Alien Drugs, Alien Sex Hormones, or Magic Made Them Do It As Allegory

[cimorene]

I wonder if anyone's ever written anything about the allegorical meanings of the various fantasy and science fiction tropes used in romance for physical-proximity-or-die plotlines (telepathic and magical bonds, X-is-a-Veela-or-other-supernatural-creature-with-animalistic-qualities and Y-is-his-[soul]mate, pon farr/sex pollen/sex drugs).

I mean, the ones where they can't step more than five feet away look like a variation of a handcuffed together story on the surface, but the alien/magical compulsion elements usually have the effect, intended or otherwise, of parodying in exaggerated fashion some genuine relationship dynamic. Veela-and-mate stories sometimes have both partners feeling the magical effects of dying to have sex all the time/logical abilities leaving them, which I guess is a fairly straightforward Love Makes You Do The Crazy moral. Or else about being teenaged. But then there are the ones that primarily emphasise how the magical element makes one partner possessive and/or jealous; or unable to sustain anger at the loved object and in short, completely unreasonable; or vulnerable, in that the affected partner will become ill/crazy/dead if denied sex/physical proximity/affection. The allegory in this type of story is usually blindingly obvious, but it is rather interesting that the animalistic kink element is so widespread, and that the main themes are so variable.

Love is externalised and characterised in this type of story, which makes it inevitably easier to examine the message about it than in many other types of romance. In all the stories love is portrayed as a deus ex machina, an alien force imposed on the human consciousness and affecting it in strange and troublesome, if not always unwelcome ways which are usually seen as positive in the end, but the nature of love itself - essentially pleasant or painful and vicious; highly mutual or the automatic creator of power imbalance - is still highly variable.

Comments

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

I see physical-proximity-or-die and have-sex-or-die fics as allegories of “non-consensual love”. The deus ex machina, the teenage-kind of love that doesn’t slowly grow but strikes you suddenly, that does not die even if the other party isn’t interested or even dies. That is still the romantic ideal, yes? But only a few actually experience this. Maybe it’s a myth altogether… But in the same way as people try the positions of being pregnant, being a victim, being a hero, and so forth, people are also trying out the position of undying, even against-your-will, love.

Of course, shallow as I am, I read these stories in search of non-concensual co-dependency ;)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I see that you mean "non-consensual" as in, without the consent of the party who is in love. That's certainly the feature that this kind of fiction seems to examine. The plot device serves to make it ACTUALLY non-consensual, so there's no question of the love coming from within the affected character at all. I'm not sure if anyone truly experiences that love in real life... but it's certainly a big theme in romantic literature and even in modern, er, pop culture (songs, casual conversation). The idea that you can be in love against your will is alive and well, even if it doesn't make any sense. I guess the question is what this type of fiction has to say about that. Sometimes they use the alien/magic/whatevers to explore the character's reaction to the love itself. Sometimes the love goes just as unquestioned and it's just about building a relationship without any blame falling on the character for falling in love (perhaps with an unsuitable object such as Draco and Harry in HP, or against the strictures of homophobia/DADT in SGA and other sf Aliens-Made-Them-Somehow stories).

[emmuzka.livejournal.com]

Hm, now that you said it, I can see how this plot devise can be used for making the subject an innocent victim on falling in love in an environment that is strongly against the couple getting together. The writer can happily skip over all rational thinking. Which is actually a sad thing. But maybe rational thinking regarding falling in love (is it worth it to get to know this person better, is it worth it to come out, what do I get for taking this to the next level, will I be shunned in my social environment because of this?) is as big a taboo as the insta-love is a myth?

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I think that idea is fairly taboo although I think I have come across rational thinking about falling in love sometimes in slash fiction - I have the impression that it's rare. I can't think of any concrete examples... except wait, there's definitely one about Rodney doing that by Shalott and one where Ray decides dating Fraser would be the logical thing to do (maybe by Bone and Aristide?).

I think that usually, the rational thought about it is presented as futile/silly, an early stage of thinking that is happily discarded later in the story. Although it's also popular to think ABOUT the love in slash, and about how it makes sense/was a good choice or would have been a good choice if the hero HAD been able to think about or choose it in advance. You get a lot of stuff about how "nice" it is to have so many things in common/ be comfortable together, usually as an excuse for why they fell in love with their best friend instead of a female from canon.

Here via metafandom

[pandorasblog]

This trope (and issue) has come up a lot in the Laurell K. Hamilton fandom (or at least the disgruntled part of the fandom) due to the fact that in the more recent books, the heroine Anita Blake has developed a vampiric power/condition/hunger called the ardeur which means she needs sex often to give her (as I understand it) both phsyical and metaphysical energy. And because she's got metaphysical bonds with a bunch of vampires and lycanthropes, in the book I'mn reading now it's made clear that they're at risk if she doesn't "feed" the ardeur by having an orgasm or (for lesser fulfilment of the hunger) being in a sexual situation.

The problems that fans have had with the books/author in the past few years are legion, but the ardeur is probably chief among them because it's the focus of so many other issues. For instance, Anita has control issues in her life and relationships, and the fact that sex has now become a survival need puts pressure on the men she's with to have sex with her.

As well as creating dubious consent issues (it's possible for someone she feeds on to become addicted to the ardeur), it has also impinged on Anita's own character development: she went from being very uncomfortable with her existing two partners (part of a power triumvirate - again, a survival thing) to having to cope with having (by book thirteen) seven men in her bed at various times. And the problem a lot of readers have is that Anita's discomfort usually takes centre stage, with the problems the ardeur creates for her boyfriends and unintended victims of the hunger being less cared for.

Underlying the direction the books have taken is an apparent assumption on the part of both author and character (Anita is now considered a Mary Sue by upset fans) that a woman is morally compromised by wanting multiple partners, even if those partners are consenting. The implication is that it's only okay for Anita to have multiple partners because the ardeur makes having them a survival necessity, something Anita cannot help. To some extent this was true even before the ardeur - Anita had two partners she couldn't choose between, one of whom threatened her. Then all three became metaphysically bound in a way that increased their powers (which is what ultimately caused the ardeur to rise in her). Round about that time, much of the (conventional) romance went out of the books, with sex-as-necessity and powerbase-building as an increasingly dominant theme.

What you say about animalistic kinks certainly holds true in the example of Anita and the ardeur - not only because some of her partners are lycanthropes, but because the ardeur's role in her life has been paralleled with Anita catching lycanthropy herself and developing a "beast" (an internalization of the animal weres shift into), though she doesn't shapeshift herself in the normal way. There seems to be an implication that by giving in to her latent sexual desires Anita is less human, and this is interesting in a series where humanity and compromised humanity are recurring themes.

What you say about love being characterised and externalised also holds true; in the thirteenth book (where I am now) the concept that the ardeur is "choosing" more metaphysically powerful sexual partners for Anita has been introduced, and there are several conversations where the fact that it is being discussed as though it could think is mentioned and questioned by Anita.

Re: Here via metafandom

[cimness.livejournal.com]

This is interesting! I don't know much about the LKH situation/books aside from the occasional gossip, but it certainly does seem to fit in with the theory.