From the multifandom MakeBelieve list on Yahoo. There are spoilers here for a Sentinel fic titled "Imperative Hunger" by Kato (I don't know where this fic is/will be archived), which was a perfect example of some of the things I address in this essay. --- Peja wrote: > angsty, h/c fics and BDSM in my mind are totally > different. > > for me, angsty fic is that little sad piece where the > character is going through self-dought in the relationship or > in his life. More of a mantal kind of pain. I agree with this, but would go further. Angst would be any kind of emotional pain, anything that leaves characters questioning themselves, or their situations. Angst can be part of a story involving physical h/c, because in most cases, there will be some emotional component in an h/c story. Angst doesn't have to be self-doubt. Angst can be doubt and mistrust of the character that your protagonist is attracted to. "Does s/he love me?" That's not self- doubt, but it's certainly a painful emotional question. "Why did s/he do that/treat me that way?" is another potential focus for angstfic. If your characters are in the closet for one reason or another (gay? superpowered? immortal?), angst may center around being outed or otherwise having the relationship revealed. How will their friends react? The reality is that some people do reject people who come out as gay/bi/lesbian and in a relationship with someone of the same sex -- or involved in multiple relationships. That kind of situation could drive an entire angst-based story all by itself. Angst also comes into h/c stories through the angst of the hurt character's partner -- will s/he recover? If the partner somehow contributed to the situation, will the character forgive him/her? Can the character forgive him/herself for putting their partner in the situation? Will their relationship be destroyed due to the emotional conflict of the situation? Will it be strengthened? How will it change -- because we know that change is inevitable. In "Imperative Hunger," Blair is in a constant state of angst along with the physical tortures he endures. His doubts of himself, the emotional torture he suffers at needing Jim but believing that Jim hates him and has rejected him, the fear and disgust he feels as he is forced by his own body to submit to Chance are all deep in the heart of angstfic territory. The angst itself, more than the physical torture, is what drives him to his suicidal state and his several attempts at killing himself. *Angst* is what drives this entire story. > H/c is physical pain...the accident, illness, whatever kind of > hurt where the partner has to help his friend or lover heal Yes, h/c is definitely fic where the physical situation is predominant. Friendship fics as well as sexual/emotional relationship fics can be h/c stories. To me, a h/c requires as much comfort as the hurt buildup. If you torture your character for ten chapters, you need way more than three paragraphs of "comfort" for it to qualify as a "hurt/comfort" fic. Most readers need the satisfaction of watching the comfort, the recovery process, the reestablishing or beginning of an emotional relationship with the person caring for the hurt character. Comfort is our big payoff for suffering with the characters we love. > BDSM, by the simple condition of being BDSM is a consensual > hurt and comfort. The Dom gives pain that the sub needs to be > complete. Its the kind of love that requires an exchange of > power and trust that the Dom isn't gonna twist the pain into a > form of abuse. One of my pet peeves, and a thing that immensely bothers me about some fics is when an author confuses BDSM with h/c and abuse. BDSM is about consensual play and may involve all kinds of things rather than just "pain." BDSM is about *consent* as well as the mutual explorations of boundaries. BDSM is about trust and the erotic *exchange* of power. Yes, some people may abuse others and call it BDSM, but I hope that authors will distinguish between these, if only for the sake of their readers. While I have to say that I really enjoyed "Imperative Hunger," I did not in any way see it as a BDSM fic. What happened between Jim and Blair at the beginning wasn't BDSM, it was abuse. Blair had no options, no safeword, no way to escape what Jim was doing to him, and Jim was deliberately inflicting physical and emotional abuse on Blair in an attempt to drive him away -- Jim's motivation in that scene neither excuses nor explains away the abuse. Responsible tops don't leave someone when they're tied and/or gagged. Responsible tops understand that someone can DIE like that, and it doesn't take much. At the least, Blair would have ended up with more than abrasions after what Jim did to him. He might have lost the use of his hands. He might have been unable to breathe because of the position he was tied in. Even if Blair had entirely consented to such a scenario, it would be abuse to someone like that. Yes, it's fic, but there are some realities that should at least be acknowledged in passing. Blindfolding someone and *saying* you're leaving, or just leaving the room but remaining within hearing distance -- and a distance where you can get to the person within 30 seconds or less at that -- is a responsible way to handle such a scene. It's a psychological power play when done in that manner. Going away for hours and returning drunk is most manifestly not. Yes, the story was set up so that Blair would be driven away, and I can accept that as a part of the story for "Imperative Hunger." It was necessary to the rest of this well-written, compelling tale. What I can't accept is the label "BDSM" that was given in the story headers. I can't say that this story really qualified as h/c either though. This is why I say it: There was no comfort. The end of the story had Jim and Blair together, bonding sexually, but there seemed to be absolutely no comfort for Blair at all. He was tortured for over two weeks. Jim's reactions and responses only added to the torture. Even when Jim found Blair, there seemed very little shift in his attitude. Yes, Jim had some bad relationships. Yes, Jim was protecting himself from emotional pain because of it. Big deal. All of us have had bad relationships at one point or another. Most of us deal with it without feeling a need to torture a potential partner. Jim didn't once apologize to Blair. There was no emotional comfort outside the spirit realm, and I don't see that as sufficient. Jim didn't seem to recognize that it was his of Blair that had driven him to *attempted suicide.* The moment of cosmic justice when Chance raped Jim didn't begin to cover what Jim owed Blair for what he'd done to him. Sorry, but I need more than a hot, sweet fuck at the end for comfort. I needed to see Jim genuinely regret what he'd done. I needed to see him care about Blair as more than a body. I needed to *hear* him tell Blair he loved him, and then watch him convince Blair of that, preferably over more than just one night. I can't see Blair honestly *believing* Jim loved him at that point, even if he *had* taken Blair back, even with the relief from the terrible physical imperative that drove him. The condition that Blair was in by the time he was brought home would take years of therapy to get past. And no, I'm not saying "let's watch Blair through years of therapy and Jim apologizing." I just wanted to see the gestures made, the process begun, the reassurances uttered. Blair's torture was not just physical but emotional. He fought himself at every turn. He had to deal with the immense guilt of his body betraying him, no matter how much he hated what he "let" Chance do to him. He required emotional as well as physical comfort. I want to explore writing BDSM here for a few minutes. The letters stand for a spectrum of things. BDSM includes more than the leather and whips and Master/slave play that a lot of people seem to see as the main components. BDSM can be just a bondage scene (B for bondage). Bondage may be a psychological game, or a physically felt need for restraint on the part of top and bottom. Bondage may be an emotional part of Ds play, emphasizing the helplessness of the sub, enforcing the Dom's will. BD may be bondage and discipline, but the discipline isn't always a component, and it isn't always pain or impact play. In my Well Kept series story "Armani Weekend," Doggett punishes Byers for an infraction in public by making him pay for a lunch that he was told would be paid for. Ds play (Dominance/submission) may take the form of Master/slave play, but it may also be about service and submission rather than being a "sex slave." The stereotypical slave's collar doesn't necessarily figure into the equation at all. Ds is as often about power as it is about sexuality. Why does one person willingly submit to another? There are an incredible number of reasons for this, and not all of them are sexual, but they can certainly be Ds. For some people, the point of Ds is the exchange of power -- they might get off on serving their Dom dinner just as much as or more than they'd get off on their Dom fucking them. They may find the control the Dom is given over their life while in the scene to be a calming, reassuring thing. They may feel a need in their life to give up responsibility over certain things in a situation where they are otherwise heavily responsible for very difficult choices and decisions. Submission may assuage guilt over mistakes in other parts of the sub's life. Likewise, punishment as part of discipline or sado- mashochism may be an expiation of guilt dealt with safely within a consensual relationship. A good example of this type of fic, where punishment serves to expiate guilt, is "Crime and Punishment," a Doggett/Skinner fic by Alexis Rogers. http://basement.ditb.org/archive/1/alexisrogecrimeandpu219101.shtm l Domination may be an erotic turn on for a person who feels a lack of power in their mundane lives. It may give them pleasure and confidence through taking power in the personal sphere. Again, domination may have nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the rest of the person's life -- but they eroticize the exercise of power in a formalized Ds setting. Eroticism, sensuality, and sex are not all the same thing, and that deserves an essay all its own. A good example of submission as something other than sexuality would be Sentinel fic where Jim gives over control to Blair when they're at home, to relieve the burden he feels of being the Sentinel of the Great City. Here, at home, he has no responsibilities -- he can give his choices and decisions to Blair, knowing that he can safeword and say "no" if Blair demands too much of him. The submission becomes his shelter from the life and death responsibilities he bears. SM is what I think most people see as "BDSM" in fic. This is the sado-masochistic part of play. This is where pain frequently comes in. This is about whips and chains, about piercing and needle play, about blood play, about clothes pins and humiliation and other things of this nature. Bondage can show up as part of this - - bondage can be gentle and sensual, or it can be made deliberately painful. In SM, when bondage is used, it's meant to cause pain that brings on an endorphin rush. Sex may in fact have nothing to do with SM, aside from the eroticized charge of it. SM isn't necessarily about rough sex. SM can be very psychological. Binding the bottom and blindfolding them may be quite the torture for a bottom who is tightly emotionally bonded to the top. For the top to effectively "remove" him/herself from the bottom's sight may be what the bottom considers torture and may be extremely psychologically painful. Removing the blindfold and allowing the bottom to touch, or even just see the top may be all the comfort reward the bottom desires. I'd like to go back to "Imperative Hunger," and again, I must emphasize that I *liked* this fic. It was well written, and sucked me in like you wouldn't believe. It kept me on the edge of my seat. But it wasn't BDSM because it wasn't about consent. It wasn't h/c to me because I didn't feel there was a sufficient level of "comfort" to justify all the hurt. There were a lot of directions the fic could have gone. The author was relentless with the Blair torture (yum). I would classify this as a very strong angst-fic, personally, despite the level of physical torture. The emphasis in this fic was Blair's emotional suffering. It was extremely effective as an angst fic. In fact, I would love to see a sequel to this where we actually *see* Blair- comfort, and where we explore how Jim and Blair repair their relationship and turn it into something more than Hunger and watch it become the Love it is intended to be. I hope this'll help clarify some of the options available in the very complex matrix of angst, hurt/comfort and BDSM in fic.