On RPF and Public Spaces
Oct. 2nd, 2012 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
go_gentleSo here's the thing: RPF, fundamentally, is sort of a weird thing to do. Spending all this time thinking about the sex lives of famous strangers? I'd actually probably even accept 'creepy,' although I'm not willing to go as far as 'wrong' or 'immoral'. That's a thing that I've come to peace with, and it's why I get people who just decide that RPF isn't for them.
(It's ironic to me, sometimes, that RPF feels so much weirder, both in fandom and out of fandom, than FPF, when, asI understand it, the legal protections for RPF are so much clearer than FPF. (Not that I think either of these is infringing.))
I think it takes a particular type of mindset to really get into a RPF fandom, especially if you're producing fanworks. It's common among RPF fans to talk about the person and the character as separate objects, as part of this mindset, to help strengthen the line between fact and fiction. It's one of the ways that RPF fans sit with the weirdness, by re-casting into a form that's a little less weird, like thinking about the difference between a character and the actor that plays them,
When I say that RPF is weird, I'm not apologizing for being in RPF fandoms, and I'm not going to stop. The weirdness is something I've learned to live with, mostly by not thinking about it. But at the same time, there's a couple of things that I do to keep the level of weirdness at a place that I'm comfortable with, and it's mostly about controlling who has access to my fanworks.
I think this a fairly common thing in RPF fans, to varying degree. Locked RPF is pretty common. Many people anon links to 'mainstream' hockey blogs. And, of course, the fundamental rule of any RPF fandom is to never ever link the subjects to the porn about them.
If I could, I would make everyone agree to a series of things before they read my fic.
Now, obviously, I don't actually do that on my fic. However, I'd argue that by posting fic in places where the audience is fannish, I've already made sure that they are ticking all these boxes. If you're browsing the 'Hockey RPF' tag on AO3, I can be confident that you're okay with finding porn about real people.
And that's really what I want - to make sure that the people finding my fic are looking for fic. RPF is weird. I don't want people who are uncomfortable with RPF (especially nonfannish people who are unfamiliar, surprised, and uncomfortable) to accidentally run across my RPF. It seems rude, like having sex in public.
If I could - and I know this is unreasonable of me to ask and impossible for me to do - I would control how my fic is linked or presented to make sure that these same conditions are followed, so that the people who find the links are people who are comfortable with RPF.
In practice, this mostly isn't necessary. Fannish delicious or pinboard accounts are usually very obviously fannish - the intended audience is one that knows about RPF. The same with people doing recs posts - you're not going to rec fic to people who don't care about fic. That wouldn't make sense.
What bothers me, though, is my fic being linked from non-fannish sites with no obvious fannish markers - like on Goodreads, marked as m/m romance. I don't want - acknowledging that in many ways what I want plays no real role in the proceedings here - I don't want my fic linked without the links being explicit about it being porn about real people. It makes me uncomfortable that people could click the link expecting one thing and getting something totally different - especially since what they get is weird and probably creepy.
I know no one set out to make me uncomfortable. I get wanting to save fics, and I'm happy that people like my fic enough to want to bookmark it. But it turns out that this is a boundary issue that I didn't really know I had.
I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with this uncomfortable feeling. Right now, I'm going to sit with it and see how I feel in a few days or weeks and then decide what, if any, action I'm going to take. But I really wish that hadn't happened.
(It's ironic to me, sometimes, that RPF feels so much weirder, both in fandom and out of fandom, than FPF, when, asI understand it, the legal protections for RPF are so much clearer than FPF. (Not that I think either of these is infringing.))
I think it takes a particular type of mindset to really get into a RPF fandom, especially if you're producing fanworks. It's common among RPF fans to talk about the person and the character as separate objects, as part of this mindset, to help strengthen the line between fact and fiction. It's one of the ways that RPF fans sit with the weirdness, by re-casting into a form that's a little less weird, like thinking about the difference between a character and the actor that plays them,
When I say that RPF is weird, I'm not apologizing for being in RPF fandoms, and I'm not going to stop. The weirdness is something I've learned to live with, mostly by not thinking about it. But at the same time, there's a couple of things that I do to keep the level of weirdness at a place that I'm comfortable with, and it's mostly about controlling who has access to my fanworks.
I think this a fairly common thing in RPF fans, to varying degree. Locked RPF is pretty common. Many people anon links to 'mainstream' hockey blogs. And, of course, the fundamental rule of any RPF fandom is to never ever link the subjects to the porn about them.
If I could, I would make everyone agree to a series of things before they read my fic.
- So, this is fiction about real people. Are you okay with that?
- Some of that fiction might have adult themes, okay?
- And by that I mean porn.
- Some of it might imply romance between two dudes who (as best I know) identify as straight. Okay with that?
- And by that I mean porn.
- So, to sum up, you're okay with reading gay porn about real people who are (probably) straight dudes?
Now, obviously, I don't actually do that on my fic. However, I'd argue that by posting fic in places where the audience is fannish, I've already made sure that they are ticking all these boxes. If you're browsing the 'Hockey RPF' tag on AO3, I can be confident that you're okay with finding porn about real people.
And that's really what I want - to make sure that the people finding my fic are looking for fic. RPF is weird. I don't want people who are uncomfortable with RPF (especially nonfannish people who are unfamiliar, surprised, and uncomfortable) to accidentally run across my RPF. It seems rude, like having sex in public.
If I could - and I know this is unreasonable of me to ask and impossible for me to do - I would control how my fic is linked or presented to make sure that these same conditions are followed, so that the people who find the links are people who are comfortable with RPF.
In practice, this mostly isn't necessary. Fannish delicious or pinboard accounts are usually very obviously fannish - the intended audience is one that knows about RPF. The same with people doing recs posts - you're not going to rec fic to people who don't care about fic. That wouldn't make sense.
What bothers me, though, is my fic being linked from non-fannish sites with no obvious fannish markers - like on Goodreads, marked as m/m romance. I don't want - acknowledging that in many ways what I want plays no real role in the proceedings here - I don't want my fic linked without the links being explicit about it being porn about real people. It makes me uncomfortable that people could click the link expecting one thing and getting something totally different - especially since what they get is weird and probably creepy.
I know no one set out to make me uncomfortable. I get wanting to save fics, and I'm happy that people like my fic enough to want to bookmark it. But it turns out that this is a boundary issue that I didn't really know I had.
I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do with this uncomfortable feeling. Right now, I'm going to sit with it and see how I feel in a few days or weeks and then decide what, if any, action I'm going to take. But I really wish that hadn't happened.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-03 02:07 pm (UTC)