Everyone said it all in the comments, really, and I agree - but I wouldn't say being 'numb' is as negative as it sounds. To me, it's rather that I've learned to separate the wheat from the chaff. Before I'd read much erotica/porn, I would devour anything with sexual content and be happy for the most part. I just wanted to read about sex! But now sex has been returned to its rightful place in the narrative, as a helpful tool. glossing and musesfool put it very well here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/musesfool/854899.html?thread=12065907#t12065907):
'Sex gets elided *so* frequently in the canon/mass culture that fanfic's become for me an awesome window on an entirely ignored dimension of the characters.
Yes, exactly. It's the stuff we rarely get to see (or see done *well*) and it's an important facet of characterization - how does this guy behave with his girlfriend? The stranger he's picked up in a bar? The first time he has sex with another guy? His ex? etc.
And in boyslash, especially, where there's often little room for deep discussions of feelings, the act of sex can tell a lot about where the character is emotionally - content, desperate, angry, numb, etc.
also, sex is so badly written in published (non-erotic) fiction that I think people tend to minimize its importance. We'll often see the resulting fall out from people having sex (divorce, revenge, murder, depression, etc.) in fiction without seeing the cause from which these effects sprung, and what it says about the characters.'
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Date: 2005-05-06 05:22 pm (UTC)'Sex gets elided *so* frequently in the canon/mass culture that fanfic's become for me an awesome window on an entirely ignored dimension of the characters.
Yes, exactly. It's the stuff we rarely get to see (or see done *well*) and it's an important facet of characterization - how does this guy behave with his girlfriend? The stranger he's picked up in a bar? The first time he has sex with another guy? His ex? etc.
And in boyslash, especially, where there's often little room for deep discussions of feelings, the act of sex can tell a lot about where the character is emotionally - content, desperate, angry, numb, etc.
also, sex is so badly written in published (non-erotic) fiction that I think people tend to minimize its importance. We'll often see the resulting fall out from people having sex (divorce, revenge, murder, depression, etc.) in fiction without seeing the cause from which these effects sprung, and what it says about the characters.'