Kink mapping
Jan. 5th, 2008 09:35 pmI was thinking today about slash tropes that I love and ones that don't do it for me, the way you do, when suddenly it occurred to me that a whole bunch of the ones I love the best are actually a sort of double cluster around a single zingy center: a gap between intimacy and sex, so that you have one for a time while you yearn for the other one.
Here: Sex first with no intimacy. That would cover:
• Sex pollen/pon farr/accidental aphrodisiac
• Aliens make them do it
• Undercover as gay (well, OK, that's usually just making out without intimacy, but still)
• Marriage of convenience/forced marriage
• Fuckbuddies + secret yearning
I suppose that if I mostly read het, I'd have to add "sleeping together only to conceive a child."
And if you turn it around -- unusually high levels of intimacy without sex -- you get:
• Hypothermia
• Last two people on earth/safehouse/forced into hiding with only each other
• Some forms of hurt/comfort
• Some forms of slavefic
• Truth serum/character rendered unable to lie/Truth or Dare
• Telepathy/bonding
• Circumstances force them to share a bed
• Body swapping
I mean -- that's a great list! That's like 60% of the stuff I love, right there.
(Now I don't understand why I don't care for rentboy stories. They fit squarely into Category One up there.)
Now you: What does your kink terrain look like?
Here: Sex first with no intimacy. That would cover:
• Sex pollen/pon farr/accidental aphrodisiac
• Aliens make them do it
• Undercover as gay (well, OK, that's usually just making out without intimacy, but still)
• Marriage of convenience/forced marriage
• Fuckbuddies + secret yearning
I suppose that if I mostly read het, I'd have to add "sleeping together only to conceive a child."
And if you turn it around -- unusually high levels of intimacy without sex -- you get:
• Hypothermia
• Last two people on earth/safehouse/forced into hiding with only each other
• Some forms of hurt/comfort
• Some forms of slavefic
• Truth serum/character rendered unable to lie/Truth or Dare
• Telepathy/bonding
• Circumstances force them to share a bed
• Body swapping
I mean -- that's a great list! That's like 60% of the stuff I love, right there.
(Now I don't understand why I don't care for rentboy stories. They fit squarely into Category One up there.)
Now you: What does your kink terrain look like?
(no subject)
Date: 1/6/08 07:10 pm (UTC)