fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2454 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2454 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 073 secrets from Secret Submission Post #351.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This isn't an individual basis thing, though. This is a noticeable trend. Fanfiction-wise, there are a good portion of straight women who only read m/m slash and never het, and I rarely see a straight dude who never reads het. If anything, many of them prefer het to f/f.

DA

That probably has a lot to do with how the fics are written and what type of fic is out there.

Personally I dislike reading het because it tends to be full of eye rolling gender stereotypes. I like m/m because I get the mushy feelings and smut without any of that. (And yeah, there are other stereotypes that fall into m/m fic but they're not the ones that piss me off so I'm okay with reading them.)

(reply from suspended user)

a good portion of straight women

Well, let's see those stats then. If you're going to make sweeping statements, I demand 95% accuracy.

Or, you know, you could accept that people are different. I don't read much het smut because I have no urge to see vaginas described in loving, flowery detail, because it completely turns me off. Why this is so hard to understand, I have no idea.

I mean, yeah, it's still a minority, but it's a vocal minority. Okay, I'll tell you about my own experiences: I have written het, slash, and femslash smutfic that has been favorited and reviewed by both men and women. I have a habit of going to the profiles of people who favorite/review my fic. Whenever I write slash, it mainly faved by women (although I've had some straight guys because "they can appreciate the story"), and a good portion of these women also have favoritied het and/or femslash stories, but many of them have only faved m/m slash stories.

In terms of femslash, I have pretty much never had a guy fave my femslash fic, and it turns out they only fave femslash. Pretty much the majority of the fics they favorite are het, and they occasionally fave femslash.

Also, plenty of het doesn't describe vaginas in flowerly detail. A lot of het fic written by women is told from the woman's point of view, so the male physique is emphasized over the male physique.

AYRT

See, there are those generalizations again. Your experience isn't everyone's, and you're pretty much looking at the sample size of people who read your writing. People do tend to write het/slash/femslash different than other people, which is why I said I don't read much het. There are some writers who write het I will never read because I know their style, and so I doubt I even ping their radar.

plenty of het doesn't describe vaginas in flowerly detail

I'm aware. Unfortunately, the stories I tend to find appealing and well-written are ones that contain a lot of description in other aspects of the story, and that tends to carry over to sex scenes.

So..You conclude those women are self-hating because they only have slash smut on their favorite list?

Da fuck lol. I mean damn op.

DA

Actually it makes me feel like they hate ME.

If the population you're drawing these stats from are limited to "readers of your fic" -- and only those who favorite and review -- then maybe that says more about your writing than it does all them straight girls who hate het.

I've talked to BNFs and fellow writers who have had similar trends. I think you're trying to insult my writing here, but you're not doing a very good job.

you're pretty much looking at the sample size of people who read your writing

You make the worst sociologist ever, OP. Your secret itself has so many assumptions I don't know where to start, but let's begin with just the one, where "gross" is the problem some people have with het and not such things as fundamental problems of characterization, style and theme. You have it exactly backwards there: it's not my misogyny but the constant sexism that turns me off from het. Most het I've ever read inherits the cultural stereotypes of the society and media it's based on, and those are the very sexism and gender stereotypes that I'm in fandom to escape from. So no, I don't read het. And even if you write the kind of het that's stripped of those stereotypes and gender roles, I'm not surprised your sample size made you come here to trumpet you'd found some harsh truth.

Guess what? You haven't. Because there are myriad reasons why XYX people aren't reading your het. I once did a "sex scenes survey" at a panel at a single fandom con, and there were so many differences in the way people said they enjoyed fanfic sex that my series of questions couldn't even find a trend in a single *person*, let alone a shared trend across fandom. You're out of your gourd if you think you've found a definitive reason for why XYZ people aren't reading your het sex stories.

The reasons are many and complex. Which is true for a lot of things in fandom. It can't be solved by "you don't like your own pussy."

DA--huh. I guess I just don't get this because I don't only read fanfic, even porn fanfic, to get off. I read more het than slash or femmeslash, but I'll read all three, and gen, without expecting to enjoy it as a sexual thing. I mean, sometimes I enjoy het fic for that reason, but generally I'm not reading slash or femmeslash to get turned on, any more than I'm turned on by gen. That's all character exploration, to me. Though that might explain why I can read not-so-great quality het porny fic and still enjoy it, but slash or femmeslash has to be really well written--I'm more willing to put up with stuff I find hot, even if it's kinda crap. And I know there are straight women out there, and I guess straight men too, who imagine themselves as half the slash or femmeslash couple they're reading about, but it seems like most straight people who like slash aren't identifying with or imagining themselves in place of one of the characters. So it's more like watching porn, sort of a voyeurism thing. I dunno. I can't get off on porn or fic unless I imagine myself in place of one of the characters. Or is there something else going on? I do know that anyone claiming any big group of people reads fic for deep-seated psychological reasons is pulling those reasons out of their ass. It's just fic; people read what they like, for whatever reason.

See, your personal experience is going to be skewed just because it's entirely fandom-based, just because:

a) In the realm of fanfiction, women already dominate.

b) Among these women, many have a particular interest in m/m fiction. This is the reason they were drawn to fanfic in the first place, as they can't easily get it in mainstream media.

A noticeable trend that is apparently not that noticeable until you dismiss everyone into little self hating boxes, but give the guys a pass even though both sexes have about the same percentages of preferences.

Yeah I don't like twisting and folding my stats to try to fit my world view, there's no way I can do your mental gymnastics into judgmentville

Something I am wondering about these straight dudes reading het is, is it het from the POV of the girl thinking about how awesome the dick inside them is, or is it from the POV of the guy thinking how awesome it is to have a vagina to put their dick in?

Also, I fully expect most straight guys to have an aversion to the mental image of a dick up their ass. Straight girls can think of that and substitute the concept of "dick in ass" for "dick in vagina". Men don't have that alternative, which is the mental reason I have for why straight guys are less inclined to read slash.

(This is just my faulty logic. It may not reflect individual experiences of the groups I am supposing about.)

[ SECRET POST #2454 ]

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