No, seriously

[phoenix64]

What is it that separates perfectly respectable historical fiction from squick-inducing Real People Fic/Slash?

It can't be the sex, because there is plenty of respectable or at least semi-respectable historical fiction that doesn't shy away from sex.

Is it that the protagonists are still living, or close members of their families might still be living? Because I've seen people still have that squick reaction when that isn't necessarily the case.

Is it an acknowledgment of the personal pleasure we get from certain kinds of fic - and I'm not just referring to sexual pleasure - and that perhaps we're uncomfortable "using" people for such a purpose? Along those same lines, is it perhaps bumping up against other issues with media and celebrity in the information age, and making us look at the lines we draw for ourselves more closely than we'd like to?

Despite the way some of this has ended up being phrased, I really don't have an agenda I'm pushing here - I genuinely feel the answer is "I don't know" and I'm curious what other people think about it.

Edited to add: OK, maybe I do have an agenda - but I'm trying not to, honest!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

I don't really have a big RPF squick, so I'm probably not the one to be answering this, but, in my weird brain, at least, some people are more fictional than others. Some people have had so many different books/movies/whatever made about them, many of them contradictory, that the "truth" about them is almost as up for interpretation as a fictional character. Or it seems that way to me.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

That actually makes a lot of sense.

I feel I should have something to say in addition to this, but my brain is not firing on all cylinders. Perhaps tomorrow.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

Hey, I'm just happy it makes sense to someone who is not me. *g*

[baffledking.livejournal.com]

I think the issue is for some people: the person it's about can read it. Can read and object to it. (Some bandom people are actively skeeved. Some love it. )

My squick is less that (eh, I don't care. I'm a sociopath like that) but it's the voyeur aspect. Things that are publicly put out don't bother me when it's in fic? It's stuff that's like. Intensely personal that freak me out slightly. Like. Stalking discovery kind of things. If that makes sense? Public record=shiny. Things from their rubbish bin=skeevey.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I think that maybe a lot of the rubbish bin stuff is out there in other ways, but that maybe RPF is just framing those things differently. I wonder if part of what makes us twitch is looking at something that we already participate in in a different light.

You mention the voyeur aspect, and one of the first things that comes to mind is reality TV. I can't begin to express my distaste for reality TV. I mean, I didn't even like Candid Camera (or the Gong Show or Star Search). I try not to go off on it too much because there are so many people who like at least some of it and I don't wish to insult them because of my personal preference - but the truth is I really have a problem with a great deal of it. Not just what it is, but the way it's affected us over the years.

[unfeathered]

I think it may be the thing about them still being about, to know about it and possibly to read it. But the more I think about that, the more I think they'd probably prefer to read/know about decent RPF/S than some of the purportedly non-fictional stuff that gets written about them.... I think it's when I got to that realisation that I started not minding RPF. It still feels a little 'wrong', but once I get into a story it's just a story, iyswim.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

But the more I think about that, the more I think they'd probably prefer to read/know about decent RPF/S than some of the purportedly non-fictional stuff that gets written about them.

*chuckle* That might be true. You know (and pardon me, I don't have a direct reference for this) when Jason Isaacs admitted to reading fic about himself and liking some of the more outrageous stuff, he didn't specify that it was fic about Lucius, now did he?

[unfeathered]

*giggles* Yeah. That would be a hard one!

[chatona.livejournal.com]

I'm so unsquickable by RPS it's not even funny anymore. I mean. I read RPS and I write RPS and I ... well, I can see why people might consider it to be wrong (privacy of another person and all), but.

In my head, the persons become characters. Characters who share a name and looks with a person that actually lives, but characters nonetheless. Fictional character. And that makes all the difference.