Also: too many asterisks.
Dear flist:
I have Gender Trouble trouble (seriously, I have an IQ of ~140 and one tenth of a PhD in anthropology- if I can't make any sense of your book, you're a bad writer). So, here is something (which is both thinky and TMI) I have put to ponderation lately. SGA, GS, and House (sort of) examples used herein, though you don't really need to know anything about those fandoms to understand.
Here's the thing. I'm looking for SGA Conversion* AU, because blue!John does inappropriate things to me (in my pants).
So, obviously, my first stop was the McShep stories, cause that's just kinda how I roll.** These stories were essentially what I was expecting to find: Rodney was inserted in place of Teyla or Weir, John shoved him against the nearest flat surface, Rodney protested, John ignored him, Rodney got into it pretty quickly. That's the standard dubcon formula, right? No problems there.***
Having exhausted that, I moved on to the Sheppard/Weir. I could only find two fics where they went ahead and got it on, and neither instance was dubcon. In one instance, it was emphasized that they'd had a prior relationship, and Weir explicitly gave Sheppard permission; in the other, it was spun in terms of Elizabeth trying to help John out.
This has been my general problem reading Sheppard/Weir: with a few notable exceptions, everybody seems to want to portray their relationship as perfectly egalitarian. As, y'know, a human person, I'm totally behind that, but as a consumer of porn and a submissive, I'm in it for the power imbalance. I want to see Sheppard unapologetically shove Weir up against the wall and dubcon her like it's going out of style, because I want Sheppard to unapologetically shove me up against the wall. I have read a really good fic where John and Weir were in a D/s relationship with Weir as the sub, but even there, John was deeply uncomfortable about the whole idea. Is it too much to ask for John to get off too?
This is what got me to thinking: it's so much easier to beat male characters up, and I never noticed that before. If I write a fic where Rodney or Edgeworth ties Sheppard or Phoenix up and beats the crap out of him, that's nothing; same goes if Thalassa or Cuddy beats up Valant or Wilson. Hell, I could probably get away with it if Weir tied up Cuddy.**** It's just a story; I'll probably get umpteen comments about how hot it is. But, I will never find it quite as personally satisfying (except the Weir/Cuddy, rawr), because it just doesn't apply to me.
And yet, if I were to write John beating the consensual crap out of Weir, I'd feel obligated to apologize for it, even if I, a cisgendered, man-loving***** woman, thought it was totally hot and not at all insulting or objectifying.
Why do we keep on doing this? Why do we insist on such protection of women in fiction? I'm not saying we should all go out and start reading Frank Miller, but fanfiction is essentially something women write for women. If we can't be honest about our desires with ourselves without couching them in the actions of men, what can we do? Cause it is a statistical impossibility that I can be the only fangirl who wants this.
I couldn't actually find any fic where John dubconned Teyla, which is both surprising and somewhat disappointing, but it would seem to prove my point. But then, it's Wraithbait, which has, literally, thirty times more McShep than John/Teyla to start with, so it may be down to sampling error.
It seems like the only place I can get the porn I want right now is in genderfucked slash, and that's honestly pretty sad. Also hot, but, y'know, still sad.
Oddly enough, I don't seem to encounter this problem as much in Phoenix Wright fic.***** Maybe it's because Mia/Phoenix and Mia/Diego are pretty much the only het ships I read. Mia/Phoenix is almost always written in that order; the problem with writing it the other way around is that it'd be so stunningly out of character that it would overshadow everything else. Mia and Diego are equals- but they're also both really sexualized characters, which seems to make a difference.
I don't think this is a particularly revolutionary opinion, but it's just something I never had cause to consider before. And having done, it bothers me.
*Synopsis for the people reading from other fandoms: Sheppard turns into a bug accidentally (see icon) and this makes him a sexy beast for some reason, shoves his teammate and will-they-won't-they partner Teyla against a wall and makes out with her, holds his boss Dr. Weir up against a wall by the neck (no making out, sadly), saves the day, and becomes a real boy again. That's pretty much all you need to know.
**I actually vastly prefer stories where Rodney is the top/dom, but everybody bottoms for blue!John. No exceptions.
***BUT WHERE IN THE FUCK IS THE POST-IRRESISTIBLE DUBCON, PEOPLE.
RODNEY PUT A MIND WHAMMY ON JOHN AND NOBODY BROUGHT FORTH PORN. FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, HE MADE JOHN DO HIS CHORES. I AM SO ASHAMED. AM I GOING TO HAVE TO WRITE IT MY DAMN SELF?
GET YOUR MINDS IN THE GUTTER.
****OTP BITCHES
*****Y'know, half the time. But I love the cock, so it counts.
******The word choice is intentional, cause we all know gender's fucked in AJ; I don't really read AJ fic unless it's K/A or Thalassa/Valant (always in that order).
I have Gender Trouble trouble (seriously, I have an IQ of ~140 and one tenth of a PhD in anthropology- if I can't make any sense of your book, you're a bad writer). So, here is something (which is both thinky and TMI) I have put to ponderation lately. SGA, GS, and House (sort of) examples used herein, though you don't really need to know anything about those fandoms to understand.
Here's the thing. I'm looking for SGA Conversion* AU, because blue!John does inappropriate things to me (in my pants).
So, obviously, my first stop was the McShep stories, cause that's just kinda how I roll.** These stories were essentially what I was expecting to find: Rodney was inserted in place of Teyla or Weir, John shoved him against the nearest flat surface, Rodney protested, John ignored him, Rodney got into it pretty quickly. That's the standard dubcon formula, right? No problems there.***
Having exhausted that, I moved on to the Sheppard/Weir. I could only find two fics where they went ahead and got it on, and neither instance was dubcon. In one instance, it was emphasized that they'd had a prior relationship, and Weir explicitly gave Sheppard permission; in the other, it was spun in terms of Elizabeth trying to help John out.
This has been my general problem reading Sheppard/Weir: with a few notable exceptions, everybody seems to want to portray their relationship as perfectly egalitarian. As, y'know, a human person, I'm totally behind that, but as a consumer of porn and a submissive, I'm in it for the power imbalance. I want to see Sheppard unapologetically shove Weir up against the wall and dubcon her like it's going out of style, because I want Sheppard to unapologetically shove me up against the wall. I have read a really good fic where John and Weir were in a D/s relationship with Weir as the sub, but even there, John was deeply uncomfortable about the whole idea. Is it too much to ask for John to get off too?
This is what got me to thinking: it's so much easier to beat male characters up, and I never noticed that before. If I write a fic where Rodney or Edgeworth ties Sheppard or Phoenix up and beats the crap out of him, that's nothing; same goes if Thalassa or Cuddy beats up Valant or Wilson. Hell, I could probably get away with it if Weir tied up Cuddy.**** It's just a story; I'll probably get umpteen comments about how hot it is. But, I will never find it quite as personally satisfying (except the Weir/Cuddy, rawr), because it just doesn't apply to me.
And yet, if I were to write John beating the consensual crap out of Weir, I'd feel obligated to apologize for it, even if I, a cisgendered, man-loving***** woman, thought it was totally hot and not at all insulting or objectifying.
Why do we keep on doing this? Why do we insist on such protection of women in fiction? I'm not saying we should all go out and start reading Frank Miller, but fanfiction is essentially something women write for women. If we can't be honest about our desires with ourselves without couching them in the actions of men, what can we do? Cause it is a statistical impossibility that I can be the only fangirl who wants this.
I couldn't actually find any fic where John dubconned Teyla, which is both surprising and somewhat disappointing, but it would seem to prove my point. But then, it's Wraithbait, which has, literally, thirty times more McShep than John/Teyla to start with, so it may be down to sampling error.
It seems like the only place I can get the porn I want right now is in genderfucked slash, and that's honestly pretty sad. Also hot, but, y'know, still sad.
Oddly enough, I don't seem to encounter this problem as much in Phoenix Wright fic.***** Maybe it's because Mia/Phoenix and Mia/Diego are pretty much the only het ships I read. Mia/Phoenix is almost always written in that order; the problem with writing it the other way around is that it'd be so stunningly out of character that it would overshadow everything else. Mia and Diego are equals- but they're also both really sexualized characters, which seems to make a difference.
I don't think this is a particularly revolutionary opinion, but it's just something I never had cause to consider before. And having done, it bothers me.
*Synopsis for the people reading from other fandoms: Sheppard turns into a bug accidentally (see icon) and this makes him a sexy beast for some reason, shoves his teammate and will-they-won't-they partner Teyla against a wall and makes out with her, holds his boss Dr. Weir up against a wall by the neck (no making out, sadly), saves the day, and becomes a real boy again. That's pretty much all you need to know.
**I actually vastly prefer stories where Rodney is the top/dom, but everybody bottoms for blue!John. No exceptions.
***BUT WHERE IN THE FUCK IS THE POST-IRRESISTIBLE DUBCON, PEOPLE.
RODNEY PUT A MIND WHAMMY ON JOHN AND NOBODY BROUGHT FORTH PORN. FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, HE MADE JOHN DO HIS CHORES. I AM SO ASHAMED. AM I GOING TO HAVE TO WRITE IT MY DAMN SELF?
GET YOUR MINDS IN THE GUTTER.
****OTP BITCHES
*****Y'know, half the time. But I love the cock, so it counts.
******The word choice is intentional, cause we all know gender's fucked in AJ; I don't really read AJ fic unless it's K/A or Thalassa/Valant (always in that order).