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

[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.