labels and sex and gen versus shipper

[escritoireazul]

Here's where I've continued this discussion: labels and sex and gen versus shipper part two.




February 20, 1:47 p.m.

I've been thinking about femslash and male slash and het, and stories with sex in each of them. I've actually been thinking about this a lot, in both my fanfic and non-fanfic writing, but the story I posted last night (lineage and the Slayer line) really brought some of it to head because it was written for a femslash community (femslash_minis) as a femslash request, and yet there's only a little kiss (and a little shared space and perception, but still). Could it be a gen Faith story? I think so, yes, despite the kiss and Faith's attraction to Kendra.

Originally I had intended to make it more sexual, but it didn't fit into this piece, this chunk of dream-memory. (I've been inspired today, while thinking these thoughts, to start a sequel, a later dream, maybe during the season four finale. I think the first Slayer being in their dreams would have maybe shaken up the Slayer-self, and Faith might have dreamed, too, but the first Slayer was busy, so who else would Faith dream about?)

But when you (generic) write femslash and don't include the sex (detailed or not), does it come across like you're uncomfortable with the female/female sex? Does it do this in male slash? What about het? Where do the lines cross between gen and shippy, character sketch and slash story?

Oh crap, work to do. I just wanted to throw this out before I forgot to talk about it, and I'm interested in your thoughts.



Edited to Add (February 20, 3:10 p.m.):

This is a comment I left below, in response to something docmichelle said, which has helped me better understand the questions I want to ask (sort of).

You know, I think I have two different questions going on here, and you're helping me split them. Thank you.

One question is, where does the line between gen and shipper split? The story in question is a Slayer dream Faith has when she's Called, in which Kendra passes her power on, and the closest thing to a shippy moment is the way their bodies combine in the dreamscape. Mostly it is a gen story, a Faith character study, and I feel bad about it, because it was for a femslash challenge, and it just didn't work out the way I wanted, but with only a week to write it, I didn't have time to start a second story which might have worked better. And this really isn't a question, is it? Faith is a little attracted to the combination, and to Kendra herself, but that's it. Should it be labeled femslash? Would it be labeled if Kendra was replaced with, say, Xander? (Ignore the impossibilities of that.)

The second is how sex fits into the story, and really doesn't have anything at all to do with this, it's much more a question about the genre my original writing is in, and the precedent set by other writers, and probably belongs in the other journal completely. Hmmm.

Comments

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

I've never thought that clicking on a story implied guaranteed sex, regardless of whether it's het or slash. All I expect of slash is that there be attraction by one person towards another person of the same gender. It doesn't have to be reciprocated, it doesn't have to draw any conclusion, but the attraction must be there to qualify slash. Otherwise it's genfic, which is fine, but it isn't slash.

If it's rated NC-17/Adult and DOSEN'T contain sex, or contains a passing reference to sex, THAT irritates me. It isn't a big part of this discussion, but it's a pet peeve that's been popping up a lot lately. Basically, though, I think you can write whatever the hell you want as long as it's labeled clearly. PG slash is fine, NC-17 slash is fine, slash labeled NC-17 with nary a kiss to be found not so fine.

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

These are all really good points, especially about how the attraction can be one-sided but still qualify as slash. Do you think gen fic becomes slash if the main storyline about the main character is not about the attraction to someone of the same sex, but it is a side plot? Labeling is so interesting, I think, and can be so strange at the same time.

Do you think ratings should come with more detail? For example, NC-17 for violence or NC-17 for graphic sex or R for language and violence. Would that help stop the label problem? Also, do you think some slash stories are labeled higher than they deserve because slash is a more "taboo" topic like graphic sex or violence? (Obviously, I don't think it is and wouldn't label like that, but it makes me wonder if that's part of the thought process behind labeling it higher.) Or do you think it's literally just a wrong label?

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

The whole label conversation is funny because what I want as a reader is so different from what I want to do as a writer.

As a reader I want to be able to tell from what's above the lj-cut what I'm getting into the way I would from picking up a book or dvd. I don't need to know an exact pairing (and I often dislike that trend because it's FUN to read a story and wonder if the subtext between Romeo and Juliet is intended and if they'll get together in the end), I don't need to need any more plotting than I'd get from a book jacket. Even the rating thing, yeah, sometimes I go out looking for NC-17, or am not in the mood to deal with anything above PG, but by and large I'm just looking for a good story.

As a writer I realize that my demands are kind of unreasonable and they suck. *I* want people to see my name and know they're in for a good story. I want to not come up with a witty but clear summary. I want to not have to list pairings/characters that give away plot twists.

The false advertizing in general bothers me. I'll grant that a lot of it is miscommunication, especially in the instances of mutli-chapter stories that will, eventually, someday, maybe be graphic. And a lot of it is 12 year old girls writing omggirl/boy/het!sex!!!. Or thinking that they are. But that doesn't make it bug me any less.

[pressdbtwnpages.livejournal.com]

Aaaand I forgot to answer this: Do you think gen fic becomes slash if the main storyline about the main character is not about the attraction to someone of the same sex, but it is a side plot?

Unfortunately, yes, I do. It sucks because the reverse isn't true. If the side plot was a girl pining over a boy instead of pining over a girl I don't think the label/warning would be necessary. It's just that people are SO sensitive about slash. At some point, warnings become as much about protecting writers as they do about guiding readers. I've seen plenty of people get blasted for "sneaking" homosexuality into fics and "forcing" readers to read it. Maybe the reverse is true of het, but I've never seen it.

The double-standard sucks, but it's there.

[shetiger.livejournal.com]

I haven't read your story (I haven't been reading much of anything outside SGA for a while, and not much in SGA, either), so none of this is directed at you in particular.

I've seen a lot of confusion about the term 'gen' in fandom lately, and it bothers me. I saw a story labeled 'gen/het' the other day, which made me totally confused. Of course there's never going to be a complete consensus on what any term in fandom means, but generally gen means general. ;) No romance, no sex, no pairings (unless they are already exist in canon, in which case they should be acknowledged but not dwelt on). Otherwise you have a pairing story, which you can then classify as het/slash/femslash whatever. Yes, there are some stories that kind of cross lines, but I think it's more fair to the reader to let them know what you're trying to accomplish. (Maygra just ranted about truth in labeling, and I agree very much.)

does it come across like you're uncomfortable with the female/female sex?

Hmm. I suppose it could. And that's not necessarily a bad thing--we all have our own comfort levels. I don't think you should feel forced outside of them because of fandom/political expectations.

Mostly, though, I think sex should serve the story. There should be a purpose for it, whether that is simply pleasure in the sex (a PWP, for instance) or to illuminate something about the characters. If the sex doesn't belong in the story, it shouldn't be in the story.

For example, I wrote an Atlantis story for a ficathon last fall. The requester wanted first time Sheppard/McKay sex--among quite a few other requirements. I came up with a story idea, which I quite liked, and started writing. When I got to the point where sex would go, I realized that it didn't really fit. A kiss and maybe a little making out would have worked much better. But since it was for a gift, I went ahead and wrote the sex. The story was well-received, but I'm still unhappy that I wrote it that way. I don't think the sex served the story.

(And I'm speaking as someone who has written explicit sex of every stripe, and written little more than sublimated UST. So make of me what you will.)

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

You know, I think I have two different questions going on here, and you're helping me split them. Thank you.

One question is, where does the line between gen and shipper split? The story in question is a Slayer dream Faith has when she's Called, in which Kendra passes her power on, and the closest thing to a shippy moment is the way their bodies combine in the dreamscape. Mostly it is a gen story, a Faith character study, and I feel bad about it, because it was for a femslash challenge, and it just didn't work out the way I wanted, but with only a week to write it, I didn't have time to start a second story which might have worked better. And this really isn't a question, is it?

The second is how sex fits into the story, and really doesn't have anything at all to do with this, it's much more a question about the genre my original writing is in, and the precedent set by other writers, and probably belongs in the other journal completely. Hmmm.

[faechick.livejournal.com]

I don't read femslash for the sex. That's not to say I don't read smut, because I quite enjoy smut, but I didn't get into femslash because the stories dwelt on sexual escapades. I read femslash for the femslash - the attraction, the love, the emotions. I'm really quite fond of "gen" femslash, though that's not at all a good term, really. "G" or "PG" perhaps?

And it's not because I'm uncomfortable with the sex. It's because I prefer the people. Not everybody wants to write sex in slash, and not everybody wants to read it. It's just the vocal majority that puts it out there, and makes you feel dumb for not wanting it the way they do.

As far as terms and lines and boundries and blurring - I think it's too subjective for its own good. But, for me:

Gen - No explicit pairings, just good old fashioned stories.
Shippy - A story that doesn't necessarily become smut, but focuses on a relationship throughout the plot.
Character Sketch - A look at a character - this can be labeled as Gen, Het or Slash also, depending on how you view the character in question. (I'd say that in not obviously gay characters a slash warning is good for the readers when you've chosen to portray them that way..?)
Slash - Any story where same-gender attraction is discussed.

[marenfic.livejournal.com]

I don't think a pairing fic of any kind *has* to have sex-- het or slash.

The only thing that ever irritates me is when I'm participating in a femslash exchange and I get what basically amounts to a friendship fic. Because that's gen, not femslash, and I usually participate in femslash exhanges to contribute to the femslash community and promote it, in a way. You don't have to have sex-- but there needs to be a clear attraction from at least one person for it to qualify as femslash.

In terms of discomfort. . . this is a sticky area and I'm not sure I want to get into it on someone else's journal. But my own general observation is that femslash is less graphic, with lower ratings, than m/m and I wonder why. And I think that one of the reasons, and I am stressing that it is one and may not apply to every person, is that in general, people from Western societies are less comfortable with explicit female sexuality. Plus, I think language is a huge barrier to writing explicit femslash. HUGE barrier. And again, this is a societal thing because all of our words for female genitalia are either too clinical for erotica (vagina- although I think it's a fine word, I'm in the minority) or have negative connotations for a lot of people (pussy, cunt). So when you have two females, you have double the language problems.

BUT, I don't think that just because you write or enjoy reading non-explicit femslash that you have a problem with f/f sex. There are obviously so many other reasons to read it.

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

That is a good point, no pairing fic requires sex, but I worry sometimes that the lack of explicit sex in my femslash stories means I am uncomfortable with f/f sex, which is completely untrue. This is especially bad when writing for a ficathon (or a specific person) and the story I want to tell doesn't seem to need graphic sex, but so many of the other stories contain it. (Even more when I receive a wonderful story with graphic sex, because then I feel I may have let down the person for whom I wrote.) Obviously, this are personal hang-ups.

My problem is I'm not comfortable writing any graphic sex. I just don't feel I can write a story which is erotic, detailed, hot, in character, and well written all at the same time, and I've struggled with every single sex scene I've ever written, m/m, f/f, m/f, or other.

The language problem is a very good point. It's hard enough in a same sex story to keep all the pronouns clear without taking the easy road and constantly referring to one as the red-haired girl or the pilot boy or whatever. The female genitalia language problems just make that worse.

(Some days I think the only way to handle it is to take back the words with negative connotations, but then other days I'm not sure it works. Some days it seems like it just comes across as more confrontational than I mean. [I ran into this a lot in performance poetry.] Some days it was exactly what I wanted. Language is so tricky.)

(I also think vagina is a fine word, but I can understand why some people think it is too clinical.)

But there needs to be a clear attraction from at least one person for it to qualify as femslash.

This is what I was looking for in an answer, something I could understand about where the line is between shippy and gen. (Though you'd think this would have been obvious to me, which it wasn't, and I do still have questioning thoughts about it.) Thank you.

Part of the thoughts I am having are about the need for labels, I think, or maybe not labels but warnings. (And whether there is a difference between labels and warnings in the first place, which I know there is, but where does that difference take place? What is it?) If it was Faith having that same moment with Xander (a brief kiss), is it het fic or is it Faith looking for a reflection of herself in someone else, taking from them, and it's not about the relationship at all (which it isn't) but about Faith, so it would be gen. Or so that's what I think, either way, Xander or Kendra in that position. Except I wrote it for the femslash community, and any random male is not interchangeable in the role, the story is all about how Kendra and Faith relate because they are women and Slayers.

[southernbangel.livejournal.com]

My problem is I'm not comfortable writing any graphic sex. I just don't feel I can write a story which is erotic, detailed, hot, in character, and well written all at the same time, and I've struggled with every single sex scene I've ever written, m/m, f/f, m/f, or other.

That is exactly my problem. I don't like writing sex scenes because as much as I post about my incredible lust for DB and about my personal life, basically I'm a prude. Well, not necessarily a prude but I'm very self-conscious when it comes to my body and sex. It's not easy for me to write sex scenes because they can be so revealing, and I constantly struggle with the sex. Keeping it in character, keeping it hot--and I freely admit that my sex scenes are not hot--and not backing away are my biggest struggles. I signed up for smut_69 because I thought it would be a good chance for me to push my boundaries. And since I signed up for it back in November or hell, maybe even earlier, I've written three. I'm just not comfortable writing sex, but I *want* to be.

[cadence-k.livejournal.com]

This is such an interesting question!

First, I think the line between a shippy fic and a gen one can be very fuzzy. To me, if there is any attraction, it can be labeled shippy. And for the record, I don't think you need to worry at all about your femslash_minis fic being femslashy enough. Minis fics are supposed to be short so many of them turn out to be more of a character study with attraction or sex on the side than a long, plot-driven romance.

I also like your question about if not including graphic f/f sex suggests you are uncomfortable with f/f sex in general. Obviously, the fact that there are fewer femslash stories with or without sex than m/m slash stories is one thing that will never stop bugging me. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with femslash and f/f sex. On the other hand, I would never suggest that one story without f/f sex would mean that an individual is uneasy with female sexuality. Plus, as much as I enjoy reading smutty femslash fics, that is not why I prefer femslash. I love reading about the connections between female characters and how they relate to one another.

So, yeah. Interesting question! Mind if I point other people this way to get their response?

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

No, please point people this way, I'd love to see more opinions. I'm working on revising it some for clarity, but I think I'll probably just add on to this instead of deleting and rewriting or anything like that.

Thank you for your comment about the femslash_minis fic worry. That's what originally sparked this, the fear I hadn't actually made it a femslash story, but didn't have time to try story number two before the deadline.

But it did spark good questions and discussion, so that's a plus. I think part of what I'm questioning is the need to label things and how labels work and when they are appropriate. To continue the example I used in the edit, if it had been Xander in Kendra's place, would I have felt the need to label it het fic? The attraction is such a small part of the character sketch that I don't know I would have labeled it het, but if that's so, why is it femslash instead of gen? (Ignore here the fact it was written for the femslash community and was labeled by that fact even if nothing else.)

On the other hand, if there's a character study piece in which there's only a little bit of attraction between, say, Spike and Buffy, I wouldn't mind knowing that going in, because I don't like that pairing and prefer to have the option of reading about even light versions of it before I start a story. But is this encouraging the lack of interest in femslash? I don't want to do that, but I'd also hate to start a story expecting one thing from the information and ending up with something else completely different.

I definitely hate that there aren't as many femslash stories as male slash, graphic sex involved or not. And I really think I'm overthinking this, or at least worrying too much, but I do have these thoughts, especially in the original writing.

Because I would hate for people to think I'm uncomfortable with femslash or graphic female sex when I'm really, really not. I love it. I want more of it. (I'm about to break into song here.)

I just have trouble writing sex, especially graphic sex, full stop. Whether it is f/f, m/m, m/f, or any other combination, I'm not comfortable with my ability to write a story which is erotic and hot and in character and well-written all at the same time. Most of the fics I've written which are rated R are for violence and language, not sex. (That's another topic in itself, about why violence is easier to do than sex.)

You're right, though, it's not about the sex (though the sex is a plus), it's about the female characters and how they relate. It doesn't even have to be a romantic or sexual relationship on both sides.