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Post NaNo Navel Gazing
Dec. 10th, 2011 12:03 pmRe: my totally self-indulgent NaNo project. AKA the Medieval Curtain Fic
Spending a month happily wallowing about in a textual expression of my kinks illuminated the reason--- well, the secondary reason-- why so much of my service kink is noodling and daydreaming rather than completed text. I can’t reconcile service kink with its usual endgame: True love and partnership.
I’m pretty sure I’ve wanked before about the inherent inequality in master/servant relationships, and how I tend to be unconvinced about certain aspects of their love: equality, respect, stability (I mean, think about it. If their love goes to shit in five years; the master’s life will stay the same; the servants is out on the street, most likely penniless). I had to put that wank in a tightly locked box while writing the blossoming relationship between my not-quite a master (advisor to a prince) and servant. But wank is like dandelions. Pull out one, and others will sprout.
Indulging in month-long orgy of service kink and inequality drama in book form forced me to consider consequences that never need to be addressed in noodling and pervy daydreaming. The consequence I can’t get past is: the dishes still need to be washed.
Most endings to master/servant stories involve an elevation for the servant. I don’t begrudge anyone a rise in rank. It’s just that the tasks her or she did as a servant do not magically disappear. Someone has to do the dishes, iron the clothes, scrub the toilet. Unless living in a garbage house is OK with everyone, the work is still there, waiting.
Take the ending of Cinderella. We all like thinking that once Cinderella moved onto the royal castle that the stepmother and stepsisters were forced to clean up their own messes, but really they probably just found some other hard luck, zero-options orphan, and set her to task. Cinderella’s Happily Ever After came on the backs of a castle full of servants, the lower ranked ones likely having a life similar to the one she ditched.
How is that okay? I get frustrated with stories that seem to say that the suffering of servants isn’t particularly awful in itself, but that it is inflicted upon one particular servant. I read a story once, in which a master wanted his bedslave along on a short journey for plot purposes for who knows why. The bedslave was a bit sulky because he wanted to stay home by the fire, and I was like, you know who else wants curl up by the fire and relax rather than go to work? Everyone else.
I get the play towards sympathy-- who hasn’t wanted to stay snug in bed on a cold morning rather than go to work. But I’m appalled by the lack of empathy. Someone built that longed-for fire, swept the ashes, chopped the wood, etc and it wasn’t that servant. Did those unnamed servants wish to lie abed that morning as well?
Intellectually, I understand that scenes of chopping wood isn’t the aim of these particular stories (and that stories can’t be about everyone) but I find it very, very difficult to sympathize with the plight of someone who can’t be arsed to care about their comrades. It frustrates me that bedslave characters tend to be just as snobby and uncaring as their masters, they rarely even know other servants’ names, they do none of the garbage work that keeps their silk cages clean. Rarely do their stories even portray them as having body care duties. Other people tend to bathe them, style their hair, take care of their clothing, even shave them. Man, if I could have someone shave my legs while I idly soaked in a huge tub… that’s like Stuff I Will Indulge In When I Win The Lottery.*
Nightly rape obviously is a high price to pay for idle days spent in relative luxury. My goal here does not include discounting the trauma experienced by actual people forced into sexual servitude just because they didn’t have to make the bed they were forced to lie in. I’m speaking of a certain type of romance fiction, and in most stories of these types, the master/slave sex isn’t intended to be perceived as rape, and most bed slaves/servants don’t suffer any trauma that can’t be cured by another round of the same lovin’.
I know I am far more thrilled with scenes of floor scrubbing and silver polishing than the average reader, and that little joy makes the gloom more gloomy, but the writing class junkie in me has to ask “why not make a character’s pre-happy ending life more miserable, more hectic, more conflicted?” I’m think of the book “Transformation” by Carol Berg. In it, a servant character is overworked and hasn’t had time to bathe. The Prince stops by to pester him about something. The scene has the inherent conflict between master and unwilling servant, but it also has a luscious extra layer squirmy feeling because we’ve all bumped into someone important while not looking our best.
The socially conditioned “good” girl in me worries that this is an insight earned by a terrible and deeply rooted streak of sadism. After all, I fully admit to reveling in the same fictional hardships that I’m semi-wanking about others Not Caring Deeply Enough About. To everyone else, the service is only a situation to be overcome; the emotional value of the story is in the Happily Ever After. To me, the service aspect has the emotion, all the yummy roiling emotions; the Happily Ever After is only an unimaginative propagation of capitalist values.
The social justice wanna-be in me just wants to bellow out “That’s not fair!” If servitude is bad for one, it’s bad for all.** Again, Happily Ever After comes on the backs of other people who did not get a Happily Ever After. The Prince didn’t go live in the garret with Cinderella, the master never frees all his slaves; just the one he loves. Love lifts one person, but condemns others to even more toil.
So my problem is, I love premises (service kink, power imbalances) that I can’t get to an satisfying (to me) ending with. Things remaining status quo doesn’t work because of the inequality issues (love the angst, can’t buy it as true love). The servant being elevated leads to the above wank or a grossly idealized happy ending (every1 is super equal nao! Yay ). The master choosing servitude usually conflicts with the notion of love elevating our lives.
And what frustrates me the most, is I did it once with The Prince. I’m not saying it was The Greatest Story of the Genre. I’m saying the resolution satisfied me. I dealt with most of the power imbalances, no one got the short stick, and everyone was reasonably happy. So, I know it’s possible to write service kink and power imbalances that also sate my notions of fairness. I just can’t get there yet. Or rather, I got to the first level (the Prince), but writing stories on the same theme that are deeper, harder, rougher, edgier, whatever-er are still above me.
*It would totally be ODB. Totally. We’d talk shit about people the whole time, and if she accidentally cut me, she’d say “Suck it up, baby.” and I’d say “You’re fired.” and she’d say “Yeah, right.” and then Maryse would say, “Do you want your toenails painted pearl pink or seashell pink?” and I’d say “Winning the lottery is AWESOME.” and then you all would kill my buzz by reminding me of this post.
**except for those who are into that sort of thing :P
Spending a month happily wallowing about in a textual expression of my kinks illuminated the reason--- well, the secondary reason-- why so much of my service kink is noodling and daydreaming rather than completed text. I can’t reconcile service kink with its usual endgame: True love and partnership.
I’m pretty sure I’ve wanked before about the inherent inequality in master/servant relationships, and how I tend to be unconvinced about certain aspects of their love: equality, respect, stability (I mean, think about it. If their love goes to shit in five years; the master’s life will stay the same; the servants is out on the street, most likely penniless). I had to put that wank in a tightly locked box while writing the blossoming relationship between my not-quite a master (advisor to a prince) and servant. But wank is like dandelions. Pull out one, and others will sprout.
Indulging in month-long orgy of service kink and inequality drama in book form forced me to consider consequences that never need to be addressed in noodling and pervy daydreaming. The consequence I can’t get past is: the dishes still need to be washed.
Most endings to master/servant stories involve an elevation for the servant. I don’t begrudge anyone a rise in rank. It’s just that the tasks her or she did as a servant do not magically disappear. Someone has to do the dishes, iron the clothes, scrub the toilet. Unless living in a garbage house is OK with everyone, the work is still there, waiting.
Take the ending of Cinderella. We all like thinking that once Cinderella moved onto the royal castle that the stepmother and stepsisters were forced to clean up their own messes, but really they probably just found some other hard luck, zero-options orphan, and set her to task. Cinderella’s Happily Ever After came on the backs of a castle full of servants, the lower ranked ones likely having a life similar to the one she ditched.
How is that okay? I get frustrated with stories that seem to say that the suffering of servants isn’t particularly awful in itself, but that it is inflicted upon one particular servant. I read a story once, in which a master wanted his bedslave along on a short journey
I get the play towards sympathy-- who hasn’t wanted to stay snug in bed on a cold morning rather than go to work. But I’m appalled by the lack of empathy. Someone built that longed-for fire, swept the ashes, chopped the wood, etc and it wasn’t that servant. Did those unnamed servants wish to lie abed that morning as well?
Intellectually, I understand that scenes of chopping wood isn’t the aim of these particular stories (and that stories can’t be about everyone) but I find it very, very difficult to sympathize with the plight of someone who can’t be arsed to care about their comrades. It frustrates me that bedslave characters tend to be just as snobby and uncaring as their masters, they rarely even know other servants’ names, they do none of the garbage work that keeps their silk cages clean. Rarely do their stories even portray them as having body care duties. Other people tend to bathe them, style their hair, take care of their clothing, even shave them. Man, if I could have someone shave my legs while I idly soaked in a huge tub… that’s like Stuff I Will Indulge In When I Win The Lottery.*
Nightly rape obviously is a high price to pay for idle days spent in relative luxury. My goal here does not include discounting the trauma experienced by actual people forced into sexual servitude just because they didn’t have to make the bed they were forced to lie in. I’m speaking of a certain type of romance fiction, and in most stories of these types, the master/slave sex isn’t intended to be perceived as rape, and most bed slaves/servants don’t suffer any trauma that can’t be cured by another round of the same lovin’.
I know I am far more thrilled with scenes of floor scrubbing and silver polishing than the average reader, and that little joy makes the gloom more gloomy, but the writing class junkie in me has to ask “why not make a character’s pre-happy ending life more miserable, more hectic, more conflicted?” I’m think of the book “Transformation” by Carol Berg. In it, a servant character is overworked and hasn’t had time to bathe. The Prince stops by to pester him about something. The scene has the inherent conflict between master and unwilling servant, but it also has a luscious extra layer squirmy feeling because we’ve all bumped into someone important while not looking our best.
The socially conditioned “good” girl in me worries that this is an insight earned by a terrible and deeply rooted streak of sadism. After all, I fully admit to reveling in the same fictional hardships that I’m semi-wanking about others Not Caring Deeply Enough About. To everyone else, the service is only a situation to be overcome; the emotional value of the story is in the Happily Ever After. To me, the service aspect has the emotion, all the yummy roiling emotions; the Happily Ever After is only an unimaginative propagation of capitalist values.
The social justice wanna-be in me just wants to bellow out “That’s not fair!” If servitude is bad for one, it’s bad for all.** Again, Happily Ever After comes on the backs of other people who did not get a Happily Ever After. The Prince didn’t go live in the garret with Cinderella, the master never frees all his slaves; just the one he loves. Love lifts one person, but condemns others to even more toil.
So my problem is, I love premises (service kink, power imbalances) that I can’t get to an satisfying (to me) ending with. Things remaining status quo doesn’t work because of the inequality issues (love the angst, can’t buy it as true love). The servant being elevated leads to the above wank or a grossly idealized happy ending (every1 is super equal nao! Yay ). The master choosing servitude usually conflicts with the notion of love elevating our lives.
And what frustrates me the most, is I did it once with The Prince. I’m not saying it was The Greatest Story of the Genre. I’m saying the resolution satisfied me. I dealt with most of the power imbalances, no one got the short stick, and everyone was reasonably happy. So, I know it’s possible to write service kink and power imbalances that also sate my notions of fairness. I just can’t get there yet. Or rather, I got to the first level (the Prince), but writing stories on the same theme that are deeper, harder, rougher, edgier, whatever-er are still above me.
*It would totally be ODB. Totally. We’d talk shit about people the whole time, and if she accidentally cut me, she’d say “Suck it up, baby.” and I’d say “You’re fired.” and she’d say “Yeah, right.” and then Maryse would say, “Do you want your toenails painted pearl pink or seashell pink?” and I’d say “Winning the lottery is AWESOME.” and then you all would kill my buzz by reminding me of this post.
**except for those who are into that sort of thing :P
