How do you define Het?

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

I popped in late and was reading the discussion below, including the one on the Circuit Archive, where I found this question:

"If B or D is with a woman in a story, and they aren't with each other in the story, but they don't end up with the woman, is that a het story? If it's basically a case story, like an episode, and there's incidental shagging with a woman, but no serious relationship - the relationship isn't the focus of the story - does that get a het label?"

Considering that I just wrote a story that meets this criteria, I'm definitely wondering. I didn't give it a het label, because I assumed that folks who read het would be disappointed by the lack of anything resembling an actual relationship between Bodie, Doyle and the women they boff over the course of the case.

OTOH, the sex is pretty graphic. And kinda gross (since I wasn't going for titillating, lol!). Does that factor into whether something is het or not?

Oh, and a bonus question! If Bodie and Doyle spent a whole story boffing *men*, but never ended up in a relationship with either the men in question or each other - how would you label the story then?

Comments

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

'I'd want my money back' type of story.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Lol! :-)

But still, I dunno... For some reason whenever a story concept makes everyone go, "Ew!" that always inspires in me a desire to write it - or something like it.

Seriously - what if one of the guys was bi, but not the other? What if one shagged a man in the course of a case? How would the other cope, assuming the story *didn't* go in the predictable direction of ending up with both of them in bed together happily shagging each other silly?

I find idea of mixing things up, of going in directions the reader won't expect, very tempting.

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

I find idea of mixing things up, of going in directions the reader won't expect, very tempting.

Interesting that! Nobody expects Cowley popping in the picture (well, almost nobody). So, not tempted by a nice, nasty, shocking Bodie/Cowley story? In which Doyle is straight but jealous nonetheless?

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Nah. I'm sorry!

I thought about it, but frankly I think Cowley can do better. Bodie's charming enough, but I don't think he's got the level of intellect that Cowley would expect/desire in a lover. And Cowley's not the kind of man to get seduced by merely "pretty". Not to mention, I think he's too honorable to get sexually involved with a subordinate.

I absolutely do intend to write Cowley/Minister fic someday, though!

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

I think Cowley can do better

Now Bodie is offended. Deeply.

Bodie's charming enough, but I don't think he's got the level of intellect that Cowley would expect/desire in a lover

Brain is not precisely what is expected or appreciated in bed. Anyway I think Bodie intelligent, less argumentative than Doyle but more intuitive.

I think he's too honorable to get sexually involved with a subordinate.

That's the interesting point. Sometimes a perfectly honourable man is tempted and carried away by things he feels as not too honourable for him: it's called passion and I see Cowley as a very repressed but very passionate man.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

But could you see Cowley getting involved with *anyone* on a purely physical level? Or ever letting his libido get the better of him?

Maybe it's just me, but I like intelligent conversation in bed. And a good sense of humour (okay, Bodie's got that!). I liked to be stretched in my relationships. Bodie's intelligent enough, but he's got absolutely nothing on Cowley.

I know everyone sees different things, and I've got no objection per se to Bodie/Cowley, but when I watch the show I don't see it. So for me it's an A/U kind of thing.

My Cowley feels about Bodie much the way you'd feel about a favorite working hound. Very affectionate, even fatherly on occasion, but he'd sacrifice him in an instant if the situation called for it. And then he'd be sorry and he'd miss him, but he'd move on, just maybe a little older and wearier than before. Because Bodie won't have been the first soldier he's lost, and he'd know that his sacrifice wasn't in vain. England comes first, always.

I absolutely read B/C, though! I don't think there's anything I won't read. There's only one story so far that I've found disturbing, and that was one in which Doyle is horribly tortured, Bodie offers no comfort, and Doyle commits suicide. I was so depressed after that story. But other than that, I can happily go with whatever the writer wants. I judge stories more on the quality of the writing than the content, usually.

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

Maybe the two examples could be "het (B/ofc, D/ofc, NONE)" and "slash (B/omc, D/omc, NONE)" respectively? Would that make any sense? I'm not really sure! I do take your point that "merely" incidental het sex isn't what one would expect from a het label - sounds more like gen, since the important (non-sexual)relationship is between the protagonists.

And I have to admit, the premise that either of them could be into blokes and yet not in love with the other beggars belief - a disturbing hypothesis of course!

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

What does the NONE stand for? No B/D?

And if the primary relationship is between Bodie and Doyle, wouldn't the first example be "gen (B/ofc, D/ofc)"?

You have NO idea how tempted I am right now to write "slash (B/omc)"! With a very confused Doyle going, "Wait, he's not *that* good at undercover!" And then Bodie having to explain to him that it's not just that he's straight, but also that he's just not Bodie's type. ;-D Heck, I've already got scenarios percolating feverishly in my brain...

[smirra.livejournal.com]

I think it was "Heat Trace" when I got the idea Bodie could have tried to get Murphy into bed but Murphy declined. Then Bodie was lucky with Doyle and *now* Murphy was all jealous and curious...

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

I just meant "None" would stand for no serious relationship between anybody, (in the end, 'cause you said in your examples they don't end up with the woman/the bloke) (irrespective of what happened before)(clear as mud, I am).

(some worrying temptations and scenarios there!)

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

Why to seek for some dull, anonymous omc when you have a ruthless old bastard... sorry, I was meaning a fascinating, complex, powerful character just at hand? (Yes, I know, I am obssessed).

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Because said ruthless old bastard would ruthlessly take over my story, darn him!

;-)

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

because said ruthless old bastard would ruthlessly take over my story, darn him!

I wish he'd do!

Cowley scares me...

There is the challenge!

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

I think it's hard to call it straight (snicker) het or straight slash, rather a combination. But if you labeled the story as heliophile says: i.e., B/f, D/f, B/D, I'd read that as both lads shag a woman, plus each other. There are many combinations, of course, but I don't think there's a good "Label" for that type of story. B/D/f means a rousing threesome, right? Is that slash or het? It's -- sex!

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Sex. Sex. Sex.

Hee! I love that word.

See, I've been writing these Starsky and Hutch stories for the 30_Lemons LJ community. I've got over half of them done, and the vast majority so far are slash. Which means I want to write more gen, because darn it - it's sex! And sex shouldn't always mean Starsky shags Hutch and they swear twoo wuv forever and ever. There's a heck of a lot of sex out there there...



So, yeah! I think you're right. I actually prefer B/f to "het" because "B/f" simply addresses the mechanics without any implication about the relationship or type of story. I could personally even do away with gen/slash/het labels completely in favor of the more descriptive B/f, etc.

My last story would therefore be S/f, D/f, B/f, f/f, m/f. I don't think poor Hutch got any, though the cameraman flirted with him! Those plus the NC-17 rating would give people a pretty good idea what they're in for. ;-)

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

It's way too hard to actually have a label for the extend of the relationship (or lack thereof) in the story, so that does tell the reader enough of what to expect, and the reader then can decide to forge on, or run away, realizing that there are a variety of parings in the story.

Poor Hutch! He didn't get any, the poor wubbie. Maybe next time.

[justacat.livejournal.com]

In my book, at least, the label you gave it - gen - was the right one, or at least the one I'd give it; if you had said nothing, and I was left to my own devices, I'd have given it a pairing of "none" when I archived it. Why? The sex just wasn't...well, to my mind, it didn't warrant a pairing. I'm not sure I could define exactly why, or at least not in a way that would stand up to rigorous analysis; it's a bit of an experience- and intuition-based assessment, though there's reasoning behind it as well. I'd *probably* do the same for the other type of story you described (boffing men but no relationship) - but it would depend on the particular story, the significance of the boffing to the story and to the characters, etc.

There are lots of B/D stories in which one of them, or both of them, shags a woman, but I don't add a "B/f" tag...and yet for other stories I do. It depends on how significant I think the "f" shagging is - whether, in my estimation, a fan reading it would consider it worthy of note; would consider the story to have a "B/f" element. But of course, every reader is different, which is why I add lots of disclaimers about subjectivity! *g* I try to be consistent, but I imagine it'd be easy to find plenty of examples of inconsistency...at the edges, there are no easy answers to this question.

shooting2kill said this type of story is an "I'd want my money back" type of story - and the "personal" side of me - the congenital slasher - sees where she's coming from; I am all about the slash (and have to fight not to label every gen story pre-slash! *g*). But the archivist side of me is aware of the vast scope of tastes in fandom; every story is *someone's* favorite, and it's not for me to make that sort of judgment or determination for other people. (Which is why the archive accepts all "genres" of Pros fanfic - something for everyone.) The hard part is trying to get the label as accurate as possible!!

Then again, speaking as myself again, I must admit, the idea of an author doing something unpredictable merely for the sake of unpredictability, to shake the reader up, has always made me feel manipulated as a (fannish) reader. Maybe it's stupid - it probably is - but in fanfiction, I want to feel like the author's heart is behind what she writes; that she's writing what *she* sees and feels, what she *loves*, rather than because she wants to get a reaction out of the reader. Which doesn't mean she can't explore different directions and approaches, but writing *for* a reaction...I don't know. I feel like I can tell when a fanfic author does that; the heart isn't there. Though maybe I'm fooling myself. Hmmm.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Justacat wrote: "Then again, speaking as myself again, I must admit, the idea of an author doing something unpredictable merely for the sake of unpredictability, to shake the reader up, has always made me feel manipulated as a (fannish) reader. Maybe it's stupid - it probably is - but in fanfiction, I want to feel like the author's heart is behind what she writes; that she's writing what *she* sees and feels, what she *loves*, rather than because she wants to get a reaction out of the reader."

Hum... I like playing with people's preconceptions, but I've never written a story I didn't love. I see and feel what's happening, if only for the duration of that story. I'm entirely committed to characterization. What I love is either turning a fannish convention on its head, or alternately, hiding some bit of info from the reader until later in the story - like a surprise. I like leading readers in the wrong direction, and down rabbit trails, if I can. And I'm proud of myself when I do it well.

It's like a challenge, isn't it? If I looked at a fandom and thought, "Hm, no one's written our hero as the pampered only son of an overbearing mother." Well, then I'd want to write that story!

I never want to write the same story over and over again. Whenever I catch myself repeating a theme or scenario or plot, I ditch the story. *That's* when my heart stops being in what I write. When I realize I've done it before.

I write the kinds of stories I want to read (especially if I haven't found a story like it already out there), but I also write to be read. If I didn't have readers, I wouldn't write. My own imagination is plenty vivid, and I could save my fingers the workout on the keyboard.

[smirra.livejournal.com]

Thats the question if you put on this label technically on the action of het sex or on the relationship that matters? If the female character matters and has room in the story as much as the main characters Bodie or Doyle than it definitely counts as het for me.
If Bodie's shagging some bird with no name every night with no lasting effect, that's for me a clear hint that the whole thing's not really or only very temporary satisfying, and therefore I read that as a hint for pre-slash as in your crossover story that has a lot of such hints, on both sides, but especially from Bodie. I suppose that slash writer even if they write gen wouldn't write something that would interfere with the slashy picture they have from the character. At least I had the impression with your stories so far. There was a gen Bodie but never really a het one.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

You know, strictly speaking, I don't think I *could* write a pure "gen" story in the sense of "they never ever would, ew, yuck". I dislike gen stories that are palpably anti-slash. They ring false to me, and the implicit homophobia makes me cringe.

At the same time, though, I get prickly when people say about a story like Balzer's (sp?) "Scissors" that, "The author calls it gen, but really it's pre-slash." I always wanna say, "No, sorry, if the author says it's gen, then it's gen! Deal. Gen stories can be emotionally satisfying and well-written, too."

For me, the relationship between Bodie and Doyle is paramount. Every story I write will deal with that in some way, regardless of whom they do or don't boff. Sex is sex. Relationships are something else entirely.

Even when I wrote my undeniably het S&H novel in which I had Hutch already married and Starsky meeting a nice girl, the primary relationship in that story was Starsky and Hutch. They each came first in the other one's eyes, and while Starsky's girl was basically oblivious, it was a reality that made Hutch's wife quite rightly resentful. A minor theme in the story was having Hutch's wife come to terms with being number two in his life, and learning to accept Starsky.

As a good friend of mine put it - if that story had been a stage production, Starsky and Hutch would be in center stage, with the women acting as a kind of Greek chorus in the background. Very much there, but not what the play's about.

But, hey! If you prefer to read all my stories with your slash goggles on, that's perfectly fine with me! :-) I figure people can approach stories the way they do the series, and see whatever they want to see.

[squeeful.livejournal.com]

*shuffle shuffle* This comes with the warning that I am really geeky and just as nerdy, but I like alpha, beta, and omega characters. Or even primary, secondary, and auxiliary. Alpha/primary (the new otp!) characters are pretty obvious; they're what it's all about. Beta/secondary (fandom's underdog couple) characters are still major players, but they aren't the focus. Like, the Capulets and Montagues to Romeo and Juliet. Omega/auxiliary (crack pairing!) characters are like fiction scenery; they're in a scene or two and they warrant a name and maybe a bit of background. Everyone else is window dressing.

I like writing different things too. Not so much reverse concepts, but things fandom is unconsciously avoiding.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Let's see if I got this right (I function better with concrete examples to work from).

Alpha/primary would be Bodie/Doyle.

Beta/Secondary would be Tommy/Murphy?

And Omega/auxiliary would be... Uh, Anson/Karate Girl?

But to me, a real crack pairing would be Cowley/Tommy, lol!

[franciskerst.livejournal.com]

But to me, a real crack pairing would be Cowley/Tommy, lol!

What! What! What! I thought the old man was too much a gentleman and too honourable to get involved with a subordinate? Why Tommy (who is mourning his beloved wife and children) rather than the free as air, funny and daredevil Bodie?

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

I wasn't talking about what I'd *write*! I was just mixing and matching.

And besides, obviously Tommy needs some loving to heal his broken heart. ;-) Because isn't that the way it always works? First you kill off the girlfriend/wife and then your chosen guys fall into each others arms and swear lifelong fidelity. That's what slash has taught me, so it must be true!

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

As a fellow crossover from S/H to Pros, I was wondering how you feel about the gen/pre-slash distinction in each fandom.
I wrote my first two little fics in Pros wth my S/H gen glasses firmly on. (The pairing is 'None' at the Cricuit, and I hesitated to send them to the Hatstand because I understood it was slash only.) I *was* surprised at the time to get quite a few reactions of the the "you say it's gen, but I see it as pre-slash". Which doesn't bother me - hey, if you liked it, you liked it and thank you! But I think the suprise was bec I was coming in from a fandom where the nature of the show itself, the relationship on and off screen of the central pairing just lent itself very readily to being played upon in a gen context. You can get right to the emotional heart of S/H, h/c, angst, etc, without ever having to go near slash, if you want to..

Having said that, I see nothing but slash when I write Pros these days..*g*

And Rebel? As for mixing things up... Mpreg, I double dare ya..:))

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

I struggle with this even in the S&H fandom, as I'm sure you've noticed from the number of stories EH and I have posted that are "glash" or "slen"!

But in the S&H fandom I've been happily going under the assumption that gen is any story in which the thought of boffing each other hasn't crossed the guys minds. Slash on the other hand is any story in which they really would like to shag, whether they actually do or not.

So, tossing Het in there really confused things for me, because by that definition Het is almost the same as Gen. I'd kinda thought that maybe Het meant that the guys were in a serious romantic relationship with a female. But there's folks here who say het just means they boff a female in the course of the story, with or without the romance. Which just raised more questions for me along the lines of - aren't many actual TV episodes then het? What about when Doyle shagged that Mossad agent? Was that het? What if Doyle had shagged the Mossad agent and then gone home and shagged Bodie, would the story be both het and slash at the same time? And if Slash trumps Het in the ratings war - why?

Mpreg... You know, I've figured a way to do that in the S&H fandom (just haven't written it yet) and heck it's practically canon in MfU, but I've yet to come up with anything other than "t'was a terrible, frightful nightmare" in order to do it in the Pros fandom. But you know I'll keep thinking about it!

[nakeisha.livejournal.com]

I'd most certainly call the first example het.

To my mind, and how I have always (in the eight years I've been in fandom) believed it to be, gen is a story that does not contain any romantic or sexual relationships between any characters. It doesn't matter if the relationship is the focus of the story or not, if it's there, especially in such 'graphic' (to use your own word) het. And under pairings I'd put Bodie/OFC, Doyle/OFC.

If I were a gen reader, or indeed I was reading a gen story, I would be very put out if the above mentioned story had been labelled 'Gen', because I would not be expecting any kind of romantic and/or sexual relationship, especially an 'on screen' one.

You bonus question, I would call slash. However, I'd put under pairings Bodie/OMC, Doyle/OMC, just so the reader knew it wasn't Bodie/Doyle slash.

Just my two-pennyworth.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

But then an awful lot of the original series must be "het", right?

See, coming from the S&H fandom where the distinction is simply Gen or Slash, Gen = "guys who don't boff" and Slash = "guys who do".

The way I think you're defining it, Gen = "no boffing whatsoever, of anyone", Slash = "guy boffs guy" and Het = "guy boffs girl".

But, it seemed to me that "Het, D/OMC" would be misleading if the story was about Bodie watching Doyle having to boff a nameless woman to maintain his cover. Although if all Het means is "here be sex" then I can see your point.

On the other hand, how would you then label stories that have both graphic Het sex and graphic Slash sex? Would you call them Het/Slash?

Hlash?

Slet? That sounds naughty!

(Sorry, it's early. ;-D)

[nakeisha.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

::Coughs:: Er, I too came from S&H :-) It was my first fandom.

And I learnt/was taught :-

Gen = 'No sexual or romantic relationship between the partners and/or anyone else'.

Slash = 'A sexual and/or romantic relationship between the partners'.

Het - 'A sexual and/or romantic relationship between the one or both of the partners and someone of the opposite sex'.

Also taken from a web archive: 'By definition, a gen story has no pairings. None. Zero. Zip. It is a case, an adventure, whatever, but WITH NO ROMANTIC entanglements whatsoever.'

Now admittedly this is from a current show fandom in which there are clear slash and het pairings, but it's certainly what I have known in the eight years I've been in fandom.

The het and gen are the same thing is an on-going debate, I know. I have it often with people. And it seems to be pretty much evenly divided between those who note the three categories as being different and those who say that het and gen are the same. And that's across fandoms, old and new.

I know gen fen who would not be happy bunnies to come across a gen labelled story that contained het sex; they read gen for a lack of sex/romance.

As for how I'd label a story that had both graphic het and slash sex in, well I'd put Slash & Het for the Genre label. And show B/D, B/OFC, D/OFC, etc. etc.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

S&H is a great fandom, eh?

I'm basing my POV mainly on the lists I'm still on in S&H, which only ask for Slash or Gen designations, and on the BCL, which makes no distinction between Gen and Het, but lumps them all together in the one "Gen" archive. If it's very graphic you'll get a little (adult) after the story title, but that's it.

I've never seen an archive with a definition like the one you quote! :-o I admire their clarity! It certainly makes things easier.

[nakeisha.livejournal.com]

:-)

Do people actually write much het in S&H? Er, as in detailed het scenes? Certainly I know there wasn't many (if any) when I was avidly involved.

What I find interesting with the het & gen 'debate' is that it's not just new fen who want/say there's a distinction, but older/longer standing fen too. So clearly there is no real consensus.

I do feel though that with more and more and more fandoms having het pairings (unlike the 'olden' days) that people do expect het to be labelled, even if it's only by virtue of stating Bodie/OFC.

Fandom, like everything else, has to evolve and be prepared to take on-board changes. And whilst I'm not saying that everything should be thrown out and changed, nor can everything stay exactly the same.

Like it or not het is a separate category now for so many fandoms, and multi-fandom folk do expect to see it as thus in fandoms when hitherto stories were either slash or gen.

I think it's a great definition and as you say totally clear.

Mind you I bemoan the fact that I'm seeing

Genre: Gen
Pairing: Male character A/Male character B or Male character A/Female character B

If a story is Gen (ignoring the whole het thing) it cannot have a slash pairing. And if it isn't slash, i.e. it isn't a pairing, just the characters it's &.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

"Do people actually write much het in S&H? Er, as in detailed het scenes? Certainly I know there wasn't many (if any) when I was avidly involved."

Yeah, there sure is! It's one of the reasons I won't let my daughter read any "Teen" rated stuff on ffnet, because people want to write the het smut, but they don't want to rate it "Mature" because then it gets shuffled off onto a separate page and no one sees it or comments on it.

And there's a fair bit of het on BCL these days, too.

I wrote a Pros story a couple months ago which had a rather confused Bodie watching Doyle make explicit love to a girlfriend and wondering why he was getting turned on by Doyle instead of the girl. The primary relationship there was clearly Bodie/Doyle, though they never even come close to boffing in the course of the story. Yet, according to your archive's rating system that story would have to be labeled "Het, Doyle/OFC". However the slashy overtones are very likely to upset het fans if they click on the story based on the codes. And the slash fans, who might like it, would avoid it on the basis that it's "Het". See the problem?

I'm rather surprised how many of my stories appeal to slash fans, yet would have to be labeled "Het". Even the one where I buried Bodie and Doyle together in a coffin ends with Bodie making love to his girlfriend while thinking about Doyle at the same time. Het, B/OFC, right?

Except I called it Gen, because there's no resolution to the relationship, Doyle is oblivious and Bodie's feelings are vague and undefined. Pre-Slash only really works for me if the story is definitely going somewhere, and I couldn't say that for sure about this story.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I want to go one of two ways. Either take EH's route and put massive headers on every story. Or just stick to the Slash/Gen - either they wanna boff, or they don't - distinction.

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

Rebel, I have the sinking feeling that my nitwittedness has brought this about...(not to attach too much importance to myself!) when I added the het category to your story for the Newsletter link.

I am still trying to decide for myself what "gen" and "het" signify! In this case, rather than using "gen" or "het" to indicate the *relationship* of the story, I instead thought of it in terms of the *sexual* action in the story. I apologize. :am truly sorry: I backed off of using "gen" because of the graphic sexual content, and ended up here.

I recognize my bias (coming from the slash pov) but it seems as though since the Pros was a slash fandom from the start and because slashers are the majority (afaik) that the utility of categorization and warnings - here - is to warn slashers of anything non-slashy coming their way. Am I making sense? The occasions in Pros when someone is distressed over warnings seem to be centered around slashers confronted with het, or being squicked by m/f sex, rather than Pros fans who read het being upset because they expected an m/f relationship. I truly do *not* want to offend any gen or het fans - please don't be offended! - that has just been my personal experience in Pros.

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

Oh, no! Actually I really was just interested because of reading the discussion below. OTOH, that discussion might have come about because of the Newsletter, I don't know. :-) But as far as I was concerned, it was a done issue. I thought you handled it just fine!

With regards to my story I was just worried that slash readers would look at the het label and go "ew!" when really the story wasn't about some Mary Sue coming between Bodie and Doyle and getting shagged silly. I mean, Bodie and Doyle *are* the primary relationship there. Doyle's is essentially coerced into having sex, and Bodie watches, which doesn't sound terribly het to me. And yeah, there's a lot of het (and some lesbian) sex described, but the story is *about* the porn industry! Sex would be hard to avoid in that context.

However, if it's defined as simply male parts meet female parts, then several of my pre-slash and gen stories have actually been het. Even if the characters are thinking and acting in a slashy way, they're still having sex with women up until they eventually commit to each other.

So I guess I couldn't quite understand objecting to Bodie or Doyle shagging women (it's canon!). I assumed the point of labeling something Het was to warn people off of Mary Sues and their ilk.

Given the lack of consensus, I'm very happy with the way you went in the Newsletter - no warning whatsoever. I've got a header on the story anyway, which explains that there's sex, but it's case related in nature. And I'm more impressed every day with how well you manage a very challenging task, when you put the Newsletter together!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I like the definitions phantomas gave, in the discussion below this one (hope she doesn't mind me quoting it here):

Gen (in my interpretation) is the closest to Pros canon, which generally means possible het relationships (but not terribly important, let's say the girl of the week), and fades to black. I've read Gen that I could interpret as pre-slash (Kate Nuerberg series comes to mind - Bodie does offer, and Doyle...well, refuses, but in such an awkward, unsure way that you have to wonder!), but only inasmuch as it was my interpretation. *G*

Slash: homosexual take on the Lads, from the holding hands and choosing curtains to the fuckbuddies with ulcers to anything in between (and yes, for me slash doesn't equal gay, but that's an entry I wrote sometime ago *G*) there can be uncertainty on the way to get there, or they can be together right from the start, whatever...slash means, to me, that the focus of the story is about B and D's relationship with each other, in whatever way it goes.

NC17: for me, equals to explicit naming of parts and insertion of parts in tabs, graphically explained ;) written equivalent of a hard core p0rn film, basically, only with the proviso that hopefully the writer is good enough to go beyond that and make it significant in the context of the story - which PWPs can do, really ;)

Het (again, for me) means the Lads involved in a m/f relationship that is paramount for them, that is, Doyle is not the love of Bodie's life, Doyle's little sister is, or a series of pretty pub female customers or hostesses or what have you *G* whether an OC or a female character from the series, one or both the Lads are heterosexually inclined and do not consider each other in that sense at all, even if their working relationship and their friendship is not in question.

I think what I like most is that these definitions revolve around the focus of the story rather than just the sexual activity that is involved. So by these definitions your Graceland story would be (Pros-wise) Gen, as well as Rated for Explicit Sex. Theoretically that would let people know that it's not a slash story (in Pros) but that there is sex in there, although it's not the main focus of the story, which has to do with the Gen bit (i.e. there is no focus on any relationship, that's a by-blow to the "adventure").

Hmmn... *thinks out loud*... So if an author wrote a story in which she meant there to be a romantic relationship between the lads, no matter how explicit, it would be a slash story. Someone else might not read it like that, but that would be her intention. If an author didn't want there to be a focus on the relationship - or if she wanted that focus to be revolved around their professionalism, or friendship, rather than anything romantic, then it would be a gen story. Someone else might read it with their slash-hat on, and think of it as pre-slash, but it would still be "gen", or "no pairing"...

If the focus of the story was on the lads' relationship, but they went through alot of het sex to get there, then maybe it would be like this: Slash, B/D, B/f, D/f, Rated for Explicit Sex. Then hetters could see the slash, slashers could see the het, everyone could see the explicit sex - and quite honestly, it doesn't actually tell you who ends up with who, even though the focus of the story is slash - it could be failed B/D, after all! What d'you think?

And all that said, I still wanna know somehow if it's a slash, or a gen or a het story that I'm about to read!

Okay, gonna go think about this more as I wander around the supermarket... All very interesting!

[myrebelcat.livejournal.com]

I think of all the definitions I've come across, I'm most comfortable with yours. Gen, NC-17 was how I rated my last story, after all.

I understand now that not everyone defines Het as "the Lads involved in a m/f relationship that is paramount for them", but that's how I tend to see it, and I think it's the definition I like best. Because I'm assuming that's what people who don't read Het most want to avoid. Not Doyle shagging the Mossad Agent, but rather Doyle shagging Ann. The first would be gen, NC17 and the second would be het. Unless the second leads to slash (we can only hope)!

At least, I didn't get any sense of real romantic commitment in the ep with the Mossad agent, though I might have been distracted by Doyle's lovely backside. I thought he was just playing an undercover role.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well, phantomas's actually - I'm just a quoter. *g*

I suspect that the more explicit the het sex is, mind, then the more "hettish" the story seems... I mean, say Bodie is yearning for Doyle, but the story describes in graphic detail the het relationships that are going on while they're working it through, and the slash-y end is just a whisper of a promise that B/D will get together? It's slash because it's about their romantic relationship, it's B/D, B/f, D/f because they have explicit relationships with the women as well, although theirs isn't explicit, and it's Rated for Explicit Sex, but in actual fact all the explicit sex is m/f - so it's virtually a het story at a surface level... Now I can see people being peeved at summat like that, unless it's very well written... *g* Which some of them are, of course!

For me, because I see the subtext that is glorious slash, Pros canon is gen with no serious het (even Ann and Marikka I don't count as serious!). But people who don't see the slash would probably call it het, depending on how serious they feel the lads are about the women... Certainly none of the eps would be "NC-17" because there's no explicit sex - I mean, the best worst we see is Bodie tumbling onto a bed with a towel-wrapped Marikka, and Doyle pulling his trousers up after Shelley Hunter, I think. Everyone's totally decent the whole time, so... (Of course "NC-17" and similar ratings also involve things like swearing and violence etc, so gawd knows where it'd be up to for violence... how Mary Whitehouse-ish are those movie ratings?! That's kind of why I'd rather say summat like "Rated for Explicit Sex"!)

When you say you rated your story - where did you do that? Not for dialj... Or did you give that info to the archives or summat? Actually I'm still waiting for justacat to tell me how she decides on ratings at Circuit (I asked twice - waaah!) - maybe you know this - do archives have a software that searches for words to rate a story, or does it tend to be based on the archivist's opinion of what the story is, or..? I've never ever given ratings to any of my stories (and I don't really want to at the moment, it spoilers the stories, I think... although I'm totally hypocritical, cos I have been known to search under NC-17 too, when I'm in the right mood...) But - how do archives decide?

[probodie.livejournal.com]

I find idea of mixing things up, of going in directions the reader won't expect, very tempting.

If it is het you are contemplating, then I would be very disappointed half way throught and would give up reading it there and then, unless there was some way of convincing me you were heading towards slash.

I dont care how explicit the sex is, really, if it ends up ME (as the reader) being disappointed. That would be it. End of story. No matter how strong the story as a stand-alone may be, I wouldnt read it. No matter how much I may have been enjoying it, same applies.

Unless the end result is Bodie with Doyle, then sorry, no thanks.