Fanfiction and sex... slash vs. het

[selah_1977]

Hello, all--

Al and I were chatting about a topic tonight that I *really* would 
like to know the answer to.

Al writes slash, gen, and het fanfiction; I write het and gen.  We 
both have read and enjoyed fics from all over the fandom.

We were talking about what a mature teen/adult writer can "get away 
with" in a fic without the audience getting squicked.  We both came 
to the conclusion that slash writers can get away with a whole lot 
more than your average het writer.

I quote Al with his permission:  "I think the way straight romance is 
perceived when written explicitly - people take it to be like a 
Barbara Cartland story or a trashy romance because of long term 
association.  Whereas gay romance is more cutting edge and 
contemporary - a la Armistead Maupin et autres."

>From my experience on the fanon side of things, it seems that it's 
okay for slash writers to spice things up and in many cases they are 
encouraged, but het writers get a lot of flack for doing the same.  A 
lot of the het romance subplot writers who are writing good 
fanfiction--Lori, Penny and Carole, and Barb immediately spring to 
mind, and there are plenty of others--have received criticism about 
the steaminess of their m/f couples *despite* the rating.  There is a 
plethora of NC-17 slash in our fandom, but when I asked slash queen 
Rhysenn nearly a year ago if she knew *anyone* who wrote the het 
equivalent, she had to say no.

When het writers include steam, it's trashy romance.  When slash 
writers do it, it's erotica.  As someone who spent far too much time 
during her adolescent years reading trashy romance novels, I *know* 
what is and is not acceptable in that subgenre of pulp fiction... 
there is a line in the Barbara Cartland/Johanna Lindsey/Fern Michaels 
world that you may not cross.  

For the purposes of the discussion, I am NOT including the vast 
masses of "developing" writers who write awful het romance and the 
smaller but no less annoying number who write horrible slash.  I am 
speaking of writers who actually have a plot and have attained a 
reasonable level of fluency in their storytelling skills.

Questions:

1)  Why do you think this double standard exists?  Is it reflective 
of the quality of the writing or the maturity level/personal squicks 
of the audience?

2)  Is there a way to write het fanfiction, R or higher, that escapes 
this stigma?

3)  In your opinion, should there even *be* NC-17 Harry Potter 
fanfiction, slash *or* het?

Just curious... consider this a marketing survey of sorts.  ;-)

Best,

Ebony

(P.S.  I also posted this message on FictionAlley Park's "Scribbulus' 
Ever-Changing Inks" boards... 
http://pub51.ezboard.com/fhpparadisefrm1.showMessage?
topicID=922.topic because as Davy always said in LMM's Anne books "I 
want to know!)

<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< 
Ebony AKA AngieJ
ebonyink at hotmail.com
Come join us in Paradise!  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_Paradise
Fanfics of All Shapes, Ships, and Sizes:
http://www.fictionalley.org
********************************** 

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the 
desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

--from Mary Oliver's *Wild Geese*