[ SECRET POST #6461 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6461 ⌋

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


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07. [WARNING for discussion of abuse/rape/etc]




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08. [WARNING for discussion of abuse/rape/gore/underage]















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #923.
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)]

Not gonna lie, I never understood the "it hits too close to home" explanation. I'd get it if it was a realistic setting with sexism/racism or homophobia because that gives me the ick, but just reading about women existing "hits too close to home"? How?

[(Anonymous)]

For me, by hits too close to home just means I don't want to read about my own body or representation at all.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't want to read about anyone who could be me. I start thinking about what I would do in that situation and I get distracted or if the female character does something I think is stupid I get frustrated.

[(Anonymous)]

Well I don't enjoy regular porn with women in it because I can tell they're all faking (and it's aimed at men).

M/M fic feels like it's directly aimed at my perversions. And if a character gets hurt emotionally or physically, I have a level of remove and am glad it's not happening to a woman, who are exploited for stuff like this in SO many movies and shows, mostly for the manpain.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not talking about porn, that's a matter of sexuality. I don't care for a lot of M/F or F/F porn either. But just reading about something that features women in general being "too close to home" is what confuses me.

[(Anonymous)]

Here's a secret: More women than like to admit it only read fanfic if there's going to be porn in it. It used to not be a secret, and fic writers who wrote more G and PG level fics would be open about how discouraging they found it. Now fandom is puritan so there's a lot less of this open sentiment, but you can still confirm by seeing which fics have the most Kudos in a fandom on AO3. They're almost always M or E. So yes if you're not talking about just porn, your statement may as well not apply to a probable majority of fandom. "I like men" means "I like to read about men fucking" in fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

I stay far away from fandom puritans and am in spaces where if people are talking about porn instead of genfic, they specify it. I'm sorry if level-headed attitudes like that are rare now but you don't have to be pedantic.

[(Anonymous)]

I am in a lot of ships for porn and or romance. That is all.
I am interested in female characters when it gen or if I like f/f or f/m ship I just skip porn most of the time. I just don't want reading about body similar to mine.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't want to read about me, and if I read f/f or female pov I can't help but projecting me onto it and I get frustrated with how dumb and wrong it is or get uncomfortable with how right it is. Write the same exact character pov but make it male and I don't have that problem.

[(Anonymous)]

Canon female characters aren't *you*, though? Is having the same gender really enough to maje you automatically project onto them?

da

[(Anonymous)]

yes.

Da (2)

[(Anonymous)]

Yes.
Also I have this expectations that I should understand female experience and I don't

[(Anonymous)]

After a lifetime of only having one female character per show/movie, yeah. It's a reflex now.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think that it's the explanation for anything but I do think it's a real thing. I experience it in het, specifically, though. There's a very neurotic insecure part of my brain that looks at characters and goes "I'm not as attractive as that, I'm not as worthwhile as that, she's so much better than me, she's so much hotter than me, this could never happen to me" and it just reminds me painfully of all my insecurities. Doesn't happen with all het pairings but it does happen with many.

[(Anonymous)]

It's nice that you don't think reading about other women hits too close to home, but that other people are different and feel differently than you about some things should not be a hard thing to understand.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't get it either anon, I've always preferred reading about women than men because I am a woman and thus like to see stories about women doing cool things, be that fighting bad guys or succeeding at her job/life/getting the love-interest she's into. Reading about guys can be fun too but I am so much more likely to read a book or watch a show if a woman is the main character, always have done. If anything the only reason I used to read more fantasy books with male protags is because that was the majority for a long time. Now not so much and I love that.

[(Anonymous)]

For me, it's just... fiction and not about me. Female characters aren't me nor reflect me, so I don't feel a need to insert on or distance myself because *gasp* that's a woman like me. Even if they're similar to me. It's a very weird and immature way to approach fiction IMO, I get "it hits too close to home" when it comes to not wanting to see abuse or misogyny, but geez.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh for sure, I don't project myself onto female characters either I just like consuming stories about them because I just think ladies are fun. I'm also gay so yanno, pretty women doing cool things is appealing for obvious reasons. xD

But even then it's not all about hotness or whatever, I like characters that are entertaining and the gender of one is not going to put a hard limit on that because it seems really reductive and limiting of my options?

[(Anonymous)]

I have plenty if male faves too, I'd say my ratio of characters I like platonically is equal. My original works skew more towards female characters but I make the guys interesting abd important too. Fiction has different possibilities for all kinds of people to read about. Hotness is a different story since I have a very specific type, heh, but this isn't about who I'd smooch.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah I'd say that it tends to be archetypes that I have preferences for, and sometimes they're different between men and women simply because you're not likely to see certain ones. Like I really quite like soft and gentle male characters because so many are hyper-macho, and I also love outspoken take-no-shit women because of how socially we're expected to be more submissive and soft-spoken than guys. But even then that doesn't mean I don't ever like gentle and quiet female characters because I do! It's all about variety which is what I like most of all.

I guess I also just don't slap the responsibility of representing all women everywhere(or queer people/people of color onto their respective characters) onto every female character, because that's hugely unfair tbh and will never be met.

[(Anonymous)]

DA
I often feel disconnected af reading/watching about women. Their experiences, their expectations are absolutely foreign to me. And I think that I have to connect because I am A Woman (tm) but I just fucking don't. And that frustrates me.
Yes, I have favorite female characters, I enjoy female-dominated stories actually. Because I don't need to constantly project to enjoy something. But in fanfiction I scratch absoluty different itch and I prefer m/m most of the time.