my lyrics are sexist, but you lovely bitches and hoes should know I'm trying to correct this

[sabinetzin]

1.


There are perks to being an academic, as I have learned. This should probably be a Grad Student Gorilla, which I should probably restart, but everybody needs a little more Success McAvoy in their lives.

2. Uh, if you like things that rock and are awesome, you should read A Decent Boldness by schmerica. Because it has slutty Charles and Raven, which, as you know, are the best Charleses and Ravens. And I believe it will be very clear what, to my mind, the logical extension of this story is, because I am, if you had not noticed, shameless.

3. I'm stuck on another dirtybadwrong story, flist.

So like there was a tl;dr thing about fandom history here, but suffice it to say, the fandoms I've written dirtybadwrong in- let me be clear here that BDSM is not dirtybadwrong, and neither is consent play- have been the ones where my pairings were all M/M.

But now, completely accidentally and without permission, I am apparently in XMFC fandom. I don't know either. And here's my problem: my favorite character is female, and I ship her with everyone, and I have all the dirtybadwrong ideas one could possibly have.

And I've done dirtybadwrong with Raven before. The comments weren't exactly positive; they weren't exactly negative, but they were intensely neutral (yes, it is perfectly possible to do this). Yeah, it's a little disheartening that nobody's coming with me on this one, because it's hot and I wish somebody else would write it, but noncon is not something you can expect people to read.

But I don't really care, right? There's more than one reason for that. This may come as a surprise, but I don't have rape fantasies, and I am legitimately afraid of being abducted, so that's right out. IRL, past a little unconvincing "no, don't, stop," I'm not even into consent play (as was being discussed earlier, I can't keep a straight face to save my fucking life, so I really don't do roleplay at all).

So if I write noncon, it's got nothing to do with me personally. It holds no association with my life or my kink. If somebody judges that story, I don't give a fuck- as long as you didn't think it was poorly written, you can say what you like about it.

And there's a noncon space, right? It goes in a box, and in my opinion, it's pretty clear to everybody (that matters) that it's... it's just porn. It doesn't mean you hate the characters, and it doesn't mean you want that to actually happen to them. I think that goes for slash, F/F, or het (but for some reason, thinking about it now, pretty sure noncon transfic would freak me right the fuck out). It's not inherently misogynistic (though there's some really... worrying Emma noncon out there that makes me very uncomfortable), especially when you're writing it as a woman for the consumption of other women who share that fetish. It's beyond the pale. It exists in its own arena.

And if somebody called me out on it, that is pretty much what I would say, and I would give no fucks about it.

So there's all of that. Now let me swing it around to the thing I want to write. It's perfectly consensual- although it kind of reads like consensual nonconsent, which is, y'know, still mostly consensual- and it's not even really kinky, per se.

Unfortunately, this one just sounds really misogynistic in my head. It's hard to describe without describing it, and even describing it is hard without actually writing it. But, Raven does something uncontrollable that she doesn't like and which results in giving up agency, and then Erik gets off on it. And it's way too close for comfort to "Women should lie back and think of England if men want them."

And once again this problem, which has been batted back and forth for years, rears its ugly head: wouldn't think twice about it if they were both guys. In fact, started as a Charles/Erik story, got about five lines in before I realized it was just spectacularly OOC. And that's a problem. By saying that women are off limits for some kinds of fictional activities, we're denigrating women who have those fantasies and want to see characters they can directly identify with in them. And that's, like, a really big fucking deal to me.

And here's the linchpin of this whole thing: this is a self-insert story.

I don't give a single fuck at all about the stigma of self-insert, because as long as it's interesting and in character, insert away. This story is straight-up wish fulfillment, like, past idfic and on into "please, God of Sex, hear my prayer" territory. This happens to me, and I hope that Erik would still want to fuck me (don't be fucking stupid, of course I want to fuck Erik, what the fuck's wrong with you).

So if anybody came up and called me out on it, on this characterization of her and what I make happen to her, which is not entirely implausible- I mean, it would be more plausible if someone besides me read this pairing- that would totally fuck me up. That would be tantamount to saying that I am not okay and there is something wrong with me, and I wouldn't be going to all this damn trouble to write wish fulfillment if I didn't already wish it wasn't like that.

It's bugging the absolute shit out of me, way more than it probably should, because I just can't get the idea out of my head, the plotbunny or all the bullshit that comes with it. And, like, I have fights with imaginary critics a lot, but at least I usually win them. And the solution is not to write it for myself and then not show anyone, because that's just not something I do. Even, like, ridic twelve-year-old-esque self-insert RPF (which I completely write, because it ain't no shame in my game) gets shown to at least a few people. If I write this, it's going on the AO3. That's not negotiable.

I dunno. I think I might have a way to spin it, but it's just really hard, and it's driving me up the fucking wall.

That got really long and frustrated. I should probably lock this, but... I'm not. Whoops.

IDK. I'm going to bed. I have had another lecture sprung on me (great ironies: my advisor has to translate in a trial for indigenous workers, which means I have to cover a session called Language and Ethnicity), and I am behind on ALL THE THINGS.

So. Have a good night, flist.

Comments

[thingswithwings]

nodnodnod I know what you mean about the frustration of writing a kink/scenario in a het fic when it would be easy as pie in an m/m fic (or even an f/f fic sometimes). There are just so many cultural traps surrounding women and sexuality, and as soon as you want to write women and especially het those traps can spring up and catch your authorial leg and you have to spend 3000 words writing your way out of it. It blows so much! But fwiw, I really think it's worth it, like you say, to write those fics - you're absolutely right when you say that not writing them creates a pattern of denigrating women. I hope you manage to get this one out onto the screen!

[theleaveswant]

This.

[helens78]

By saying that women are off limits for some kinds of fictional activities, we're denigrating women who have those fantasies and want to see characters they can directly identify with in them. And that's, like, a really big fucking deal to me.

YEAH. This bothers me a lot, too. One thing that's nice about the kinkmeme: for all that I've run into kink-shaming (in the sense of "lol this kink"), people will come down pretty hard if you say "this kink is wrong", and the mods have your back (in fact, the mods will probably delete "lol this kink"-style kink-shaming if you bring it to their attention). So if I were going to write some het that pushes the envelope in the same way I am comfortable pushing it for m/m... honestly, I'd probably start over at the kinkmeme. (Actually, I do have a little something like that at the kinkmeme. Mini-fill, not ongoing.)

But it bugs me that there are different rules for het than for m/m. There JUST ARE. (I actually wouldn't have any trouble writing f/f that goes to the same places as m/m; taking the guys out of the equation does the trick for me there.) It feels like walking around on a minefield, where writing m/m, it is the Wild West of tropes and kinks and fetishes. The double standard is obnoxious, especially when:

So if anybody came up and called me out on it, on this characterization of her and what I make happen to her, which is not entirely implausible- I mean, it would be more plausible if someone besides me read this pairing- that would totally fuck me up. That would be tantamount to saying that I am not okay and there is something wrong with me, and I wouldn't be going to all this damn trouble to write wish fulfillment if I didn't already wish it wasn't like that.

This. I've been there, too. I've written my personal, telling fic as m/m, partly because it's hard enough to deal with the notion of people calling me on the carpet for it as m/m, let alone the shitstorm I feel I would be inviting with m/f.

I think I would write more het if it weren't for this stuff, so I hear ya, I hear ya.

[anatsuno]

This might be completely silly of me to suggest, but, would it be possible to post with a note in the header of 'this story is super personal for me and I won't be able to cope with being denigrated for writing this scenario, so hold your horses'? Barring that, posting it somewhere without comments enabled? I think it's a valid

I'm totally with you on the difficulty of this territory, and how much it sucks. :(

And also fwiw, personally, I wish I was more into this fandom bc I love your hetfic so much, sdkjghskdfjghfjh, but I'm just... tepid on these characters, however much I try. :( *ducks!*

*hugs*

[sabinetzin]

Yeah, I've been thinking about it, and that's precisely what I've decided to do. I mean, I think if it gets finished, I'm just gonna pop a note on the top that says, hey, this is wish fulfillment, so think about that before you comment.

Let me explain to you exactly what you should do, if you do not in fact enjoy the characters: find and replace Raven with Ariadne, Charles with Eames, and Erik with Arthur. As I am not known for my characterological range, you will, at that point, be reading Inception fic with superpowers.

You think I'm kidding.

[anatsuno]

I don't think you're kidding! and omg, I am tempted. I will end up doing it I'm pretty sure. sdkmfghldkfjhg. so much good het just for meeee. :D

I just realized I left a sentence unfinished, there "just a valid". Facepalm.

<3

[everbright]

Can you hit up someone who writes kink a lot and ask them if there's a specific way to write This Story without tripping the sexual-patriarchy lines? I get what you're saying loud and clear, but I don't have any practical advice to share.

Sorry I can't help more. :(