RPF - just stop doing it.

[that_khyber]

Edit: And this is why I wasn't gonna do this. Comments have been locked, I didn't mean to make previous comments invisible, though. If someone can tell me how to lock comments while still showing existing ones please do

Comments

Here via friends

[emily_shore]

to allow myself to dehumanize and abstract another human being into a projection surface simply because they have a public identity.

For my own part I write RPF in order to humanize people in my mind: to answer questions like "what would have made her do that?" and "how would she have felt about that?" While my stories aren't "true" in the specific sense (I know no more about the real person than when I started), they do I think offer the same general psychological insights that one can get from all fiction. It's a process of attempting to enter into imaginative sympathy with the person depicted.

Maybe I am being spiritually corroded by the process, but instinctively at least I don't believe it's so.

(That DD/TL porn really weirded me out too, but given that I'm really only responsible for myself I chose to focus on what I do.)

Re: Here via friends

[estella_c]

Forgive me, but to say that "I'm really only responsible for myself" seems a very narrow understanding of the term "responsible."

Also, working out something in one's own mind is something anyone can and does do in private. I don't see the need to call attention to it in a semi-public place.

Re: Here via friends

[emily_shore]

Forgive me, but to say that "I'm really only responsible for myself" seems a very narrow understanding of the term "responsible."

Can you clarify? Are you suggesting a responsibility to express disapproval of what other people are doing with it, or something else?

Also, working out something in one's own mind is something anyone can and does do in private. I don't see the need to call attention to it in a semi-public place.

Some stories I write for myself alone; some I share with a few people; and some I post publicly. So I do believe that there's a gradient there, although I obviously don't see it as a slippery slope.

Re: Here via friends

[estella_c]

Actually, I'm not sure I can clarify. It's that we simply are not alone in the world, we interact and influence and are influenced by and exploit others all the time, not always consciously and certainly not necessarily with malice. I believe we must be aware of how our behavior affects others and modulate our freedom appropriately.

This ties in, I think, with the Christian theology of "witness." Many, of course, don't care about that.

"Slippery slope" is not a notion I ordinarily have much time for, but I can see it here. Serious abuse has already arrived.

[penumbra23]

I'm going to wade in here, mostly because I'm so fond of emily_shore, but also because I've been writing RPF myself, in the biographical sense, about Wordsworth & Coleridge. Is it the sex that makes RPF creepy? As has been said, I'm writing about these two to 'humanize' them in my mind. They never had sex, but they collaborated on an intensely cerebral level. By interacting with them, I feel that I'm bringing them back to life.

I admit I have to look the other way when it comes to RPF about live people.

[that_khyber]

I'd say it's not just the sex, but... like I said, I don't want to try to make an incrementalist argument within the fanfic realm, i.e. a story where Chris Carter joins the Consortium is silly but green-light, a story about Mulder and Scully watching "Straightheads" is yellow-light, and a story about David Duchovny banging his sex therapist is red-light. Just, fuck it, can you honestly not think of something else to write?

As well, Penumbra, you kind of summed it up yourself right there. Anybody who wants to try to equate a work about the relationship of two decades-dead authors with a 1000-word smut spurt about a live actor and his live wife, or two live actors, is just being willfully silly.

[estella_c]

Dead people are fair game.

[wendelah1]

First let me say, I have written extensively about this issue in my own journal, and read extensively about it as well. I have also recently been reading a lot of RPF, some of which is really excellent writing, that I feel should not just be dismissed out of hand.

As much as I respect you as a writer, and believe me, I do, you surely know that you are not going to convince me or anyone else who isn't already on your side by quoting the "atxc flag of complete intolerance" at us. As I wrote yesterday in my comment to mushfromnewsies, that train has already left the station. This isn't atxc. Live Journal is not controlled by a cabal. As long as they follow the terms and conditions of use, people here can write whatever they want and post it. If you don't want to read it, that's fine. You can just use your mouse, and exit stage left.

In my last journal entry, I also objected to the fics about David and Tea. I think they are in bad taste and I certainly don't think the writing is at all sexy. But to say that it's morally wrong and dehumanizing to the

Closing this one...

[that_khyber]

Hey folks, I get the impression that there may be some one-to-one, person-to-person ongoing issues happening here. Take it to the bike racks, mkay?

I'm gonna close this thread-- being fundamentally intolerant on this issue, I'm not really interested in facilitating a forum for discussion and/or ringing the bell for round whatever of an ongoing tussle. Riffing on estella_c's note about "responsibility," I feel I have a responsibility that since I started the thread to close it up before it gets personal.

I have no idea if this is bad LJ form or whatever, so I apologize to all if it is.