I mean: it's somehow unable to tap into itself, caress itself, inhabit itself - it's often seemingly compelled always to be impressing/caressing/fucking/servicing the partner - and unable to be with the Other's sexuality either, in a "reading together", collaboratively sense. So simultaneously all about 'getting its rocks off' - grrr - and never really 'being' with those rocks while they get off. Oh that was a terrible bit of imagery.
But the thing is, that's also fun. As a thing. As an option. The vulnerability of meditative awareness of oneself isn't necessarily always a desirable imperative. As a slightly gender-dysphoric, or perhaps gender-restless, person, I really love inhabiting a Sophielle who is male, who doesn't dissolve ecstatically upon orgasm "like a girl", who grunts and roars, and who is kind of emotionally unreachable.
papovich (Respected Member Lvl. 4) joined the room
Lasophielle: And writing, especially this kind of online writing, enables this!
papovich: heyz
Nor: hia
Lasophielle: Look - papovich has just come through the door - hey
papovich: hows it goin?
Lasophielle: We're discussing collaborative erotic writing - it's a project Open Saucehere
Nor: did you want to say more sophielle?
Lasophielle: Well to use papovich as an example - you can in this forum pass a mouse over the name and discover a certain profile ("Male / Dunno / 22")... but on Open Sauce you don't have that.
papovich: ohh not my kinda thing cyas
Lasophielle: bye
papovich left the room
Lasophielle: And to me, the very very simple fact of not having gender tags,
Adult Personals - Click here to find a partner near you!
Lasophielle: is fantastic. Feels more natural. Feels like my kind of world. And, perhaps this is astonishing given the amount of conditioning we have, I really don't or haven't speculated about the sex or gender identification of the O.S. editors (whereas I have speculated about their sexual politics ...).
Nor: Yes, I spent a long time trying to decide how much information about authors to gather. There was a temptation to gather statistics so that I could make crass statements like, 'women tended to add words such as...' etc. But I'm not sure what that would have added, and I think pseudo-statistics like that is its own kind of project and would need to be on a larger scale, with a wider pool of data, to be convincing in any way.
What you said earlier about masculinist sexuality being characterised as what we would call 'masturbatory', and yet at the same time avoiding reference to the body of the masturbator, is interesting. I guess with Open Sauce you can't do that - you have to own up to the bits you are adding and why. You are exposed. You can't, as in conventional porn, enter a fantasy where you get your rocks off via the characters/narrative presented to you, without much self-awareness being asked of you.
Like in mainstream porn, the man's body is usually positioned to the edge of the frame (or the edge of the narrative, in text-based porn) and the attention is on the woman's body. We are supposed to focus on her, to imagine that we are fucking her, and we don't see the man's body, just as we don't really see our own body.
Open Sauce is more self-reflective. So perhaps it's not 'porn' really - perhaps it is a kind of cybersex. I like dissolving this boundary.
Lasophielle: Actually, though, one thing I found quite bizarre about my first edit - which was on the 'virgin' text - oh just look at that loaded word!- was how automatic and unconscious it appeared to be as a writing process. It just tumbled out like I was already watching or consuming it, rather than creating it.
Your reference to gonzo porn - porn that really tries to give the impression the viewer IS the fucker, in the room, fucking the fuckee - that was, I suppose, close to how I was relating to the text under my own self-direction. I established myself on the periphery of my own gaze and awareness of the scene, and I just made the text turn into what I wanted it to be. To deliver me my goods.
Nor: That's interesting. I'm glad that as a participant you noticed that feeling - of wanting the text to 'deliver your goods'! This is exactly the point of tension that Open Sauce seeks to highlight. And this, despite the fact that (in the example of Open Sauce) the very fantasy you are engaging in is mostly borrowed from the previous participant.
I hope that other participants will experience and notice this dilemma too: do I engage with the person whose fantasy I'm writing into, or do I bend the text to the desires I brought with me? And I hope that the utter textual mess that the story evolves into will reflect this awkwardness and this struggle.
