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

[matildabishop.livejournal.com]

I am a voyeur. I think of slashing as a very passive way of being sexual. Sex at several removes. Not only am I not actually having sex, I don't feel any good or bad or indifferent identification with a female character. I feel let off the hook in some way.

I enjoy m/m pairings where one character has more power than the other. I don't enjoy m/f pairings where one character has more power, particularly if the more passive character is female. I can't help but identify with the female character and since it's so far from what I want in my own life right now I just get annoyed.

I also think of slashing as a very safe way of having sex as well. Not only is it fantasy but it's safe fantasy. I'm not fantasizing about my best friend's husband and possibly endangering my relationship with her, her husband or my husband.