Kink on the Intimatopic Landscape
Jun. 13th, 2008 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erdaRecently I had occasion to write kink for the first time. As a beginning writer, I’ve been experimenting, trying different kinds and styles of writing, and seeing what I can learn from each. I had an idea that kink would be relatively easy to write - just do a little research into what people find arousing about the kink and make sure you work the important details into your scenario, I thought. Turned out to be a lot harder than that, and mostly what I learned from the experience is that good kink is as hard to write as any other type of story.
I’ve chosen four stories to illustrate what constitutes good kink writing to me. The following stories (all SGA) are spoiled behind the cut in this order:
Cool Hand Luke (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fiercelydreamed)
except you enthrall me (thingswithwings)
Second Skin (toft_froggy)
Your Whole World Now Is an Open Door(telesilla)
For anyone not aware, the term "Intimatopic Landscape" and the idea of the centrality of intimacy in a significant subsection of slash writing is taken from Elizabeth Woledge's essay entitled "Intimatopia" from the book Fan fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet.
I feel a need to disclaim before I start rambling and remind anyone reading this that I don't have any inside track on these stories. These are just my little personal opinions and reactions.
The kink prompt for Cool Hand Luke (fiercelydreamed) is amputee fetishism. My understanding of this kink is that it has to do with mutilation and a fascination with the grotesque. The story seems to miss the boat on delineating the kink prompt, or rather, it deliberately and skillfully inverts the kink, making it, in my mind, female friendly. To be clear, I use the term female in the gender sense rather than having to do with actual bodies, as I realize some (anatomically) male people would feel the same.
This story is all about Rodney’s love for John, the care he’s taken to build the perfect prosthesis for John, and John’s love for Rodney, the way he uses the special powers of his new hand to give Rodney pleasure.
The story opens not with a reference to disfigurement, but an image of the prosthetic hand which emphasizes its superiority in evoking a pleasurable response from Rodney. They are alone together in “the dark space” of John’s quarters, an image of intimacy.
There is no exploration of or description of John’s disfigurement. The emphasis is on the prosthetic device, not the amputation. There’s absolutely no feeling of ugliness or repulsiveness, in fact, I’d have to say the new hand sounds quite attractive, almost magical. We get instead a description of John’s distress over his injury, Rodney’s sensitive response, and the way Rodney works to help John through his adjustment to his new hand. John doesn’t say exactly what he is feeling, but the intimacy between them allows Rodney to know and respond appropriately anyway.
The prosthetic hand allows John to gather information about Rodney’s physical responses in a deeper way than his natural hand, and so serves to deepen his understanding of Rodney.
John wonders “how many people... have ever heard Rodney sound like that” again drawing attention to their exclusivity.
The second story, except you enthrall me (thingswithwings), also takes and subverts the kink, actually several kinks. The story opens with a bland description of John’s captivity. The most significant thing about it is its impersonality, its anti-intimacy.
When the team rescues him, they spend a lot of time looking at each other and touching him more or less non-sexually, bringing him back into intimate contact with them.
"Because he knows Rodney's broad freckled shoulders and Ronon's small flat nipples, the long scar that traces down Ronon's side and the way that Rodney's soft belly dips into his navel. He knows the curve of Ronon's arms and the mole on Rodney's neck. John knows all this.” The author here calls our attention to the way John is aroused by the personal, by his intimate knowledge of his teammates, the perfect antidote to his captivity.
The tattooing, like everything else in this story, is used as a symbol of group cohesiveness. The fact that the tattoo itself is the gate symbol for Atlantis's point of origin speaks to their exclusivity.
When Teyla places the wrist restraints on John, our attention is again drawn to the the power of their eyes on him. Teyla doesn't speak, she "looks down at him" to see if the restraints are helping him. John is in control, directing her to tighten them up. Of the toys Teyla brings, John rejects only the blindfold, since he needs to see his team as well as be seen by them to emphasize the intensely personal nature of their interactions. Everything the team does is to help him to ground himself back into his place in the group.
I can’t help but think that most of the attraction of bukkake is in the humiliation to the woman, but the author avoids that by replacing the woman with a man, which reduces the sting, and then she clearly subverts the kink by taking away any semblance of degradation.
The climax of the story, the use of John’s first name by every member of the team, overshadows John's sexual climax.
I was aware of Second Skin (toft_froggy) long before I read it. It didn’t seem interesting to me, in fact, I found this particular kink (cross dressing) faintly ridiculous.
Finally, after seeing it referred to many times, I broke down and read it. It was this story that made me realize that the kink itself was not that important to me. My enjoyment is due to the way the story captures and highlights the intimacy between John and Rodney. It’s not primarily about cross dressing. It’s about Rodney discovering a potentially humiliating and career destroying secret of John’s and sharing it with him. It’s clear from the story that Rodney is not all that interested in cross dressing; he’s interested in John and in helping John do whatever John wants.
Early on in the story, when John is forced to wear a skirt, his biggest concern is that somehow their captors have detected his secret. He has to convince himself that it is just a coincidence before he can stop panicking. Being caught out is clearly a huge fear in John's mind, which sets up the emotional power in Rodney's later knowledge and acceptance of John's kink. The author also makes it clear that John puts up with the humiliation and mistreatment in order to keep Rodney from being hurt, again putting the relationship in the foreground of the story.
"Rodney’s hands on his back and waist, stroking away the grimy residue of stares and touches." Here the author shows us how Rodney takes away the impersonal insults to John, deepening the intimacy between them. Little phrases in this first sexual encounter are very telling. "aching from the fear that they’d notice, that they’d see, and now it was like Rodney was cutting him open with his mouth", "he had to grab blindly at Rodney’s shoulders to hold himself up", "he was heavy, solid, and John held on to him like he was falling", all speak more to the intimacy engendered in the incident than to its purely sexual nature.
Rodney is the only person in the world that knows John's secret, and John trusts him to keep it between them. Again we see the exclusivity that heightens the feeling of intimacy. Rodney even steals some things for John's sexual pleasure. They are united and exclusive with their shared secret.
Such is the power of this story that I now not only consider cross dressing a definite yes in my reading tastes, I don't exclude any kink from my reading. This story taught me that I'm far more attracted to the intimacy created by the shared secret idea than I am to the actual kink.
Telesilla is one of my favorite writers because she consistently communicates that intense feeling of intimacy I crave in my fanfiction. Your Whole World Now Is an Open Door(telesilla) delineates the kink (d/s) more accurately than some of the other stories I’ve referenced, but what makes the story so special to me is the repeated emphasis on intimacy and sharing. Rodney gets John’s kink and everything he does is aimed at helping John get it.
John initially assumes their sexual encounters will be rushed and impersonal, but Rodney keeps moving them toward increasing levels of intimacy. John is far less self-aware than Rodney, but he clearly wants and needs the intimacy into which Rodney carefully leads him. When Rodney asks him if he would prefer "to go back to supply room quickies" John emphatically rejects the suggestion.
The author repeatedly draws attention to the way Rodney controls his own feelings and desires in order to help John and to the way Rodney closely observes every tiny clue from John in order to understand him. Rodney restrains himself in the shower scene, keeping to his hands only deal with John when he clearly wants more. He gives John time to relax and trust.
Rodney tells John "you're safe here; no one will hear you but me" and once again we see the emphasis on the intimacy/exclusivity of the relationship. At the end of this scene the author tells us "Rodney bit his lip and managed to keep himself from just rubbing off against John's lower back" because again he puts John's feelings and needs before his own.
My favorite part of this story is when John asks Rodney “Does it hurt?”(referring to anal intercourse). The breakdown of barriers there, the fact that John feels comfortable letting Rodney know he’s nervous and openly seeks reassurance from him, and Rodney's careful answer, reassuring but honest, just kills me every time I read it. It’s all about trust and intimacy here, too.
This kink seems particularly difficult to write well. I've seen very few d/s stories that work for me. Telesilla is able to show one character dominating and even humiliating another without ever losing the feeling of caring and intimacy.
So, to anyone who managed to stick with my not terribly original thoughts this far, what do you think about these stories? What do you look for in kink? Link me to your favorites and tell me why you like them.
I’ve chosen four stories to illustrate what constitutes good kink writing to me. The following stories (all SGA) are spoiled behind the cut in this order:
Cool Hand Luke (
fiercelydreamed)except you enthrall me (
thingswithwings)Second Skin (
toft_froggy) Your Whole World Now Is an Open Door(
telesilla)For anyone not aware, the term "Intimatopic Landscape" and the idea of the centrality of intimacy in a significant subsection of slash writing is taken from Elizabeth Woledge's essay entitled "Intimatopia" from the book Fan fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet.
I feel a need to disclaim before I start rambling and remind anyone reading this that I don't have any inside track on these stories. These are just my little personal opinions and reactions.
The kink prompt for Cool Hand Luke (
fiercelydreamed) is amputee fetishism. My understanding of this kink is that it has to do with mutilation and a fascination with the grotesque. The story seems to miss the boat on delineating the kink prompt, or rather, it deliberately and skillfully inverts the kink, making it, in my mind, female friendly. To be clear, I use the term female in the gender sense rather than having to do with actual bodies, as I realize some (anatomically) male people would feel the same. This story is all about Rodney’s love for John, the care he’s taken to build the perfect prosthesis for John, and John’s love for Rodney, the way he uses the special powers of his new hand to give Rodney pleasure.
The story opens not with a reference to disfigurement, but an image of the prosthetic hand which emphasizes its superiority in evoking a pleasurable response from Rodney. They are alone together in “the dark space” of John’s quarters, an image of intimacy.
There is no exploration of or description of John’s disfigurement. The emphasis is on the prosthetic device, not the amputation. There’s absolutely no feeling of ugliness or repulsiveness, in fact, I’d have to say the new hand sounds quite attractive, almost magical. We get instead a description of John’s distress over his injury, Rodney’s sensitive response, and the way Rodney works to help John through his adjustment to his new hand. John doesn’t say exactly what he is feeling, but the intimacy between them allows Rodney to know and respond appropriately anyway.
The prosthetic hand allows John to gather information about Rodney’s physical responses in a deeper way than his natural hand, and so serves to deepen his understanding of Rodney.
John wonders “how many people... have ever heard Rodney sound like that” again drawing attention to their exclusivity.
The second story, except you enthrall me (
thingswithwings), also takes and subverts the kink, actually several kinks. The story opens with a bland description of John’s captivity. The most significant thing about it is its impersonality, its anti-intimacy.When the team rescues him, they spend a lot of time looking at each other and touching him more or less non-sexually, bringing him back into intimate contact with them.
"Because he knows Rodney's broad freckled shoulders and Ronon's small flat nipples, the long scar that traces down Ronon's side and the way that Rodney's soft belly dips into his navel. He knows the curve of Ronon's arms and the mole on Rodney's neck. John knows all this.” The author here calls our attention to the way John is aroused by the personal, by his intimate knowledge of his teammates, the perfect antidote to his captivity.
The tattooing, like everything else in this story, is used as a symbol of group cohesiveness. The fact that the tattoo itself is the gate symbol for Atlantis's point of origin speaks to their exclusivity.
When Teyla places the wrist restraints on John, our attention is again drawn to the the power of their eyes on him. Teyla doesn't speak, she "looks down at him" to see if the restraints are helping him. John is in control, directing her to tighten them up. Of the toys Teyla brings, John rejects only the blindfold, since he needs to see his team as well as be seen by them to emphasize the intensely personal nature of their interactions. Everything the team does is to help him to ground himself back into his place in the group.
I can’t help but think that most of the attraction of bukkake is in the humiliation to the woman, but the author avoids that by replacing the woman with a man, which reduces the sting, and then she clearly subverts the kink by taking away any semblance of degradation.
The climax of the story, the use of John’s first name by every member of the team, overshadows John's sexual climax.
I was aware of Second Skin (
toft_froggy) long before I read it. It didn’t seem interesting to me, in fact, I found this particular kink (cross dressing) faintly ridiculous.Finally, after seeing it referred to many times, I broke down and read it. It was this story that made me realize that the kink itself was not that important to me. My enjoyment is due to the way the story captures and highlights the intimacy between John and Rodney. It’s not primarily about cross dressing. It’s about Rodney discovering a potentially humiliating and career destroying secret of John’s and sharing it with him. It’s clear from the story that Rodney is not all that interested in cross dressing; he’s interested in John and in helping John do whatever John wants.
Early on in the story, when John is forced to wear a skirt, his biggest concern is that somehow their captors have detected his secret. He has to convince himself that it is just a coincidence before he can stop panicking. Being caught out is clearly a huge fear in John's mind, which sets up the emotional power in Rodney's later knowledge and acceptance of John's kink. The author also makes it clear that John puts up with the humiliation and mistreatment in order to keep Rodney from being hurt, again putting the relationship in the foreground of the story.
"Rodney’s hands on his back and waist, stroking away the grimy residue of stares and touches." Here the author shows us how Rodney takes away the impersonal insults to John, deepening the intimacy between them. Little phrases in this first sexual encounter are very telling. "aching from the fear that they’d notice, that they’d see, and now it was like Rodney was cutting him open with his mouth", "he had to grab blindly at Rodney’s shoulders to hold himself up", "he was heavy, solid, and John held on to him like he was falling", all speak more to the intimacy engendered in the incident than to its purely sexual nature.
Rodney is the only person in the world that knows John's secret, and John trusts him to keep it between them. Again we see the exclusivity that heightens the feeling of intimacy. Rodney even steals some things for John's sexual pleasure. They are united and exclusive with their shared secret.
Such is the power of this story that I now not only consider cross dressing a definite yes in my reading tastes, I don't exclude any kink from my reading. This story taught me that I'm far more attracted to the intimacy created by the shared secret idea than I am to the actual kink.
Telesilla is one of my favorite writers because she consistently communicates that intense feeling of intimacy I crave in my fanfiction. Your Whole World Now Is an Open Door(
telesilla) delineates the kink (d/s) more accurately than some of the other stories I’ve referenced, but what makes the story so special to me is the repeated emphasis on intimacy and sharing. Rodney gets John’s kink and everything he does is aimed at helping John get it.John initially assumes their sexual encounters will be rushed and impersonal, but Rodney keeps moving them toward increasing levels of intimacy. John is far less self-aware than Rodney, but he clearly wants and needs the intimacy into which Rodney carefully leads him. When Rodney asks him if he would prefer "to go back to supply room quickies" John emphatically rejects the suggestion.
The author repeatedly draws attention to the way Rodney controls his own feelings and desires in order to help John and to the way Rodney closely observes every tiny clue from John in order to understand him. Rodney restrains himself in the shower scene, keeping to his hands only deal with John when he clearly wants more. He gives John time to relax and trust.
Rodney tells John "you're safe here; no one will hear you but me" and once again we see the emphasis on the intimacy/exclusivity of the relationship. At the end of this scene the author tells us "Rodney bit his lip and managed to keep himself from just rubbing off against John's lower back" because again he puts John's feelings and needs before his own.
My favorite part of this story is when John asks Rodney “Does it hurt?”(referring to anal intercourse). The breakdown of barriers there, the fact that John feels comfortable letting Rodney know he’s nervous and openly seeks reassurance from him, and Rodney's careful answer, reassuring but honest, just kills me every time I read it. It’s all about trust and intimacy here, too.
This kink seems particularly difficult to write well. I've seen very few d/s stories that work for me. Telesilla is able to show one character dominating and even humiliating another without ever losing the feeling of caring and intimacy.
So, to anyone who managed to stick with my not terribly original thoughts this far, what do you think about these stories? What do you look for in kink? Link me to your favorites and tell me why you like them.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-13 08:38 pm (UTC)Aliens made them do it is one of my guilty pleasures -- I love the fall out of the forced physical intimacy leading to greater emtional connection.
My reading choices are pretty vanilla. I have to think about which ones are kink before I link them!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-14 01:51 pm (UTC)AMTDI-yeah, the emotional fallout is the interesting part to me, too.
I'm afraid I'm not very discriminating in what I read, whatever is closest to my eye is it. And I have an unfortunate compulsion to keep reading even when something is awful. Like, I'll be on page 490 of some god-awful 500 page book and I'm still saying to myself in some insane form of optimism "maybe it will get better."
Plus I'm addicted to SGA storyfinders. All someone has to do is mention a story, it could be the most ridiculous story summary imaginable, and I immediately feel like I HAVE TO READ IT MAYBE IT WILL BE REALLY GOOD!