Okay, the gist of part one is: sex changes people, changes relationships. That's kind of fundamental to my understanding of sex, really. Just like near-death experiences, having kids, and traveling to another galaxy changes people. You can't go through it and still be exactly the same person, with the same relationships, that you were in the beginning. Which is okay. You often end up with something that's better than you started out with.
But it's not the same.
And I agree with your assessment of John and Rodney's friendship. I love it; they're complex and funny and they obviously care about each other, and it makes my heart bounce. And that's where the problem comes in, because I don't want to see it change (even though I know that it inevitably would), and I can't believe that it wouldn't change if they were having sex. So bringing sex into it, in my mind, automatically would change it, and, well, here's the really subjective part: because most slash treats sex as a good thing that benefits the relationship, my fundamental belief that it's going to change the relationship makes me feel as if the writer is implying that there must have been something wrong with it before.
I think a lot of this is because of the weight that our culture places on romance -- all of our cultural baggage about sexual relationships being the pinnacle of human achievement. (See: Gero comment. *g*). We're steeped in this. Our families expect us to grow up and get married and have kids. Our popular entertainment is full of romance, even as background accompaniment to movies and books in other genres. Fandom is full of it. Everywhere you look, sex is where it's at; and while I'm fond of sex, and I would have to say that I strongly support sex *g*, I resent the way that non-sexual relationships are downplayed in the popular media and in the culture in favor of sexual ones. And that is what I see in slash, because slash doesn't happen in a vacuum; it's happening against a backdrop of pop culture that makes sexual relationships the be-all and end-all of existence. Going the other way (from romance to platonic friendship) isn't as hard to for me to take because it doesn't have the same weight of cultural expectation behind it. (It's also a lot rarer to see in fiction, even though my general experience is that it's not all that rare in real life.)
And there are enough slash stories out there that specifically treat the relationship as being "better" afterwards, or spin canon events in ways that are contrary to my view of them (subjective, subjective, I know), that I generally tend to approach slash on the assumption that the writer is working from that point of view that the friendship is inadequate without the sex, and that ending in a romantic way is a much better ending than not taking it to that place.
The thing is, I can totally see the appeal of what xparrot was talking about above (and you too, I think): adding sex to the friendship and keeping everything the same except that now they're bonded together for the rest of their lives. I do see the appeal; I just don't believe in it. I believe in an equally unrealistic ideal of lifelong platonic friendship instead. *g* And even though I know my own romantic fantasy is no more believable, it doesn't change the way that I relate to it on a gut level.
I hope all of that makes sense. And let me just be clear that I really don't mean to put down your way of viewing the characters or imply that mine is better or more true. It's just, maybe, less mainstream in fandom.
Thank you again for the very lucid and polite explanation, and I'm sorry for my long-windedness here!
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winterfish
Part 2 (edited)
Date: 2008-11-26 03:39 am (UTC)But it's not the same.
And I agree with your assessment of John and Rodney's friendship. I love it; they're complex and funny and they obviously care about each other, and it makes my heart bounce. And that's where the problem comes in, because I don't want to see it change (even though I know that it inevitably would), and I can't believe that it wouldn't change if they were having sex. So bringing sex into it, in my mind, automatically would change it, and, well, here's the really subjective part: because most slash treats sex as a good thing that benefits the relationship, my fundamental belief that it's going to change the relationship makes me feel as if the writer is implying that there must have been something wrong with it before.
I think a lot of this is because of the weight that our culture places on romance -- all of our cultural baggage about sexual relationships being the pinnacle of human achievement. (See: Gero comment. *g*). We're steeped in this. Our families expect us to grow up and get married and have kids. Our popular entertainment is full of romance, even as background accompaniment to movies and books in other genres. Fandom is full of it. Everywhere you look, sex is where it's at; and while I'm fond of sex, and I would have to say that I strongly support sex *g*, I resent the way that non-sexual relationships are downplayed in the popular media and in the culture in favor of sexual ones. And that is what I see in slash, because slash doesn't happen in a vacuum; it's happening against a backdrop of pop culture that makes sexual relationships the be-all and end-all of existence. Going the other way (from romance to platonic friendship) isn't as hard to for me to take because it doesn't have the same weight of cultural expectation behind it. (It's also a lot rarer to see in fiction, even though my general experience is that it's not all that rare in real life.)
And there are enough slash stories out there that specifically treat the relationship as being "better" afterwards, or spin canon events in ways that are contrary to my view of them (subjective, subjective, I know), that I generally tend to approach slash on the assumption that the writer is working from that point of view that the friendship is inadequate without the sex, and that ending in a romantic way is a much better ending than not taking it to that place.
The thing is, I can totally see the appeal of what xparrot was talking about above (and you too, I think): adding sex to the friendship and keeping everything the same except that now they're bonded together for the rest of their lives. I do see the appeal; I just don't believe in it. I believe in an equally unrealistic ideal of lifelong platonic friendship instead. *g* And even though I know my own romantic fantasy is no more believable, it doesn't change the way that I relate to it on a gut level.
I hope all of that makes sense. And let me just be clear that I really don't mean to put down your way of viewing the characters or imply that mine is better or more true. It's just, maybe, less mainstream in fandom.
Thank you again for the very lucid and polite explanation, and I'm sorry for my long-windedness here!