Yes, Even More Meta: For Love of the Game

[alixtii]

executrix responded to my meta post on "fictional desire" and went to a place that was (somewhat) less theoretical and more focused on what happens when we read and write fics. And since our theorizations are all but useless if they don't fit our fannish experience, I think that's a good instinct. Likewise, thelastgoodname also went to a place that focused on the fanfics which exist in fandom and our relationships with them, asking a craft-of-writing question about sex scenes and hermionesviolin asked an empirical question about who and how we desire, bracketing the more theoretical issues.

So I want to discuss the specific way that I tend to approach a fic and the way that it interacts with my desire (without going TMI). Partially this is because we can't have any idea of how much of our experience is generalizable--and thus cannot construct a theory out of it--if we don't gaze at our own navels sometimes and share our experience. executrix focused on the reader who reads fanfic for the sex scenes, and has a lot of good stuff. Let me put forth myself as a somewhat, but not completely, different sort of reader.

I tend to skim very quickly through sex scenes. That said, it's very important to me that they are there; I'm just not all that interested in the details of who put what where, unless they are important in some way over and above their having sex and/or being hot, e.g. a BDSM scene in which power issues get worked out. In general, I'm just a happy with a fade-to-black as an explicit sex scene, but there's really no reason beyond American puritanism to fade to black, and sometimes it just isn't possible, e.g. sexual acts which require reciprocation (if I fade to black as character X is about to go down on character Y, you might never know if character X ever got any hirself). In terms of my own craft, I will fade to black unless I feel the explicitness is in some way required. Which is not to say that I could never write a PWP; I avoid sex scenes mainly because I don't think I am very good at them, and I do think it is a skill which is worth learning.

For me, a sex scene is (even in a PWP, or perhaps especially there) representative of the culmination (and satisfaction) of a (fictional?) desire. (As frogfarm pointed out in the comments to my last post, the desire to see/read two characters having sex is not a fictional desire, although it is unclear why we should have a desire as anything other than a voyeur.) It is the resolution to a certain type of tension, like the Chekhovian gun going off in Act Three after resting on the mantle since Act One. (Of course, in the hands of a skillful enough writer, not resolving the tension can also be used to masterful effects. See the first chapter of wisdomeagle's "Pinpricks.")

By why should we turn to fanfic for that sort of result? For some pairings, like Buffy/Spike or Logan/Veronica or Josh/Donna, it's relatively clear: the tension already exists in the source text, and so we turn to fanfic for their resolutions. Oddly, enough, however I tend to find these fics the least satisfying, perhaps because I would rather let the tension build only to be resolved (presumably that much more believably, but that's debatable) in canon.

And of course there sometimes exist tensions--especially slashy and 'cesty tensions--which exist in canon but which we know will never be resolved. (Although as the world changes, our fandoms can surprise us!) I enjoy having these tensions being resolved in fanfic, and I also enjoy having these tensions be retained as tensions.

But this doesn't explain why or how I could possibly come to think of Amy Madison/Dawn Summers as a tenable pairing, let alone write and enjoy it. Now of course, Amy/Dawn would always be a rare pairing, even if unconventional pairings seem to be the convention on my flist. But if my theorization can't even explain my fannish experience, I hesitate to apply it to the rest of fandom.

Part of it is, of course, the nature of our fandoms, and just how multitextual they are. It's been joked that Serenity is fueled entirely by the sexual tension of its crew. Mal/Kaylee, while not a common pairing, has its canon foundation in their physical intimacy and clear devotion. Homoeroticism has been a staple of literature since time immemmorial. But in part these tensions are revealed in the text because we have trained ourselves to look for them, and in extreme cases it might be unclear if they have formal existence at all. (Of course, as a post-structuralist I eschew the concept of formal existence completely, but there is a continuum between the eisegesis which is an inevitable consequence of using language and reading things into a text merely because we want them to be there. Not that either extreme is necessarily illegitimate, mind you.) So the question remains: why?

And for me, at least, I think the answer is: for the love of the game (utilizing a play on "The Game" that wisdomeagle pointed out to me). After all, I was writing, reading, and (most especially) imagining fanfiction scenarios (as well as original fiction scenarios in which the id-vortex was close to the surface) long before sexual desire became a meaningful component of how I approached my source texts. My first ships (e.g., Doc/7) were based on the characters with whom I identified rather than those I desired. Nowadays I'd probably explain it as the difference between the lense of the het male gaze (which both I and various characters with whom I identify--the EMH, Wesley, Mal, Simon--share) and the lense of the disembodied quasi-omniscient author/viewer/reader. But the desire to write my own stories in which the characters--the EMH and Naomi Wildman were my self-inserts, but never Mary Sues--achieved their desires is rooted in an "adolescent" fantasy, a will-to-power which is really pre-sexual (but at the same time fundamentally sexual in certain implicit ways). There is a reason why my fandoms deal with starship captains and vampire slayers and teenaged detectives and computer whizzes and presidents, after all. There is something larger than life in each and every one of them.

I identify with the characters I write (all of them, as a necessary result of writing them, but most deeply with my viewpoint characters), and thus I want them to achieve their desires even when they are not the same desires I have. So sure I sometimes shift their desires to be a little more in line with the sort of desire I am likely to have, or would be likely to have (rather than those exact desires that I do have) so that we end up with Amy/Dawn; but I'm also able to write Dawn/Giles from Dawn's OTP, because I want her as a authorial insert to achieve her desires, and I recognize that her desires won't always be the same as mine. (Also, I recognize that many of the reasons that Dawn desires Giles or similar to the the reasons I might desire a female, and so I can identify with the desire in that way.) Similarly, I identify with Peter's desire for his sister not because I desire Susan, but because I recognize Susan as the sort of person whom I would have desired when I was Peter's age.

I think it makes perfect sense to say that I "pretend" to desire Susan or Giles, but it is only when I pretend to desire a character who isn't too far from the sort of desires I am likely to have (note again that I don't have to actually have these desires) as in Amy Madison, that the identification with the desire becomes so strong that the pretense of the desire passes into that liminal stage when it becomes paired with real arousal (now defined by wisdomeagle and I as "desire-for-orgasm").

And so ultimately I do think it comes back to the question of where the reader/writer is located in the text, as executrix recognized. So if you haven't already, go read that post.

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Not to be too crass about it, if I read a story, think, "Gosh, this is ace porn!" then what I mean by that is that I experience arousal, which I can then satisfy even if I don't have anyone else's hand on my plough. Which is different from thinking, "Gosh, this is a really terrific story!" (Although something can certainly be well-written, strongly characterized, have great descriptions and excellent dialogue, and also be filthy.)

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, personally I find it difficult to believe the distinction between pornographic and aesthetic value is quite that cut and dry, even if one does acknowledge a story can be both. Part of my reason for thinking this is that I don't believe that as an interpretative community fandom is given its aesthetic values on a plate. (Which is not to say that aesthetics is relative, although of course it might be.) Indeed, I rather supsect that aesthetic value--both within fanfic and what we would more regularly call "literature" is very closely and deeply linked with various types of desire.

Do I Desire Her Foully For That Which Makes Her Good?

[executrix.livejournal.com]

But just because there are various kinds of desires and pleasures involved in reading doesn't mean that sexual desire and pleasure doesn't have idiosyncratic features. I mean, somebody could have fond memories of attending a multi-generational family reunion without having any interest in incest or what zir relatives would taste like grilled with maitre d'hotel butter.

Re: Do I Desire Her Foully For That Which Makes Her Good?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, that's precisely what is at stake here, isn't it? The way in which we theorize the relation between aesthetic values and desire? I don't deny that we could theorize them as separate phenomenon, but I don't see any good reason to do so--especially because my own experience is of them as being closely if not inextricably linked.

There may be good reasons to not theorize a family reunion as fundamentally incestual, but let me point out that probably wouldn't stop a Freudian from theorizing it in just that way. And, as I have said before, that reunion probably would seem rather 'cesty to someone when viewed through a fannish lense--or, indeed, the sort of lens commonly used to interrogate most works of literature. (What was Hamlet's relationship with his mother?) Whether incest is "really" a feature of what we are studying depends more on our choice of our hermeneutic than anything else.

Re: Do I Desire Her Foully For That Which Makes Her Good?

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I think that aesthetic values and desire are very separable, and indeed many people's peace of mind depends on their being. And after all Hamlet is a special case, because he devotes so much mindspace to worrying about his mother's sex life (and damn little to worrying about politics).

But to most people, it is wrong for married people to be sexually involved with persons other than the spouse, and some people believe that to experience "lust in the heart" is the same as actual adultery; many people feel that fornication is immoral. For people who believe this, if they are going to have *any* warmly emotional friendships, they have to be able to distinguish between appropriate and wrongful emotions so that they can avoid actions that are wrong.

Re: Do I Desire Her Foully For That Which Makes Her Good?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

some people believe that to experience "lust in the heart" is the same as actual adultery; many people feel that fornication is immoral. For people who believe this, if they are going to have *any* warmly emotional friendships, they have to be able to distinguish between appropriate and wrongful emotions so that they can avoid actions that are wrong.

I think I find it difficult to take such people all that seriously; any relationship is potentially sexualizable, only requiring bringing the right interpretative lense to bear.