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

[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.