[HPFGU-OTChatter] Fanfiction and sex... slash vs. het

[Catherine Keegan]

OK  I'll bite.  I've only recently started reading the HP fanfics.  I avoid 
the slash stories.  I've stumbled into a few and had to wonder how I was 
that blind to not figure out that it was a slash story until I got to the 
sexual side of the story.  Some of them even had warnings but for a while I 
was browsing through Schnoogle and Sugar Quill sequentially without always 
checking the first page of information...

At 12:20 AM 12/15/01 +0000, Ebony wrote:
>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?

I've read and reread my answer to this question and it really isn't an 
answer; however, I'll leave it as it is because I haven't read any really 
well-written slash that was explicit.

I have a problem with stories that include sex between either adults and 
children or children and children.  I have several friends who were abused 
as children and it doesn't make for a happy, sexual person.  I know that 
there are several writers who carefully put their stories in a time frame 
where the main character is 18 or older but it's my own problem that 
they're still 14 in my own time frame.  So, I skip the story.

I have less problems with characters my own quirked brain perceives as 
"adults".  I haven't run into anything really graphic so far.  Some of it 
has been - dare I say it - sweet and almost goes out of its way to avoid 
any kind of descriptions that might make anyone uncomfortable.  I ran into 
a few Sirius/Remus stories that I guess could be interpreted as slash but 
it was at such a high level that it raised more of a smile than anything 
else.

After an evening of browsing, I finally had to turn to my husband and ask 
him if all teenage boys fell into bed with each other.  After he finished 
laughing, he reminded me that most teenage boys are so self conscious and 
concerned about their image that he really doubted very many did.  Of 
course, he did grown up in redneck land where anything that smacked of 
homosexuality would have ended in being beaten up.

Quite frankly, one of the sexiest HP stories I have read thus far was in 
the Potion Master's Apprentice series.  Nothing that I wouldn't recommend 
to even the most prudish folks I know but a definite brain tease.

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

Where do you draw your lines on what constitutes "R" or "X"?  I'm sure 
there are ways to write very steamy sex scenes.  I guess I don't 
understands why.  Well, I guess I can understand why but where would you 
publish it?

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

I need some definition here.  NC-17?  Nudity?  Sex?  Heavy petting?

I'm sure the more educated readers and authors out there will have lots to 
say to your questions.  I just thought I'd respond since I represent what's 
probably a fairly large group of people who are new to this genre.

BTW, if you haven't been reading the wonderful holiday stories that Ebony 
is posting on her HP-Paradise Yahoo site, you're missing some fine stories.

Catherine in California (one of the at least three or four Catherines on 
the list.)

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