The Revolutionary Potential of Het fanfic

[sqbr]

Having written Why I like Gen and Why do we femslash? I felt I should finish off the "Fanfic which is not slash" tryptych :) (I do like slash too, but I think there's enough meta on it out there already)

So: Het has a bad rep. It's all soppy and romanic and sexist and cliched and boring. Except it's not.

Since I think we can all agree that "Stories containing heterosexual relationships" have the potential to be good (that description covering most of all fiction ever), I've tried to give a bunch of examples to show that het fanfic is (sometimes) awesome or at least interesting in practice. (Though of course Sturgeon's Law applies) Some of these are more examples than recs, and I've recently discovered Uhura/Spock so there's a lot of that :D

Note that I'm not saying that not-het isn't awesome too. If you prefer not-het but think het is all fine and well for what it is, that's fair enough. It's the "All het is crap" argument which bugs me.

Deconstructing Gender Roles

Most het relationships in popular canon are pretty skeevy. So rather than avoiding them, why not show them and then poke at all the skeeviness?

For example, the only het I've written thus far is The Great and Glorious Rule of Queen Nancy the First which continues the deconstruction of the Disney Princess archetype started vaguely in "Enchanted". (I'd feel weird promoting my own fic but at least it shows not all non-shmoopy het is written by slashers :P)

There is a whole genre of het fixit fic which unfridges Women in Refrigerators, see for example dry your hollow eyes.

Five children that weren't...and one that was plays around with the possibilities of pregnancy in the Torchwood universe.

Unheteronormative het

On the whole I don't think genderswap from m/m to m/f counts as het, but for example Pigfeathers depicts Harry as an actual trans woman. (I must admit I didn't love the story, but I think that's mainly because I don't like Snape/Harry :))

I don't recall ever reading any fic which swapped the sex of an originally m/f couple, but given the popularity of "A man and woman swap bodies" stories in original fiction I'm sure it exists.

There's also threesomes, incest, BDSM, pegging etc. I'm not into that sort of thing as a kink so tend to avoid those stories unless I get the impression I'll enjoy it for other reasons, but one example where an m/f relationship is pretty central is Healing Station Argh, a fun little story about foursomes and pegging.

And of course there's all the fic which contain het and slash (and maybe even femslash!).

Interesting for other reasons

As any gen fan will tell you, there's more to a piece of fiction than relationships. Just because a story contains a particular romantic or sexual relationship doesn't mean that's the most important or only interesting thing about it.

Your Cowboy Days are Over is a fantastic heartbreaking story which does contain some fairly explicit het sex, but while that's an important part of the story it's neither romantic or titillating (well, not to me. YMMV :)).

And even when a story can accurately be described as "a het romance" and/or "het porn" etc that doesn't mean it can't have a cracking plot, interesting ideas, and deep things to say about the canon.

Finding Himself is a Hermoine/Cedric AU which works as a straightforward romance, but is also a really engaging alternate version of how the HP story could have gone, and an affecting journey through disability.

Lunch and Other Obscenities is an adorable Uhura&Gaila friendship fic with a side order of Uhra/Spock which explores cultural differences and taboos.

And what's wrong with shmoopy cliche anyway?

One of the things fanfic meta has made me think about is that women have, on the whole, been told that our interests are uninteresting and unworthy, and that our sexuality either doesn't exist or is gross. This is used as a justification for lots of weird kinky porn and fair enough. But what's wrong with those of us with a taste for plain old vanilla het romance indulging it? I think the disdain people have for romance novels on principle (rather than criticisms of particular aspects of the genre) is a symptom of patriarchal disdain for "women's things" (see also On society, fiction, and the romance novel)

Personally I still like my self indulgent romance to be relatively unsexist and thoughtful, but if other people enjoy revelling in bodice rippers etc that's their bailiwick. And if people only enjoy reading het romances then I don't see that that means they are necessarily homophobic or whatever, any more than only reading slash means you are necessarily misogynistic. Personal taste isn't always a matter of choice or politics (Of course there is some of both homophobia and mysogyny amongst both het and slash writers and readers, but it doesn't pay to overgeneralise)

So, some het I enjoyed primarily as romance:
A Most Convenient Mishap is a forced Marriage Pride and Prejudice AU which has some interesting things to say about gender and didn't skeeve me like I thought it would.

Break has Spock and Uhura falling love over linguistics.

No het PWP because I don't read it, but it's definitely out there :D

And now, some interesting het which isn't fanfic

Because I can :)

Fancomics: The Death of Narcissa Black for moody darkness and Of Mice and Mayhem for fun.

Fanvids: Buffy vs Edward, Icebound Stream, and pretty much everything relevant by Obsessive24.

Fanart: I don't tend to save fanart but I'm sure there's some around! Stars is really gen but is totally adorable :)

So, any other ways het can be awesome I've missed? Any other relevant recs people feel like sharing? (I probably won't add them to the post but I might read them :D)

Comments

[aris_tgd]

Ah, but het-by-slashers is of a much higher quality, well known fact *nods sagely*

*wince* I honestly don't think of myself as a slasher. When you look at my stuff there's a higher percentage of slash than het, yeah, but--I write fic, y'know? I just write the same kind of story in my slash as I did in this story. I mean, I also wrote this thing called "Academic Pursuit", which is het, but totally not the same story.

I'm not really irritated, just a little bewildered. I guess it's because het has such a bad rap in so many slash circles. And like you've just pointed out, there's enough good reasons to write it to go around. Hmmm, dunno.

Anyway, yeah, "x with porn" is definitely a trope in fanfiction.

[sqbr]

I honestly don't think of myself as a slasher

Oops, sorry. That's the problem with sarcasm/facetiousness: it's never clear how much of the statement/framing the person saying it agrees with. Anyway yes, I might well write some m/m slash myself one day but still wouldn't call myself a slasher, and I didn't mean to imply that you Are A Slasher just because you have written some slash.

*reads fic* Ahahaha. *cough* Indeed :D
*is inspired to make the humourous sex tag I was pondering yesterday*

[aris_tgd]

Oops, sorry. That's the problem with sarcasm/facetiousness: it's never clear how much of the statement/framing the person saying it agrees with. Anyway yes, I might well write some m/m slash myself one day but still wouldn't call myself a slasher, and I didn't mean to imply that you Are A Slasher just because you have written some slash.

Heh, I knew you were being facetious, there's just--I wasn't sure how much of the sentence was in on the joke, if you know what I mean. There are enough people who generally classify themselves as slashers where it wouldn't be too weird to hear, "Well, I'm usually a slasher, but I wrote that one het thing..." but that's not really where I'm coming from. I don't normally clutch desperately at my artistic integrity, but, y'know, I just write stories.

I find it moderately more interesting that almost all of my slash falls into the "personal journey of discovery" story type and only one (of, like, three) of my het stories does.

[sqbr]

I wasn't sure how much of the sentence was in on the joke

That's what I meant, but you said it better. In fact, I may steal that phrasing :)