It's Different Because They're *People*!

[neadods]

I joined metafandom because it posts interesting links to fannish happenings around LJ, and hey - if fanthropology is good, than more of the same must be better.

We'll see how long I last now that my first post has led me to Sprat's commentary on Real Person Slash: "I know this is a sensitive area in fandom, and I know there are a lot of people for whom this is, like, A Really Major Deal--not just a personal squick, but an actual ethical issue having to do with the right to privacy of the actors in question. And the thing is, I honestly do not understand why."

Because they're people, that's why!

I commented in the thread, and I tried to keep my tone reasonable, but I am one of those folk with "an actual ethical issue" about this, and it's very simple to explain why - whether the actors in question know it or not, whether they read it or not, whether they care or not, real person fiction demotes a human being to the same level as a fictional character.

There are levels of this, some not all that offensive. For instance, obligatory disclosure, I once wrote a real person fic. I put a fictional character on a Julia Childe cooking show, which necessitated having Julia Childe in the story. But I don't feel that I denigrated her because I showed her doing her doing her job. And I've read plenty of fanfics where the actor gets sucked into the character's world, or vice versa. When the real person is written in a situation dealing with their job, and written in a manner that fits their character as known, then - well, you can argue that a line is crossed, but it's harder to argue that a person has been damaged or insulted.

But when you start talking about private issues - love, sex, family - in a public fiction, then you start treating people not just as moderately fictional, but as dancing meatpuppets. Real person slash - particularly slash about het humans (I get the impression that Sprat is writing about Paul Gross, who is married) depersonalizes the subjects even farther into breathing sex toys. Sex toys that are getting their workout not in the confines of someone's skull, but right out there in public for the amusement of the masses.

How can you not see that as ethically creepy?

There appear to be two arguments in favor of RPS. First, that the actors are attractive and sell their sexuality in their work. But just because they're selling the sizzle, it doesn't mean they're signing away their rights to control the steak. Where is the ethical line between saying "if actors wanted privacy they wouldn't be actors" and "if women don't want to be raped, they shouldn't wear miniskirts"? Because from where I'm standing, I can't see that line at all. RPS may not be as violent or violating as an actual rape, but it springs from the same mindset - that anyone that attracts is responsible for slaking the sexual arousal - regardless of that person's opinion, interest, or even intent. The same can be said for stalking. It's a fine, fine line between just writing about fantasies with someone and making those fantasies real.

And y'know what? Even if you NEVER plan on making said fantasies real, if you publicly post something torrid about an actor and then go see them, what is it going to look like - to the actor, to the authorities, even to the rest of the fandom? Better pray nothing happens to that actor when you're around, because you've made yourself public suspect #1 without ever banging more than your keyboard.

Second, is the argument that "what they don't know won't hurt them." Well, yeah. The odds of someone finding a specific story about themselves are pretty low. BUT - that doesn't mean it won't happen, not with the global, lingering nature of the Internet. Plus, while the odds of a single person finding a single fic might be low, what about the widening pool of people associating with that person? Their spouse, their children, their friends, their parents - is it really safe to assume that none of these people will trip over the story? Equally important, is it safe to assume that because the story is not about them personally that they won't be hurt/shocked/upset/appalled? Do they deserve to be hurt just because you wanted to get your ya-yas off with a person instead of a character, and wanted to do so in a semi-public forum?

Not to mention that just because they don't say anything directly to you doesn't mean that they don't know. If you suspected someone of stalking you, would your first impulse be to talk to them, or to gather up your information and quietly talk to the authorities? Particularly if they might be going somewhere, say, a convention, where you might attend and they were worried about their safety? (I work conventions, I've been in fandom for decades. I am so not joking here. It only takes one stalker scare for a fan club to lose their star or for a previously wonderful guest to stop coming.)

Is it really all worth it just to be able to write a story about a real person? A person you don't know anyway? Trust me, no matter how friendly they are, how many interviews they give, you don't actually know them.

Think they're hot? Think they ought to be with someone of your choosing? For the love of sanity, write about their character and you can safely bang 'em like a gong. Fictional people doing fictional things is a victimless crime. But for heaven's sake, if you're attracted to an actual person then grant them the dignity of treating them like people!

And no, the golden rule doesn't apply if you wish people were writing torrid RPS about you. Get a sex life of your own!

Comments

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I have very little to add; that's very much like my issue with using real people as characters in intimate situations. Plain and simple, it's an unethical way to treat another person, because it intrudes on very personal places without their consent. If someone says to you personally or to his fandom "Go knock yourselves out, I think it's funny as hell," there's consent, and fair enough.

To say that being marketed is an intrusion on their privacy and dignity, so it's okay, well, it's an intrusion public figures explicitly agree to every time. They may be told it's the only way to work in that town again, but they can and do exercise the authority to sign over bits of their public image or not. (They may then be unhappy with the results anyway, but that's no reason to skip the explicit agreement stage.)

On a sort of tangential note, I also take issue with the point of view that it's all right because they'll never know. Quite aside from that not being the same as victimless (when you're relying on the ignorance of the target, it's a sure sign that there's a legal or ethical issue in the situation), I simply don't think it's as hidden an activity as it must appear to ficcers. Most actors of an age to be familiar with the internet know perfectly well what's going on in fandom. (And even some who you wouldn't expect; IIRC, Ian McKellan is perfectly well aware of what goes on in LOTR fandom online.) You don't even need to be an actor to do ego-surfing, it's so common that Wired stopped writing about it in 1996. But they have an added incentive; they rise or fall based on public reaction to their work. Any actor reasonably in touch with their own fans knows very well their characters are being slashed. If they personally are being slashed in any real amount of stories, you can bet they know. You don't even need to be online to know; any actor at a con, personally in touch with, say, a hundred fans, will meet five who don't have any inhibitions about showing them extremely explicit content involving their characters or themselves. An actor making a public moral objection to common, garden-variety slash at a con tore apart Blake's 7 fandom back in the '80s, before this stuff was easy to find on the internet. The actors know. They may only have glancing familiarity, or may not be very interested in talking about it, but they'd have to be blind not to know.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

An actor making a public moral objection to common, garden-variety slash at a con tore apart Blake's 7 fandom back in the '80s

I've been waiting for someone to bring this up. And Darrow wasn't even upset about RPS, he was upset about slashing his character. An upset that ripped apart friendships and a fandom, and which cramped several careers.

Fandom's fantasies have a real-world impact, on the actors and on the fandom itself. Does anyone's "right to write" take precedence over the responsibility to a fandom? To the dignity of the people we supposedly like? I have yet to be convinced that the answer isn't "No."

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I will add the side note that it seems possible Darrow was making a political move at the time, rather than a moral objection, and one could argue whether he had the right to ask for a ban on character slash, but it is an example of the actors clearly being aware and affected by what the fandom thought was its own concern, and the fandom being quite badly affected by it when push came to shove. Actors aren't in the dark about fandom, and fandom doesn't roll over in unison to acquiesce to actors - there's no good reason to think it'd be different with RPF than it was with slash. In a fandom that's gotten accustomed to RPF as part of the culture, some will accede gracefully when asked to give it up by the actor in question, and some will very likely fight for their right to continue. It only takes one badly offended actor to rip a fandom apart so that it doesn't recover for decades. Legally, where slash is, like all fanfic, copyright infringement, RPF is infringement on the right of an individual to control the reproduction of his name and likeness (a right that legally does need to be explicitly assigned by the individual), as well as potential defamation of an individual, potential libel of an individual, etc - that, to my mind, makes it rather more dangerous to a fandom, and rather more targeted at damaging an individual when the conflict does come.

(Whose careers were cramped, fans or actors? I hadn't really heard that part.)