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kink_bingo this year and what interests me most about this bingo is the broad interpretation of 'kink'. Fanworks do not have to feature sex and can be G rated.
This excellent post gives some good ideas about how to put the focus on the prompted kink at the heart of the piece… in such a way that either the characters, or the fanwork, or the audience, or any combination of the above, are interested in/stimulated by/gratified by the kink in question.
It makes a distinction between 'erotic' and 'sexy'. Eroticism can be applied in a far wider context. A kink can often be about making strange or unusual connections between culture, body, and mind, the author says, and describes how eroticism can be sensual and/or intense. The sensual aspects are all about the body and the senses; the feel of a whip or the smell of essential oils.
Intensity is about making the erotic connection to an object or situation – 'fetish' is the word that comes to mind, though the term is not used atkink_bingo due to its troubled medicalized history. Intensity is more about the outer and symbolic rather the body. It's why a character gets turned on by a man in uniform or by shaving their legs – the meaning behind the object/action rather than merely the thing itself.
That's intensity: intensity of emotion and intensity of physical sensation. Your characters might experience intense pain, or intense pleasure, or intense interest, or intense disgust, or intense tingling…but what those have in common, and what tends to make them kinky, is the intensity itself.
What especially interested me about this post was how the author linked it to something most if not all of us can relate to; fannish experience.
known, in some fannish circles, as "having feels" or simply "FEEEEEEEELS!" – the rush of emotions and physical sensations too overwhelming and powerful to even be described or enumerated…Fannishness is its own kind of fetishism, of course, and is often made fun of in popular culture in the same way that kink is made fun of. Fans are too intense, we are told, too focused on a particular object of desire; we allow the things we should only like – not love – to fill the entire frame of our existence and make us feel.
The post looks at how to make a kink the focus of the work, to capture the arousal it engenders – again, not necessarily sexually, but in a stirring of the senses. It concludes that to give erotic focus is to draw our attention to that kink, and encourage us to feel something about it; encourage us to feel, encourage us to experience, simply because the locus of our attention has changed.
It harks back to emotional bareness as opposed to merely bodily nakedness. It means not every kink is sexual, and in exploring with my own asexuality, sensuality, and kinkiness, that's very important to me.
kink_bingo this year and what interests me most about this bingo is the broad interpretation of 'kink'. Fanworks do not have to feature sex and can be G rated. This excellent post gives some good ideas about how to put the focus on the prompted kink at the heart of the piece… in such a way that either the characters, or the fanwork, or the audience, or any combination of the above, are interested in/stimulated by/gratified by the kink in question.
It makes a distinction between 'erotic' and 'sexy'. Eroticism can be applied in a far wider context. A kink can often be about making strange or unusual connections between culture, body, and mind, the author says, and describes how eroticism can be sensual and/or intense. The sensual aspects are all about the body and the senses; the feel of a whip or the smell of essential oils.
Intensity is about making the erotic connection to an object or situation – 'fetish' is the word that comes to mind, though the term is not used at
kink_bingo due to its troubled medicalized history. Intensity is more about the outer and symbolic rather the body. It's why a character gets turned on by a man in uniform or by shaving their legs – the meaning behind the object/action rather than merely the thing itself.That's intensity: intensity of emotion and intensity of physical sensation. Your characters might experience intense pain, or intense pleasure, or intense interest, or intense disgust, or intense tingling…but what those have in common, and what tends to make them kinky, is the intensity itself.
What especially interested me about this post was how the author linked it to something most if not all of us can relate to; fannish experience.
known, in some fannish circles, as "having feels" or simply "FEEEEEEEELS!" – the rush of emotions and physical sensations too overwhelming and powerful to even be described or enumerated…Fannishness is its own kind of fetishism, of course, and is often made fun of in popular culture in the same way that kink is made fun of. Fans are too intense, we are told, too focused on a particular object of desire; we allow the things we should only like – not love – to fill the entire frame of our existence and make us feel.
The post looks at how to make a kink the focus of the work, to capture the arousal it engenders – again, not necessarily sexually, but in a stirring of the senses. It concludes that to give erotic focus is to draw our attention to that kink, and encourage us to feel something about it; encourage us to feel, encourage us to experience, simply because the locus of our attention has changed.
It harks back to emotional bareness as opposed to merely bodily nakedness. It means not every kink is sexual, and in exploring with my own asexuality, sensuality, and kinkiness, that's very important to me.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-14 12:32 pm (UTC)I don't think I can ever really truly understand what it is to be asexual, being bisexual myself, but I know what it is to be something other than straight so I guess it's always interested me to read about sexuality. And reading things like this you've written makes me feel like I can understand my asexual friend I told you about better, and be more sensitive to her feelings.
So. Yes.
OT
Date: 2012-09-14 12:33 pm (UTC)*FANNISH REACTION*
/appropriate for this post?
Re: OT
Date: 2012-09-14 01:58 pm (UTC)Re: OT
Date: 2012-09-14 02:33 pm (UTC)Things I have become a fan of in the past two weeks, in case we share anymore new (to me) fandoms:
Grimm
New Amsterdam
Castle
Downton Abbey
John Doe
Revolution <-This one might be my new LotS. We'll have to see if the other episodes are as fantastic as the first.
*goes to look at your Grimm tag*
Re: OT
Date: 2012-09-14 02:47 pm (UTC)Thought naturally I have written fic in the past because this is me and this what I do.
(I've toyed with the idea of writing a fic where Castle reveals he's been sterilised because (1) he lucked out with awesome Alexis and (2) not getting any younger and (3) most importantly, kept getting hit with fake paternity suits. But I'm worried I'd get flamed like crazy for daring to suggest Castle could be in a relationship with Beckett that doesn't end in kids.)
I'll check out Revolution when it airs here on the strength of Spielberg and Elizabeth Mitchell :D
I'm falling in love with a UK show "Sinbad" which actually features a non-white washed Sinbad and his fairly diverse crew. Sinbad has family issues and a vague destiny, and there's magic, and it's cheesy and fun and Xena/LotS-like enough that I think it has potential. But it hasn't aired in the States yet (SyFy has just bought the rights though) so there's almost zero fandom!
Re: OT
Date: 2012-09-14 02:53 pm (UTC)YES PLEASE REVOLUTION I CAN'T. O_O Although I think the Rahls and the Lannisters have corrupted me for life, cause I halfway ship the main character with her uncle and I'm not as disturbed as I should be about that. >_>
Oooh Sinbad, you say? I'll have to try to catch it when it airs here, or maybe I can see some of it this Christmas when I'm in the UK. Oh, that's 98% sure happening btw. I bought my plane ticket.
Re: OT
Date: 2012-09-14 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-14 01:55 pm (UTC)There's a blog at DW written by a kinky asexual, chronicling her exploration of her kinks and, of late, a more romantic relationship that still isn't sexual in the pure sense of the word - http://verbs-not-nouns.dreamwidth.org/ - which I find interesting. Asexual is more complicated than 'non-sexual' I think.
What I'm mostly finding is that I now go 'this makes me feel x but not y, and that's okay - and I'm not the only one'. Fandom and the internet is great for making you feel less weird like that :D