Work Text:
On the subject of contrast in pairings
by JR
As a personal preference, I am quite more interested in the idea of sex between superheroines and villains as themes of fanfics than in simple affairs between heroes.
This may seem to lead to restricting such sex to nonconsentual couplings, but that is not in fact my main interest. Althought I can enjoy a well written NC fanfic ocassionally, my main interest is the meeting of opposite principles, a situation which fascinates me both in philosophical and aesthetical aspects. (Being a pervert helps)
The pairing of heroes gives us a simple variation of the typical soap opera or romance novel situations, but the interaction between heroes and villains is more filled with potential, given the strange love/hate relationship that exists between the two side of the morality divide. BIoth are complementary opposites, yin to yang. Without a Batman there would be no Joker? Is the challenge of Superman what leads Luthor to crime? And why aren't their relationships terminated in more drastic terms? Why does the villain place the hero(ine) in traps with one possible method of escape instead of simply killing him(her)? Why does the hero always turn in the villain to the police, knowing well that he will return to cause trouble again? Why are the patterns of confrontation repeated endlessly? There is a strange sexual game aspect to all this. The animosity between Batman and Catwoman is just an intense form of foreplay as even the movies emphasized. Poison Ivy is also another source of sexual tension. Talia, daughter of Rah's Al Gul, was even impregnated by Batman! Also, even chaste Superman had Maxima as a femme fatale seeking his sexual attentions.
Curiously, the female heroes in the past had no such easily identifiable opposite sex antagonists with whom stablish sexual tension. WW fought other women (Chetaah, Circe, Gargantua, etc.) mostly, her only recurring male foes were Dr.Psycho (a dwarvish weakling who used illusions and mindtricks to dominate others -quite symbolic) and most recently the god Mars, who is merely a representation of the state of warfare. Only in recent years, with the advent of the "bad girl" trend, did WW find in her comic series some attempts to stablish male power figures in opposition (the White Magician) but with no good results.
Thematically this atraction between opposites is quite common, and has been used successfully in several genres hinting at its sexual implications. The moral issues implied in its sexual exploration are of great interest to me, as its involvement actively would be reflected or not in the typical heroic behavior or role-playing.
Aesthetically the attraction of the opposites is also an old tradition, from Beauty and the Beast to King Kong to Virgil Finlay SF covers of space princessess and hideous aliens.
If we think about it, superheroines are the ultimate expression of beauty and female power in the modern myths of comics. Wonder Woman is both athletic and voluptuous, muscular but extremely femenine, Storm is a often-proclaimed goddess, whose name Ororo means "beauty", Jean worked as a model, etc. All superheroines are expected to be beautiful, and all wear costumes that showcase and flaunt their feminity, showcasing impossibly proportioned figures. All this of course is because it is men who mostly draw and read about them.
Now, since they are as beautiful as can be imagined, to have those perfect specimens of womanhood paired with a normal man or even a normal-looking superhero will seem unbalanced, because no man can match a woman's beauty, and if she is as powerful as him, in the physical sense, then there is no contrast and no balance.
So to retain a balanced mixture we seek the most obvious contrast: Ugliness. But we want our male to symbolize masculinity as strongly as heroines do the opposite, so instead of the graceful power of the heroines, we go for sheer brute (masculine) strength. The partner must remain humanoid enough to be able to suggest maleness, and we must seek to have strength displayed openly, often through hugely muscled bodies, which to better contrast against the heroine's perfectly exaggerated proportions, must be overblown into the grotesque. Because the only way to balance out her beauty is to employ sheer ugliness and unrestrained, obvious power. The heroine wears her beauty and sexual appeal openly and holds unsuspected power hidden in her apparent delicate frame, thus the male is instead obviously powerful, yet he holds his sexual appeal (his skill and ability to give her pleasure) hidden beneath his ugliness.
Thus is seeking such a balance the essence of the appeal of visual contrast. However, that visual contrast is mantained only in the relationship of heroines and villains. (Which perhaps also reinforced the suppossed contrast between their moral attitudes. Pretty=good. Ugly=bad).
Look at most of the truly memorable villains in comics: Darkseid, Thanos, Terrax, Rhino, Juggernaut, etc. They all have physiques exaggerated into the almost bestial, suggesting sheer male strength. That crude brutal appearance of them also suggests that their sexuality is also not restrained. Superman could outperform any of those (except Doomsday probably, who would have given a much different sort of fight if facing WW instead of Supes) but Superman's boy scout appearance and behavior all suggest restrain, control... His sexuality is thus repressed. Hulk, however, as the manifestation of Banner's repression, would probably fuck anyone he wanted to, and probably DID so off-panel for all we know.
Thus, the figure of the humanoid but monstruously distorted villain is the perfect sexual pairing for the beautiful heroine.
Old cheesy horror movies played off a similar idea, where the horrified girl was shown abducted by the invading alien or swamp monster. But this attitude is a bit short-sighted, since it is used to emphasize just the typical role models of women as damsels in distress, and that even though they cannot resist it, they are always disgusted and horrified at the creature, until they are rescued to their relief or by some hockey empathy they perceive the "hidden kindness" of the monster, and later are saddened by its inevitable demise. Nothing intrinsically wrong with those scenarios, but the basic situation holds much more potential to me.
Thus, some of my prefered (althought not exclusive) fantasy scenarios involve the heroine having sex with some grotesque creature, (reflection of my bad self-image?) which can be a hugely powerful monster or a deceitful or helpful goblin-like creature or alien, which, to her surprise, turns out to be a most capable lover. This does not mean she becomes a willing sex-slave by necessity. The reaction can be as varied as enthusiastic compliance ("I had no idea it would be this good! Do not stop!" or deadly retribution of a more realistic kind, even if tempered, ("Just because you were a good lay you think you can get away with raping me, you bastard?") or various degrees of indifference ("Well, that was a lot better than what I expected, but I wasted too much time already..." "Wouldn't have minded doing it under better ircumstances, but now..." "It was just sex, you know, pretty good, but I have had better...") or more humorously disdain ("THAT WAS IT??)
I personnaly like the stories to explore various options, but I enjoy that situation were the heroine is even repelled or disgusted at first by her suitor, and when being pleasured, she realizes the shortsightedness of her judgement. This reinforces the typical nerdish fantasy of the beautiful females's reevaluation of the apparently unattractive being through its sheer sexual performance.
(However, My interpretation of Wonder Woman is however that she has not been conditioned by our prejudices of appearance and standards of beauty, so she is not repelled by animal-men or aliens, judging a lover by his skill and physical performance, not by his(its?) looks. I also conetemplatted her when just recently arrived on man's world as being baffled by all the obsession of males over her body... "Is the size of my breasts really ALL THAT important?")
This theory of the balance of contrasting visuals also helps me explian why the typical hentai image of the girl in the grasp of tentacles coming from off-screeen is not appealing to me, perverse abuse factors aside, since the anonimity of the partner robs it of poignancy. In other words: I want to see coupling, as in "couple", sex with a worthy partner, not a symbolic phallic implement to symbolize control. I want to see on-screen the joining up of the opposite principles. I want to see the full merging of yin and yang. Japanese tentacle sex is then only foreplay to my interests.
But that is a whole different essay.
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