Reflection and Analysis

Kink - When Not Shaming Became Silencing Discussion (7/1/24)

One of the long-understood etiquette within fandom is not shaming individuals for their kink preferences.

Think of this etiquette as not shaming women who enjoy Harlequin Romance for reading or even writing the genre. The irony, as bad of a rep Harlequin Romance books get, as the publisher says, "Harlequin Romance books are low sensuality: they're high on emotional and sensual tension by have no explicit sexual detail (keep the bedroom door firmly closed!)"

However, if Harlequin Romance isn't explicit in the material, where then does the distaste for them come from? Why are they considered cheap literature?

Well, they are cheap literature in that there is a focus on quantity over quality, feeding into the most basic fetish, romance. Remember that the company that produces these novels was founded in 1949 and is, in truth, in a similar vein as the Dime Novel or Penny Dreadfuls. According to Wikipedia's page on dime novels, "In the modern age, the term dime novel has been used to refer to quickly written, lurid potboilers, usually as a pejorative to describe a sensationalized but superficial literary work."

This isn't to say these works hold absolutely no merit, but as I've already said, there is a definite focus on quantity over quality. If the works hold dubious quality, where, then what are the merits of such works? Affordability for one thing, but we're also talking about reading material that the working class could afford to read.

However, the shaming of women for reading Harlequin Romance instead of the proper classic literature expected of women has to do as well with controlling women's sources of sexual pleasure. We're talking about works that, as the company says, "have no explicit sexual detail."

What, though, does this have to do with kink and fandom?

In fact, what is kink?

If we look up what kink is outside of fandom, we have a term that specifically refers to a sexual preference that isn't conventional but inside of fandom--

Well, that's not what kink means.

More specifically, when we're talking about kink we're referring to something called "narrative kink", which according to Fanlore, "a narrative kink is an element that the reader or viewer is especially interested in, sometimes on a visceral level, not unlike the traditional meaning of a (sexual) kink being something one may find particularly exciting."

From here, well--

Don't shame people for their kink is actually about the traditional meaning and not narrative kink, something I think has gotten majorly neglected in the conversation as has the fact there was also this expectation that what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom and isn't shoved into people's faces.

Narrative kink, though, isn't something that's happening behind closed doors. In fact, something as benign as hurt/comfort is, in fact, a narrative kink, so it's important to recognize everyone has some narrative kink. Yet, when we talk in fandom about not shaming someone for their kink, we definitely mean it in the traditional sense -- sort of.

BDSM, of course, makes that list, and if someone enjoys reading stories involving two consenting adults who are into BDSM, they shouldn't be shamed for their kink.

Right?

However, things have morphed from not shaming people for their kink to silencing discussion of these kinks. For example, a reader whose own personal kink is two consenting adults being into BDSM is being told they can't call out writers when the narrative clearly portrays that it is not two consenting adults, that there is, for some reason, a lack of consent going on without being told, "Stop yucking on my yum!"