"I think a lot of the immediate reactions to this secret, especially the reactions of creepiness and the like, are brought on by the way it’s presented rather than the notion that people get off on fanworks "
Well yes, that's kind of what I meant with the ritual thing; most fen don't ignore that fanworks (explicit ones at least) have a sexually arousing / erotic impact on their audience. They just are content to ignore *precisely* what that entails. Hence how repeated use makes it okay to have rote answers to express the hotness of a work, versus how not okay it is (or at least, it doesn't meet the consensus) to give precise details of your sex life in reaction to a work to your audience or to the creator of the work.
There's a personal boundary there at play which means both are different things; they themselves have different impacts, in that a writer or podficcer can very well be vaguely pleased to think their work was hot to the audience, and yet feel very uncomfortable knowing that Suzie rubbed off yesterday evening to that same fanwork.
Anyway, I'm just reiterating things we both know. *g*
I have an LJ friend to masturbates a LOT and talks about it super frankly, which I think is great; she is the only person I've met in my fandom experience who does/will be honest and say, in her reaction to a fanwork, that she wanked to it / it lead her to orgasm, or say how *many* orgasms it was worth. *g* (with the people who she knows are okay with that - so, her friends; there are still boundaries there). I think it's great. :)
no subject
Well yes, that's kind of what I meant with the ritual thing; most fen don't ignore that fanworks (explicit ones at least) have a sexually arousing / erotic impact on their audience. They just are content to ignore *precisely* what that entails. Hence how repeated use makes it okay to have rote answers to express the hotness of a work, versus how not okay it is (or at least, it doesn't meet the consensus) to give precise details of your sex life in reaction to a work to your audience or to the creator of the work.
There's a personal boundary there at play which means both are different things; they themselves have different impacts, in that a writer or podficcer can very well be vaguely pleased to think their work was hot to the audience, and yet feel very uncomfortable knowing that Suzie rubbed off yesterday evening to that same fanwork.
Anyway, I'm just reiterating things we both know. *g*
I have an LJ friend to masturbates a LOT and talks about it super frankly, which I think is great; she is the only person I've met in my fandom experience who does/will be honest and say, in her reaction to a fanwork, that she wanked to it / it lead her to orgasm, or say how *many* orgasms it was worth. *g* (with the people who she knows are okay with that - so, her friends; there are still boundaries there). I think it's great. :)