slash fiction - responses part 2

[Diana <dianasdolls@yahoo.com>]

Saitaina wrote:
>No one's changing their sexual preference.
>A lot of kids explore in their teenage years
>and that's one of the things slash writers
>pick up on. Just because Neville's kissing
>Percy in one story doesn't mean he's going to
>be gay (bi/what have you) forever. Added to
>that we just don't KNOW for sure their sexual
>preference. Even with those dating/married.
>Stories are told countless times of a couple
>married 20+ years and suddenly one of them
>figures out that they're not all as attracted
>to the opposite sex as they thought they
>were. And for some, denial is a way of life.
>We can never be sure but it's fun to play
>with.

bboy_mn contributed:
>>British boys boarding school are notorious for... how should I say
this... boys turning to each other for comfort and more importantly
refief; if you know what I mean. But as indicated in the paragraph
above, this is usually about sharing a new found experience and
pleasure with someone you trust. In a sense, it is about discover and
self-discovery with the help of trusted friends. Again, when they get
deep into puberty, the focus changes to relationships rather than
discovering and enjoying this pleasurable part of your body. 
Although, it's away nice to have a trusted friend willing to lend a 
helping hand (sorry about the pun).
So, even though this activity is very common (although not a
majority), it is not about sexual preference. In this time of
discovery, it is about trust... and... well... it does feel good.<<

abigailnus added:
>>>Well, statistically speaking, it's perfectly valid to assume that 
a person is heterosexual until informed otherwise, because you have 
a 85-90% chance of being right. Putting that aside for the moment, 
it seems to me that quite a bit of slash fanfic in the HP universe 
involves characters - at least one half of the pair - who are 
demonstrably straight. I admit that there is no evidence on the 
sexual orientation of most of the adult characters, but a lot of 
slash pairings involve the trio, and there I think the evidence is 
incotrovertible. Both Harry and Ron have responded sexually to 
members of the opposite sex, on more than one occasion and with more 
than more person. The only member of the Trio who *might* be said to 
be on sexually ambiguous ground is Hermione - her feelings towards 
the three men in her life are unclear, I suspect not only to us and 
to them, but also to herself. But then, there's very little in the 
way of lesbian slash fanfic, isn't there?<<< 

Me:
I agree with abigailnus.  Harry, Ron and Hermione have shown 
demonstrable interest in members of the opposite sex.  Harry's 
enchantment by the Veela and his shy crush on Cho Chang.  Harry is 
also aware of Ginny's crush on him and it embarrasses him.  Ron also 
fell for the Veelas' charms at the Quidditch World Cup and under 
Fleur's charms, too.  Ron is definitely showing raging jealousy over 
Hermione's interest in Krum and obviously likes her as something 
more than a friend.  Even Harry notices this when he comments 
that "Hermione got the point much better than [Ron] did." when 
Hermione yells that Ron should have asked her first to the Yule ball 
instead of making up for his mistake by throwing a jealous fit after 
it was too late.  Hermione has also made Harry and Ron very 
uncomfortable a few times by throwing her arms around them in 
emotional hugs - evidence of a boy uncomfortable because a girl 
[representing something unknown and yet attractive to him] is 
hugging him fiercely.  I can search out the quotes in canon if need 
be, just let me know.  Hermione is obviously becoming interested in 
Ron as more than a friend.  She knows why Ron is so jealous of 
Krum's interest in her and is understandably furious when Ron tries 
to claim that Krum's only asked her to get close to Harry or spy on 
Hogwarts in general.  Hermione looks like she feels the same way 
about Ron, and she is somewhat interested in Krum, even if they end 
up just friends.  All of these things indicate that Ron, Hermione 
and Harry are more than likely hetrosexual.  Whether that changes 
when they're much older, which I doubt, we'll never know as there 
won't be any more books after the 7th one, in which Harry will be 
17.  
As to British boys boarding schools, that may be true in the real 
world, but I just can't see Neville requesting some aid in 'getting 
some relief' from Seamus or Dean, for one example.  The Potterverse 
is *not* the real world and that is as much apart of it's magic and 
appeal to me as anything else about it.   

Saitaina wrote: 
> Hate to burst the bubble but nine year olds
> have consensual sex nowadays.   Not saying
> they should but it happens.  But most stories
> that are written do take place fifth year and
> up, the time when most are going farther then
> making out in empty classrooms.

Me:  
Really?  I find it incredibly hard to believe that the average nine-
year-old has sex nowadays.  My son is nine and he's about as far 
from having a sex as I am from becoming an astronaut.  I have no 
doubt that a very tiny percentage may have had sex at nine, but 
generalizing those specific kids' experiences to the entire nine-
year-old population is absurd.  I wouldn't conclude that everyone 
born the same year as Elijah Wood was just as attractive with the 
same blue eyes and dark hair, even though I'm sure that there are 
many other non-movie-star people born his same year that are 
attractive with blue eyes and dark hair.  And my example probably 
has a much higher percentage of people who fit the bill than nine-
year-olds having sex.  
Like you say yourself, nine-year-olds should not be having sex, and 
even though I'm sure it has happened, rarely, those rare instances 
do not negate my feeling that child aged characters should not be 
written has having a bunch of sex.  And the crux of the issue is 
that a fanfic author stating the characters are now 19, 25 or 42 is 
not going to prevent me from seeing the characters as they are now - 
as young teenagers.  Call it a blindspot if you will.
If the majority of fanfics have age limits and/or age up the 
characters, that's great – I'm all for it, but what disturbs me that 
people other than yourself may be thinking that eleven- to fourteen-
year-olds should be fair game for sex in fanfics.  Until the next 
book comes out, the characters have frozen for me at their current 
ages, and I can't yet think of them as older or jumping in the sack 
with anyone, slash or het.  To reiterate, even if the characters are 
aged up in the fanfics, I can't see them as older than their current 
ages as of GoF, and the biggest reason is because I don't want to.  
I rarely find a series of books I like this much, from the 
characters to the settings to the writing style to the heroic, even 
possibly epic, story arc on down.  I don't *want* to change the 
characters because I like them just as they are. 

Saitaina wrote:
>  My advice, as it always is, is try
> one, just one and if you don't like it after,
> hey, your choice but at least try it before
> you say ewww.  You never know, you might be a
> secret slasher.

Me:
I have read slash fiction for other shows, such as "The X-
Files", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and even a few "Star Trek" ones, 
and while a few had an attempt at plots and were okay, many were 
horrible.  The entire point of the story, if there was one, was to 
get to the point where the characters have sex - one X-Files and 
Buffy crossover was the dumbest excuse for the 'author', and I use 
that word reluctantly, to write personal [bad] porn for his own 
enjoyment.  It was posted on a fanfic site along with other stories 
and I just didn't even bother to try any of the others after that.  
And the ratings were useless as they were wrong.  There was no 
rating for just plain insipid, unfortunately.
There may indeed be wonderfully written fanfics featuring slash and 
hetro pairings that try to showcase a 'real' loving relationship 
between the characters, but as I have wasted bits of my life half-
reading cruddy fanfic before, I can't see trying that again, not for 
a long time.  Besides, like I mentioned above, I'm in 'love' with 
the characters as written and don't want to see them changed in 
order to fufill someone's plot devices or personal fantasies.  I 
even wrote some Buffy and Star Wars fanfic of my own, for my own 
enjoyment and for another Star Wars list I used to belong to, but 
unlike HP, I didn't have such a strong attachment to those 
characters as written.  
I should also add that I like the way the movie was cast so well 
with regard to the characters, that I have actually begun to picture 
the actors as the characters in my mind's eye while rereading the 
books!  Talk about true movie contamination!  LOL   It is impossible 
to picture Daniel Radcliffe or Maggie Smith having a fling with Alan 
Rickman, and that's a good thing, IMHO.

Diana