Take Clothes Off As Directed by Helenish

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

Take Clothes Off As Directed by helenish is NC-17, BDSM themed, and an unauthorized homage set in the alternate universe created by xanthelj in General & Dr. Sheppard and Coming Home.

I read Helen's story both as a sly, clever reflection of male/female relations in Western society, and a look at the potential pitfalls of a society with an institutionalized BDSM lifestyle. And it's an interesting contrast to Xanthe's stories and style.

First off, I have to say I feel kind of cheeky posting about this, because I've only read parts of General and Dr. Sheppard, and I haven't yet decided whether or not to read Coming Home. I have some strong feelings about BDSM, and (of course) that colors how I read stories with that subject matter. I think BDSM in the bedroom is a kink, and I take a live and let live attitude toward kink. BDSM (and Domestic Discipline) as a lifestyle is something else, and it's something which for personal reasons makes me uncomfortable.

Having said all that, I think I read enough of General & Dr. Sheppard to get something of a feel for the writing, and I think it's an interesting contrast. Xanthe's writing feels lush and emotional, sweeping the reader along like a fictional Tchaikovsky. Helen's writing is more spare, quirky and at times almost uncomfortable, more like, say, Erik Satie. And I think these different styles suit the different stories very well. I can see these two styles/stories existing in the same universe, the lush, operatic story told of people who are happy and suited to their lives in this society, and the quirky, sadder story of people who don't quite fit and aren't quite as happy.

I found Helen's story to be very sad, the only hopeful part being that John had finally found in Rodney a partner who loved him and would treat him the way he wants/deserves to be treated. I'm not sure if it was Helen's intent, but I read this as John not really being a sub per se (nor Rodney being much of a top), but both of them forced into the roles by the rigid hierarchy of their society, and going along the best they could. I read it as John being the sort of person who wants to play BDSM games in the bedroom, not live it as a lifestyle, and the only reason he wasn't crushed by this society is because he's a stubborn, contrary bastard.

I was almost nauseated by the way Elizabeth so obviously and earnestly felt she was doing the best, right thing for John with her inappropriate 'discipline', when in actuality she was more of a hindrance, just one more thing to be ignored/overcome in John's attempts to be himself and to do his job. Because being routinely beaten, undermined and humiliated is just the downside of being a sub who's trying to do his chosen job. (And, of course, he wouldn't have these problems if he hadn't got above himself and stayed in his proper place.) It felt very realistic, and therefore very unsettling, to see just how easy it was to strip John of his dignity and humanity, and turn him into a second-class citizen, essentially a slave. And perhaps it's all the more unsettling because there are still people in the world who are slaves, and who are routinely treated in degrading, disrespectful ways, and they too have no choice but to suck it up and endure.

Although it's a bit of a slap in the face to overlay this dynamic on our society and see the sub=women angle, I think (I hope) things are not quite that bad for women anymore. At least not in first world Western societies. It's also good to remind myself that fantasy universes aside, most of the people living rigid BDSM lifestyles are doing so because they want to, not because they have no choice. Nevertheless, I think this story is going to stay with me for a long time.

Comments

[jadelennox]

It's interesting -- before this post in the cutting board, I was going to make a post on this topic in my own journal.

I see these as two fundamentally different worlds. Xanthe created a fantasy world, which, for the purposes of the fantasy, presupposed that openness about sex and near-blindness to gender would remove many of the interpersonal problems that are present in our world. Helen's story does something very different -- it uses Xanthe's story as a jumping off point for a story which questions our society's gender roles, gender politics, and general tendency to sexually-related bigotry. In Helen's story, openness about sex and blindness to gender just shifts human bigotry to another topic. I think it's very possible to read Helen's story as an exposé of gender politics in our world, as science -fiction stories so often provide such exposés by changing subtle details about reality. But I don't read the story that way. I read it more as an exposé of human bigotry in general.

Moreover, I see it as another look into our conception of gender itself. She has a society in which people are either tops or bottoms (I don't recall if she brings in the switches that exist in Xanthe's story). And yet two characters, John and Rodney, clearly have personalities that don't fit so neatly into that binary. Even the existence of the "switch" role assumes that people still at any given point in time fallen to one line of the binary or the other. To me, this clearly exposes a dysfunctionality with any assigned binary labeling -- including the assigned binary labeling which, in Xanthe's story, isn't presented as nearly as dysfunctional as our society's entanglement of gender with sex.

So here I'm about to make an incredibly dysfunctional binary labeling: Xanthe's story can be seen as more a pure fantasy, where Helen's takes on more of the role of speculative fiction, using a fantastic premise to shed light on society.

Does that make any sense?

[september1967.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. Xanthe's stories was never meant to be a launching point for Helen's social commentary though and I wish she hadn't even brought up Xanthe's stories at all. It certainly wouldn't have left a neat little opportunity for others to express their dislike of her stories.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. Xanthe's stories was never meant to be a launching point for Helen's social commentary though

Well, at the risk of being argumentative: "Stargate: Atlantis" was never meant to be a launching point for Xanthe's romantic gay BDSM porn, but she wrote it anyway, and she had every right to do so. We can't choose where our inspiration comes from, and what the original author meant usually doesn't come into it at all.

Chiming in late...

[zyna-kat.livejournal.com]

Thank you, you made me laugh out loud after a very stressful day. I find it fascinating how different fandoms react to the idea of one piece of fanfic inspiring another. (Oddly, some of my favorite fanfic from The Professionals is inspired by other fanfiction. Shite, some of my favorite stories *ever*. Makes me want to re-read all of Helen Raven's stuff.)

Debate by fiction

[taverymate.livejournal.com]

Debate by fiction has a long, long tradition in fan fiction - going back to very early days of Star Trek for media fandom (early 70s) and even earlier for SF fanzine fiction (back to the 40s if not earlier). You seem to be conflating the idea of public criticism with being "not feminist" (which you reference in several of your previous comments) and that is so far from my understanding of feminism and its role in critical thinking that I cannot begin to fathom how to address your comments.

Re: Debate by fiction

[september1967.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends on where you draw the line at when and where criticism is appreciated, expected and wanted.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

The world is not going to end if people express their dislike of someone's story. Really, it's okay if people don't like the same things. It's even okay if they say so out loud.

[september1967.livejournal.com]

Yes, its always ok as long as its not about you or your friends.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

It's fine when it's about anyone. As an author, I'd be happy to hear any sort of discussion about my work, and I hate that people like you want to quash any sort of disagreement because you think everyone's some fragile flower who can't bear to think that someone doesn't like the same things they do.

[september1967.livejournal.com]

Hm, no I said where its appropriate. Is it appropriate for someone to bring up another author's work on your LJ? If it is, I hope you don't have to be in the untenable place of explaining someone else's criticism on your LJ space.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Of course it is. It's appropriate anywhere. Why should I or anyone have to explain it? Some people are not going to like things. Is that so hard to accept? I don't like the sort of fic Xanthe writes. I can tell that without even reading it. It's not hurting anyone to say that. We're all adults, not babies.

[september1967.livejournal.com]

Thanks for clarifying why I have the issues I do have with that story. If it is appropriate for others to dislike another work, then it should be appropriate for me to criticize people using someone else's story to do so about another story.

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

It's totally appropriate for you to dislike Helen's story. It's totally appropriate for anyone to like or dislike any or all of the stories referenced in this discussion. If people are are using the stories to criticize other people then that's another issue and nothing to do with this community or this discussion. We're here to talk about the stories, not criticize people or make assumptions about their motives.

[september1967.livejournal.com]

As I said from the beginning, the story wasn't about feminism at all to me. I said it was to me about relationships. So far no one has taken me up on that.

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

I understand that you don't see feminism in Helen's story, but a lot of readers do, and they're finding it an interesting topic of discussion. However, I've seen thoughts about the relationship in several of the comments posted here.

I don't want to be condescending or give unwanted advice, but you might reply to some of those with your own thoughts on the relationship issues in order to spark discussion. Or post a comment with some details of your thoughts about the relationship. I've noticed that a lot of times people will only respond to one or two points in a comment/post that touches on several different things. If you make the comment only about what you want to discuss, then the replies are more likely to be related to that topic.

[september1967.livejournal.com]

I am fine with others finding feminism where I don't. I did notice the discrepancy between how a sub was treated in Helen's story and how a top was treated. The big difference was I didn't find enough evidence in the story to convince me that was the point. I dismissed it because it seemed highly inappropriate to assign feminist issues about our society on a fictional D/s culture. It leads to all sorts of inappropriate responses because it was referring to another story in which it had nothing whatsoever to do with such a topic. I still don't understand the purpose in bringing that other story up in the first place. I concentrated on the relationship because that is how I related to the story since it in fact did bring up another story in which the relationship was the key issue.

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

I still don't understand the purpose in bringing that other story up in the first place.

I believe the other story was brought up because Helen's story was written in the universe created by Xanthe. If it hadn't been brought up in Helen's summary, people still would have made comparisons between the stories because it's the same universe. Nobody else in SGA has written a universe like that one, and Xanthe's stories are very well known. It's not like nobody would've recognized it if Helen hadn't said anything--in that case they would have been bitching about Helen riffing off Xanthe's creation without attribution or acknowledgement.

What I don't understand is why you keep bringing this up here again and again. Helen's summary and whether or not it was responsible for other people's criticism of Xanthe's stories has nothing to do with the stories themselves, which is what this discussion is supposed to be about.

[september1967.livejournal.com]

The inappropriate responses has to do with how others view D/s. Are you now saying that I can't bring up the fact that when someone writes D/s in a story in such a way that allows for inappropriate responses?

[millefiori.livejournal.com]

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Helen's story is not about D/s. It's a metaphor. An allegory. A parable. Its literal words are not what it's about. If you're looking for responses that have to do with the actual practice of D/s or with D/s as portrayed by Xanthe, I'm afraid you're going to find all the responses inappropriate, because the people talking about Helen's story are not talking about D/s.

[september1967.livejournal.com]

So you are saying because I disagree with the notion that the story is an allegory about the way women were treated and in some cases are, therefore I'm the one giving the inappropriate response. Fair enough.

[dkwilliams.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid you're going to find all the responses inappropriate, because the people talking about Helen's story are not talking about D/s.

Hmm, I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with this part of what you said, although not necessarily the rest (I see it as an allegory/parable, too). A number of comments have been about how this would be how a real BDSM universe would probably work, seeing as human beings tend to have to find someone to oppress\blame\denigrate. Which is unfortunately true. So as far as that goes, people *are* talking about aspects of BDSM like D/s. Of course, whether or not this is how a real BDSM universe would work out is speculative since maybe we'd all evolve differently if we'd been brought up in that kind of universe. ("A spanked society is a polite society", to paraphrase Lazarus Long?)

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

Thank you, M, for managing your discussion so well in my absence--I'm a day sleeper and not always around when discussion is taking place. I appreciate your graceful handling of this thread.

[missmolly9.livejournal.com]

As an author, I'd be happy to hear any sort of discussion about my work...

*blinks*

*boggles*

I'm frankly skeptical of writers who make claims like this. I have yet to find an author who is happy to hear unfavorable discussion. I'm not sure how asserting something so obviously ridiculous helps to create an atmosphere where people discuss writing openly. Mostly it just makes reasonable people roll their eyes.

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

This is a discussion for another venue. If you'd like to debate the truth of K's statement with her, please email her or comment in her journal.

[dkwilliams.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that makes perfect sense. I like that view of these stories - and the interesting discussions arising from it. To me, that's what makes good stories, that people find things to discuss about them other than "OMG! their luv is so tru!" Reading this discussion over here restores my faith in human intelligence.