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sperrywink_ljSo there is this post about Mary Sues and more so, your own internal fantasy landscape, and it intersects very well with my unposted (but mentioned to some people) counter-rant to the most recent 'RPF is Evil' kerfluffle (yeah, I don't remember the link- you'll have to find it yourself) which both led me into some personal reflections on fandom and fantasy. So here is the abridged version of the 'RPF is Evil' counter-rant (with no references to creationism or communism which were in the original, more so the pity, probably) and better thought out and expanded ideas on personal sexuality and fantasy and, well, playing with dolls.
At those times I consider adding people to my friendslist (which is rare, and yes, to those of you who are laughing at me now over my freak-outs about having too many people on my friendslist (you know, 20)- Stop it! I know where you live! :P), either for new fandoms I have acquired or because someone has added me, I acknowledge I have a bit of a process. Have I met them in person? Is their journal primarily for fannish things in the fandoms I am interested in? How old are they? Where do they live? I read through someone's past entries and their user info page. And then I probably sit on it for a couple days because OMG ADDING PEOPLE=SCARY!!!!1!!
Recently adding people on my own has only come up for Lost and Stargate Atlantis, and two questions which I discovered were also important to me:
Do they read/write slash?
Do they read/write RPF?
The slash one popped up with Lost because I found the general communities had a lot of people who I had nothing in common with except Lost and the things we found squee-worthy in Lost were vastly different. Even though I don't read or write Lost slash, I don't want to friend people who can't see that potential in the show- I'm not going to be interested
in their comments.
The RPF comes out of both of these media fandoms and is kind of a play on that Rousseau quote about religious people- You can't live peacefully with someone you believe to be damned. Well, speaking as the damned, I find it hard
to blog peacefully with those I believe to be whackadoodles.
Disclaimercakes:
Yup, I just said what you think I said. If you think RPF is immoral, I think you are a whackadoodle. In the wanky traditions of fandom I am now going to ascribe feelings and motivations to you which you would probably disagree with, but, and this can't be stated forcefully enough, I think you are a whackadoodle so I don't care.
In my convoluted little brain you have joined creationists (really, really not friending), those who think speculating
that a character/person is homosexual is tantamount to character-assassination (also, really, really not friending) and pro-writers who hate on fanfiction (not an issue in friending, but fannish related) as all whackadoodles whose world-view is so skewed, weirdly-constructed, and bizarre that talking to you is like banging my head against a wall. And, really, although I may talk like a blowhard on occasion, I'm really here to squee with like-minded fans and not bang my head against a wall.
End Disclaimercakes.
So, ignoring all the common, easily refutable reasons to hate RPF, my biggest confusion about the anti-RPF brigade is that they usually don't see real person fanfiction as the same as using real people in 'real literature.' I think one of the defining divides between those who will solely do media fandoms for 'moral reasons' and those who are open to real person fandoms are their concepts of identity, reality, and fantasy and the roles they should play in the real world. For those who heap vitriol and disgust on RPF, I think it has to do with their ability to separate reality and fantasy and how they feel about fantasy in particular. First, I think they have a greater INability to lose themselves in fantasy if there are too many real-world elements in it that they recognize. (So historical RPF is okay since the people are dead and the world they lived in is long passed so it is more like fantasy, and unauthorized biography and tabloids, well they purport to be *reality*, so they are part of reality so that is okay, and media shows are not based on any real people or events and any similarities to real people or events is strictly accidental and so the divide from reality is spelled out and so on and so on).
Second, you can't re-imagine real people because, well, real people are real and that is how it is. There is a clear divide between real and fantasy that cannot be bridged for them. I doubt they admit to dreaming up stories about the cute boy on the bus or the hot computer tech girl because this borders on immoral as well. Because mixing imaginary and real is immoral. You can have the dirty, little fantasy in your mind and feel disgusted with yourself afterwards, but bringing it out into the real world and giving validation to expressing your sexuality in that way is wrong, wrong, wrong.
You are left with their perception of RPF as personal fantasy and that the sharing of *these* personal fantasies is immoral because they bridge fantasy and reality in an unacceptable and uncomfortable way. Fantasies, particularly sexual fantasies, about real people are shameful and need to be hidden. Obviously, as the practitioners and readers of real-person fandoms know, the relative sexualness isn't always the point, but we are talking about outside perceptions, and the media-fandom people have only their perceptions of and reasons for being in media-fandom or for being interested in celebrities in-and-of themselves to pull from. So the big question is obviously, 'Why?' Why is it shameful to fantasize about real people? Why is it so shameful to share these fantasies with others that it moves into the realm of immoral? How is it invasive for the real person in question to be aware of fantasies about them? (And I'm skipping the whole 'imagining the real person as homosexual is particularly harmful to them' because I don't want to get side-tracked into ranting against that kind of rampant stupidity. Just insert your own rant here.).
Let me bring this into the real world for a moment: I don't care how fat, unattractive, or undesirable you see yourself, someone, somewhere has had a sexual fantasy about you. Probably multiple people. Maybe a lover, maybe just a date, maybe even the cute boy on the bus or the hot computer tech girl who just saw you in passing. They've imagined you naked, they imagined fucking you, they imagined the girl next to you fucking you, they imagined you coming, they imagined a weekend getaway to The Pocono’s. They possibly even shared these fantasies in some way.
Paradoxically I know, these fantasies have nothing to do with you or your sexuality. They are fantasy, unreal, part of another individual's internal sexual landscape. It does not necessarily mean that they want to have sex with you in real life, it does not change *your* sexuality, your place in reality, or your internal sexual landscape. Even sharing these fantasies doesn't affect you. You are not the center of the universe and able to control everything. Other people are independent agents with independent desires and agency. Object and subject. We all like to consider all of our representation in the world as a subject in it- fully in control of our actions and fully influencing how others perceive us. But we operate equally as an object in the world, with all the limitations of that. And, that isn't a bad thing in and of itself, which is the part I think people misunderstand or are unwilling to accept. There is a difference between being an object (you're the girl I see in Starbucks every morning who has her own, unknown life) and objectification (your only worth is to fulfill my desires) although both might involve fantasies.
The guys at my work, in our old office, all had cubes in a row along the windows over one of the entrances to the building. I was across the aisle in an inside cube. They had something they called 'TV.' If a passably attractive woman was in the parking lot, one of them would call out 'TV!' and they would all watch the woman as she walked into the building (it was kind of annoying because I couldn't 'watch TV' because of the angle). I overheard the occasional discussion of the woman and her attributes, but even though the word 'TV' was usually all that was said, I wouldn't be surprised if they got more graphic without feminine ears listening in. They weren't the proverbial construction workers shouting lewdness at women, they treat women with respect and regard, but they had fantasies and shared them with each other in, at the very least, an oblique way. They all had girlfriends/wives, they expected nothing from these other women, it wasn't about the women's sexuality, but all about theirs.
Their TV didn't make me uncomfortable or affect my sexuality, either, even though I started later than they did and walked through that entrance every day (TVed or not TVed? I don't know and don't care). So this expression of their sexuality and joined fantasy was mainly unspoken, but not completely hidden. In the non-fannish world, possibly a less permanent world, using real people as objects and fantasy-fodder can fly under the radar more easily. So why does fandom get so in an uproar about it? What is the intersection of sexuality and fandom that makes this a frontline of discord? I came to fandom late in life and I must admit it never occurred to me to disparage real person fiction, fan or otherwise.
Which brings me to the post about Mary Sues and personal fantasy. Reading other peoples preferred personal fantasies was enlightening and interesting- seeing how we are all the same and all different and all think we are the only one. It is this concept, not of hidden shame, but the need for the hiddenness that I find intriguing and I like how the OP linked it with slash and also separated them. I fell into fandom because it was a way of bringing my internal, personal fantasies into reality and outside my head. While I may not have imagined exactly your story about these characters or people, they are often close enough to something I would imagine, which is fabulous and freeing. Fandom, for me, is stepping into the light and out of shame, and even into embracing the shame as whoever was the brilliant popslasher who coined that term said.
It isn't the shame of real-person-based fiction, or liking boybands and pop music, but the shame of having these personal and pathetic sexual fantasies. The shame of masturbation. The shame of still masturbating even when I'm in a relationship. The shame of the unpopular kid dreaming of being sexual and desirable and heroic and brave. The shame of being sexual as a single and uninvolved person. The shame of being the subject of my own desires. All those things that polite society does not talk about and does not acknowledge but everybody feels or imagines at some point. How do we as individuals cope with our sexuality for ourselves? Society is structured to view sexuality as an inter-personal role, not as an individual expression for oneself. And I think that is the crux of the problem, because it limits sexuality to subject- two people interacting as equal agents- and paints any individual expression with others as object as dirty and shameful (Why all porn is bad for example). Media fandoms still maintain the fan as subject with the objects nicely pre-boxed into fantasy and we find ways around this shame that is acceptable- use imaginary people, say we are writing stories about the character not the actor, whatever provides the distance.
What intrigued me about the fantasies people owned up to in the Mary Sue post and that I think is another layer of removal for a lot of people in this needing to fantasize sexual expression for personal use (and one that isn't necessarily part of the RPF divide, I'm going off into the personal here) was how people were split into whether they will insert themselves into their fantasy or not. For everyone on both sides of that coin, I have the not facetious question at all: So, how much did you play with dolls when you were a child?
Because I fall almost exclusively into the 'do not insert myself in my fantasies' camp and when I think about why that would be, I don't really wonder about my social-psychological make-up and internal self-worth, I just remember how much I played with dolls. I didn't play with baby dolls as a way to try out social roles and parenting or whatever, with all my dolls, it was all about how they interacted together, not about me being the parent or whatever. I wasn't a doll (object), I had to be the god or dungeon-master (subject), I had to direct the plot and the interactions, so of course my fantasies and doll-stories didn't center on me but the people and situations I created. And when I say I played with dolls as a child, I mean I played with dolls as a child and even into adolescence.
So I had 4 or 5 full-size baby and toddler-ish dolls that had certain stories acted out among them, mostly friendship stuff, I also had 3 or 4 Barbie dolls who had more 'grown-up' stories they acted out- romances and adventure stories, I had a good dozen dollhouse dolls (say 4-7 inches tall) who, well, played in the dollhouse my uncle made for me and who acted out domestic stories, and then probably miscellaneous dolls of all other sizes that who the hell knows how I played with, although I did, fervently. If I didn't or couldn't have my dolls to play with? I carried around colored pencils or crayons and assigned them genders and personalities based on the colors and played out scenarios that way.
Puberty hit me hard not only because I was unprepared to cope with my (and others) burgeoning sexuality, but because I had to 'grow up and stop playing with dolls.' and let me tell you, that broke my heart. I got my first rumblings that dolls were uncool and immature in 5th grade (12 years old) and hit over the head with just how socially maladjusted they were by the time I hit 6th grade and middle school and the beginning of my teen-age years. I still surreptitiously played with dolls until I was probably 14, though. I imagine that a fair number of fandom switched dolls for pen-and-paper and kept their fantasy life alive that way, but I wasn't a writer and had horrible writers-block from an early age and I wasn't a joiner kind of girl, so I didn't have any outlet anymore. All my fantasies retreated even further into my mind's eye and internal landscape.
So for me, joining fandom was a way of releasing that back into the world, even just vicariously. Accepting it as a normal and constant part of my make-up and person with no need to be hidden and tucked away. Accepting all expressions of my sexuality and desire as okay. The reasons why it was the popslash fandom that finally persuaded me to join in with fandom and participate instead of just lurk are myriad and disparate, but the joie de vivre of embracing my shame in general was a big part of it. Paradoxically, fandom's stigmatization of RPS helped me see the worth of joining in.
At those times I consider adding people to my friendslist (which is rare, and yes, to those of you who are laughing at me now over my freak-outs about having too many people on my friendslist (you know, 20)- Stop it! I know where you live! :P), either for new fandoms I have acquired or because someone has added me, I acknowledge I have a bit of a process. Have I met them in person? Is their journal primarily for fannish things in the fandoms I am interested in? How old are they? Where do they live? I read through someone's past entries and their user info page. And then I probably sit on it for a couple days because OMG ADDING PEOPLE=SCARY!!!!1!!
Recently adding people on my own has only come up for Lost and Stargate Atlantis, and two questions which I discovered were also important to me:
Do they read/write slash?
Do they read/write RPF?
The slash one popped up with Lost because I found the general communities had a lot of people who I had nothing in common with except Lost and the things we found squee-worthy in Lost were vastly different. Even though I don't read or write Lost slash, I don't want to friend people who can't see that potential in the show- I'm not going to be interested
in their comments.
The RPF comes out of both of these media fandoms and is kind of a play on that Rousseau quote about religious people- You can't live peacefully with someone you believe to be damned. Well, speaking as the damned, I find it hard
to blog peacefully with those I believe to be whackadoodles.
Disclaimercakes:
Yup, I just said what you think I said. If you think RPF is immoral, I think you are a whackadoodle. In the wanky traditions of fandom I am now going to ascribe feelings and motivations to you which you would probably disagree with, but, and this can't be stated forcefully enough, I think you are a whackadoodle so I don't care.
In my convoluted little brain you have joined creationists (really, really not friending), those who think speculating
that a character/person is homosexual is tantamount to character-assassination (also, really, really not friending) and pro-writers who hate on fanfiction (not an issue in friending, but fannish related) as all whackadoodles whose world-view is so skewed, weirdly-constructed, and bizarre that talking to you is like banging my head against a wall. And, really, although I may talk like a blowhard on occasion, I'm really here to squee with like-minded fans and not bang my head against a wall.
End Disclaimercakes.
So, ignoring all the common, easily refutable reasons to hate RPF, my biggest confusion about the anti-RPF brigade is that they usually don't see real person fanfiction as the same as using real people in 'real literature.' I think one of the defining divides between those who will solely do media fandoms for 'moral reasons' and those who are open to real person fandoms are their concepts of identity, reality, and fantasy and the roles they should play in the real world. For those who heap vitriol and disgust on RPF, I think it has to do with their ability to separate reality and fantasy and how they feel about fantasy in particular. First, I think they have a greater INability to lose themselves in fantasy if there are too many real-world elements in it that they recognize. (So historical RPF is okay since the people are dead and the world they lived in is long passed so it is more like fantasy, and unauthorized biography and tabloids, well they purport to be *reality*, so they are part of reality so that is okay, and media shows are not based on any real people or events and any similarities to real people or events is strictly accidental and so the divide from reality is spelled out and so on and so on).
Second, you can't re-imagine real people because, well, real people are real and that is how it is. There is a clear divide between real and fantasy that cannot be bridged for them. I doubt they admit to dreaming up stories about the cute boy on the bus or the hot computer tech girl because this borders on immoral as well. Because mixing imaginary and real is immoral. You can have the dirty, little fantasy in your mind and feel disgusted with yourself afterwards, but bringing it out into the real world and giving validation to expressing your sexuality in that way is wrong, wrong, wrong.
You are left with their perception of RPF as personal fantasy and that the sharing of *these* personal fantasies is immoral because they bridge fantasy and reality in an unacceptable and uncomfortable way. Fantasies, particularly sexual fantasies, about real people are shameful and need to be hidden. Obviously, as the practitioners and readers of real-person fandoms know, the relative sexualness isn't always the point, but we are talking about outside perceptions, and the media-fandom people have only their perceptions of and reasons for being in media-fandom or for being interested in celebrities in-and-of themselves to pull from. So the big question is obviously, 'Why?' Why is it shameful to fantasize about real people? Why is it so shameful to share these fantasies with others that it moves into the realm of immoral? How is it invasive for the real person in question to be aware of fantasies about them? (And I'm skipping the whole 'imagining the real person as homosexual is particularly harmful to them' because I don't want to get side-tracked into ranting against that kind of rampant stupidity. Just insert your own rant here.).
Let me bring this into the real world for a moment: I don't care how fat, unattractive, or undesirable you see yourself, someone, somewhere has had a sexual fantasy about you. Probably multiple people. Maybe a lover, maybe just a date, maybe even the cute boy on the bus or the hot computer tech girl who just saw you in passing. They've imagined you naked, they imagined fucking you, they imagined the girl next to you fucking you, they imagined you coming, they imagined a weekend getaway to The Pocono’s. They possibly even shared these fantasies in some way.
Paradoxically I know, these fantasies have nothing to do with you or your sexuality. They are fantasy, unreal, part of another individual's internal sexual landscape. It does not necessarily mean that they want to have sex with you in real life, it does not change *your* sexuality, your place in reality, or your internal sexual landscape. Even sharing these fantasies doesn't affect you. You are not the center of the universe and able to control everything. Other people are independent agents with independent desires and agency. Object and subject. We all like to consider all of our representation in the world as a subject in it- fully in control of our actions and fully influencing how others perceive us. But we operate equally as an object in the world, with all the limitations of that. And, that isn't a bad thing in and of itself, which is the part I think people misunderstand or are unwilling to accept. There is a difference between being an object (you're the girl I see in Starbucks every morning who has her own, unknown life) and objectification (your only worth is to fulfill my desires) although both might involve fantasies.
The guys at my work, in our old office, all had cubes in a row along the windows over one of the entrances to the building. I was across the aisle in an inside cube. They had something they called 'TV.' If a passably attractive woman was in the parking lot, one of them would call out 'TV!' and they would all watch the woman as she walked into the building (it was kind of annoying because I couldn't 'watch TV' because of the angle). I overheard the occasional discussion of the woman and her attributes, but even though the word 'TV' was usually all that was said, I wouldn't be surprised if they got more graphic without feminine ears listening in. They weren't the proverbial construction workers shouting lewdness at women, they treat women with respect and regard, but they had fantasies and shared them with each other in, at the very least, an oblique way. They all had girlfriends/wives, they expected nothing from these other women, it wasn't about the women's sexuality, but all about theirs.
Their TV didn't make me uncomfortable or affect my sexuality, either, even though I started later than they did and walked through that entrance every day (TVed or not TVed? I don't know and don't care). So this expression of their sexuality and joined fantasy was mainly unspoken, but not completely hidden. In the non-fannish world, possibly a less permanent world, using real people as objects and fantasy-fodder can fly under the radar more easily. So why does fandom get so in an uproar about it? What is the intersection of sexuality and fandom that makes this a frontline of discord? I came to fandom late in life and I must admit it never occurred to me to disparage real person fiction, fan or otherwise.
Which brings me to the post about Mary Sues and personal fantasy. Reading other peoples preferred personal fantasies was enlightening and interesting- seeing how we are all the same and all different and all think we are the only one. It is this concept, not of hidden shame, but the need for the hiddenness that I find intriguing and I like how the OP linked it with slash and also separated them. I fell into fandom because it was a way of bringing my internal, personal fantasies into reality and outside my head. While I may not have imagined exactly your story about these characters or people, they are often close enough to something I would imagine, which is fabulous and freeing. Fandom, for me, is stepping into the light and out of shame, and even into embracing the shame as whoever was the brilliant popslasher who coined that term said.
It isn't the shame of real-person-based fiction, or liking boybands and pop music, but the shame of having these personal and pathetic sexual fantasies. The shame of masturbation. The shame of still masturbating even when I'm in a relationship. The shame of the unpopular kid dreaming of being sexual and desirable and heroic and brave. The shame of being sexual as a single and uninvolved person. The shame of being the subject of my own desires. All those things that polite society does not talk about and does not acknowledge but everybody feels or imagines at some point. How do we as individuals cope with our sexuality for ourselves? Society is structured to view sexuality as an inter-personal role, not as an individual expression for oneself. And I think that is the crux of the problem, because it limits sexuality to subject- two people interacting as equal agents- and paints any individual expression with others as object as dirty and shameful (Why all porn is bad for example). Media fandoms still maintain the fan as subject with the objects nicely pre-boxed into fantasy and we find ways around this shame that is acceptable- use imaginary people, say we are writing stories about the character not the actor, whatever provides the distance.
What intrigued me about the fantasies people owned up to in the Mary Sue post and that I think is another layer of removal for a lot of people in this needing to fantasize sexual expression for personal use (and one that isn't necessarily part of the RPF divide, I'm going off into the personal here) was how people were split into whether they will insert themselves into their fantasy or not. For everyone on both sides of that coin, I have the not facetious question at all: So, how much did you play with dolls when you were a child?
Because I fall almost exclusively into the 'do not insert myself in my fantasies' camp and when I think about why that would be, I don't really wonder about my social-psychological make-up and internal self-worth, I just remember how much I played with dolls. I didn't play with baby dolls as a way to try out social roles and parenting or whatever, with all my dolls, it was all about how they interacted together, not about me being the parent or whatever. I wasn't a doll (object), I had to be the god or dungeon-master (subject), I had to direct the plot and the interactions, so of course my fantasies and doll-stories didn't center on me but the people and situations I created. And when I say I played with dolls as a child, I mean I played with dolls as a child and even into adolescence.
So I had 4 or 5 full-size baby and toddler-ish dolls that had certain stories acted out among them, mostly friendship stuff, I also had 3 or 4 Barbie dolls who had more 'grown-up' stories they acted out- romances and adventure stories, I had a good dozen dollhouse dolls (say 4-7 inches tall) who, well, played in the dollhouse my uncle made for me and who acted out domestic stories, and then probably miscellaneous dolls of all other sizes that who the hell knows how I played with, although I did, fervently. If I didn't or couldn't have my dolls to play with? I carried around colored pencils or crayons and assigned them genders and personalities based on the colors and played out scenarios that way.
Puberty hit me hard not only because I was unprepared to cope with my (and others) burgeoning sexuality, but because I had to 'grow up and stop playing with dolls.' and let me tell you, that broke my heart. I got my first rumblings that dolls were uncool and immature in 5th grade (12 years old) and hit over the head with just how socially maladjusted they were by the time I hit 6th grade and middle school and the beginning of my teen-age years. I still surreptitiously played with dolls until I was probably 14, though. I imagine that a fair number of fandom switched dolls for pen-and-paper and kept their fantasy life alive that way, but I wasn't a writer and had horrible writers-block from an early age and I wasn't a joiner kind of girl, so I didn't have any outlet anymore. All my fantasies retreated even further into my mind's eye and internal landscape.
So for me, joining fandom was a way of releasing that back into the world, even just vicariously. Accepting it as a normal and constant part of my make-up and person with no need to be hidden and tucked away. Accepting all expressions of my sexuality and desire as okay. The reasons why it was the popslash fandom that finally persuaded me to join in with fandom and participate instead of just lurk are myriad and disparate, but the joie de vivre of embracing my shame in general was a big part of it. Paradoxically, fandom's stigmatization of RPS helped me see the worth of joining in.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 09:27 pm (UTC)Bwahahahahahahaha!!! Marry me?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 09:31 pm (UTC)She's mine. Back off.
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Date: 2005-10-29 10:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2005-10-29 09:45 pm (UTC)I kinda want that on an icon now. *g*
This whole thing rocks. And if I wasn't on my way out the door (for the second time today, dammit, who missed the memo that I'm a hermit??), I might possibly have more to say. It still wouldn't be as smart as what you've already got though. *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 10:29 pm (UTC)I kinda want that on an icon now. *g*
With Ba'al!
(What? I'm just saying...)
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Date: 2005-10-29 09:53 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for sharing this!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 10:28 pm (UTC)Also, in my pre-fanfic sexual fantasies, it either involved me and faceless partners, or other people entirely and not me.
Me too. Apparently we are living parallel lives.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 10:07 pm (UTC)Interesting stuff. Are you saying the basis for rpf is the perverse urge to accept and share our own erotic fantasies? Because as a writer I think I have a different pov, in that I was attracted to rps because of how the creative play/writing intersected with the "real world," and how the idea of writing fiction about real people fucked with reality in a way that seemed to match and enhance the difference between the celebs' private lives and public lives. Sure, sex was in there, too, but I was mainly attracted to popslash by how alive it feels-- fps feels confined, anymore, because there isn't some uncontrollable source out there making canon all the time.
My shame was because it's Nsync. Ahahaha! I didn't care if people knew I like thinking about guys fucking.
Could be I'm not sure how you're working with the idea of fantasy in your commentary.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-29 10:23 pm (UTC)Could be I didn't have a cohesive use of fantasy- the linked post I only found today so all that stuff joined in my mind with what I had scribbled earlier, but I didn't plot out everything- I just kind of let it flow. I'll ponder it. Thanks for bringing it up.
but I was mainly attracted to popslash by how alive it feels-- fps feels confined
That is really interesting- I never viewed it that way although that is probably why, although there hasn't been much happening with our 'players', every third post of mine seems to be about pop. It's too alive to ignore the way I can ignore SGA when it goes on hiatus.
re: fantasy
Date: 2005-10-30 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 12:59 am (UTC)And, see, I forgot all about the stuffed animals. For me they would join in the doll play as needed. I never connected my doll-playing with fandom before today either but it seems so obvious in retrospect. I also never realized or pondered that the way I played with dolls might not have been the same way everyone else played with dolls. It's cool to hear that others built the same worlds around them (or stuffed animals) that I did.
playing with dolls and sexual fantasies
From:Re: playing with dolls and sexual fantasies
From:here via metaquotes
Date: 2005-10-30 01:27 am (UTC)Of course, I can't remember how I played with dolls. I kind of wish I did - it would be interesting to know about myself. But I think I inserted myself.
Re: here via metaquotes
Date: 2005-10-30 03:35 am (UTC)Weird, I can't imagine not remembering how I played with dolls, but then as I pointed out above, it was a significant part of my childhood and I remember a lot about my childhood, so maybe not.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 01:30 am (UTC)It never crossed my mind to defend RPS at folks. Mostly because...er, my flist is a pretty fucked-up group, and they expect it from someone as gleeful about the Potterdom, as twisted as THAT is.
Hi. It seems that all the winners I come across on LJ are ALWAYS via metaquotes. Shiny.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 03:42 am (UTC)Honestly, mostly I don't defend RPF at folks either. I'm not going to change their mind and they aren't going to change mine. But all this stuff tied together in my head and seemed to express how I relate to fandom so there you go.
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Date: 2005-10-30 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 07:59 am (UTC)The insert-yourself thing is interesting. I never do that either. Even though I can't really remember what I did as a child. But fantasising as a grown-up, hardly ever includes me (although I did have some Mary Sue fantasies concerning Michael Stipe in the early nineties *g*). And furthermore, when I'm having ideas in my head, they're almost always RPS. I find it very difficult to fantasise about fictional characters, for some reason. They feel more distant and more fictional in my head. And like Mary said, the real people feel freer, somehow. Reading is another matter, though.
I think maybe the aversion towards RPF has some basis in the fear that some people CAN'T separate fiction from reality and that some readers/writers will do something crazy. Because there are obviously some seriously deranged people out there. Writing about dead or fictional people makes it impossible for that to happen. Obviously, for me, that's not reason enough to not read/write/love RPS, because the deranged people will be deranged no matter what. And like you say, both FPS and RPS are about fantasies.
If all that made a lot LESS sense than your post, it's because it's quite early in the morning and because I make less sense than you, in general. *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 03:54 pm (UTC)*basks in your agreement*
And furthermore, when I'm having ideas in my head, they're almost always RPS. I find it very difficult to fantasise about fictional characters, for some reason.
Interesting. I'm trying to think if I have a similar divide and I might. I love fictional characters and might dream up stories about them, but it's rare that I insert myself into their world (as a love-interest or not). When I was remembering the dolls thing as a precursor to fandom, I also tried to remember my behavior and thoughts about M*A*S*H, which is a show I watched 4-5 times a day (reruns ruled) from when I was 7 until I was 17. I'm pretty sure I imagined whole scenarios where I was a nurse or doctor and in that world, but I don't remember them, alas.
I find I'm more inclined to indulge Mary Sue-ish personal fantasies now (great bedtime stories to tell myself), but although I might start with a particular crush, all these fantasies seem to mostly consist of building myself up into a more fabulous person, and then when I am intricately, improbably cool and wonderful, I sort of go 'Oh, yeah, and there's this guy! But I'm much too good for him now!'
I think maybe the aversion towards RPF has some basis in the fear that some people CAN'T separate fiction from reality and that some readers/writers will do something crazy.
I see that, but I agree that if people will be delusional, they'll be delusional. I mean look at the Brian/Justin shippers in QAF-US and how some of the wackier ones carried belief in that ship over into the actors. Even FPF isn't a safe haven without real-world consequences. And we can't dumb down or limit our world into only those things that are safe for the children or the delusional.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 04:05 pm (UTC)There is a difference between being an object (you're the girl I see in Starbucks every morning who has her own, unknown life) and objectification (your only worth is to fulfill my desires) although both might involve fantasies.
It's interesting to note how much this holds true for both the anti-RPF brigade and for the anti-porn feminists, who believe that all porn is evil because it objectifies women and makes them into objects for lustful, "male" desires. In both instances, the argument smacks of a puritan fear of all things sex. There's also an element of protecting women from themselves: women shouldn't watch/read/write porn because they're only hurting themselves by encouraging oversexed men. Fans shouldn't read/write RPF because it will hurt the actors/alienate the celebrities, turning them against the fans.
They all had girlfriends/wives, they expected nothing from these other women, it wasn't about the women's sexuality, but all about theirs.
Amen, amen, amen. This is the irrefutable response to those who claim that RPF somehow hurts the real people it's based on: it's not about them. It's about us. Slash fandom, I've often thought, is an entity in and of itself, independent from its source material. That's why you see the same fans, the same authors, in and out of slash circles over the years. Maybe it was a television fandom in the late 90's, then popslash in more recent years, and now SGA. The source material exists to buoy the community, and yes, we get grumbly and upset when the powers that be cancel one of our shows or one of our music groups goes on hiatus. But we're still slashers, even though our shows get canceled and our celebrities leave the spotlight. They're the catalysts, but it's really about us.
I have the not facetious question at all: So, how much did you play with dolls when you were a child?
Well. Not very much. I was much more interested in setting up the dolls' homes and getting them dressed in the perfect outfits; I would spend hours on the setting up, but I never actually acted out scenarios with the dolls. My sister and I had three large Rubbermaid bins full of Barbies and Barbie clothes and furniture -- half of which had belonged to my mother, who impressed upon us the need to be gentle and careful with it all. I'd fill hours with arranging the furniture just so, with picking out clothes and accessories, but in the end, I was interested in building the perfect still life. I never made the Barbies speak to each other, or walk around and do things.
My biggest escape, though, was reading. I was extremely shy, and had few close friends, but I could fall madly in love with the characters of whatever fantasy or sci-fi series I was devouring at the moment. When I first found slash, it was media-based. I avoided RFP (or actor-based slash, as it was referred to in the television fandoms where I started) of of some sense it was disallowed -- that I was getting away with enough by reading about my beloved fictional characters into a sexual situation, and couldn't presume to do the same with actual, real people.
Which, looking back, was almost certainly a reflection of my own sexual confusion. I came out the same semester I started to write slash, even though I'd read it for years. I started in the popslash fandom around the same time as I was getting out of a negative long-term relationship and learning to pay attention to what was right for me.
Thanks for the insightful post.
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Date: 2005-10-31 08:04 pm (UTC)In both instances, the argument smacks of a puritan fear of all things sex.
HA! Yes! I made reference to this puritanism in an earlier draft, but it got cut because the rant was already getting so full of stuff. I'm glad others also see the connection. I focus on other elements here (expression of sexuality for yourself), but that is one of the things which I find most perplexing about the divide. It isn't like the non-sexual fandom elements are the ones up in arms about RPF, it is fans who also have a sexual component to their fannish experience. I always feel like they have to be ashamed of us so they can bulster their own morality because of that sex=bad unconscious leaning.
Slash fandom, I've often thought, is an entity in and of itself, independent from its source material. That's why you see the same fans, the same authors, in and out of slash circles over the years.
Ye, yes, yes, again! (hee.) Like I said, I wandered around the Lost fandom a little when I began to like the show, but the non-slash fans seemed like different animals to me and there were so many of them that I couldn't find a corner where I felt comfortable. I seem to always fall back into popslash, but I agree the medium seems like just the currency we use to squee with our like-minded fans. It is our buy in from our personal headspace to the communal market. I guess this is why original work is never as popular- the currency isn't as universal.
I was much more interested in setting up the dolls' homes and getting them dressed in the perfect outfits
Thank you so much for answering the doll question!! I was totally fascinated by your answer because it wasn't one I had imagined at all. Shows me that I can't even think up all the ways people are different. I was a big reader as well, but I was able to use both the books and the dolls as similar escapes into imaginary realms. And it is weird because it is exactly because I had read so much as a kid (and adult) that it never struck me as weird that popslash used real people. I'd run into fictionalized accounts of real people EVERWHERE in my reading. Adding the slash was just the bonus. (My father was also a history teacher, so I paid a lot of attention to when real people popped up, so that might be a factor also).
I started in the popslash fandom around the same time as I was getting out of a negative long-term relationship and learning to pay attention to what was right for me.
I started reading slash after getting out of a bad relationship as well- nothing like leaving a horrible situation and getting your heart broken (for me) to make you open your eyes to who you are and focusing on your own needs. It took a couple of years, but I think it was the reevaluation of my sexuality and its place in my world that came out of my break-up that allowed me to leave behind my own prudish tendencies (some at least) and see all slash as equal. Wouldn't trade it for the world at this point.
Thanks for your detailed response- it was very thought-provoking and helped me make a couple new connections for myself.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-30 04:18 pm (UTC)AJ
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Date: 2005-10-30 10:18 pm (UTC)The biggest thing for me is the words 'don't like, don't read'. I really don't see what's so hard about that for some people.
Ah! that's why I brought up the Rousseau paraphrase, I wanted to invoke the broader themes he outlined about damnation and intolerance. Notice I said those who think RPF is immoral are the whackadoodles, not everyone who just doesn't like it/get it/care for it. Why so many think it is immoral and should not exist in a well-ordered, happy society and they thus must denounce us from the hilltop? Got me, I don't get it, either.
I googled the Rousseau quote (it's been translated to English, obviously):
In my opinion, those who distinguish between civil and theological intolerance are mistaken. These two forms of intolerance are inseparable. It is impossible to live in peace with people one believes to be damned; to love them would be to hate the God who punishes them; it is an absolute duty either to redeem or to torture them. Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it is bound to have some civil consequences, and when it does so, the sovereign is not longer sovereign, even in the temporal sphere; at this stage the priests become the real masters, and kinds are only their officers.
It is the part I bolded that I wanted to sort of imply about the anti-RPF people. They think they are saving us (or newbies from us) and are being better, more righteous people than us. There is just no discussion with that kind of attitude.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 06:55 pm (UTC)In the non-fannish world, possibly a less permanent world, using real people as objects and fantasy-fodder can fly under the radar more easily. So why does fandom get so in an uproar about it? What is the intersection of sexuality and fandom that makes this a frontline of discord?
I was going to say something to that, but none of the suggestions I have, hold. Because RPF is shared to a greater public, as opposed to a small group of friends, co-workers, etc (who happen to be present)? I don't know.
But you've given me a lot to chew on, in any case! I read RPS and have RPS OTPs, and I say so if it comes up in conversation, but I've always felt that RPF's uncomfortable status is somehow mystically justified. (Hi, I'm a hypocrite, nice to meetcha. :P) I agree that what's written about a person, no matter how well everyone knows that it's all made up, affects the way the reader sees this person. I guess I never properly questioned if that is, in fact, the relevant question to ask. Er, this is really jumbled, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say: I like your logic and the way you approach this particular beaten-to-death horse. Thanks, awesome post!
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Date: 2005-11-02 02:36 am (UTC)I agree that what's written about a person, no matter how well everyone knows that it's all made up, affects the way the reader sees this person. I guess I never properly questioned if that is, in fact, the relevant question to ask.
Exactly, I don't think it is the relevant question to ask and I don't think influencing the reader's POV and influencing who the person being fictionalized actually IS should be mingled together as people are want to do. It is a fallacy to equate them.
Follow the logic out- what else influences a readers perception and how much weight do they give to that source? A lot of false information and wishful thinking influences fan's impressions of their idols (or whatever you want to call people whom RPF is written about). I may get the impression from RPF that JC Chasez has kinky sex, but that doesn't mean he has kinky sex. I may also get the impression JC Chasez has kinky sex because of published reports of women he has dated or things he has said. Again, doesn't make it true and it doesn't affect his sexuality or sexual practices in real life. Only my sexuality is in play (being titillated by the thought of him having kinky sex).
Now, JC Chasez may have concrete proof that people think he has kinky sex (because of journalist slant, fan/public interactions, or RPF) or that people have kinky fantasies about him (he's a matinee idol- fantasies are the bread and butter of that business), but as a celebrity, probably easier than normal people, he would quickly learn it has nothing to do with his sexuality. The same way, if someone told you a fantasy they had about you, you would know it doesn't mean you ARE what they fantasized.
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Date: 2005-11-01 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 02:39 am (UTC)I still maintained a fairly healthy sense of play until I was in my mid-twenties (no dolls, but a lot of arts and crafts and general silliness), but I seem to have outgrown it now. It is something I am trying to get back.
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Date: 2005-11-01 07:41 pm (UTC)I don't really feel strongly about RPF one way or the other; basically, it's just another fandom that's not my fandom, the same as, say, Sentinel. The argument chiefly affects me when friends on one side or the other get upset about it.
The dolls thing - OH MY GOODNESS - I had both dolls and a huge cast of Breyer horses, who had complicated family relationships and crises - and they INTERMARRIED. This was well into my teens.
Also: primitive RPF: around 15, during sleepovers, a friend of mine and I would tell each other "dreams" - "I had this dream about the guys in Queen, and they did this and this happened..." - and proceed on to exactly the sort of rambling, dramatic, Sue-filled sagas you might expect to see today from very new fangirls trying out their wings. These included inter-band feuds, attacks from outsiders (KISS! or EVIL BURGLARS!!! break in and tie everyone up!!!), affairs among band members, with the Wilson sisters from Heart, or of course with US. Also, occasionally someone would turn out to be a vampire or an alien, and oh was there plenty of angst when THAT came out.
ALSO: I love this comic. http://www.lorebrandcomics.com/threewords.html
no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 02:05 am (UTC)Oh my god, you did that too?
Shit. No, seriously. Was it, like, Queen/Kiss actually or are you just making that up now as an example? 'Cause Heart never got in on the act, but omg the Queen/Kiss.... Heh. *facepalms* I've been RPSing a lot longer than I realized.
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From:here via metafandom
Date: 2005-11-02 01:12 am (UTC)OMG yes! This something that's come up in discussion again and again in my RPS writing circle of friends. As Lotrips writers, we're particularly sensitive to it because we have the tinhats as prime examples of what happens when the line is crossed. Also for RPS writers in general, I wonder if we're helped by the disclaimers we use. When I write FPS I don't have to tell anyone it's fiction, just who the characters belong to. With RPS I say it every time I post something, so it's right there in my header.
Also, I understand what you're saying about friending people/joining comms. It's even harder with more obscure shows than Lost. *grins* I'm getting into Lost's little brother show, Invasion, and I had to explain to people in the comm what I meant by HoYay a couple episodes back. No real grief, but I don't know that I'm ready to bring the RPS there yet.
Re: here via metafandom
Date: 2005-11-02 02:49 am (UTC)I think so. I also think that we get so used to seeing these people as fiction it can be quite a shock to see them live and in person, but maybe that also happens for people who sees the actor(s) who play their favorite characters.
Also, I understand what you're saying about friending people/joining comms.
See? I'm kind of glad I was too reticent to friend everyone and their sister when I got my journal because I didn't end up friending a bunch of people I would be uncomfortable with. I'm pretty happy with my friendslist.
Re: here via metafandom
From:Re: here via metafandom
From:Here via metafandom
Date: 2005-11-02 08:41 am (UTC)Yes, exactly. The irony is that most RPFers seem to be more grounded in reality than many FPFers. We not only know we're writing fiction; we know it's never going to be canon.
speaking as the damned, I find it hard to blog peacefully with those I believe to be whackadoodles.
I'd ask you to marry me, but I've already got a partner and I'd have to get in line to propose anyway. Can we just have a torrid affair that people can write RPS about instead?
Re: Here via metafandom
Date: 2005-11-07 04:54 pm (UTC)We not only know we're writing fiction; we know it's never going to be canon.
Yeah, isn't that the truth. Seeing fictional-source shippers lose it over canon unfolding in a way they don't like is just scary.
I'd ask you to marry me, but I've already got a partner and I'd have to get in line to propose anyway. Can we just have a torrid affair that people can write RPS about instead?
Heck, it's fiction, we can even just skip the affiar and let people write completely unfounded, wild fantasies about us.
:)
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Date: 2025-09-27 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-27 01:50 pm (UTC)