[LMB] Re: [OT] STD/fanfic

[Azalais Aranxta]

On Wed, 13 Dec 2006, Elizabeth Holden wrote:

> --- quietann <quietann at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > But the whole issue of whether slash writers should
> > incorporate "safer sex" into their writing does come up in
> > various fandoms from time to time.
>
> It certainly does. I remember once being at a well-attended
> panel at World Con in San Francisco - mid 90s - where for about
> an hour people argued about the moral necessity (or
> irrelevance) of having practice safe sex. Including the
> blood-transfers of vampires.  Passionate feelings abounded.  I
> was quite amazed.

I quite loathe the idea that all fiction should be didactic and
model "appropriate behaviour".  These are likely the same people
who want to ban smoking in films, even though *gasp* some people
smoke!  I'm not sure I get this mindset.  It seems to me that if
you're only going to model appropriate behaviour you shouldn't be
writing about a lot of things--like murder, war, many aspects of
the occult, drugs, spying--and since these are most of the topics
I like to write, I'm completely confused as to why anyone would
get the idea that any of my fics are to be taken as
recommendations for proper behaviour.

I will only write condoms into a scene if they seem appropriate
to the situation and characters.  Honestly, that isn't very
often--I tend to put them only into stories set between 1985-the
near future and only then if I think the characters would use
them in that situation.  A lot of the SPN fic I've written has
been bareback despite the setting because I think if you are
distraught enough to actually begin a sexual relationship with a
close relative (actually doing it, after all, being a whole
nother animal from thinking about it), condoms may not be the
first thing that comes to mind in that extremity, particularly
not when you've already got each other's blood all over the
place.  I'd certainly have them practising safer sex with the
girls they meet and seduce and know they will never see again,
but...I don't tend to write much of that, because the one I
identify with most isn't the one that is doing most of it...

I actually did write vampires in the late 80s and early 90s being
afraid of HIV, because it struck me as particularly horrible that
one might contract the virus, be subject to all kinds of
opportunistic infections, and not die of them.  It's not that I'm
unwilling to deal with the issue when it seems appropriate to do
so; it's just that I'm not willing to write fic with the idea
that everyone who reads it is going to go right out and do what
my characters are doing, so I'd better be careful.

After all, I tend to write about people who are already doing
stuff you shouldn't try at home, like demon hunters and Death
Eaters...

~malfoy :)

****************************************************************
Azalais Aranxta (~malfoy)
ataniell93 on LiveJournal and Vox
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/malfoymadness

"I know the true world, and you know I do. But we needn't let it
think we all bow down." --Christopher Morley