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I was just reading it for the articles, honestly.
Dragged myself down to the Food Co-op to buy a pomegranate, some 65% cocoa chocolate, and a bottle of 1000%RDA Vitamin C Food-Juice. Their chocolate was organic but *not* fair trade-- wtf? In that case I'll get cheap chocolate at the inconvenience store, thanks.
Had to stop in the bookstore on the way, however. While I was scanning the magazine racks for sci-fi magazines (futilely, as usual) my eyes came across something called "Black + White", which seemed to be an artsy magazine focussing on nudes. What caught my attention, however, was the cover pitch: Harry Potter's Private Life: Better Than Quidditch!
As it appeared to be a nude photography magazine, my first thought, of course, was "Somebody got their hands on stills from Naked Quidditch Match!" Alas, 'twas merely yet another article about slash by somebody who has no clue what they're talking about.
I suppose it wasn't terrible, as these things go. They weren't disapproving, just a bit bewildered. And they didn't define slash as erotica-- they defined fanfiction as slash. Which is different, at least. They had some amazingly *uninsightful* commentary by people I've never heard of about why H/D is popular and why het women write slash ("One theory is that feminization of male characters allows female fans to project themselves into the sex." Um, yes, why are you writing m/m instead of het, then?) Also, I found myself wondering whether they'd even read the books, as the pairing they seemed most dubious about - in a list including Ginny/Hermione, Hagrid/Snape, and Harry/Lucius, mind -- was Remus/Sirius. Which is as close as you get to canon!
Actually, the fact that the author gave as much space to Hagrid/Snape as to *anything else* made me wonder about their own preferences.
The main thing that puzzled me, though, was that they brought up the issues of pedophilia and non-con. They even quoted several lines from a Harry/Snape fic that gave the impression it was teacher/student, with Snape blackmailing Harry into sex. And then they revealed that it was a role-play story, and that "most authors age the characters up to 21." Nooo. Listen, if you're going to address the issues of non-con and underage, you have to actually *address* them. I have read and written that kind of fic, and honestly, whatever the reasons for its prevalence in HP, it's not happy and fluffy! I feel a rant (or possibly essay) coming on.
Actually, on sober reflection, I've concluded that the real intent of that article was to quote some sexy bits and turn people on while pretending to be serious analysis. Nothin' wrong with that, I suppose.
Had to stop in the bookstore on the way, however. While I was scanning the magazine racks for sci-fi magazines (futilely, as usual) my eyes came across something called "Black + White", which seemed to be an artsy magazine focussing on nudes. What caught my attention, however, was the cover pitch: Harry Potter's Private Life: Better Than Quidditch!
As it appeared to be a nude photography magazine, my first thought, of course, was "Somebody got their hands on stills from Naked Quidditch Match!" Alas, 'twas merely yet another article about slash by somebody who has no clue what they're talking about.
I suppose it wasn't terrible, as these things go. They weren't disapproving, just a bit bewildered. And they didn't define slash as erotica-- they defined fanfiction as slash. Which is different, at least. They had some amazingly *uninsightful* commentary by people I've never heard of about why H/D is popular and why het women write slash ("One theory is that feminization of male characters allows female fans to project themselves into the sex." Um, yes, why are you writing m/m instead of het, then?) Also, I found myself wondering whether they'd even read the books, as the pairing they seemed most dubious about - in a list including Ginny/Hermione, Hagrid/Snape, and Harry/Lucius, mind -- was Remus/Sirius. Which is as close as you get to canon!
Actually, the fact that the author gave as much space to Hagrid/Snape as to *anything else* made me wonder about their own preferences.
The main thing that puzzled me, though, was that they brought up the issues of pedophilia and non-con. They even quoted several lines from a Harry/Snape fic that gave the impression it was teacher/student, with Snape blackmailing Harry into sex. And then they revealed that it was a role-play story, and that "most authors age the characters up to 21." Nooo. Listen, if you're going to address the issues of non-con and underage, you have to actually *address* them. I have read and written that kind of fic, and honestly, whatever the reasons for its prevalence in HP, it's not happy and fluffy! I feel a rant (or possibly essay) coming on.
Actually, on sober reflection, I've concluded that the real intent of that article was to quote some sexy bits and turn people on while pretending to be serious analysis. Nothin' wrong with that, I suppose.
no subject
My sister sent me an article from a paper/magazine from Boston that sounds almost exactly the same (including the whole quoting, age issue, oh-no-it-was-really-role-play) section. But it did have an author rec that I intend to look up... so not all bad. :)
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I admit I didn't really think about the legal issues of quoting it. I would think a two or three line quote wouldn't run into any real problems. Actually, wasn't there a recent legal scuffle about whether images of older people pretending to be children counted as child porn? Hmm.
But really, I was more wondering why they mentioned it at all. Seems to me if you're going to bring up a sensitive subject like Harry Potter and child pornography, you should either be using it to paint slashers as evil or to really discuss the issue. Not just gloss it over.
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(and my objections to chan slash stem less from moral objections to just not liking children -- never have, not even when I was one.)
And my article, which sounds much better (I must try to remember to look up the citation... it's at work now), includes my favorite explanation for women writing with exclusively male characters: writers look at the available characters and pick ones interesting to them regardless of gender... and usually end up with two male ones.
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sexrelationships!"I like that explanation for slash, actually. I've noticed that in a lot of non-explicit slash stories, it doesn't really matter what sex the characters are; if it wasn't already established in canon, the same story could be m/m, f/f, or het. It seems like once people have accepted the basic slash worldview, they sometimes begin to look at gender as something little more important than hair color; it hasn't much to do with who the person is or what choices they'll make.
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That might be kind of what the quote you give above was trying to mean by "project themselves into the sex."
/talking out of my ass. (; Haven't actually read much except your stuff.
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Your theory's neat; I don't know if I've ever heard it put that way before. The only problem I have is that slash writers almost *never* move on to writing het; it's more often the other way around.
My current theory, based on my own experience? Slash lets a woman write erotica/romance while pretending it has nothing to do with her own sexuality. Women's sexuality is still somewhat supressed in our culture, so she writes about feminized guys so she doesn't have to face the fact that she feels this way, too. (This also takes into account that a surprising number of slashers are lesbian.)
But. Like I said. There's as many answers as there are slashers.