Not done yet, apparently

[rivkat]

Thoughts inspired by cryptoxin's post, among others: No doubt where you stand on Recent LJ Events depends in part on where you sit. Here's where I sit: I don't consider myself a member of HP fandom, but my primary fandom for the last few years has been Smallville.

Here are some pictures of people the narrative told us were 15:

That's the poster advertising the show, plastered everywhere in public in mid-2001. Then there's the episode "Nicodemus":



So we're supposed to desire them -- bluntly, we're supposed to fantasize about fucking them -- but we're not supposted to say that. And we're not supposed to share our fantasies, because that would be sick. Contradictory and hypocritical are words you could use about mainstream depictions of adolescent sexuality -- which is not to accuse anyone in this debate, but to point out that the American social context is, at best, confusing. And to say that I'm basically with coffeeandink; one of the things I want from fandom as a community of women is the ability to say, "hey, that emperor [or in this case, kid] isn't wearing any clothes!"

NYU law professor Amy Adler wrote a very interesting piece, The Perverse Law of Child Pornography, available here, arguing that our cultural and legal discourses about child porn contribute to the further sexualization of children. I recommend it to those interested in the theoretical side of all this.

Comments

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

So I came to fanfic with a certain investment in -- well, let's call it something like empowerment and self-determination for adolescents viz. sexuality, paired with a desire to resist the normalization of adult (male) consumption of sexualized images of (female) teenagers. And in fanfic, I found a certain normalization of adult (female) consumption of sexualized images of (male) teenagers. And I wasn't sure what to do with that. I can recognize the various ways where these phenomena aren't exactly parallel or analogous, but I'm still troubled by the residual intersections.

Excellent points, superbly put.

Since I just found myself writing a 16 year old Faramir (and the whole perception of Frodo as more Elijah Wood's age than the canon text's age 50 is rife in my fandom), I know what you mean.

And yet, as you say, the phenomena aren't parallel: although the number of stories of adult female teachers sexually involved with male students has gone up (or at least reporting has gone up in recent years), I'd guess (I have no proof) that the percentage is still quite low compared to adult male teachers/female students.

Just as I would wager the adult males involved with much younger females is much greater...and since the age difference between a minor and an adult can be only a year or so, well--that "barely legal" community somebody linked to the other day (not threatened with deletion) was scary as hell.

The confusion of six year olds with sixteen year olds is also frustrating as all get out.

I guess I would hope that socially the empowerment and education of young women and men would be seen as more important that it is (and living in Texas, well, don't even get me started).

However, the whole area is so complex--I appreciate seeing someone willing to so clearly lay out and think about the contradictions which I imagine many of us share.

And yes, I would completely oppose any attempt to suppress chan art and fic.

I mostly stay away from the HP fics because of my own major resistance to anything involving teachers and students, whether or not the student is legal or not. However, I there are issues even within LOTR fandom, especially LOTRips, so it's not just HP fandom.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

One of the aspects of the HP series that I've seen so rarely discussed is that in a way, JKR wrote the equivilent of a teacher/student relationship into her books, at least age-wise, when she has Remus Lupin (who's a classmate of Severus Snape's) marry Nymphadora Tonks, who was one of Snape's students. Had Remus been teaching at Hogwarts four years earlier than he did, he would have been Tonks' teacher, and before they became romantically involved in Book Six, there were tonnes of completely canon-compliant fics that had him teaching Muggle Studies or assisting another professor or as a library assistant during her first or second year. So while I can see the issue being an issue when one participant is in school, JKR has strongly implied that 14-17 year age differences are fine when one party is, say, 22 or 24.