preface - I am not trying to start beef or come for anyone. but I’ve noticed this line of thinking circulating in fandom spaces lately, and not only is it not thought through, but it can potentially terminate in some pretty nasty places if followed to its logical end.
so that said, general PSA:
you Do Not need to throw smut writers under the bus when you bemoan a lack of interaction on fanfic. we are dealing with the same fucking problem.
I’ve seen a couple posts now where it’s implied that bc fandom went mainstream, “all anyone writes is smut now because sex sells,” as if this is simply an influx of johnny-come-latelies who just decided to try their hand at writing fic, and not a part of why people have written fic the entire time.
as if slash fic and romance and all that hasn’t been present since fandom’s earliest beginnings. as if the original nerds who have always been here, who started this scene, weren’t out here circulating handmade janky photocopy zines of Kirk and Spock and and later Scully and Mulder and whoever the fuck getting it on. as if kink memes and fic requests haven’t been part of what we do for near decades now, as if they weren’t a huge part of fandom community before strikethrough, as if people aren’t still trying to keep them going to the best of their ability through fandom events and themed weeks and whatnot.
I am especially uncomfortable, actually, with this line of thinking being parroted in a time where we’re seeing increased corporate sterilization of digital spaces due to advertisers. spaces where it’s safe to openly reflect on, make art about, or engage with sexuality are rapidly dwindling. we do not need to be doing their fucking work for them by somehow making it nsfw artists or smut writers’ fault that people aren’t engaging with the community anymore like they used to. we are not the problem here, and implying we are is the same old “romance/erotica is shallow and silly” bullshit that people have been doing since the novel became popular.
I’m especially loath to take that stance when we’re also living through “everyone is hot and no one is horny,” where we’re also seeing a dearth of these opportunities as art made for profit becomes more and more driven by shareholders trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience so Numbers Go Up, and during a time where Queer people are facing increasing social stigmas from political and religious antagonism, considering a bunch of us fucking write smut because we never see ourselves or how we love and desire reflected in the aforementioned for-profit art, so we create to feel seen for ourselves and others, same as any other writer
those looking for something to blame for lack of engagement with their gen fic or their fluff or whathaveyou might consider that we’re all dealing with the same fucking beast: the commodification of fandom, which is encouraged by a streaming culture that insists on pumping out half-baked stories as fast as possible to keep up with trends rather than actual artistic intent, and, I would argue, doubled down on by an image-obsessed video app culture that encourages people to perform their engagement for an assumed audience, rather than, shocker, actually engaging fully with the work someone lovingly made. you wanna blame booktok for smut writers, you’re a couple centuries late and also missing a host of other variables, so do the reading and try again.
you want to just write something with no smut? super. write it. post it. share it with people. if people feel pressured to have smut in their fics due to an assumption that, at its root, is ahistorical and ngl layered with some pretty interesting inherent misogyny, then the only way to give people the space to publish more gen fic is to actually get it out there and engage with each other’s stuff, just like the rest of us smut peddlers are having to do over here.
do not make us sound like we’re a recent fad. don’t make erotic fiction sound like it’s somehow lesser or interfering with your ~pure fandom good times~, and only being posted to meet some sort of popularity metric, because not only is that not fucking true, it’s needlessly antagonistic to the very people who would have your fucking back if you didn’t make this a “well why post my thing bc everyone’s just going to read Their Thing” contest. trust me when I say comments and engagement is down for us too. this is not pie, we are not taking your fucking slice.
we are all writers. we need to stick together now more than ever. write the thing you want to write and tell us about it, but don’t make this out to be some sort of stolen valor or whatever. our writing is just as legitimate and inspired by a love of something as yours, it just looks different.
