[ SECRET POST #4688 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4688 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 18 secrets from Secret Submission Post #671.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This has always confused the heck out of me. Why do some people say that they "can't relate" to characters that are a different sex/race/sexual orientation/whatever to them? How do you enjoy fiction at all if you need every character to be like you in order to relate to or empathize with them?

I mean, if that's considered an acceptable excuse, then we shouldn't be condemning white people who say they can't relate to black characters, or men who say they can't relate to female characters, right?

[(Anonymous)]

IDK, there's women out there who are into slash specifically because they DON'T want there to be a woman in the mix that they could relate to.

[(Anonymous)]

That sounds to me like they're confusing "relating to" with "self-inserting into."

[(Anonymous)]

i've never understood this either. i don't relate to characters, i like them. bc if i needed to relate to characters in order to be able to enjoy them then there'd be very few characters i'd actually enjoy?

[(Anonymous)]

Please don't compare sexuality to race or sex. Those are all very different things with very different complexities that aren't helped by such reductive comparisons.

[(Anonymous)]

Except that I've seen a lot of people who claim that they "can't relate" to gay characters or gay relationships, so...

[(Anonymous)]

I don’t think it’s about being unable to relate. I think it’s about how easy or difficult it is to relate, and how inclined a person is to make the effort.

Some characters are harder to relate to than others, maybe because their view of the world is quite different from ours, or because how they think and feel is quite different from how we do. In some cases a character may be hard to relate to but we want to make the effort to relate to them. In other cases, maybe we don’t want to make the effort to relate to them. In some cases a character may not even be that hard to relate to but we still don’t want to make the effort to relate to them because we just don’t like them. It’s really a mixed bag.

I also think there’s a difference between not wanting to make much effort to relate to fanfic characters, and never wanting to make any effort to relate to characters in original fiction. And I think there’s a big difference between that, and being actively set against relating to certain types of characters in fiction.

[(Anonymous)]

It's still pretty sketchy when someone says "I can't relate to [insert entire population demographic here]" because that's implying that all of the people in that demographic are a) the same, and b) so very different from their own personal experience as to make them unrelatable. I'm straight but there are gay/bi characters I can relate to very well and straight characters I can't relate to at all. I'm not a parent (and actually have no desire to have children at all) but I can still empathize with a parent's love for their child. If I were to say "I can't relate to black people" because I'm not black... well, you see the problem there, don't you?

[(Anonymous)]

DA

All of this. Well said.

[(Anonymous)]

OP here, I'm not cool with the implication that I'm dehumanizing gay men just because they don't turn me on?

I rhink reading a m/m fic makes me feel like I'm a third party spying on a couple. If it's a m/f or f/f fic I find it much easier to recognize the dynamic from a woman's perspective, so it feels more personal and intimate.

[(Anonymous)]

since when has shipping been about what turns you on? smut sure, but you can ship characters in a totally g-rated sense without ever wanting to think about them having sex.

[(Anonymous)]

Not the OP, but for me and a lot of people, shipping is all about what turns me on, and I read ship fic specifically because the actors/characters are hot to me.

Even sweet domestic longfics in the fandoms I read have smut in them.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT - I feel like you are reeeally reaching here. Sure, some people ship characters in a purely g-rated way, but not very many.

Personally I have more of an appetite for purely pre-slash type stuff than the majority of fandom seems to have, but the bottom line is, I still want them to bang eventually. The idea of it still turns me on. I may not need it to happen in every single fic, but if I didn't want it to happen, I wouldn't ship it.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like you are reeeally reaching here. Sure, some people ship characters in a purely g-rated way, but not very many.

I'm a straight woman. I have zero interest in reading about two women having sex because that doesn't turn me on at all, but I ship a bunch of f/f pairings because I like reading about two women being happy. I know a lot of other straight women who ship f/f for the same reason. They like female characters and enjoy female characters being in healthy and supportive relationships, they just aren't interested in the sexy aspect of those relationships. It's really not that uncommon at all.

If it were that rare, there wouldn't be so many G - PG-13 rated shippy fics.

[(Anonymous)]

yeah but the correlation between shipping and being turned on is extremely high. shipping without being turned on is rare, and it's disingenuous to pretend otherwise

[(Anonymous)]

So I guess all of my asexual friends who are rabid shippers don't exist, good to know.

[(Anonymous)]

lol I feel there is a lot of projection with this comment.

I have lots of ships where I like it for the fluff. I'm not "turned on" by it or the characters involved... not everyone self-inserts into their ships.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm with you. For me it's all thinking the two characters in a relationship would be interesting. A ship has never "turned me on" but then I honestly don't know how to know if you're turned on as a woman so obviously I'm a total weirdo lol.

[(Anonymous)]

I have some ships where I want to read about them making like bunnies, but I also have other ships where I just want them to have an adorable family and grow old together and I have zero interest whatsoever in imagining or reading about them doing the deed.

This whole argument that ships are about what turns you on is completely bizarre to me. Like you, what matters to me is whether I think the two characters work well together. Sometimes that involves sex, sometimes it doesn't. Heck, I ship Steven and Connie from Steven Universe and I absolutely don't want to think about them having sex at all. I just want them to have a cute, innocent first love with slow dances at school dances and awkward kisses and working up the guts to hold hands and that kind of thing.

[(Anonymous)]

You're not a weirdo. But I'd say your experience isn't super common.

My sex drive is low. Like, LOW. Probably 1/10. And I gotta say, if you don't know how to tell when you're turned on (I mean physically turned on)...I think you've probably never been turned on? Or at least never more than slightly turned on. Because it's just kind of hard to miss.

That said, a lot of what we talk about when we talk about "being turned on" isn't necessarily physical arousal. A lot of it is mental sexual interest? Which is something I can see being kind of difficult to pinpoint, depending on how strong your libido is. For me, mental sexual interest is just...sexual stuff I like thinking about and feel drawn to think about and get mental/emotional pleasure from thinking about.

Someone with a stronger libido might feel a lot more strongly compelled to think about that stuff, and they'd also be a lot more likely to get physically aroused while doing so, which would make the whole thing pretty obvious for what it was. But if you have a low sex drive, it can, at times, all be a little murky.

And if you're completely, totally ace and never get turned on at all, mentally or physically, that's ok too.

[(Anonymous)]

Your vagina gets wet.

[(Anonymous)]

I think a lot of people would be a lot less mad and confused if it were understood that the definition of shipping is very wide and variant, and different brains ship in different ways for different reasons.

[(Anonymous)]

Check out some fandoms with more F/F stuff like Clexa in The 100 and The Devil Wears Prada, and hopefully make some friends!

[(Anonymous)]

Seriously. The only character I can think of EVER that I felt like I couldn't relate to AT ALL was the protagonist in a (pretty awful) book, who was demographically the same as me (young straight white woman). Most of my favorites are different than me in at least one way and I have no problems relating to them.

[(Anonymous)]

I know, right? I thought shipping was about liking the potential dynamics between two characters not having to be able to relate to them.