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

[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.

[wickedwords]

Yes, you're right, but as this conversation is making me deconstruct things, I would say that the 'gen/adult' axis is left out of the labeling system if there is a relationship involved. And that leads right into the original conversation about this, that stories that fit on the romance axis are privelaged over the ones that don't fit on that axis, which is a complaint which has launched many a gen ficathon. Which is why I thought the original set-up--stories about queer characters in a gen (no romance, no adult trappings)-- was interesting, as it would be hard to construct a story about queer characters when you couldn't use sex as a marker for them. We rely so *heavily* on the trappings of sexuality as our shorthand in stories to identify who is queer and who is not, that I was really fascinated by how it can be done. Adding the adult stories back in meant that we get the short hand back, which is abummer, but I'm over it. The challenge is for both gen and adult stories about queer characters, and put the relationship axis aside.

[torachan]

I don't think that it's difficult to write about queer characters without using sex as shorthand, nor do I think that allowing explicit sex will lead to shortcuts. Like fiercelydreamed said, I think it's better to have a wider definition and hope that people will do different stuff instead of the same old thing. Just because fandom usually does X doesn't mean it has to be done that way.

This fic of mine is a good example of a way I think masturbation could be used in a gen fic (I don't think the entire fic would fit the comm's definition of gen because the last bit is about Ginny coming out to Harry and how that will affect their relationship, but the majority of the fic is pure gen) in a way that is not just a shortcut but an essential part of Ginny's journey.

[wickedwords]

Huh. See, the ending is totally gen to me; it's the part in the middle with the masturbation that's not. I do understand where you're coming from on that being a character exploration point, rather than it being romance or a gratutitous PWP scene. It does say something about Ginny--who he really is, who he wants to be--and is powerful and poignant. But I still wouldn't call it gen as it is, but it is very, very close to my definition.

[fiercelydreamed]

Just wanted to poke my head up and say I've been watching this discussion with interest. I agree that the definition I'm using here is inclusive beyond the bounds of the way "gen" is usually used. I've been thinking about how to leave the doors wide open for all kinds of creative works while honoring the fact that a lot of people watching this comm are most hoping for works without romantic or sexual content. My current thought is to do this via tags -- among the community tags, I'm thinking I'll include "no warnings needed" (meaning no explicit sexual, disturbing, violent, or triggering content; effectively an all-ages tag) as well as a "no romance" tag for stories that don't include any kind of a romantic plotline.

I'll be posting this as a new discussion soon, but do you think this kind of approach would let you find the sorts of gen works you're looking for?

[wickedwords]

I think that would really help. I think there will need to be a sticky with that information somewhere on the community layout, so people know to look at the tags when trying to find things to read, but it will make it easier to find things that fit the more standard gen definition as well as the ones that are more adult.

[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.