Fandom pet peeve #1457

[bironic]

I like reading fics with virgins. Virgin sacrifice, sweet first-times, noncon hurt/comfort, amnesia stories, stories like Lacey McBain's Lost in Waiting that I can't categorize, anything where one or more of the people involved is experiencing something new about sex. This applies to a lot of the fic I adore. Gender swap, body swap, and slash stories where one or both of the guys hasn't been with another man before (or femslash where the girl hasn't been with another woman), are in essence about characters having sex for the first time. Trying new things. Being excited or hesitant. Being sensitive to the sensations. These things work for me. They make a tired act fresh. Same when experienced partners try a new kink or position, although that's somewhat tangential.

But it makes me sad when, in an otherwise lovely story, someone makes a comment about how they can't believe the other character is still a virgin at age such-and-such. Tonight I read two Star Trek XI fics, responding to the same prompt, where Kirk was 23 and 26 and hadn't slept with anyone, and McCoy was just flabbergasted. Unironically. Even aside from his surprise that came from learning this in the face of Kirk's reputation as a ladies' man. And in no replies to those stories did anyone bring this up. I don't know what the average age of initiation is these days, not to mention that whatever it is, statistically half the people will be above it, but it's a shame that not having had sex by—what, college?—invites jokes, shock, questions about what happened, or speculation about what's wrong with the person. (See also: The Thirty-Year-Old Virgins.) Even if the person is far above the magic age, it doesn't seem polite to react that way. And fandom seems like a place where both proud and de facto nonconformists congregate and celebrate diversity in innumerable ways, so this comments thing disappointed me. There have to be readers, of any age, who were put off, or who found it funny that these exclamations were taken at face value by the characters and commenters alike. Or is it just me? Is 23 or 26 remarkably late to bloom these days?

While we're on the subject, sort of, since this is something I've seen again recently in friends' journals, it also makes me sad—no, actually, it makes me angry—when fans deride terrible sex scenes by talking about how the author clearly has never had sex. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, but doesn't it occur to them that plenty of people who've had sex can't write it believably for their lives, and plenty of people who haven't had sex are writing some of fandom's best steamy scenes? There's no need to insult those with less experience.

Oh, cultural assumptions. How people do grow confused and astonished when you're defied. *shakes head*

Comments

[theninth.livejournal.com]

I think I wrote better sex before I started having sex. I didn't write mind-blowing, perfect, fantastic, gymnastic sex. I kept it real and occasionally bad, and often funny and usually awkward, but I think it was better because I wasn't so hung up on my own experience.

Considering how many TV shows and films are docu-drama type things about pregnant teenagers, how many TV shows have "very special episodes" about some kid losing his or her virginity and the whole "safe sex" talk... and just considering how many girls I was in school with who had kids while still in high school... 26, 23, and in most thought process, even 18 is a late bloomer.

I won't mention how old I was.

[rubberbutton.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for writing this. Srsly.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

♥ I haven't seen it talked about very much. Wish it were.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

See, and I wish people didn't have to be embarrassed about things like that. It's like a lingering taboo.

I think it was better because I wasn't so hung up on my own experience.

That's interesting. (If you want to answer,) did it feel different to write sex scenes after you'd started having sex, too, more personal or confident or embarrassing?

[theninth.livejournal.com]

I'm not embarrassed. I just figure it's more information than anyone needs to know.

None of the above, actually? Before I started having sex, sex scenes -- even when the sex was imperfect -- were fun and silly and fun to think about. After, the mystery was gone and I realized I didn't actually like it all that much, it became less fun to write.

I think if I ever became a werewolf I'd have a lot less fun writing about them, too.

[purridot.livejournal.com]

As you say, there is so much media now trying to discourage teenagers succumbing to peer pressure and having sex -- and then paradoxically ridicules virgins. *shakes head*

As for the critique of sex scenes -- most m/m slash is written by female writers. So much for "experience"!

Oddly, I am finding myself drawn more to gen fics these days -- fanfic about friends in which bromance (or a family tie or whatever) itself is the culmination of the relationship, not sex. Can't just being with one's soulmate be a kind of emotional orgasm?

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Oh, cultural assumptions. How people do grow confused and astonished when you're defied.

I think the culture of fandom -- particularly around fanfic -- makes these assumptions even more readily and more basic than they are outside of fandom. Fandom is pointedly sex-positive and a highly sexualized place (e.g. *gropes* as synonym for *hugs* or *high-fives*). Slash fandom is specifically centered around sexualizing canonically nonsexual relationships. It follows that if sex is what everything is about and what everyone wants, then what (besides perhaps personal defect or chronic misfortune) would keep anyone from having sex once they're old enough not to make criminals of their partners? ...I hardly need add that this is one of those areas where I feel very out of step with fandom.

Fandom pet peeve #1457

Someday I want to see the other 1456.