"why would anyone write that?”: taboo fanfiction as an exercise in empathizing with the monstrous
glorify, romanticize, fetishize. these are words i see thrown around constantly in relation to fanfiction, without regard to their actual meaning or context, for the purpose of censoring taboo content. by taboo, i mean stories which include sex/relationships that are underage, incestuous, abusive, and dubious or non-consensual.
here are their actual meanings:
- glorify: describe or represent as admirable, especially unjustifiably.
- romanticize: deal with or describe in an idealized or unrealistic fashion; make (something) seem better or more appealing than it really is.
- fetishize: make (something) the object of a sexual fetish.
these 3 words have negative connotations. they all involve portraying a given theme/dynamic/identity/character in a way that does not properly reflect reality. more specifically, in a way that doesn’t reflect “correct” non-relative morality.
i’ve seen several posts going around about authors and readers who use taboo fanfic to cope with trauma. i’ve seen posts about how fic authors/readers should not have to indulge said trauma to their audience for their work to be seen as worthy of existing. but i also have many friends who have no trauma, and who write the filthiest shit i have ever read. when we strip the notion of trauma out of the taboo, what’s left? how can someone who has experienced no trauma still invest themselves in abjection?
we are taught that a gifted person is one with higher intelligence, but a person can be gifted in many ways. one of the most underrepresented ways to be gifted is in empathy. many empathetically gifted and sensitive people find their way to fanfiction, which offers a kind of freedom no other genre possesses: there is no editorial gatekeeping, no monetary compensation, and all fic is a response to an existing text. for those who tend to be more reactive than active, canon texts offer a platform to respond to, and fandom offers a community of people similarly invested. creativity, community, validation, a distinct lack of rejection. fanfic is an empath’s dream come true.
i have occupied myself these past several years reading the most abject fanfic i can find on ao3, the extremely underage incest noncon, the things that maybe not long ago might have terrified me to look at, made me shut my ipad off and throw it across the room, triggered me or sent me existentially spiraling. three years ago, reading noncon ruined my entire week. i thought, how could someone make such things? what mind could be so awful to devise such horrible conceits? why can’t everyone just kiss and be happy? i was never an anti, i didn’t occupy myself chasing these people away or believing their work shouldn’t exist. i simply did not understand, with no value judgment made on the author, and left it at that.
but for me, the only force stronger than fear is curiosity, and curiosity is what kept me clicking on the non-con archive warning. more than i dislike being afraid and uncomfortable, i hate not understanding. i recognized that this was a thing i’d never seen in any other genre, (mostly) queer women writing profane things they’d experienced, or been afraid they might one day experience, not just to grasp it but also use as fap fodder. women masturbate to these atrocious fictional images. this is a thing that does not exist anywhere else, in any other genre, in the entire history of literature. i had so many questions.
the more taboo fic i read, the more comfortable i became with it. i was not ashamed of reading it, or coming to enjoy it, or even jerking off to it, because the more i read, the more i settled in the unwavering belief that i was not capable of the things i was reading. i had found a profound self-trust by reading the darkest parts of my fellow fic authors’ minds and knowing deep in my gut i was not attracted to children or my family, nor was i capable of rape or abuse. when i started writing it myself, i became even more confident in this knowledge.
with that confidence in place, i began to seek out these writers who were as invested in the taboo as i was, to befriend them and learn who they are out in the real world. what i found was that we all had one thing in common: we are all empathetically gifted, and many of us hold caregiving occupations. we are social workers, non-profit employees, educators, doctors, volunteers, mothers. we concern ourselves with the well-being of others. we define ourselves by our altruism.
and then, at the end of a long day, we come home and read or write our favorite characters getting violently dicked down by their brothers.
what do other kinds of gifted people do when they have a surplus of energy? highly intelligent people solve puzzles or problems. physically gifted people like athletes, fighters, and dancers exercise or train or go outside and play.
the empathetically gifted devise conceits wherein our empathy is tested. we challenge ourselves to love monsters and understand the profane. we dive deeper and deeper and darker and darker, seeking some limit to our greater understanding of the Other, and in doing, make our greatest gift even stronger.
we flex our empathy muscles and watch them grow. we learn to love and understand the things no one else can love, the things that are dangerous to love in our real lives, by distorting that reality, by glorifying, romanticizing, and fetishizing. we place mirrors in front of ourselves, look into the darkest parts of our minds, and think, how far can i go? is there anything i am not willing to understand? how big is my heart?
we tell ourselves stories to find those answers.
“but you shouldn’t empathize with monsters! you shouldn’t glorify, romanticize, or fetishize abuse!”
in reality, we don’t. but in fiction, we’re able to carve a new reality in which we can experiment, test, and play with new forms of empathy that reality does not allow us. an engineer plays sudoku. a dancer runs a marathon. an empath creates monsters.
