my-name-is-fireheart:

So I promised I’d write about soap dick, since I really don’t think it’s as simple as prudes vs non prudes… this will mostly just be me organizing my thoughts. here goes. 

1. I’m like the least prudish person on the planet. I love sex, I love writing about sex, reading it, having it etc. I believe in sex positivity in YA, especially for female readers. I approve of SJM’s decision to make acotar include smut, and I approve of bloomsbury’s decision to pub it. Over my years in the fandom, I’ve talked to numerous teenage fans who have felt like the sex in acotar has been positive for them. 

2. I believe that YA is a space predominantly for teenagers. Aka minors. And I know that some minors don’t want to read about sex. Is the fandom a space that is for minors or is it for adults? At this point, it seems like its for adults. 

3. Teenagers are already inundated with sex. SJM’s books are not, in any way, introducing them to the concept of sex. Yes, she DOES introduce them to female pleasure and loving sex, both of which are not represented in the media. But in no way are these books the only sexual content teenagers consume. So…I think it’s understandable why some of them might not want to read about sex, when it’s being pelted at them from every direction. We should never judge teens who don’t like SJM because of the sex. They just aren’t into it. 

4. I appreciate that the books really do focus on the female gaze. This is porn for women, in the truest sense. The men are the uber hot ones, they are strong and brave and kind and invested in female pleasure. Yes, Feyre, Mor, Nesta are all hotties. But the characters who the primary sexual focus is on are the males. Part of that is bc of Feyre’s first person pov, and the fact that she is a het woman. She notices when men are hot and tells us about it. But I do think it’s more than that: I think that these books are meant to give us a female perspective on sex and pleasure, on sexy-ness what women find attractive. This isn’t unique by any means. The romance genre has been doing it for years, but SJM has just made it YA and placed it into a lengthier fantasy series. 

5. I think that a lot of the smutty fic that the fandom produces is genuinely good and well meaning. It helps a lot of people discover what they like sexually, and its a place for us to explore parts of the narrative that SJM doesn’t give us. The smutty fic written by female authors is such a natural product of the books. They are literally all about the female gaze in terms of sex, but also in terms of abuse, relationships, friendships etc. The books are women centric. Like people criticize SJM for featuring male strength too much, but they miss the point that the male-ness in the books is 100% about what SJM, her female readers, and her female characters find attractive and want to see (if she sometimes gives us things we don’t want, well, yeah. but we are the fandom who wanted the wall scene, and she gave it to us, so.). The fandom has produced fic in this same vein and I love that. 

6. But just because something is the female gaze does not mean that it’s 100% okay to do. And acotar itself works to combat that. While we have the female gaze centering female sexual pleasure on one hand, we also have the female gaze sexually objectifying men. Look no further than Ianthe, and Amarantha. Ianthe has a tendency to reduce men to their body parts, to manipulate them, to rape them even. She is sexually aggressive to Rhys and Lucien. And we see that she views men as no more than objects. This is not much different from how some men irl view women. We, as a fandom, do not want to be Ianthe. We don’t want to be reducing men to their body parts. I’m not saying that we are but…dick soap comes close imo. I want the fandom to be able to embrace the female gaze presented in acotar, and in doing so embrace all that accompanies it: female pleasure, female orgasm, women getting to discuss sex candidly and openly. People have said I’m being prudish or pearl clutching. I’m not. Sex positivity is NOT “everything sexual is totally amazing heehehheheh can’t wait to fuck lots of guys wow i love cock”. Sex positivity is presenting sex as natural and with the potential to be a positive experience that all genders can enjoy. It is striving for healthy sex between equal consenting parties. I don’t want the fandom to be…objectifying men. YES these characters are not real, so dick soap doesn’t actually hurt a real man by sexually objectifying him. But it stills bothers me that the fandom can be so cavalier about objectifying characters. Like, what does the book boyfriend box do other than view these characters as pure objects of sexual desire? Like I think there’s a BIG difference between writing smutty fic that features a ship you love, and literally imagining oneself as dating a character and fucking them. One is fine imo, the other involves imagining that you are using a person purely as a sexual tool. It’s not morally wrong because the characters are not real, but I don’t really like to treat characters differently than I treat real people. The difference is that irl, sexual objectification can be alright when it’s mutual (see: one night stands, fuck buddies etc), but characters have no ability to consent since they aren’t real. 

7. I don’t have all my feelings worked out on this aspect of the issue. But the whole concept of “book boyfriend” is so weird to me, and I just don’t want to see fans objectifying characters because the characters themselves mean so much more within the story. And to be clear, I dislike all of the abs fanarts I see on here as well. Like enough! These men are more than their bodies. If these characters were real people, I’m sure we would ALL agree that sexually objectifying them to this extent. Why is is okay when it is characters? I mean that as a literal question. I’m not sure what is right and wrong. 

8. Soap dick is a literal reduction of a character to their body parts. I’m not really happy about that. I am not okay with that type of narrative in romance novels, in fic, in my real life. I enjoy romance and smut because they are about people, not body parts. Soap dick is just a body part. And well, maybe they aren’t marketing it as belonging to a specific character, and maybe I’m thinking too hard about this. It’s not that it bothers me all THAT much, it’s just that I don’t see this issue as being about prudes vs not prudes. It’s about…how we sexualize characters, if we are doing it in a respectful way, and whether or not we view sexually objectifying people who exist only in our imaginations as being wrong or not. I haven’t decided yet.