Warning ahead of time, this gets a bit disjointed, with ideas and explanations, less of a review and more an idea for an article I guess?
I don’t know why I do this to myself, you know? I mean, there must be some part of me that takes inordinate amount of pleasure away from reading bad fanfiction, well bad fiction generally, but I swear if I read another description of Spock’s jade nether regions I think I’ll cry.
So yes, after my previous fanzine discovery regarding Della Van Hise and her slashy fanfiction alter ego Alexis Fagan Black, I decided to go searching for more of her ‘wonderbad’ works. I was not disappointed (well perhaps my wallet was), Private Possessions sat there in the ether of the net AND it was available from a seller in the UK (my main objection to getting them is shipping costs from the US). The fanzine was soon in my grubby little mits.
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| How Angsty! |
Private Possessions is a 1986… I’ll call it a fanzine but it’s more a short (40k) novel credited to Alexis Fagan Black and published through Van Hise’s ‘Pon Farr Press‘. This makes it relatively contemporary with the release of Van Hise’s novel ‘Killing Time’. Now I know I’m relatively young and late to the party, but I couldn’t help but feel like I’d read this story before… that probably says more about me than I’d like to really admit, but for you, I’ll reveal my deep dark secrets.
Before I continue, I’m going to give you a warning, one warning:
Private Possessions is slash fiction – if you don’t like it or it offends you, don’t read any further.
Still with me? Excellent, onwards!
So, as I was saying, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d read this story before. I mean, I don’t know when this particular story construct first appeared in fan consciousness, but it’s one I have seen across multiple fandoms and most commonly within fiction written by women, for women containing male homosexual relationships. If I was writing about Japanese fiction I’d call it YAOI, but I don’t really think there is an equivalent term or word in the West. I do struggle in calling this ‘gay fiction‘ although a publisher would probably put it under a ‘gay fiction‘ label. The reason for this is because it isn’t really fiction written for the gay community, the writer is ostensibly a heterosexual woman, the main readership, heterosexual women. It’s wish fulfillment, and if you read the text closely, you’ll notice that despite apparently male appendages, one of the characters is distinctly feminine and takes on a distinctly female role.
The premise of the story is thus:
Spock was captured whilst on what should have been a simple mission, apparently by slavers. Kirk spends an inordinate amount of time looking for Spock in various slave auctions, for some reason he never goes in disguise. Kirk finds Spock, who has seemingly had his memory completely wiped and is now essentially programmed to be a ‘bed slave’ (HA), no points if you can already guess where this is going. On getting back to the Enterprise, shenanigans ensue and Spock attacks Kirk (no, not like that you dirty minded individuals – wait for it). McCoy recommends that Kirk and Spock leave the Enterprise for some privacy in order to get Spock’s memory back.
With me so far? OK. Kirk ends up pulling some strings and ends up with use of a secluded luxury mansion. It’s described as basically the height of opulence, marble floors, gilt everywhere, and infinity mirrors (why are there always infinity mirrors that never get used in the narrative?). There are no servants or attendants, it’s just Kirk and Spock alone… perfect right?… I have seen this setting so many times in this kind of fanfiction, it isn’t even funny, hell the fact I’ve seen it in published fiction is bad enough, it kind of gives me a ‘Mills & Boon’ vibe.
The narrative then continues on it’s smutty predictable path, repeated misunderstandings, Spock trying to be the ‘bed slave’ he’s been trained to be, the inevitable masturbation scene where Kirk realises he is attracted to Spock and then sees Spock jacking off, but convinces himself it’s just the ‘reprogramming’ and ‘this can’t really be Spock’. Kirk doesn’t accept new Spock, Spock just wants to be loved and accepted, because even in this state he loves Kirk.
Horse riding through the mountains + emotional breakdown.
And finally, the drunk-date-not-quite-rape, it’s-only-barely-consensual, rape-fantasy-fulfillment, please-make-it-stop, Spock-almost-drowned-Kirk-with-wine-and-tied-him-up.
Of course, the next morning all is forgiven because ‘it had to happen this way’… because rape fantasy sex solves all problems, and only two days into a 2 month medical leave! Spock is back to his usual self but Kirk a very happy underdog, wants to continue the relationship.
Yadda. Yadda. It all works out in the end.
You might be getting the vibe that I really didn’t like this, you’d be right. I’m pretty easy going when it comes to certain things, less forgiving about others for sure, but there are quite a few things in this story which really bothers me.
For one thing, I can see why there was a lot of angst amongst the fans about slash fiction, the rights or wrongs of it etc. As Van Hise/Black says in her little editorial at the beginning of the fanzine, she’s glad of ‘IDIC’ – essentially often taken to mean ‘to each his own’ within the Trek Fandom (it actually means ‘Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations’). I think this is inflammatory in itself, especially since she would have been aware of the arguments going on between fans in other zines on the subject of slash. It’s this kind of fiction that people point to as unacceptable; the characters are caricatures of themselves. The only things which really makes Kirk in this story are that he is captain of the Enterprise, what he looks like, and a few vague mannerisms. Even more distorted (and that’s the point of the story I guess) is Spock, who is just a pair of pointy ears. It’s a strange objectification of two beloved characters, reducing them down to essentially porn lookalikes, right down to the reused set and storyline.
This is what people think of and object to when they object to slash fiction, and rightly too! IDIC can only take it so far, and when you are perverting the characters to this extent I don’t think you can really defend it. There isn’t anything deep about this, there’s no exposition, it’s just cookie cutter smut – and it’s not even well written.
I’m not going to even go into the quality of the writing, because, well, suffice to say it was eyerollingly poor. She can write better than this, this is just… awful.
The other thing, the BIG other thing that really bothers me about this story type is the ‘rape fantasy’ aspect combined with the ‘female substitute’ character. This is something you see almost exclusively in YAOI. It’s basically where although the characters are male in appearance, one of them takes the female role. In YAOI it goes a little further, the ‘female’ character is often physically depicted as more feminine, they could have feminine mannerisms, have a less developed body, longer hair, that kind of thing. In Private Possessions the female role is taken by Kirk, he’s the caregiver, the one who needs to be ‘taught’, he’s also less physically strong than Spock – this of course is canon, it’s also the way the rape-not-rape is able to be carried out later.
The fact that Kirk is restricted by what he feels is morally correct also puts him in a position where he can’t act – just as a woman can’t initiate, he is also made impotent. In this way Kirk/the woman is also absolved from any moral wrongdoing for example, if they end up liking the ‘rape’ even though they feel sexual relations with the other person is wrong. If being physically weaker isn’t enough, then add to the mix that ‘Spock’ threatens Kirk into drinking high strength alcohol, then physically forces him to drink it, and then ties him up.
…
Kirk tries to take the blame for it too, because, the rape-not-rape helped him to confront his feelings. It had to happen that way. It basically all works out and at the end they end up being a happy couple.
This doesn’t bother me as much as it should, the rape aspect anyway. I have read far, far too many versions of this story, so many different rape fantasies, to be offended by this. What actually bothers me most is the feminisation of Kirk and the complete disregard for characterisation (I guess more to the point, that Kirk needs to be feminised to make the rape and then self blame acceptable, even laudable). The feminine character is often a self insert for the female author/reader, and there’s often a disconnect if the reader doesn’t have the fantasy of being dominated by the other character.
I often worry what kind of mentality we’re breeding into fans through this kind of fiction, especially younger female fans, because despite the fact this was published in 1986, we see the same themes, the same stories coming up again and again today and they aren’t empowering or hopeful.
Fan literature is more influential than many people realise.
If you want to read this
story you can find it
here. I haven’t checked for any alterations/revisions in this text (
and I’m not reading it again) as this appears to be uploaded by Van Hise herself, but it should give you the uh, flavour of it.
StarTrekTales 