Warning: Contains loads of squickish TMI about Candy and her narsty habits. Has NOTHING to do with romance novels. Don’t read if you’re squeamish or don’t like me going all off-topic.
Like Jorie, I know I shouldn’t touch the current fanfic discussion on Lee Goldberg’s blog with a ten-foot pole. However, she had a quote that irked her (shit, it irked me too), and then I found another one quite a bit later down the line, and I feel compelled to blog about it. From commenter David Montgomery:
Writing is to Making Love as FanFic is to Masturbation
The latter pair are self-indulgent, vaguely embarrassing, accomplish nothing, and only temporarily enjoyable. They are largely the province of adolescent boys and are in no way practice for the real thing.
Well, I always suspected it, and now I have proof: I’m a fourteen-year-old boy. And I don’t even have the decency to feel embarrassed—not even vaguely—by my habit. Accomplish nothing? Shit, I can think of any number of things rubbin’ the nubbin’ has helped me with—relieving stress, putting me in a good mood, helping me sleep, providing me with solo pleasure, and providing some really, really Fun Fun Happy Times when indulging in it with a lover. Temporarily enjoyable? So are most pleasures. Is the afterglow from Making Lurve somehow more long-lasting than the afterglow from masturbation? Not in my experience, but hey, I’m just one monkey-spanker and I can’t speak for anyone else. Not practice for the real thing? Au contraire. Thanks to my rather precocious explorations, I was able to direct the boys to where they needed to be when the time came (har har, came), especially when de-virginizing boys.
Oh, OK, I’ve only popped the cherry for ONE person.
And just in case you don’t know: I don’t read fanfic, I don’t write fanfic, and I’m not enough of a fan of anything to indulge in either activity anytime soon. However, self-righteous attitudes about how fanfic writers will NEVER BE REAL WRITERS and ALL of fanfic is wrong and always will be wrong world without end, amen, bother me. And frankly, so do people who malign masturbation.
Seriously, it’s a toss-up right now which one irritates me more. If whacking off doesn’t feel all that good to you, I think you’re probably doing it wrong. And as for the whole “masturbation is embarrassing and pointless and should only be indulged in when you’re in dire straits and is indicative that you’re a LOSAR WHO CAN’T GET REAL GURLS” shame-fiesta? Yeah, whatever. I refuse to be shamed. (I bet I could get real girls, too. I’m totally going to ask MacKenzie to the prom, and I totally bet she’ll say yes and let me go all the way to second base, woo!)
Frankly, I’m more embarrassed by the fact that to this day, I will occasionally cave in to my craving for Spam-n-egg sandwiches.
I know, I know. Talk about embarrassing and perverse. Damn that Spam. As always, I blame my mother: if she hadn’t made all those delicious Spam and fried egg sandwiches for me when I was a young, impressionable child, I’m sure I would’ve been immune to this perversion as an adult. Parents, be careful about what kind of meat your children are putting into their mouths (and hands).
I take the blame for bringing up Spam as a masturbation tool in the first place. I should have known better than to give you an opening.
Uh, I mean…
Where’s that damned latte?
Masturbation? Spam Dildos? Egg-wa balls?
I recommend those handy-dandy Hoover attachments to vacuum out the mess.
Awww, c’mon, Stef. You wouldn’t have missed all that lovely haiku for the world! You know it!
And Monica: innovative vacuum usage duly noted.
You might want to consider a Kirby, they come with a massager attachment.
I am in awe at the ability to produce rude haikus at will. Hail me if you ever decide to publish a collection.
Oh, gawd, hasn’t that dead horse been beaten enough on that blog?
I write fanfic. I write original fic. And my god! I’ve now discovered I’m a 14 year old boy. I’ve given birth to three kids. I suppose that would qualify me for writing Mpreg now. *rolls eyes*
Shouldn’t it be “Fanfic is to Writing as Masturbation is to Making Love”? It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, unless he’s implying that if you write fanfic, you’re stuck with solo sex. Though that may be what he intented.
Good post. I wouldn’t mind so much people who don’t like fan fic if they didn’t say such stupid things. I wrote fan fic for 15 years. Published it, too. Now I’m working on my own science fiction series (with a friend). Only reason I stopped doing fan fic is that I don’t have time for it now. Both forms of writing are satisfying. Just different.
Fan fic writers will never be real writers? I don’t know how I’ll break that news to my friend Rob who has written several beautiful fan fic stories and has had published a couple of ‘real’ novels by Putnam, with more to come.
In fact, there are a number of published authors who’ve written fan fiction. And there’s a vast amount of fan fiction on the ‘net that is beautifully, heart-breakingly written.
Maybe Mr. Montgomery’s suffering a little jealousy there…?
Damn, your article is right on target. How the hell does this man mastubates? I guess I don’t want to know. Hell, I *know* that I don’t want to know, but my point is, it IS endlessly pleasurable and very helpful, especially when one has trouble sleeping. Basically entire world is doing it, so there MUST be something to it, right?
Lee Goldberg is, how to put it mildly, not very bright. The irony is that he’s essentially writing “legal” fanfiction – he’s writing Diagnosis Murder based books and DM was created by other people. Only Goldberg has legal permission to do so. And if we’re taking the high road and being all snobbish, then, I’ll say that books based on very silly TV show are probably not “The Literature” either.