Wrong End of the Stick
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Wrong End of the Stick |
| Author(s): | M. Fae Glasgow |
| Date(s): | 1991 |
| Length: | |
| Genre: | slash |
| Fandom: | The Professionals |
| External Links: | |
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Wrong End of the Stick is a Professionals Bodie/Doyle story written by M. Fae Glasgow.
It was published in Pæan to Priapus #3.
It, and Sebastian's story Perfect Day, was discussed at length in Strange Bedfellows (APA) #3 (1995):
After about 18 months of steady reading in Pros fandom, I feel as though I have some grasp of the basic literature, and have begun to think seriously about what I really like and what is distinctive in relation to the majority of stories I have read.
Following [B]'s thinking that slash is what women write when they write what they want, as well as being a dialog wherein different authors follow out similar scenarios and come to differing conclusions, a major part of that writing is encoding female experience. While slash is also a form of pornography and media-fan fiction, in my mind it is first and foremost women's writing. Certainly a portion of female sexual experience involves being penetrated, though I realize there are lesbian fans and others who would not put penetration at the center of female sexual experience.
Whatever individual practices we may engage in on our own, stereotypical women are the passive, emasculated bottom. I am interested in what qualities make women's writing about sex, and men having sex, different from men writing about men having sex, and women.
To make a contribution to the discussion on what slash is and why, I want to suggest that more recent slash writers, for example M. Fae Glasgow and Sebastian, in a way distinct from their predecessors H.G. and O. Yardley, wrestle with the idea of penetration as significant to the relationship in a way which was not done in the earlier Pros writing. That is, in a reversal of more traditional understandings of homosexual sex, with the penetrator having all the power in a given sexual relationship, M. Fae Glasgow's story "Wrong End of the Stick" and Sebastian's story Perfect Day portray the penetrated as having the greater power within the relationship. I do realize that both Sebastian and M. Fae have written stories which would support a different argument, but I am not making a universal statement about slash so much as an observation about this aspect of women's writing.
The summary of M. Fae's story follows: Bodie is hospitalized for appendicitis and, during a semi-conscious interlude, Doyle gives him a blow job. Once Bodie realizes that it was Doyle who gave him that pleasure as opposed to the night nurse, the sparks fly. After much posturing, Bodie fucks Doyle and Doyle kisses Bodie, sealing the beginning of their relationship. Short synopsis, I know, and overlooking more than one of her other points. That not withstanding, at the delicate moment, M. Fae's Doyle tells US he "Wanted to be driven to the edge by that hardness. To be stretched to his limit. He'd been fucked more times than he could remember, loved fucking more than anything else, and he never tired of that spreading feeling, of taking someone else inside, of being man enough to always take the other man, no matter how big." (Paean to Priapus, 111, p. 91.)
While Bodie is clearly uncomfortable with the idea that those roles will someday be reversed, Doyle is confident that he can show Bodie "how wonderful it could be to let someone else breach his body." (PtP, p. 93.) This is a reconfiguration of the usual state of affairs.
[See "Perfect Day" for comments about that story.]
In both stories, the vision of being fucked changes for the character from a more traditional reading - that the penetrated is somehow emasculated - to a vision of the penetrated as having something to give and taking something which is distinctive to being penetrated. This reversal indicates a vision of sexuality which is subversive to the usual portrayal of male/male penetration. 1 think that this new vision creates new opportunities for emotional dilemmas and situations which will be as treacherous as situations which have been explored by other authors.
I don't want to suggest that this vision of male sexuality is superior to previous visions, nor am I suggesting that all stories be written with this kind of approach. I think rather that it shows an evolution which in part is an answer to [the] concern that slash will meet its demise at the hands of producers and writers writing male-female partner teams as opposed to male-male partner shows. The form of writing we are all currently engaged in either as consumers or producers has many possibilities for further exploration. I didn't realize that I was interested in a way of conceiving penetration differently until I read "Perfect Day" and it didn't really occur to me that it was different until I read "Wrong End of the Stick".