swatkat

I just discovered this comment by

jaybee65 from this thread in her LJ, which I had saved in a word file. Which makes me come to the conclusion that I must've really wanted to chat about it, and therefore had it saved, and then promptly forgot all about it. And since I still want to chat about it, I'll just post it here. Ignore it, if you wish. *g*

I found the other tangent -- the one about sex -- pretty interesting, too, especially when someone brought up the issue of how many people have no problems with certain scenarios in slash (noncon, etc.) that they can't deal with in het: that is, that many readers automatically identify with the female character, and thus are too uncomfortable with what is being done to her, but *can* objectify and thus distance themselves from the same acts performed on male characters, therefore enabling them to explore some kinks in a "safer" setting, emotionally. (Sheesh, that's a hideous sentence. Sorry.) Not that I think all or even most slash fans are motivated by this, but I can see that some might find slash useful for that purpose

I think that's very, very logical, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason behind why many women enjoy slash more than they enjoy het or femmeslash (note: I'm not trying to make gross generalisations – heck, that's not the reason why I read slash, although I don't necessarily enjoy it more than het or femmeslash). I'd seen a discussion in someone's journal once, where the owner had asked,"Why do you like slash?" (I can't find the link anymore, so I'll just quote from memory). Many people had responded, with the usual reasons like men having sex = hot, male characters are more interesting than the female characters, etc. But there were also many posters who had responded that they tended to prefer reading slash (in any form) *because* they didn't have to identify with the characters the way they would do with female characters. And that made me think about the different perspectives people have when they read fanfic: we talk of having OTCs (One True Character), the character you identify with the most and whose perspective you generally tend to view the universe of the show/book/movie from. Even when we talk about our favourite characters (who is not necessary the OTC), we talk about how we 'identify' with them, for some inexplicable, obscure reason, even if we have nothing in common with the character. And yet, there are people who prefer to read stories where they *don't* identify with the characters. So, what do we mean when we say that we identify with character X? And why do some people prefer *not* to identify with characters?

Does the above even make any sense? Ah, nevermind.

ETA:In case you're bored and want to read (I was):

Do people use condoms in NC-17 fics? - Amusing overview of different fandoms

Genslash? Can't we have genhet too?' aka People trying to figure out the various definitions of slash, het, and gen