(no subject)

[scarfman]

In fandomsecrets today one anon complains of missing the days when fanfiction did not equal porn. More than one commenter has responded, in so many words, "I've been reading fanfiction for ten years and it's always been that way"...

Comments

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

Depends on how you define porn, I guess... lately I've been hearing it used to refer to things that are unabashedly self-indulgent in one's hobbies-- like one might refer to a Hershey catalog as being "Chocolate Porn".

Diffuses the term to near-meaninglessness, IMHO, but no one ever asked me about it.

However, if the term 'porn' is to be used thus, then yes, fan fiction is, has been and always will be a product of self-indulgence, for the express purpose of taking the characters and situations and having a jolly romp with them.

This is not intended to imply a judgment value, many folks use fan fiction/fan art/costumes/sculptures/etc. as a stepping ground for other projects, and as a sort of training ground for their talents. By picking apart and re-assembling their favorite works, they may in turn use this information to produce their own professional works.



On the other hand, if by porn one is using the more traditional meaning of "sexually related material", that issue has more room for debate. I've not followed fan fiction much, mainly because of the wildly varying levels of quality, with a heavy accent towards the crappy end of the scale (sorry, that's a "call 'em like I see 'em" thing there... I'm sure y'all understand where I'm coming from). I gave up trying when I found a website for a show where the submitted stories were actually BETTER than the show it came from. But as far as the sex part goes, I'd say it composed about 40% of what was out there-- that is to say, it was there, and hard to avoid completely but it wasn't everything.

[theta-g.livejournal.com]

Literature was once an ostensibly civilized hideaway from the TV-watching masses. But all sorts of purple prose found its way into bookshelves unnoticed because the more public media favored AV over literature. The second that Doctor Who retreated into original paperbacks the clothes started dropping to the floor.

Now everyone's at keyboards or keypads or touchscreens consuming and creating all sorts of text. Those with the most free time on their hands are letting those hands roam into all sorts of places.

As a teenager I couldn't find kindred spirits if they weren't in driving distance. Now the entire planet is comparing social norms with each other from a very young age and their imaginations test those waters with unprecedented freedom.

So yes, there's a lot of porn. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't make any. My Doctor Who fan videos are for the same family audience that watched the real thing. Mind you we got up to all sorts of fun between takes but so did the actors at the BBC :-)

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Let's see ... when did I first hear about K/S?

It was no LATER than High School, from '78-'82. Might have been as much as a year earlier than that; I went to my first SF convention (a Star Trek convention, to be specific) in '76. Definitely an early con, though, so let's figure '78 at the latest.

And heck yes, I picked up fanzines at those cons! This was before Paramount started the franchise novel series. If you wanted new Trek stories, you were pretty much limited to the Gold Key comic and Blish's Spock Must Die!

I still say the big reason Paramount started the novel franchise was because they realized they weren't making any money on fanzines.

[scarfman]

I've been reading (and writing) Star Trek fanfiction since 1971.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know it was AROUND long before I entered active fandom, but I was specifically referencing PORNOGRAPHIC fan fiction*.

In other words, to back up the commenters you were quoting: I've been around THIRTY years and it's always been that way.

Not that I assume it started there; I know there were more than a few off-color parodies of popular works back in the Golden Age of SF. Heck, that's a tradition that probably goes back to the satyr plays of ancient Greece.

Re-reading my own comment, above, though, I realize I kinda got side-tracked. As usual.

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* For everyone else out there reading the comments, "Kirk/Spock" fanfic is what gave us the term "slash").

[kaffy_r]

Wait ... then all that Kirk/Spock slash I spied in hard copy back in the 1970s wasn't pron! I'm so relieved ....