Slash meta #3 (and probably final): please discuss!

[thrihyrne]

Thank you so much for those involved thus far! Feel free to ask friends who you think would be interested in sharing their views who may not know me from Eve's housecat and send them on over. All of these posts are public, but you do have to be a registered LJ'er. Women only, however, for this particular article.

My final question, and the crux in some ways of what I think I'll focus on for the article: if you're an R to NC-17 slasher, whether writing, reading, artist, viewer of art, vidder or video viewer, when the characters get intimate with one another, are you strictly a voyeur, do you do a bit of self-insert of a sort into one or both of the characters, or is it a combination? If a combination, does it depend on the pairing/fandom/something else? In other words, are you just watching the men together, or are you putting yourself into the action, but within the body of one or both of them? I'll be very interested to read your comments as this, I think, is what fascinates me the most. And hopefully will be interesting to Filament readers!

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

First qualifier is that I don't write the most detailed and/or graphic love scenes. Generally don't enjoy reading the more specific ones either. They quickly become too clinical for me to hold onto the hottest part of the evoked eroticism. Not saying I do fades-to-black, but a little detail can go a long way toward enticing the reader and too much detail runs the risk of losing the universality of appeal (we all have very different tastes). I do write explicit love scenes though.

I think I switch back and forth between the heads of the two individuals when creating a love scene. So in a sense I am projecting myself as each of them drawing on different real life experiences and emotional memories. This might seem odd in a M/M situation, but really it is not--we're all human. I also do research and try to keep true to my characters' created backstories, but there is almost never a case, at my age, where as a writer I cannot find a comparable personal emotional and/or intellectual reaction to fit the story I am writing. I think I am less of self-inserter in that I am not actually working out fantasies, although I wouldn't mind trying that sometime (there is always biography also), but I am more like a method actor in my writing than a blatant self-insert or seeking to fulfill a personal fantasy. I probably couldn't write something that would really turn me off in a love scene, but those actions are not working out my favorite fantasies as much as telling a story, unraveling a tangle relating to two characters.

I do a lot of thinking and talking about how to get inside of the male head, but there is a weakness and a bias in my method also. I tend to be opinionated about what I want to say in a story, if I don't get the answer I want, I tend to keep interviewing and/or reading until I find an argument that the element I want to include is not, in fact, impossible. I have two or three gay friends who have been very generous at answering my specific (and sometimes embarrassing) questions. I also frequently have a finished love scene "vetted" by a man. I suppose if there is an insert in some of these scenes it might be based on their experiences rather than my own. But the emotional veracity is all me. I'm not afraid to trust myself. I really don't think men and women are all that different. Men tend to be more emotionally guarded in a love scene and women more physically reserved, but even in real life that breaks down at a certain point in all of the most interesting relationships. (My men talk a lot, but then in my real life, I have gravitated toward talky men and come from a culture of big talkers--ever hear of blarney?)

Parenthetically, I have found writing stories in the Wreaththu fandom has been liberating, because I don't have to do as much second-guessing and research on gender-specific details. In all my other stories, I try to make sure that my men come across as "real guys" and not some woman's fantasy of a guy and particularly not me playing out a personal fantasy. With the Wraeththu stories I can just let 'er rip. It's fun mixing the male and female strengths and weaknesses, preferences and dislikes, in a single character. I still think I write them mainly as guys (think that is done in the original canon sources as well). I've always loved the title of Wraethtu fanfic novel, Butterflies with Guns. Also, what is the other expression? Fight like a man, cry like a woman. But I try to spare the reader my gender bending in my male/male romances. I do love to read that sort of slant when it is directly put forward, but not when the writer expects us to believe these are two regular guys, who realistically ought to reflect the prejudices and hang-ups of the societies in which they live.

[elfscribe5.livejournal.com]

Your post is made of awesome. I agree whole-heartedly.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I'm thrilled it made sense to you.