Discussion post: defining "gen."

[fiercelydreamed]

The discussion of how to define sexual and gender minorities is still going, but in the interest of keeping things moving toward the posting of actual works, I thought I'd put up the second of the definition posts. I've already gotten some questions and suggestions on this one, so the timing seems right. 

For the purposes of the community, here is the definition I'm considering:

Gen: a work that does not foreground romantic or sexual relationships and where the creator does not consider those relationships to be the point of the work.

To be clear and give you all some further food for though, by my judgment this definition does not exclude the following:

• Stories where characters are in romantic or sexual relationships. Romantic or sexual partners are part of the everyday lives of sexual and gender minorites, so it doesn't make sense to me to impose a rule that characters must be single. It's possible for a work to acknowledge and allow space for these relationships without romantic or sexual themes dominating the work. Similarly, for fanfic (which is all about transformation and interpretation), it doesn't make sense to me to have different rules for canon and non-canon relationships. 
• Stories with explicit sexual content. I would encourage all creators of work with explicit sexual content to think hard about whether you truly consider that work to be gen, and I will ask you to warn for such content so that those who wish to avoid it can do so. However, I can think of examples where a work would contain sexual content without being focused on such content, particularly if sexual scenes or references take up little space in the work itself.
• Stories with other content appropriate for mature audiences. I can imagine some people taking "gen" to mean "appropriate for all ages," but I don't intend to limit it in that way on the comm. However, as with the previous note, I'll ask creators to warn for content that is dark, violent, or that they think some readers might find disturbing or triggering. 

While I'm on the topic of warnings, and without wanting to reproduce some of the very intense arguments that have occurred on the subject elsewhere:

• For the purposes of this community, inclusion of a character who is a sexual or gender minority DOES NOT require a creator to warn for "adult content." This policy connects directly to my intention that this community will challenge certain beliefs: that it is a right to be protected from the sexual or gender minority identities of others, and that such identities are inherently threatening or always sexually expressed. 
• While I will ask creators to warn for certain kinds of content, my tentative plan is to allow creator discretion as to how specific those warnings will be. I will ask creators to specify if a work has sexual content (and probably whether the content is mild or explicit), but not what the exact nature of that content is. Similarly, I will ask creators to warn for dark, violent, or potentially triggering content, but I will leave it up to a creator's discretion whether to provide further details in the headers. I will ask all creators to be considerate of others and to warn as specifically as they are willing to do so. I will also ask those viewing works on this community to be mindful of their own limits and take responsibility for their choice to view works with potentially explicit or triggering content. 

Thoughts? Questions? Examples you want to run by me as test cases? Proposed modifications? Concerns? To repeat my disclaimer from the previous post, this definition and the proposed policies are intended to be functional and useful for this community. I'm not proposing it as a universal that everyone should accept, just a guideline that will help people develop, post, and enjoy works in this space.

I've been really gratified by how thoughtful and respectful the discussion on the comm have been so far, and particularly impressed by how every time someone has raised a question or concern, someone else has come up with a really good idea for how to address it. Thanks, everyone -- I already feel really good about what we're doing here.

Comments

[trobadora]

I disagree; you may have a different definition of gen, but hers lines up perfectly with mine.

[wickedwords]

You must be seeing something I'm not, because what I read it "I want stories where the main plot isn't a romance". That's typically a story genre, like action-adventure or a case story. If they have explicit sex scenes in them, they are usually classified as "adult" (or het or slash or mature or threesome, etc) with the genre: adult action-adventure. To make it gen action-adventure, the explict sex comes out.

If the challenge is to write a story with queer characters that doesn't focus on the romance, that's a good challenge as we as a community don't do it all that often. But it is different than writing a gen story.

[landshark]

So is your position that any romance = non-gen; or would a non-explicit, secondary romance still work? I ask just for clarification purposes, because it seems like it still fits in with your comment [ I want stories where the main plot isn't a romance, To make it gen action-adventure, the explict sex comes out.]

Thanks :D

[wickedwords]

Ah! Sorry to confuse you. That summary I posted-- I want stories where the main plot isn't a romance -- was my interp of the guidelines as they now stand.

For myself, a fundamental piece of the definition of gen is that it is non-sexually explicit. I don't care if it's primary or secondary, iin a gen story, it's outta there.

The rest of it--romance upfront (no), implicit hookups in the background (possibly okay), canon-level-of-sexuality (no, see QAF as having a canon level of sexuality that already exceeds the definition of gen. You'd have to bring it down a notch to meet my gen definition), etc, etc, etc-- is debatable.

Including explicit sex in a gen story is like having more than 100 words in a drabble: sure, there are people who do it, and people who think it's okay, but removing the limits removes part of the challenge, and it's not really a drabble anymore. It's a story of 100 words or so.

Or possibly a haiku where the meter’s gone wrong.

[landshark]

I see what your saying. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

[torachan]

Explicit sex doesn't have to be happy relationship sex. It could be rape. It could be masturbation (not the "I'm fantasising about my partner" type usually found in fic; I would classify that as pairing-based).

The way sex is typically written in slash and het stories would disqualify it as gen IMO, but that does not mean it is impossible to write a story where the sex is not focused on a sexual or romantic relationship.

[sholio]

*agrees* Have you read "Your Cowboy Days Are Over"? I'd call that one 100% gen despite having a graphic sex scene (actually, it's the best example of including sex in a gen story that I can think of). On the other hand, if the entire story had been the sex scene, you could've had the exact same words but IMHO it wouldn't have been gen.

[torachan]

Yeah, original characters are a case-by-case basis for me in my personal definition. The OC in that was not there to get together with John, so even by my own definition (which is more strict than this comm's), I consider it gen.

[wickedwords]

See, to me, that's a classic adult story. It's not gen, since it has explicit sex, and adult is a viable option.

[sholio]

But see, to me, that's *rating*. I think of rating (general audience/mature content, or G/PG/R/NC17, or however one wants to do it) as an entirely different axis from gen/het/slash. "Gen" to me does not imply all-ages content any more than "slash" automatically implies adult content; the two often go together, but are not inextricably linked.

[wickedwords]

I'm not talking about only MPAA 'G-'style fiction; there are mature themes and mature subject matter in what I classify as a gen story. What I am talking about a level of explicitness at which that subject matter is portrayed when I talk the gen-adult axis; in that sense, it is a 'rating', which is why this whole discussion is making me crazy, as it has nothing to do with relationships, and yet it's getting lumped in with it as if het and slash were also ratings. Which they are not. I agree that the gen-adult axis is an axis, but het-slash is not. It's simply a label for the type of relationship involved in a story.

[fiercelydreamed]

*nods* Yeah, this is the kind of stuff I had in mind when I decided to leave the door open for sexual content. I recognize that a lot of people consider gen to exclude sexual content, which is why I'll ask people to warn for it, but I think there's ways to do it in a works that's still really about something other than sex or romance.

[wickedwords]

Yup, with you on the 'explicit sex doesn't have to be happy' but I lived throught the era when Hurt-with-no-comfort stories where the rape was the prefered method of hurt, the perp an NPC, and there was no relationship --not even friendship--portrayed between the main character labeled as 'slash' since there were two men involved. And frankly, that scarred me. I don't want to see the same labeling fiasco with gen.

[torachan]

So what would you consider it, then? If you consider slash to be only happy relationships, then it can't be slash, but it can't be gen, either...?

[wickedwords]

I don't consider slash to be only happy relationsips, but I do expect for a story labeled slash to have a relationship between two male characters, even if it is antagonist and victim. (And, in fact, I love antagonist and victim. It's a twisted, and special, relationship.) So a story with no relationship should not be labeled slash or het to me, no mattered the genders of anyone involved. So explict sex, no relationship = adult. No explict sex, no relationship = gen.

[trobadora]

A story that isn't focused on romance or sex can still contain both or either. And what do you do with an explicit PWP that's all about someone masturbating but not fantasizing about any partner if you don't call it gen? I've never understood gen to be sex-free or relationship-free.

Also, am I understanding you right that you're saying by your definition gen can't be "adult"? What about extremely explicit violence, then? Some stories do rate NC-17 for that.

[wickedwords]

Yup. I do use an 'adult' category, and explict sex and explict violence can both fall under that. I feel like adult-invisiblity girl, as there's this whole other category/classification of fiction that is being forgotten, that life is more than just 'gen', 'het', and 'slash''.

[torachan]

Ah, but that's the problem. You are seeing gen as general audiences (same as MPAA G-rated), therefore not adult. But a lot of people see gen as general = not romance, having nothing to do with the rating of the fic.

The reason people see gen the latter way is that it fits with the het/slash system. Het and slash can both be G-rated or NC-17 or anywhere in between. So it makes sense for gen to also be a category that is not dependent on rating.

If you have four categories: gen, adult, slash, and het, they are not equal categories, because slash and het can also be gen(eral audiences) or adult.

[wickedwords]

Actually, I'm seeing gen as no explicit sex. To put it in perspective, I just finished reading Tamora Pierce's Bloodhound last night, which is a 'young adult' story, which is roughly the equivalent of gen as far as explicitness goes. It is focused on a 17 year old female character who is 1) a 1930's style cop, breaking heads in a riot and all 2) who goes out and buys birth control as she is developing a relationship with a guy 3) once had a crush on a guy who she has since discovered is gay, and whose long term partner is transgender. To it has sex, it has violence, it has queer characters in the background who kiss at least once in the novel. But is is not explict, and it is young adult fantasy. (It also contains a little too much romance, but hey, ya can't have everything.) All of that stuff could go into a gen story for me, just as it's fine in young adult. It just happens to be toned down.

Amp it up overall = Adult
Amp up the het romance and put it front and center= het
Amp up the background male character relationships = slash

[torachan]

That still doesn't make the categories of gen/adult equal to slash/het. They're measuring totally different things. So gen/adult is ratings-based, but slash/het is romance-based. It's apples and oranges to say they are the same type of categorisation. You would need a another category to encompass gen/adult, a word that means "non-romance fiction of any rating", in order for it to be equal to het and slash.

[landshark]

The reason people see gen the latter way is that it fits with the het/slash system. Het and slash can both be G-rated or NC-17 or anywhere in between. So it makes sense for gen to also be a category that is not dependent on rating.

Yes, that's exactly how I always thought. Thank you for mentioning that.

[sholio]

This, yes! I just said more or less the same thing above. I have always understood gen/het/slash to be an entirely different categorization system from the MPAA-style content ratings that fandom uses; gen, het or slash can fit into any rating. The idea of adding a fourth category for "adult" is very confusing to me.

[torachan]

The only time I've seen adult used as a category like that is way back in the day when it meant het. Gen was no romance or low-rated het, higher-rated het was adult, and all slash was automatically adult because it contained homosexual relationships, regardless of rating.

Which is obviously offensive and thankfully not many people consider slash to be automatically R/NC-17 anymore.

So with het and slash now encompassing all ratings, gen/adult no longer makes sense.

[trobadora]

I don't understand - you and I must come from very different fannish traditions, because the way I know it, "adult" is a rating - gen or het or slash all can be adult or not.

[wickedwords]

Interesting. That is quite possible. To me, slash and het are labels related to the relationships involved in a story, while gen-adult is the level of explicitness. So a slash story is a story that focuses on same sex relationships, while a het story focuses on het relationships. Gen and adult have no relationships implied.