Escapade Con Report Forgotten Edition: There are always things I think of after the fact.

[rsadelle]

I only care when it's about me.
I've been skimming every con report in Elke's list. I went to any panel I was really interested in, so I fully admit that I really just page down until I find something that's about a panel I led or was in.

The quality of writing.
It occurred to me on my way home from work last week that Jay/Silent Bob fic is remarkably mediocre. I don't think I've read anything Jay/Silent Bob that was too horribly bad, but I also haven't read anything that was fantastically brilliant.

Why I like ritualized violence in a sex scene.
Charlotte brought up humiliation at the end of the panel; earlier someone mentioned betrayal. Both of those things will make a scene really unsexy for me, and I figured out how to articulate that. I'm something of a control freak with some trust issues. The idea of someone trusting another person enough to willingly giving up control of their body to that person is what's really hot in BDSM fic.

Making new friends.
In the beta panel, one of the suggestions for finding a beta was to start by talking to writers whose work you admire. Brenda Antrim said that people always tell her they're afraid to talk to her.

As you probably know from my history of fannish troublemaking, I'm not particularly afraid of people. What I am wary of, however, is the trend I've noticed. Generally speaking, I don't like the authors whose fic I like. Conversely, I have liked people whose fic I don't like.

My point here is that I have trouble finding people I like whose writing I also like. This means making fannish friends is difficult for me.

Slash fandom as gendered space.
In his con report, elekdragon said, "I just don't pass well, and having people who are VERY gendered staring at you makes things uncomfortable." I've been mulling this about. I don't know that I have a point, but I have been thinking about slash as gendered space. My first instinct is to say that one of the things I like about slash fandom is that it is a community of women. On the other hand, one of the things I don't like about slash fandom is the way we're increasingly exclusionary. (I mean this in a larger sense. I may stay in my own little corner and take a really long time to make new friends, but I'd like to think that I'm not going to immediately dismiss anyone new just because they're not already part of the group. Without knowing anything much about it--I stay away from fandom wank and my friends list is fairly small--the sense I get is that slash fandom at large is rejecting new folks just for being new.)

Terminology issues.
In the sex writing panel, someone brought up the fact that "dick" is rather uncommon in the UK, and someone else said it's very common in some branch of the US armed forces. I realized use "cock" and "cunt" because they're what I like, not necessarily what the character would use. I have some sense of what's appropriate for female anatomy for varying types of characters, but no idea about male anatomy. So here's my question for anyone who (a) is male or (b) knows men who've shared such things with them: What do men say? Dick? Cock? Prick? Man-meat? Something I haven't thought of?

Comments

ritualized violence

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

I was bummed that humiliation didn't come up in conversation until the very end of the violence panel; if I'd thought of it, I would've said something sooner. One of the tensions I find really interesting in bdsm stories -- and what I like to read and write is primarily consensual stuff, though I tend to avoid the nuts-and-bolts of "okay, let's make sure we have a safeword" because the conversation gets old pretty quick -- is the sense that one character is giving up the reins, allowing himself to experience something which his conscious mind might regard as humiliating but which his lizard brain is really eager for.

Betrayal, on the other hand, makes a scene unsexy for me instantly. Can't stand it. Don't want to read it. Pretty much ever. *shrug* Though I understand intellectually that it really gets some folks going, I just can't imagine going there. So to each her own, I suppose...

Re: ritualized violence

[rsadelle]

If he thinks it's going to be humiliating, but then it gets him off and it's good, I'm down with that. It's the getting off on humiliation that I don't like.

[natlyn.livejournal.com]

It occurred to me on my way home from work last week that Jay/Silent Bob fic is remarkably mediocre.

Word. And short.

[rsadelle]

True.