loneliness? James Bond liking a nice cuddle (or, heaven forbid, getting topped)? Ridiculous. But I think there's something else at the heart of this scorn: the unfamiliarity and the threat of male objectification. In slash, men become the focus of women's desire in ways that contradict norms of masculinity. But I believe that the sentimentality we're derided for is a kind of attention to interiority that's all too rare in writing about men. We talk about what the man wants and what he feels, what he needs and what he lacks. And when we do that, we are loving men for the things the culture says make them unlovable. We adore them for vulnerability, sensitivity, sentiment, the ability to be weak (or to combine these things with strength in a way that’s not contradictory or ironic). We love them for being emotionally available, romantic, needy, for being tender…for being penetrated, which sexism says is the worst thing that can happen to a man. We desire them for the things the culture says make them disgusting. We desire these men for what supposedly makes them not men. If you think that's ridiculous, if you think that's something to make fun of, if you think that's not what real men are or could be, then your ideas about men are pretty damn limiting.
So, current or future student, close or far friend, colleague, neighbor, or idle searcher, you have to decide whether this kind of pleasure is something you can respect. If not, then I’ll have to ask you to piss right the hell off.
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Damn, didn’t work.
All right then—welcome, friend! Enjoy!