Slasher's Guide to Gay Sex
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Slasher's Guide to Gay Sex |
| Creator: | Faithfulreader |
| Date(s): | 2006 (Possibly earlier?) |
| Medium: | LiveJournal |
| Fandom: | Harry Potter/slash fandom in general |
| Topic: | Sex acts as depicted in slash, top/bottom roles, writing advice |
| External Links: | Slasher’s Guide to Gay Sex: one gay man’s perspective Slasher’s Guide to Gay Sex: Practical Lesson #1 |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
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Slasher's Guide to Gay Sex is a multi-part meta essay/rant by Faithfulreader, concerning what he sees as unrealistic sex and poor writing found in slash fanfiction. In the "Practical Lesson" parts, he dissects sex scenes submitted to him for review and gives suggestions for improvement.
Introduction
When I entered fandom and learned the word slash I was very much surprised that girls were writing it. Lots and lots of it. And for writing it, I want to say: thank you!But in describing relationships/sex scenes between guys my dear female co-fandomers make some mistakes. Well, if it were not so, I would have been even more surprised.
This post is meant to help female slashers in writing gay sex.
This post reflects no more than my most humble opinion, and it’s completely up to you whether to listen to me or not. But I think that hearing me out won’t hurt fandom in any way.
Also I think that it’s much more helpful to hear one gay man’s account on what gay sex is rather than a bunch of statistics. Remember that statistics has potential to prove whatever you want it to. As Nietzsche said, ‘Truth is a kind of misunderstanding that is used for gaining power.’
Excerpts
From fic to fic I see one and the same mistake. I call it Fucking Probing Fingers. One, two, and then three fingers, scissoring motions, etc. are mentioned almost in every smutfic, which, by the way, doesn’t make the whole idea any less wrong. Why? Bottom should be prepared for anal sex in the following three cases: (a) he is having anal sex for the first time, (b) he is going to take a huge cock in, and (c) he’s had a long break.
Pain. Yes, fucking has a potential to be painful. If the guy on top is huge, bottom is inexperienced, there was no preparation and top is brutal – it surely will be VERY painful for bottom.
I remember my first time as bottom. The guy was more than average-sized. He spent ten seconds on preparing me. Then he went slowly. There was pain. However, it wasn’t blinding or white-hot or worse than Cruciatus or whatever. It was bearable, though I am quite sensitive to pain. And it receded quickly. So, even if the guys are fucking for the first time, but go through with all the preparation, there might be no pain at all. The feeling of a cock filling you for the first time is, to put it in one word, new.
Top should hold himself together until bottom is ready to come and then come together with bottom (which is not so hard to achieve) OR come first and then help bottom come.
If bottom comes first, it’d mean that the fucking is quite over, because it’ll become a torture for bottom.
Writing about teenage boys is sweet because they can love in the sappiest way imaginable, but they simply cannot black out from the sheer power of orgasm. What they will have, I’d call clumsy cuddling. But, it’ll be mind-blowing from their perspective and if they do black out, it’d be from intensity of what they feel towards each other.I’ll quote Penguin (from Of Snow And Dark Water). Read with extreme attention: ‘He knew he wouldn’t last long this time, either. […] It hadn’t been perfect last night, and yet it had. There had been so much tension to relieve, pent-up emotions and expectations, and they had both been very nervous. It had been intense, feverish and desperate, and over much too quickly. But god, it had been perfect – it had been all they’d wanted and needed just then.’
Teenagers can’t have technically great sex, but their sex can be great emotionally, and your task as a writer, to show that.
Try to encourage people to give you constructive criticism. If you’re not properly criticised, you’ll never get better at writing. Get as many different beta-readers as humanly possible. Different betas would see your fic from different points of view, which may result in making your fic more abstract, more literature-like. Make sure you have a gay man beta.Some slashers say that they are writing their fics for women and thus have no need to be ‘correct’. Well, they are free to continue doing so, but… what for? To get reviews? I am writing this guide for those who actually want to get better at writing slash.
~*~ Michael Serpent was a brilliant man. Read his Golden Snitch – it may give you all the answers to gay stuff you’ll ever need.
Please, remember, it’s loads better to make a scene very short and very hot, rather than very long and very cold! :)
‘the moment their lives changed forever’ -- you know, forever is a very long while. There is nothing that could happen in a short porn fic that would change something forever.
Fics critiqued
- Wolfish Appetites by sheepybunbuns
- Snape: The Home Fries Nazi by pir8fancier
- Strategic Planning by madam_minnie
- Games People Play by midnitemaraud_r
- Insubordination by bryonyraven
Reactions
The essay was translated into Spanish for the Intruders slash zine,[1] and is available for reading at "Sexo gay para slashers".
References
- ^ Faithfulreader (translated by Ayesha and Perla Negra). "Consejos sobre sexo gay para slashers". Intruders (in español). Archived from the original on 2019-03-30.