Kinks and squicks and all the spaces in between

[springgreen]

This is partly informed by nestra's recent post on kinks and squicks, but it's also informed by the SGA AU fic race debate (scroll through), by the SPN incest debate that happened around the same time, by a very interesting dilemma in rachelmanija's LJ, by Strikethrough 2007 and Boldthrough 2007, and by lots of other things floating around.

It's also inspired by many conversations with vom_marlowe largely concerning manga tropes and Cool Bits, especially since I have been promising her to post on this for months and months.

I've been thinking a lot about kinks and squicks and personal politics in the past few months: the (sometimes) uncontrollable nature of what turns me on and squicks me out, the way institutions of oppression can play into these personal turn-ons and turn-offs, how my own squicks and kinks have changed over the years, and the responsibilities (if there are any) of the reader/viewer/consumer of texts.

As such, this isn't specifically a commentary on racialized fantasies or SPN or manga or any one thing, though it'll probably touch on a lot of them.

I've never quite grokked the notion of a bulletproof kink -- not because I don't have kinks, but because I have yet to find a kink of mine that cannot be ruined by bad characterization and horrible grammar. I don't doubt that other people have them! It's just when I have a kink, I can tolerate more bad writing, but it's not bulletproof.

Also, another bit that influences my own take on bulletproof kinks is that I have had my "bulletproof" kinks change on me. Sometimes it happened because I read too much of a specific trope. Sometimes it happened after experiences in RL. Sometimes it happened because my personal politics changed or grew stronger. And some kinks and squicks didn't change on me at all.

For example: I love romances between a cold, emotionally cut-off person and a love interest who gets that person to warm up a little. I like the powerplay involved as well. Some of this is personal projection; I am not the warmest of people, though I've gotten better over time. But I think most of it is just plain kink, and psychoanalysis only goes so far.

I read a ton of romances through the years which starred your standard cold, emotionally cut-off alpha male. Usually he had a broken heart due to some nasty woman in his past and had sworn not to love again. Naturally, Our Heroine would melt his icy exterior, despite all his anger (even when directed against her, which was often). True love prevailed. I cannot tell you how many romances have this as a standard plot; it is that standard. I can tell you that very, very few romances have a cold, emotionally cut-off woman who has sworn not to love again but is perfectly fine with casual sex and a meltingly nice hero. Sometimes you get the cold heroine. But nearly always, the hero is also domineering in some way.

I loved these. LOVED. Ate them up with a spoon.

And then something changed. I don't remember when or why or how. I suspect it was many things. It was me growing up a little emotionally and learning to interact with people, it was realizing the gender imbalance in the trope, it was reading so many of them that I could predict every single step of the romance. It may have been other things as well.

I still have this kink, but it's a little different now -- it's a romance between a cold, emotionally cut-off woman (preferably an assassin!) and a love interest (male or female). But if the love interest's male, he has to be more like your standard romance heroine, whereas if the love interest's female, I'll probably be happy with anything. And if the cold, emotionally cut-off person is male and in a romance, I usually end up rolling my eyes. Sometimes BL or slash stories can pull it off, but not when the love interest acts like a romance heroine.

Another example: When I was first getting into anime fandom, I read a ton of yaoi (slash); it was a little odd at first, but I got used to it fairly quickly. Then some of my friends found yaoi and were really squicked out, and through many discussions, I got around to believing that seeing yaoi in non-yaoi texts was not right, and as such, I got more squicked by yaoi.

I avoided yaoi and slash for many years up till my recent fall back into anime and manga fandom, partly out of habit, partly because I gravitate toward female characteres, and partly out of homophobia.

Now, I read a lot and I even write some, and it doesn't feel odd any more.

I use these examples not to say that these specific kinks or squicks should change, or that kinks and squicks in general should change, but that they can change. And my conclusion is not that all kinks and squicks can change, but that some kinks and some squicks can change, sometimes. I'm fairly sure if I read more RPF or non-manga incest fic, I'll eventually get used to them so that I don't feel that squick; witness how I am now used to manga incest. On the other hand, I am fairly certain I will always have a kink for relationships that are textually portrayed as being incredibly dysfunctional. I'm also fairly sure I will always have a squick for love triangles that involve betrayal or sneaking around.

I also don't think fantasy should be policed, particularly the fantasies of people who are historically the objects of fantasy or have historicaly been objectified by fantasy. I do not even think the fantasies of people generally in power should be policed, even though many of these fantasies may really, really, really bug me on a personal level.

I'm not sure what my conclusion is or if I even have one. I know that the more politicized I have become online, the less tolerance I have for skanky isms in my fannish texts. But I also know people who choose to be politicized in RL and come to fandom for a respite. I also know I am less disturbed by fantasies of people who I know are on the same political scale as me, even if those fantasies are politically disagreeable to me.

But.

None of that means people who disagree with me should not speak or fantasize or talk about said fantasies, much less change said fantasies. In my moments of pettiness (and trust me, there are a lot of them), I often wish people wouldn't speak about them, particularly when it's in the comments of my LJ. On the other hand, I also want more people to watch Honey and Clover, for more crossover between my media fandomverse and my anime/manga fandomverse, for less women to die in TV shows, and a pony. In other words: my pettiness about my LJ comments is in no way a statement of how people should think or behave.

What I'm really interested in aren't bulletproof kinks or squicks per se, but the areas in between, where kinks change and squicks disappear, where something that didn't squick people before starts to, and all the questions that come with these areas. Can non-bulletproof squicks and kinks change? Should they? When? How? Why?

Comments

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Mmm, thank you for posting this.

It's hard to talk about personal kinks and fantasies in public! For me, I've had to do a lot on figuring out my own kinks and learning to fantasize... like I just didn't learn how in puberty when it seemed everyone else did, and I'm at least a decade behind.

I still struggle with what fantasies I would "allow" myself. I haven't had race issues come up, maybe because I'm not good at picturing appearances during fantasies, but I have felt bad about the frequency with which my fantasies head for power imbalance territory rather than equality (such as master/slave dynamics, and not necessarily "safe, sane, and consentual").

In real life I try to be feminist, anti-racist, anti-abuse, and generally work towards equality, so I tried to resist those power-imbalance fantasies for a long time, but I made more progress overall when I decided not to feel guilty about it or actively avoid them, but rather try to also sometimes fantasize about more equal healthy relationships -- *also* rather than instead being the key.

I do really enjoy *reading* about equal healthy relationships, and I have a very good one with my partner, it's just that my own imagination doesn't seem to be as keen on them. Which is frustrating.

Not much squicks me, other than certain medical procedures which I have had to work hard to overcome a full-blown phobia of. But there are plenty of things on the kink/squick scale that I get incredibly annoyed about if they're not done well, particularly genderfuck -- probably because it's too personal (being an androgynous-identified transgender person). But when it's done well (according to my subjective and very high standards), I adore it.

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

I still struggle with what fantasies I would "allow" myself.

Yeah, me too! I have this huuuuge kink for stories about courtesans and prostitutes and looooove, and I know it's hugely problematic given the general romanticization of prostitution and the prostitute with heart of gold trope and the state of sex workers in real life.

I like your focus on "also" instead of "instead"! Because I generally think guilt about fantasies doesn't work very well and just leads to self-hate, which is not helpful! And it sort of ties into the idea of patterns and politicization, how if someone writes or reads a lot of stuff in which the woman is the subordinate, it's very different if said person also reads and writes stuff with powerful women of all ages and sizes, versus if that person only ever reads or writes about men in power.

That's how I've been trying to tell if I am unconsciously biased -- do I just not like this particular black character? Or do I somehow manage to find reasons not to like all black characters?