Oh, snap!

[tricolora]

Edit: We got wank, people! Below link has lead to wank! And people are telling me that fandom is not only an acceptable but even favorable venue to get their socially relevant observations/agendas across.

Alanis Morrisette? This? Is irony. That said, I still think panties in a twist over 'pimping' is ridiculous.

On the one hand: Don't use the

Comments

[desolate_joker]

Yay for epic posts!

I can't help but think of this when mentioning slash pairings - the amount of women who went to see 'Brokenback Mountain' I imagine would have been huge and even though I've asked friends who are into slash why they like it they seem to give vague answers - it seems that "boy meets girl" ideal is being trodden out for something more 'unusual'. Sure. >.>

Even though it doesn't apply, I can't really think of the word 'philia' but rather 'amateur' (in the sense that it is a love of something, not being unprofessional at something...) and I think that's only because of the context in which the term 'philia' is applied to today.

[weirdreference]

Hmm, interesting post. It definitely speaks of a huge problem in our society in general. As long as images of half-naked supermodels and clichéd romance novels bombard us daily, it's going to stay that way too.

I can see why this is so prevalent in fanfiction. I'm going to play it safe and assume you know about Henry Jenkins; I want to read his stuff, but I found this great summary on his 10 reasons why people write fanfic, including eroticization and the like: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TenWaysToRewriteAShow
I'm not sure if you're familiar with Hal Niedzviecki, but in his book Hello, I'm Special, he talks about how our culture has made individuality into the new conformity, exemplified in people's attempts to get attention and therefore attain the status of "special." It seems that most fanfic writers who write clichéd "shipping" stories don't have much in the way of creativity and aren't "cut out" to be writers; they

[weirdreference]

Yeah, not a big fan of escapism either. Fanits who engage too much in it make the world seem much worse than it actually is. >_> (Yeah, I'm a bit of an optimist. Deal. XD

[dinogrrrl]

The pimp wankage is, as you put it, "riggoddamndiculous". The second essay is great, and is highlighting a real shortcoming of modern fanfic. I think the reason philia gets short shrift in American Western culture is largely due to the puritan underpinnings of American culture at large. This sort of religious background holds very rigid definitions of both gender and how the two genders relate to one another, with a particular controlling obsession over sexual activity. For all the sex flying around in modern US media, it's still seen as 'naughty', 'dirty' or 'bad' thanks to the puritan notions lurking underneath. Which is why philia is often looked at sideways with suspicion because the strict relationship definitions embedded in this culture lead to a lack of flexibility. Which is a damn shame, because it leads to a lot of narrow-mindedness and misunderstanding and a lot of unnecessary stress

[dinogrrrl]

Part Two: Bugger off LJ and your comment limits. Ahem.

This must speak to some sort of deeper disruption in my psyche, because I do get kind of irritated when people have wholly positive connotations with sex. Haven't they listened to Loveline?! But moreover, don't they observe the people in their own lives? Maybe it's just the unfortunates I surround myself with, but I once did a rundown of all my close female friends; more than half have been sexually abused in some way. And not the kind that eventually leads to healing sex and one true loves. Not once in any of those cases, I daresay! On the negativity front, I think you might be surprised how many women in this fandom have also personally experienced negative sexual situations, yet still write or enjoy reading fluffy eros between giant robots. Why? Because it's escapism. Safe escapism. There are some interesting studies of the phenomena of slash in particular, which is almost entirely written and consumed by women, both here in the US and in various Asian countries as well. The

[riventiana]

Looking at myself honestly, I'd say the reason I read the general pairing fic is for the escapism, but to me reading just about any fictional work is a form of escapism. That said, it gets really old reading the same ol' romance fic over and over again that ultimately ends in 'healing smut'. This sort of thing doesn't exist in real life. Thanks to the media, society as a whole seems to have this messed up idea that having sex gives solidity to a relationship. Women especially buy into this and I watch my friends make that mistake time and time again even though they should know better by now. There's also the mistaken concept that if you're dating longer than perhaps three months, you should be having sex. If the woman don't give him any and he leaves for it, obviously it's the woman's fault for being stubborn. But what kind of relationship is that, what kind of real love is it, when all it takes is denial of the physical to make someone withdraw entirely their emotional investment in a partnership