Yeah! I feel like f/f tends as a rule to describe women's bodies much more positively. I find het often tends to idealize the female lead into what they assume the reader wants to fantasize herself as, the "curvy in all the right places" wasp-waisted waif with amazing hair and some not-even-a-real-flaw flaw to be a little self conscious over. I've also read such a surprising amount of romance novel and het fanfic stuff where the protag starts out as slightly chubby, then through Hardships loses weight and emerges like the ugly duckling as ~beautiful~. It's very clearly tapping into an iddy fantasy of its own, but somehow, I think this might make a lot of women feel even more inadequate. It's not that lesbians never have body issues, I could tell some Stories, but in general I get this feeling that wlw are somehow more interested in women who actually exist, rather than the perfect fantasy pin-up girl you're supposed to wish you were.
I've also never been fond of the "Let's Compare Kissing Men and Women" thing, because when I'm kissing someone, the last thing I want to be happening is them running a tally comparing me against everyone else they've ever kissed, I don't care if they're bi or bicurious or what--I'm kissing you, be here, kissing me! Maybe after some makeouts you kind of run an analysis on what just happened and go hey, this is probably an orientation thing, I have Feelings that I didn't know existed or that I wanted to be there before but just weren't. But while you're kissing, please, just focus on who you're with!
I like m/m too, as do several of my lesbian friends, but I think I'm the sort of lesbian who ends up being even more into het than m/m. Sometimes it's "I just love the character chemistry," but sometimes, honestly, I just paste myself onto the dude and enjoy the lady. If a video game only has het romance options, I always play as a man. I actually knew quite a few women in an old het-centric fandom I was in who were like that, who mostly shipped het but would privately say they found men boring. (They varied quite a bit in orientation--from gay to bi to straight but can see the appeal in girls kissing.) There's an assumption in het fandom that it's all about how dreamy the guy is, and if anything is done with the girl it's just to show off how "spunky" and "useful" and "resourceful" she is, so you don't feel ashamed of relating to her. Which is such a waste! It's one of the reason I like a lot of Disney films--they're het, but it's all about the princess's character arc, she just kind of gets thrown a boyfriend as a trophy for winning in the end.
And a lot of the same things hold true that are true for lesbians and m/m--you can get caught up in the dynamics of their relationship and the strength of their feelings for each other. The sex is hot because it's sex and they're enjoying it! It's exciting to read about different kinds of sex you haven't had and don't intend to have. The distance from your own life can make it easier to enjoy without projecting too much, if you don't like projecting. You can tell pretty people are pretty even if you personally wouldn't bone them. And of course all that stuff about having women described and treated so positively is, well, sexy! It seems a weird thing to go on about, and I don't mind that f/f spaces often center wlw, it's just that when that gets used to say, "oh how sad, you're such a minority with no crossover appeal at all," I have to go, blatantly untrue!
And aside from which, a significant chunk of fans self-report as bi on surveys. I'm sure this varies from space to space, and you might find Deep Straight territory somewhere in the het fandoms on FFN or Wattpad, but I also think part of it is that het romance novels exist and are thriving, so it's possible fandom is more attractive to readers who aren't getting their needs met elsewhere, regardless of what those needs are.
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Re: wank containment area
Date: 2018-08-10 05:57 pm (UTC)Yeah! I feel like f/f tends as a rule to describe women's bodies much more positively. I find het often tends to idealize the female lead into what they assume the reader wants to fantasize herself as, the "curvy in all the right places" wasp-waisted waif with amazing hair and some not-even-a-real-flaw flaw to be a little self conscious over. I've also read such a surprising amount of romance novel and het fanfic stuff where the protag starts out as slightly chubby, then through Hardships loses weight and emerges like the ugly duckling as ~beautiful~. It's very clearly tapping into an iddy fantasy of its own, but somehow, I think this might make a lot of women feel even more inadequate. It's not that lesbians never have body issues, I could tell some Stories, but in general I get this feeling that wlw are somehow more interested in women who actually exist, rather than the perfect fantasy pin-up girl you're supposed to wish you were.
I've also never been fond of the "Let's Compare Kissing Men and Women" thing, because when I'm kissing someone, the last thing I want to be happening is them running a tally comparing me against everyone else they've ever kissed, I don't care if they're bi or bicurious or what--I'm kissing you, be here, kissing me! Maybe after some makeouts you kind of run an analysis on what just happened and go hey, this is probably an orientation thing, I have Feelings that I didn't know existed or that I wanted to be there before but just weren't. But while you're kissing, please, just focus on who you're with!
I like m/m too, as do several of my lesbian friends, but I think I'm the sort of lesbian who ends up being even more into het than m/m. Sometimes it's "I just love the character chemistry," but sometimes, honestly, I just paste myself onto the dude and enjoy the lady. If a video game only has het romance options, I always play as a man. I actually knew quite a few women in an old het-centric fandom I was in who were like that, who mostly shipped het but would privately say they found men boring. (They varied quite a bit in orientation--from gay to bi to straight but can see the appeal in girls kissing.) There's an assumption in het fandom that it's all about how dreamy the guy is, and if anything is done with the girl it's just to show off how "spunky" and "useful" and "resourceful" she is, so you don't feel ashamed of relating to her. Which is such a waste! It's one of the reason I like a lot of Disney films--they're het, but it's all about the princess's character arc, she just kind of gets thrown a boyfriend as a trophy for winning in the end.
And a lot of the same things hold true that are true for lesbians and m/m--you can get caught up in the dynamics of their relationship and the strength of their feelings for each other. The sex is hot because it's sex and they're enjoying it! It's exciting to read about different kinds of sex you haven't had and don't intend to have. The distance from your own life can make it easier to enjoy without projecting too much, if you don't like projecting. You can tell pretty people are pretty even if you personally wouldn't bone them. And of course all that stuff about having women described and treated so positively is, well, sexy! It seems a weird thing to go on about, and I don't mind that f/f spaces often center wlw, it's just that when that gets used to say, "oh how sad, you're such a minority with no crossover appeal at all," I have to go, blatantly untrue!
And aside from which, a significant chunk of fans self-report as bi on surveys. I'm sure this varies from space to space, and you might find Deep Straight territory somewhere in the het fandoms on FFN or Wattpad, but I also think part of it is that het romance novels exist and are thriving, so it's possible fandom is more attractive to readers who aren't getting their needs met elsewhere, regardless of what those needs are.