Responding to me, Wendy wrote:
that's not the impression you mean to convey, you should think seriously about the means by which you express yourself.
Point taken. I hope you're not taking this post personally :).
No. (And, to be honest, for some reason I tend to get much more upset on other people's behalf than I do on my own, anyway.) At any rate, now that an apology has been made, I shall back off.
And you've just proved that I *haven't* made it impossible to disagree with me on that point. You just did, by arguing that h/c is not necessarily sadistic.
But that "not all of it" does suggest to me that you'd acknowledge that *some* is...
Certainly. There's a vast diversity in fanfic, and you can find just about anything in it somewhere. And there certainly *is* fanfic that involves honest-to-god S&M. But I don't think that *that* is appropriate to discuss here, particularly.
That is, if you want to debate the point with me :)
I think it's an interesting and perfectly valid point to discuss, if it can be kept on a level of open and civil discourse.
Appending your next post here...
OK, I promised myself I'd stop responding, but I feel I should clarify my position, which I'll try to do as neutrally as I can, and apologies in advance if I upset you by this, Betty.
No, I am not remotely upset by this. And I do quite sincerely appreciate both the change in tone and the clarification.
My understanding of the concept of "Suffering Beautifully" was that a character is physically or emotionally hurt, and that this pain makes him more attractive in the eyes of the reader and/or writer. Which seems to me have a sadistic twist to it, even if there's not actual S/M sex.
I'd say that this is an accurate description, but that the "sadistic twist" conclusion does not necessarily follow. "Sadism," I believe, means enjoying inflicting pain on others (whether in a sexual context or otherwise). I think, for those who enjoy watching a character "suffering beautifully" the attraction is usually not in the infliction of pain, itself (which can often be rather unpleasant to watch or read about), but in the way he *behaves* under physical or emotional pain, the way he handles it, the way he responds to it. I suspect this varies a lot from person to person, and I don't pretend to speak for any particular individual, but I think one thing that appeals to people about Avon, in particular, is the dignity with which he bears up under pain, as well as the very human vulerability he shows only under extreme stress. It's something that has a lot more to do with the *character* than with the *pain*, if that makes any sense.
In the case of "hurt/comfort," the emphasis, most usually, is more on the *comfort* than on the *hurt*. Indeed, instead of a sadistic desire to *inflict* pain, it's entirely possible, I think, to regard h/c fic as a manifestation of the desire to comfort those in pain.
-- Betty Ragan ** bragan@nrao.edu ** http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~bragan Not speaking for my employers, officially or otherwise. "Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions..." -- Isaac Asimov