A Slash Warning

[inverarity]

This may be as political as I get. But it's directly related to fan fiction (and specifically, my fan fiction

Comments

[malinbe]

I don't think people warn slash because they are warning you about Teh Gay, as you say. There's a realistic implication in the warning about it, quite possibly, being completely non canonical to the point a character's sexual orientation might change from the original. People warn for het, too, after all. At least, most fans who write those two "types" of stories warn for both

[inverarity]

Actually, I'm fine with all of that (even the porn for thirteen-year-old girls, though obviously that is also not my cup of tea).

I'm complaining specifically about people who do and have said that any story featuring gay characters should have a "warning" on it for the sake of those who don't want any gay in their stories.

I guess my rant (which I wrote immediately after having this argument elsewhere) was not clear enough on that point.

[malinbe]

Well, I don't want any gay in my story :P

[inverarity]

I think using pairing tags is fine; it lets people who hate Harry/Draco or Harry/Hermione know that this story is not for them.

And if the story is very much a "gay" story (i.e., gay relationships figure prominently in it), then I think that should be made clear in the summary. That's just common sense: you want to advertise what your story is about.

However, I don't think the fact that one or more characters might happen to be gay (and that they might have a relationship in the course of the story) is something that needs to be "warned" for, if the story is not about their relationship and there are no sex scenes.

Normal service is back in operation.

[fpb]

That is to say that I find myself disagreeing with you on every point. As a matter of fact, I can see the appeal of both HD and Snarry: the idea of two characters who hate each other like poison ending up in bed. After all, it is only one step beyond the usual rom-com story. And I have done a couple of gay!Harry stories; I don't see why the idea should be impossible. On the other hand, I find being plonked in someone's idea of HAWT SEX! when I had started out on what I thought was going to be rom-com or high adventure a nuisance, and I definitely do put in warnings for such things. In fact, I was reminded rather painfully of their importance when a person who is among those I value most complained because a particular story of mine featuring deviant sex had roused painful personal memories.

Re: Normal service is back in operation.

[inverarity]

Well, I did say most.

My rant might be partially explained by the fact that I also hate 99% of all rom-coms, though. :P

I have, in fact, read a couple of H/D stories that I liked. A very good author can make it believable. I suppose there might even be a Snarry or two out there that I'd enjoy, though I doubt it because the idea just squicks me too much. (Not so much the gay part, but the fact that it's Snape!)

Re: Normal service is back in operation.

[fpb]

I've seen your answer to someone else, and I have to add that I did not understand what you were saying with respect to gay characters. It would never occur to me to put in a warning just because a character is homosexual, beyond perhaps a generic PG advisory - which would mark any story that, in my view, contains material beyond the reach of children. (Having been forced to read Don Quixote and The Betrothed at eight, and finding the procedure both torturous and incomprehensible, I feel rather strongly about that.)

Re: Normal service is back in operation.

[fpb]

(Not so much the gay part, but the fact that it's Snape!)
I am badly tempted to try a snarry fic just for that, but I haven't got the time. (I have finally got a good idea for a Ricky Attanasio long short story, and intend to start work on that - and that is apart from the regular RL work.)

[ebilgatoloco]

I agree with fpb in that I see the appeal of HD but not so much for the sex. I'm more like you in that aspect, I suppose. I like reading HD for the plot more so than anything. I have skipped entire paragraphs of stories where it becomes PWP and too graphic. -____

[fpb]

I never meant to say that there is any attraction - let alone any attraction to me - in the thought of enemies having homosexual sex. "Ending up in bed" was sloppy short-hand for the completion of a full-time relationship, in the classic rom-com fashion. And I agree that I can't read writers like Switchknife who make everyone gay. kennahijja escapes the censure (mostly), because she is a genius and genius can do most anything, but other than her, give me a credible bunch of people with all sorts of interests and maybe one or two homosexuals among them. And, please, avoid descriptive sex scenes unless they have some serious purpose. The word "yes", vibrating in the night air, has a suggestive power that no three-page account of physical act, were it even written by DH Lawrence, can achieve; and most of us are not DH Lawrence

[jordan179]

I don't have anything against Harry/Draco in principle, but (a) while Draco is kind of ambiguous, it's pretty clear from the books that Harry liked girls, and (b) they hated each other!

Yeah -- we don't really know the extent to which Draco was romantically or sexually atrracted to any particular female characters (as opposed to socially using them for other reasons), we know for sure that Harry is strongly hetrosexual (because we get to see girls from his viewpoint). And, if Harry were to be gay, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't choose Draco.

Also, I personally don't like most "slash" stories for the same reason I don't like PWP; I want to read (and write) a story, not just an excuse to throw two characters together for hot fictional character-on-fictional character action. Most slash stories (in fairness, most "ship" stories of any kind, slash or het) are just fluffy bits of authorial indulgence.

Not only does nothing non-ship happen in most of those stories, but the ship stuff that does happen often goes very strongly against the

[fpb]

Ah, but one of the points about Harry is, how does someone so damaged in his childhood come out so normal? Someone who suffered the kind of abuse that Harry did is an absolutely prime candidate for all kinds of problems in his relational life. Consider: for eleven years, apart from the overt violence, his paternal role model has been Vernon, his maternal one Petunia, and his peer/fraternal one, Dudley. I do not say that such a background would condemn him inevitably to having messed-up relationships and/or sexual deviation, but I do say that inadequate and/or deviant parental role models are common in the background of male homosexuals. What I mean is, that is why I find it easy to conceive of a gay Harry - much more easy than of a gay Dumbledore, whose relational life, in my view, is neither well conceived nor well explained. I may add that both viewpoints have got me in trouble with the PC majority before.

[inverarity]

You do realize that I am one of the "PC majority" who does not believe that homosexuality is a perversion resulting from a screwed up childhood, right?

[fpb]

I would rather trust my own experience than the PC majority. And yes, that includes you.

[swissmarg]

So is one of the characters in Alexandra Quick gay? Hmmm... Now you will have me watching for it. ;)

[inverarity]

Maybe even more than one! :o

Or maybe not -- maybe Teddy Lupin is gay. >:D (I can hear the screams now...)