Gratuitous overuse of the frog analogy

[geoviki]

A recent book review in our newspaper read:

Wallace Stegner writes ... that the difficulty with explicit sex in novels is that it invariably usurps all else that the author is attempting to accomplish:

"The trouble with excessive sexuality, in novels or in life, is that it is so compellingly interesting and attention-holding that it makes everything else seem tame or dull; it crowds off the page whole areas of human experience and human feeling that belong there but can't maintain their foothold."

Such is the case in Sue Miller's newest novel, Lost in the Forest. Although Miller's exploration of grief and self-discovery is both compelling and insightful, the sexual trysts of 16-year-old Daisy are so unforgivingly explicit that Miller's attempts to uncover the depth of who Daisy is are muddled by a nipple here and an arched back there....

I thought this over and decided that somewhere, I had crossed over to where this wasn't true for me. I've noticed that after reading fan fiction for nearly two years, I no longer find excessive sexuality all that distracting. It's like the classic analogy of the frog in slowly heating water: little by little, I no longer notice the erosion of my ability to be shocked, tittilated, or even surprised by graphic writing. I have become comfortably numb.

How about you?

Aside: Does anyone have an mp3 of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven that I can, er, borrow? Got it. Thanks, Paula!

Comments

[darkrhiannon.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree. Unfortunately, one of my formerly favorite authors has fallen off the deep end from this very thing. Laurell Hamilton, who first few books I adored, has turned into a porn queen Mary Sue hack, and I think the review you cite points to part of the reason why. I think sometimes the problem isn't so much that the reader is distracted by the sex, as it is that the *author* is...know what I mean?

-Rhi

[iulia_linnea.livejournal.com]

The last Anita book was painful that way, wasn't it? *sighs*

[geoviki.livejournal.com]

I haven't read her books, but I wonder if I'd be more jarred by the porn or the Mary Sueism of it?

I know what you mean, though, about the author becoming distracted. I've read fanfics where I thought the sex scenes were there because...well...they've got to be there, right? Everyone else's fics have 'em.

The first Harry/Draco fic - actually the first ever HP fic - I read had a kiss as its culminating emotional point. And I found that entirely erotic and moving. And there are a few current writers who still stop there and move me just as much.

Maybe that should be my new mantra: penetration not required!

[darkrhiannon.livejournal.com]

It's interesting, Henry Jenkins notes in <ahref="http://news.com.com/2008-7337-5690595.html?tag=yt">'Star Wars' and the fracas over fan films that "fandom is a place where people who care deeply about these characters can go to participate in that story. [It] becomes something that the public adds on to, expands, enriches, pushes in new directions and can feel a part of." (I'm quoting him somewhat out of order.) Jenkins: "Well, let's look at this at the most basic level. As human beings, stories matter to us. We want to tell stories about great heroes. This is something Lucas understands very well. He likes to talk about Joseph Campbell and that tradition of heroes that emerged through the folklore or the mythological process. For thousands and thousands of years human beings have told stories about their shared heroes. The ancient Greeks told stories about shared heroes. The African-American slaves told stories about Brer Rabbit. The railroad workers told stories about John Henry. So these stories are deeply embedded in our culture. So the need to tell those stories, and to connect those stories didn't disappear just because we decided we were going to privatize storytelling in our country, commercialize it, turn it into a commodity and put it in the hands of massive corporations. People still want to connect to those stories, they still want to tell them and they still want to imagine possibilities that the primary storytellers never thought of. And that's the way to think of fan creativity in general. It's a creativity that's basic human nature, it's something that's gone on for thousands of years. What's shifted is not that people want to tell stories about heroes. What's shifted is that we now have corporations who believe they can own those heroes lock, stock and barrel, and prevent anyone else from telling their stories." He also notes that female fandom differs from male fandom generally in the types of stories that we tend to create: "Historically, women have created fan fiction. Fan fiction gets inside the head of a character and begins to explore the world from their point of view, and leads to a dramatic expansion. Men have been much more uncomfortable historically with acknowledging that level of emotional engagement with the characters. They've been much more comfortable expressing their fandom through parody, which holds (the characters) at a distance and sort of makes fun of them, says, "I don't really take it that seriously." So there's a different level of emotional connection to the material that's expressed between those two modes of production. Is there any authorized outlet that's more geared toward women? Jenkins: No. By and large, "Star Wars" has tried to shut down fan fiction, which has historically been an outlet for female expression, and has tried to shut down non-parody fan video, which is another outlet for fan female expression." Now, how does this relate to the topic at hand? While sex for sex's sake is fine, and all of us can agree that sometimes it's just all about the pretty, most of us are writing fiction in the context that Jenkins discusses above--as an outlet for our interest in exploring a deeper dramatic connection between characters in whom we are interested. When the sex gets out of hand, I think we lose that connectedness and find ourselves awash in, well, body fluids. Sticky, but ultimately unsatisfying on an emotional level unless we can connect them to some deeper dramatic arc. I suspect this is why hurt/comfort is so prevalent--it's a quick and easy way to establish an emotional (or at least physical) need between two otherwise antagonistic characters. -Rhi (who really didn't start out to write a treatise here--sorry!)

[geoviki.livejournal.com]

No, I got a lot out of that treatise. (and it wasn't such a great idea for me to post such a cool topic and then not be able to respond on LJ for over a day...)

What really connected in what you say is that it reminded me of two recent wanks against the evil, nasty plagiarism that is fanfic that recently crawled out from under a rock. Both were started by men and echoed by a Greek chorus of me-too boys. And it just frosted me. Your quotes made me realize why - I see it as another attempt by men to demean women and their 'hobbies'.

Well, and the topper for one of the wanks was to back off of the initial challenge that fanfic writing was theft, only to settle on the diatribe that it was written by and for pedophiles. Grrrr.

[viverra-libro.livejournal.com]

OMG! OMG! OMG! Are you the Dark Rhiannon of the whole "Breaking a Slayer" fic? I LOVE you! LoveEleventy-one!!!

You are now returned to your regularly scheduled discussion...

Here from Ds...

[eraticschematic.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. It's so sad, because her earlier books were actually good.