Fandom pet peeve #1457
I like reading fics with virgins. Virgin sacrifice, sweet first-times, noncon hurt/comfort, amnesia stories, stories like Lacey McBain's Lost in Waiting that I can't categorize, anything where one or more of the people involved is experiencing something new about sex. This applies to a lot of the fic I adore. Gender swap, body swap, and slash stories where one or both of the guys hasn't been with another man before (or femslash where the girl hasn't been with another woman), are in essence about characters having sex for the first time. Trying new things. Being excited or hesitant. Being sensitive to the sensations. These things work for me. They make a tired act fresh. Same when experienced partners try a new kink or position, although that's somewhat tangential.
But it makes me sad when, in an otherwise lovely story, someone makes a comment about how they can't believe the other character is still a virgin at age such-and-such. Tonight I read two Star Trek XI fics, responding to the same prompt, where Kirk was 23 and 26 and hadn't slept with anyone, and McCoy was just flabbergasted. Unironically. Even aside from his surprise that came from learning this in the face of Kirk's reputation as a ladies' man. And in no replies to those stories did anyone bring this up. I don't know what the average age of initiation is these days, not to mention that whatever it is, statistically half the people will be above it, but it's a shame that not having had sex by-what, college?-invites jokes, shock, questions about what happened, or speculation about what's wrong with the person. (See also: The Thirty-Year-Old Virgins.) Even if the person is far above the magic age, it doesn't seem polite to react that way. And fandom seems like a place where both proud and de facto nonconformists congregate and celebrate diversity in innumerable ways, so this comments thing disappointed me. There have to be readers, of any age, who were put off, or who found it funny that these exclamations were taken at face value by the characters and commenters alike. Or is it just me? Is 23 or 26 remarkably late to bloom these days?
While we're on the subject, sort of, since this is something I've seen again recently in friends' journals, it also makes me sad-no, actually, it makes me angry-when fans deride terrible sex scenes by talking about how the author clearly has never had sex. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but doesn't it occur to them that plenty of people who've had sex can't write it believably for their lives, and plenty of people who haven't had sex are writing some of fandom's best steamy scenes? There's no need to insult those with less experience.
Oh, cultural assumptions. How people do grow confused and astonished when you're defied. *shakes head*
But it makes me sad when, in an otherwise lovely story, someone makes a comment about how they can't believe the other character is still a virgin at age such-and-such. Tonight I read two Star Trek XI fics, responding to the same prompt, where Kirk was 23 and 26 and hadn't slept with anyone, and McCoy was just flabbergasted. Unironically. Even aside from his surprise that came from learning this in the face of Kirk's reputation as a ladies' man. And in no replies to those stories did anyone bring this up. I don't know what the average age of initiation is these days, not to mention that whatever it is, statistically half the people will be above it, but it's a shame that not having had sex by-what, college?-invites jokes, shock, questions about what happened, or speculation about what's wrong with the person. (See also: The Thirty-Year-Old Virgins.) Even if the person is far above the magic age, it doesn't seem polite to react that way. And fandom seems like a place where both proud and de facto nonconformists congregate and celebrate diversity in innumerable ways, so this comments thing disappointed me. There have to be readers, of any age, who were put off, or who found it funny that these exclamations were taken at face value by the characters and commenters alike. Or is it just me? Is 23 or 26 remarkably late to bloom these days?
While we're on the subject, sort of, since this is something I've seen again recently in friends' journals, it also makes me sad-no, actually, it makes me angry-when fans deride terrible sex scenes by talking about how the author clearly has never had sex. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but doesn't it occur to them that plenty of people who've had sex can't write it believably for their lives, and plenty of people who haven't had sex are writing some of fandom's best steamy scenes? There's no need to insult those with less experience.
Oh, cultural assumptions. How people do grow confused and astonished when you're defied. *shakes head*