Poll, because I am curious.

[jmtorres]

Nominally straight people I know keep freaking out when I write or request het. Which I find baffling, as a mostly-lesbian who writes and reads about boys and girls fucking themselves and each other all the time. Therefore, I present: a poll.

You should only answer ONE of the questions--the one with the most accurate description of your sexuality. The other ones, you leave alone. Except the last one, which is for everyone. Capisce?

ETA: Esoteric option means your readings *exclude* standard het, mslash and femslash. If you read weird stuff *as well as* the standards, go one up.

[Poll #445260]

I have too much free time.

Comments

[sorion.livejournal.com]

I have too much free time.

Obviously ;-P

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

It was mostly copy/paste.

[stariceling.livejournal.com]

Do we get cheese now? *hopeful*

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Cheddar, American, Swiss, or Pepperjack?

[inarticulate.livejournal.com]

I feel I should clarify; I'm going to change my answer to "all genres" even though I mostly read mslash and femslash due to the people whose writing I read. I adore genderfuck, though I haven't found any really good stuff for my favorite het pairings, so I read most of my het that way. And gen? There isn't enough of it in the world. Mmm.

Off to change answer and pimp this poll in my journal, because, damn, now I'm curious. :)

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

even though I mostly read mslash and femslash due to the people whose writing I read.

*nodding* Femslash doesn't pop up a lot on my standard reading list, but I read it with as much interest as I read anything else.

[green-fae.livejournal.com]

That's wierd that your friends would wig on you reading het. Real life is real life and
fantasy is fantasy, people against pr0n don't seem to get that distinction.
Although there is overlap, a lot of people of various sexual preferences
will read/see/watch/think of things they would not do in real life.

As for femmeslash, I'm not against it, but have very rarely read femmeslash that did anything for me. I'm not sure if its the pairings, or the writers.
(Sam/Janet doesn't do it for me, no matter who writes it, and I've seen good pairings
ruined by bad writing. Odd since a lot of women write slash, either they have different preferences than I do,
or a greater understanding of men's equipment than their own)
Recs on decent hot femmeslash in any fandom are welcome. who knows,
you might convert me. :)
(well, come close to converting me. I love my gay boys and always have)

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

A lot of it is the fandom. WK is not a very het-friendly fandom.

Plus, there's the long-standing argument of whether the thing I'm writing is sicker for being het or for being incest ;-)

[maryavatar.livejournal.com]

I'm very 'ew... het' when it comes to reading. Which I suppose is weird, because around 20% of the stuff I write is het. I don't read femmeslash much either, and around 10% of my writing is f/f.

I'm full of contradictions.

And I just remembered... I read both straight and gay romance novels.

And I love hentai. The stuff with tentacles and schoolgirls.

And despite being mostly straight, I really like looking at boobies. And thinking about playing with them.

Okay, I probably filled out that thing completely wrong.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Heh. *pats* Don't worry about it.

*saves total rage for the person who clicked esoteric on every single question*

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

If I seek out a new writer, it's for slash. But I'll read anything if it's by a good writer.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

I think most good writers don't stick to just one thing--they challenge themselves to try doing new thigns.

[helleboredoll.livejournal.com]

Dude, I wasn't one of the ones who 'freaked out', was I? I was mostly just intending to be silly, since in my RL people are all 'ewwww slash', so it's nice to be able to kinda mix it up in the fen and go over-the-top with 'ewwww het!' It does make sense to me though, that female straights who like to read boy-on-boy slash would squick a bit on het or femme slash 'cause they're supposed to be only into boys, so anything that makes them think sexually about other women isn't supposed to be appealing. I actually do enjoy well-written het fic; I just prefer the boyslash for all the usual assorted sociological reasons.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

It's entirely possibly I may have taken you more seriously than you meant on account of having *other* people hetfreak on me.

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

mslash, femslash, het, gen, threesomes, moresomes... it's all good.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Mmm...

[geekturnedvamp.livejournal.com]

I used to think there was no such thing as "hetslash", but I'mn starting to reconsider that position. (I don't mean the way people sometimes use that as an archive notation for stories that include both het and slash, eg. HetSlash, but het that is coded very queer or approaches gender roles in a way that's not just unusual for het but actually contains many dynamics that are similar to those in slash relationships... and when I can be more specific than that, I might even post about it).

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Strap-ons: When Slashers Write Het :-)

[minotaurs.livejournal.com]

I couldn't answer this, as none of the options worked. I am a gay man who *only* reads mslash. "Mostly" isn't strong enough... (yeah, I know, I'm a Taurus, and stubborn about stuff).

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Very stubborn :-)

[hederahelix.livejournal.com]

I actually really dislike the label "gay" for women, so I wasn't thrilled about identifying as a mostly gay woman. I consider myself a very queer dyke, but I think I got what you are asking, so I went ahead and answered under that category.

I also answered that I read m/m, femmeslash, and het--only because after too long in popslash and around LOTRPS people, when you say other I think about sex between people and dogs, people and couches, men and hobbits, and humans and lions or sheep. And while I've read those stories out of curiosity, it's not a kink of mine. I never thought about other applying to things like genderfuck, which is a kink of mine.

But what I didn't have an answer for was that there are certain het pairings that read as somehow queer to me (Crighton and Aeryn from Farscape for example) that I enjoy. They make me think of that line of Pat Califia's that two queer people of the opposite gender having sex means that the idea of straight can get considerably bent.

Also, I don't read as much femmeslash as I would like to, but that's because a lot of what's out there doesn't do it for me. I would absolutely read more femmeslash if there were more really good femmeslash written, but my real kink is good writing, and I'll pretty much read anything if it's well-written and it pushes my fic kink buttons, so the orientation of the persons in the pairing is far less important to me than the overall effect of the fic itself.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

two queer people of the opposite gender having sex means that the idea of straight can get considerably bent.

And this is one of my favorite things ever. *grins* I like genderfuckery too. I like bodyswapping het couples. I really love when telepaths pop up in my fandoms, because they can put on other people like frocks or trous.

[nightchik.livejournal.com]

Gah! I love your icon. That is the perfect meta icon.

I chose mostly mslash because I generally (generally) prefer slash porn, but I like both slash and het stories. I couldn't decide which to go with.

there's the long-standing argument of whether the thing I'm writing is sicker for being het or for being incest.

*facepalm*

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

*grins at Spock icon* So baffled by our ways.

*facepalm*

*laugh* My community is kind of slash-intensive.

[jadelennox]

aaargh. Opera interprets "tab over a radio button" as "now you must select one and can't bak out, ever". I am not, in fact, a man; ignore the fake vote there.

*facepalm*

-jl, coming in from su_herald to mess up your poll results.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

Heh. At least you didn't vote in *all* of them like one person did...

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Straight people have no idea why I, a lesbian, would love m/m slash, but I don't really expect them to understand. I love it, so what? I love femslash, too. The het sort of freaks me out (esp. when the writer's story header fails to warn about het content), but each to his or her own taste.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

I recall having an initial "OMG people write about characters being gay? JOYYYY!" moment, and being thrilled regardless of the gender of the slash. Definitely a political element to my enjoyment. But it's hot too :-)

[hetrez.livejournal.com]

Strangely, nobody (at the time of my filling out the poll) picked gen. I wonder why that is.

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

*cackles* I barely remember to put gen *on* the poll.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I put mostly m/m, but I do read het and femslash on occasion; I'm just more interested in guys. The only time I'm against het is when it's a Mary Sue. :p

[judas-river.livejournal.com]

To clarify my answer: I read mostly mslash/yaoi simply because most of my fandoms are almost entirely that. I selected the "all" option (3rd up from bottom) because I love femslash/yuri almost as much, despite rarely being able to read it. Het and other things are all good as well, as long as they are very well written.

May I have some cheese now, please? I prefer either Monterey Jack or American :D

[judas-river.livejournal.com]

Um, since you're probably wondering how I got here...

I was poking around mctabby's journal, and I saw that one of her icons was made by rabican and went to check out hir journal. S/he mentioned niqaeli in hir user info, so I decided to see what that person's journal looks like. And s/he mentioned you :)

[ann89103.livejournal.com]

My favorite fandoms usually don't offer female characters I find interesting, much less want to read stories for. In WK only Neu fascinates me; others like Ouka and Sakura I like killing off far too much. I've only seen the anime for YnM, not the manga, so no female characters of interest there.

My interest in het in gaining ground again, thanks to One Piece.

For me, I like sparks, confrontation, whether though action or simply snarky dialogue: most of my fandoms offer that with their male characters only, so that's what I read about.

[holde-maid.livejournal.com]

Actually, at the moment I don't read much at all. Too busy writing my own stuff and working. At the time I read most, it was usually a wild mix, though there was a LOT more mslash available. Would have liked to add more femslash to the mix.

Anyhow, to me it's more important that the story's well-written than what exactly the genre calls itself. (Sure, I don't exactly go for strange things like people making out with dead bodies, but I guess you get my drift.) From time to time even a PWP ("Plot? What Plot?" - it took me a while to figure that out. *LOL*) story can be fun, if well done. However, I do prefer it when it makes a difference WHO is involved.