More Thesis Thoughts

[alixtii]

I read Kendall Walton's Mimesis As Make-Believe over Christmas break, but it was simply too large to connect my thoughts on fandom. Here's a more manageable secondary souce (Feeling in Imagination" by Richard Moran) I am now reading as I consider the nature of satire (why isn't Nineteen Eighty-Four triumphant?):

[T]o be afraid you must think you are in danger, and yet you seem to be stricken with fear. [. . . O]ne is experiencing what [Watson] calls quasi-fear, pretending really to be afraid, as part of a game of make-believe in which the movie or story is a prop.

The implication here is that while I could perhaps desire Eliza Dushku or Iyari Limon or Michelle Trachtenberg, I only "quasi-desire" or "fictionally desire" Faith or Kennedy or Dawn as a move in a game. I could desire Dawn Summers in the way that I could desire Iyari Limon (but don't, since I've never met her), but such desire would probably not be completely healthy. This strikes me as correct (although I have doubts about Watson's schema as a whole). Fictional desire isn't the same thing as normal desire. If Faith or Kennedy or Dawn were to walk in my door right now, what would my reaction be? "Sorry, I have girlfriend"? Possibly I'd say that to Kennedy, but I'd probably be turned off by Faith's anti-intellectualism. I'd be repulsed by my Watcher!Dawn's monstrous nature iff she were a real person. But even though I have no real desire at this moment for anyone but my girlfriend, I enjoy immensely playing the game as if I did. To put it in Watson's terms, I desire my fictional desiring.

This sort of desire, then, is constituted within a fictional "game" with a TV series as a prop. In light of this, my turn as a het male to femslash makes perfect sense. Since the desire I (pretend to) feel for a fictional character is constituted wholly in the context of a fictional game, it is never truly mine. It is just as easy to hand it off to another fictional character (who already resides in the world of the object of fictional desire). Since I identify most strongly with the female characters (for whatever reason) I pick a female as my avatar, and thus femslash.

It is also important to remember that I am not the only player in this fictional game (or games). Watson describes multiplayer fictional games extending from children's makebelieve to the more sophisticated sort of make believe that occurs when actors play characters in front of a present audience. But the type of community play that we've instituted in ou fanfiction circles is, I think, very special.After all, it is ultimately you guys who make the game so much fun to play.

That said, I'm not 100% certain about the usefulness of these conceptual categories. If someone is reading secretary_fic one-handed, what sense does it really make to call the desire which they are feeling merely "fictional"? Is that really only a "quasi-desire"? And what about when we use real people (for whatever value of "real") as props in our fictional games. I don't see anything wrong with that, but I can just see a man explaining to his wife, on being caught checking out a much younger woman: "I was only pretending to desire her!"*

*But this distinction strikes me as quite reasonable, however much the wife might not accept it. I can enjoy pretending to desire characters both real and fictional to whom I am not actually sexually attracted, after all, for whatever reason (too young, too old, wrong gender, unattractive, whatever). And my fictional desire may be of a nature (incest, chan, noncon, BDSM, whatever) not applicable to my actual desire. Or so I tell myself.

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I'd conceptualize it very differently. I'd say that it is more acceptable to desire Dawn or Kennedy than the actors who play them, because fictional characters don't have feelings, can't be afraid of being stalked, and don't have RL partners who also have feelings.

I'd also say that if the reaction to reading something is "That's interesting" you're not even pretending-to-desire. But if the reaction is arousal, then you *are* desiring. Which is not to say that you would ever, ever in a million years *perform* actions that are contrary to your beliefs or responsibilities to other people.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's somehow more or less wrong to desire Iyari than it is Kennedy: they're both attractive women. I would feel more comfortable acting on that desire in the case of the fictional character, because as you point out there's no chance of the fictional character being hurt, but since I don't oppose RPF I can't claim that's normative.

But I'm not sure I agree that there isn't such a thing as fictional desire. It's not that I have a desire to rape fictional characters but not real people (to pick the most ethically charged kink of which I could think), and it's not that I have beliefs or responsibilities standing in the way; it's that I don't feel these desires to begin with. Same with incest, chan, m/m sex, and a bunch of other kinks which I not only wouldn't perform, but have no desire to do so. The objects of my fictional desire may be those towards whom I have absolutely no real desire, perhaps because they are too young for me to find them sexually attractive, too old, or even the wrong gender!

However, I do often find enjoyment in placing myself in a . . .I don't know if "fictional game where I just pretend to desire" is the best way to picture it, but it's not normal desire; it's some type of quasi-desire.

Also, real desire always seeks its satisfaction, but quasi-desire is often the object of real desire, at least for me.

[wisdomeagle]

Will (try to) write more about this after dinner, but can you expand on your last sentence? I'm not sure what you mean by "real desire seeks its satisfaction."