in which i randomly attack a well-loved trope

This is, surprisingly, non-HP related. No, *really*. This is A Moment of Random Fanfic Bitching.



Okay.

I totally am behind the rentboy-kink thing. I do. Seriously. I'm not a huge fan of it (my only attempt at it went to the most depressing places *ever*) but I do get it. It's kink. It's hot (so I've heard. Not my thing, but I've read some I enjoyed that didn't verge on character assassination).

But God.

This is just--kind of a rule I wish I could set up. For fic that is not supposed to be kink. Because kink-fic is a different animal.

Unless your character canonically has no other possible skills up to and including the ability to use a spatula at McDonalds, maybe most of them *might* choose to not sell their asses (or other sexually-charged body parts) for money. I know, crazy thoughts.

But really--suddenly Random Character X is fired/wife dies/sister dies/mother dies/Dark Lord dies/Lionel dies/world ends/au-where-everyone-is-a-prostitute*/head-injury-so-terrible-they-lose-their-minds and boom, they are offering up asses like it's Christmas and someone gave them a hit of ecstacy to surpass all hits of ecstacy. It's *bizarre*.

*shusu has permanent exception to this rule because she's doing things with her rentboy au that I've never seen done before and also because, to me, she set up a universe where I could see John Sheppard doing this and still be John Sheppard. Also, no humiliation moments that seem so rife in other fic. Also, Jesus, hot.

But other than that--okay, admittedly, I don't get the attraction. Since it's not my kink, I can't go to that mental place very well or easily--frankly, shusu tricked me. I'm fairly certain this is one of the things I Just Don't Get because to me, I cannot imagine anyone taking it up willingly. Totally a me-thing. And it's a me-thing that is totally scraping my nerves raw when I see it, because it always seems to be paired with a fairly high level of humiliation like this is some sort of punishment for the character in question for whatever the author doesn't like about them in canon. Not always, and probably not even most of the time, but it does feel like it sometimes.

Right. Done here.



This has been A Moment of Random Fanfic Bitchery. Please return to your porn writing, plz.

Comments

[joesther.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly certain this is one of the things I Just Don't Get because to me, I cannot imagine anyone taking it up willingly.

It's not just a you thing. I know someone who works in the "sex industry" and no matter how many times I've asked her why she does it (she says she started it because of the money and now she loves it), I can't get into that mindset. I just can't. *shrug*

[seperis.livejournal.com]

The closest I've come is some acquaintances who are exotic dancers. Their answers tended to be very varied in reasons--money, easy, interesting, etc. I do get that I think--but then again, taking off one's clothes for money feels like a universe away from sex for money.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

And yet people do IRL. Lots of them. Most of whom, I'm sure, have some other skills, however minimal.

I do agree that fics that start in the canon universe and then have the characters become prostitutes are much more likely to be badfic.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Well, no, they don't IRL. Not lots of them. Many people, but not so large a percentage of the population that it's something most people would consider right off as a normal source of income most of the time.

And IRL--well, real people? Are a lot more flexible than fictional in doing what's in character.

[marici.livejournal.com]

In an otherwise fairly nice FF7 fic, the author decides that the best job Cloud could get after getting his head together and saving the world would be as a go-go dancer in the Gold Saucer. Same principle, I think: lord, what makes you think that was his only option?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

It's--yeah. *winces*

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. As actual scenarios, that kind of story doesn't usually work for me.

And thanks for the reminder. I've thought long and hard about why certain kinds of light D/s can work for me -- it's that, it's just that: I do not want my characters to be humiliated, especially not sexually.

[percysowner.livejournal.com]

I agree with you in general, especially about shushu's rentboy universe which is a great exploration of a man who becomes a sex worker because he is driven by his own demons. There is, however one universe where I also buy a main character becoming a sex worker. That is the Supernatural universe. There is enough canon evidence of John leaving two young children alone to fend for themselves that I do buy the idea that Dean could easily have turned to prostitution to take of himself and Sam during one of John's extended hunts. But again here we are talking about a pre-series time when Dean would not have had the ability to legally flip hamburgers at McDonald's and would have been under the strict family stricture that you never tell the outside world how you are living. I can actually read these stories as in character and horrifically sad, as well as portraying a life that other children chose for similar desperate reasons, but I do not find these stories hot, more of a character study that explains Dean more fully.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

ITA about Dean, which brings up a point:

Prostitution is quite believable if the character is under 18 and/or living illegally. Getting any kind of "real" job requires papers, and you don't get paid immediately and in cash. (though when Dean gets old enough I agree with the fanon that he works construction when he can.)

The other character I can easily see turning to prostitution is a teenager Lex Luthor, who would do it just because nothing would make Lionel madder. Again, as with shusu's Rentboy 'verse, the believability comes from the character's demons.

[revelininsanity.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...Sorry, I'm just popping through here, but as I understand it, paying a prostitute for her services is more like paying to have power over that person for a certain period of time. Maybe it's a power fantasy?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it is, which is why I make an exception for kink--kink fic can and *should* do these things. But dropping it into a fic that is what becomes a problem to me, because like parody fic, it has its own rules on how to proceed. A fic not under these tends to fall under the "I Feel This Character Is Upppity And Needs To Be Taken Down a Bit" or "He Is So OMG Pretty So Of Course He'd Choose This As a Totally Normal Thing To Do!" *shrug*

[apple-pi.livejournal.com]

I don't care for rentboy kink because it's so, so rarely done in a way that does not require me to put on eyeliner and listen to Fallout Boy - you know? I'm totally with you on the "rentboy-must-be-bad-and-therefore-punished" distaste. Ew. That said, I don't mind fics where someone decides to be a hooker. I mean, it's not my career of choice, but I've always thought, if, y'know, Robert Redford came along and offered me a million bucks for one night - hell yeah. (Mr. Pi and I pretty much agree on this one, lol.) And honestly, I can imagine worse jobs than... having sex for money, assuming it's safe sex and there's not a pimp beating me up. I guess the courtesan lifestyle, as opposed to the rentboy lifestyle? Eh, I dunno. But I get what you're saying.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I don't mind it either--when it's done with character's that have a snowball's chance in hell of ever being in that position. Or again, kink-exception. If it showed up in Firefly fic, sure. But there's a lot of time where an author's dislike for a character, or the entire slash-mindset where of course the pretty character would be a prostitute no matter their canon charcteristics, that really does get on my nerves.

You made me think

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

Before I'd finished my first diet Coke, let alone my third, when the synapses are acceptably lubricated, and for that I shall bitterly resent you until...I've finished my third. Say, 15 minutes or so from now?

The product of my thinking is this:

1. [snif] I like Rent!Boy!

2. Wait. Have I ever read a realistic treatment of Rent!Boy? (Blair Sandburg drug-addicted on the streets of Cascade does not count.)

3. Given how much "Pretty Woman," "Irma LaDouce" and Inara Serra have to answer for, what are the odds I have any idea what a "realistic treatment" would entail?

4. BUT I LIKE RENT!BOY!

5. Have I ever seen a story where a John or Rodney or Jim or Blair or Methos that I saw in canon (wait--I could actually buy Methos doing literally anything, he's had 5000 years to practice; so scratch him) was convincingly a rent boy?

6. shutupShutUpSHUTUP.

In conclusion: I need more caffeine to climb out of this festering pit of resentment. Also, I still like rent!boy, I just don't believe in him quite as much as I do Dr. Sheppard or Constable McKay.

Also...

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

Has anyone ever crossed over Jack Harkness with Methos? I would have no trouble whatsoever buying that.

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

I've got some pretty fluid (and some really strict) lines drawn about what I will and won't accept in fic--prostitution is one of those that has an incredibly fluid line, because most characters (especially, in my mind, most adult characters who had a career or at least a job before the decision to become a sex worker) would not think "Hmm. Being a prostitute sounds like something I could do to make rent."
However. I can easily see it in AUs (subcategory:college, subcategory:highschool, subcategory:runaway, category:angst) where the character is desperate, about to be turned out on the street, kicked out of house/school, homeless, addicted, whatever. There are circumstances where I can see "Okay, given these circumstances, it is not completely unrealistic to me that Character X would make this decision (or have this choice forced upon him/her)." For instance, arsenicjade did an absolutely excellent job at this in bandslash when she wrote Wednesday Night Boys. But a lot of authors seem to sidestep the motivations for doing this, and go right into Character X in this situation: "I'm in a bad place. I could sell my body to people who will use it for sexual gratification. Oh look, now I'm a hooker." And then they skip the part of the story that's fulfilling to me as a story, and not just as an exploration of other people's kinks.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I can easily see it in AUs (subcategory:college, subcategory:highschool, subcategory:runaway, category:angst) where the character is desperate, about to be turned out on the street, kicked out of house/school, homeless, addicted, whatever.

Those do tend to work better, and I have either read/skimmed/or heard mention a rentboy SPN story in that category, which does work for me. I'm not running out to read it immediately (again, I'm just not terribly intersted in the genre), but at least if I try it, I can come into without twitching myself into some kind of seizure.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

The rent-boy thing is a variation of the power kink, and a close cousin of both slave fic and the cinderella story. It's fantasy powerlessness, where the RB doesn't have to make choices or decisions, except for the one where they chose to sell themselves, which is of course a bad, bad choice and they end up pawns for anyone who wants to abuse them. Enter the Significant Other, who sweeps in and STILL keeps all of the power, rescuing them from the one choice --which was a bad, bad choice--that they actually made.

I love RB fic, and one of the things about shusu's story is that she doesn't take the power away from the sex workers. They aren't forced into it, the world doesn't conspire against them to have put them in that position. Each one made the decision to be there from a position of power in their lives, and because it fit with something they wanted. It's not a bad, bad choice, and the sex workers still have some power. It twists the regular dynamic, which is what makes it so awesome.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

The rent-boy thing is a variation of the power kink, and a close cousin of both slave fic and the cinderella story. It's fantasy powerlessness, where the RB doesn't have to make choices or decisions, except for the one where they chose to sell themselves, which is of course a bad, bad choice and they end up pawns for anyone who wants to abuse them. Enter the Significant Other, who sweeps in and STILL keeps all of the power, rescuing them from the one choice --which was a bad, bad choice--that they actually made.

That's pretty much the reason I dislike most fic in this category. I've rarely seen it done in a way that wasn't supposed to be humiliating to the rentboy character: personal humiliation, where their entire worth seems to be wrapped up in how well they spread their legs, except for The Significant Other Who Sees Their True Nature But Not Until They've Banged Them a Few Times. Beyond that, it's (almost) invariably done not to the character himself, but on the basis of the physical attractiveness of the character in question. To me, it's--I don't know. I guess another form of character-bashing.

YMMV.

[skadi.livejournal.com]

suddenly Random Character X is fired/wife dies/sister dies/mother dies/Dark Lord dies/Lionel dies/world ends/au-where-everyone-is-a-prostitute*/head-injury-so-terrible-they-lose-their-minds and boom, they are offering up asses like it's Christmas

Just wanted to add that the above line made me really, really happy.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

[inalasahl]

(Here by way of metafandom of the future.)

I'm having trouble figuring out how you (or anyone else) is supposed to distinguish between kinkfic and not-kinkfic and thus, when it's "okay" to make a character a hooker. Oh, no, this fic has serious moments in it, is over 2000 words, doesn't turn me on, must strike hooker plot?

Also, while there may be people who get into prostitution because they sat down one day and thought about their skill set and what kind of careers were open to them, I don't think that's the typical path. It seems like an odd standard to hold fictional characters to.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*shrug* My definition of kink-fic tends to go toward the PWP mode--it's for the sex, for the hot factor, like parody is for the humor factor. Like some kinds of alien sex pollen, or the sudden random pon-farr, or the random exaggeration of certain character traits for the humor. It's not supposed to make anyone think, "Ah, yes, I can see Character X in this situation", though I suppose it can do that depending on the person reading it. It's "Ooh, hot, character X is a rentboy."

It's a fluid line.

And um, this *is* a personal choice type of thing. I know how I define it comfortably enough to say I don't like it outside certain parameters and I can usually tell within a few seconds of reading it if it's in those.

Also, while there may be people who get into prostitution because they sat down one day and thought about their skill set and what kind of careers were open to them, I don't think that's the typical path. It seems like an odd standard to hold fictional characters to.

Really? I hold characters to a fairly common standard; can I see the characters doing this?

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

I agree with you to some extent about the rentboy trope, although I admit it's one of my kinks, so I've been known to pounce on new examples with cries of delight. You're right about other avenues being a more likely way to make a living for most characters, which is why I tend to believe it most when they're young, have financial obligations to meet (paying for sick sister's treatment, paying blackmail money to evil foe, etc.). Or when they're doing it to rebel against a controlling family. Another factor is the economic health of where they live - if it's an area where there isn't a lot of opportunities anyway, taking to the streets seems like a valid lifestyle choice.

Clark during the summer he ran away to Metropolis.
Harper from Andromeda (that one was apparently canon in the creators' minds)
Ryan on The O.C. if he hadn't called Sandy

But like I said, it's one of my kinks *g*

[chicafrom3.livejournal.com]

Harper from Andromeda (that one was apparently canon in the creators' minds)

*glee* Linked here from metafandom and was contemplating mentioning that. But you did it first. Yay, you! :D

this comment is a lot shorter than I want it to be

[shusu.livejournal.com]

*glee* *grateful, grateful glee*

I am tempted to publicly state my dirty, dark secret about Rentboy AU. But I'm not done with it yet (yes, I finally got over one of the major roadblocks and am kicking it around again), so I won't open my big fat Authorial Intent mouth until the readers have had their way with it.

(Shush, enname. LOL.)

However I will say that I do research for Rentboy AU. I look into places that disgust me, into lives I would never wish on anyone. And it goes along with my Fandom Manifesto (scattered all over my LJ like so much leaf litter). I think the last time I said it clearly was in my angst essay (http://shusu.livejournal.com/801051.html) (and probably glancingly in my 'honesty is the best porn' (http://shusu.livejournal.com/903366.html) statement.)

My personal problem with this metaphorical pain is that for some people it is not a metaphor.

FWIW + YMMV.

Re: this comment is a lot shorter than I want it to be

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

In the last five minutes I had before heading off to work this morning, I skimmed the Memories section of your LJ and found nothing that slapped me in the face screaming "RENT!BOY AU!"

May I be a spineless sissy and ask for the link? please? [pitiful eyes)

[tex.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this. Because if we're applying this to John Sheppard, I just don't like the sluttyJohn characterization. I realize that turning to a life of prostitution doesn't have anything to do with being promiscuous but ... I don't know, I just believe in a Sheppard that has more dignity than that.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

It's been in every one of my fandoms, including my two het fandoms, and it still is something I have to think about every time. I can't say I've never read a believable one or one I liked--but there aren't that many that worked for me in a way that convinced me the character not only had zero other options, but that it was in character for him to do it.

YMMV on that one.

[ltlj.livejournal.com]

Me too, I can't stand that kind of story, especially the humiliation factor and the lack of even a glancing resemblence to reality.

[akacat]

The thing about prostitution is, if the prostitute is keeping the majority of hir earnings, the money is a lot better than flipping burgers, and for fewer hours.

In a fantasy world where skeevy johns don't exist (and prostitutes keep their earnings), it's a doable 'weekend' job for an orphaned college student with dependent younger siblings.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

True. Again, though--I don't think *most people* would consider it their first choice career. For a male (and a female, but there just arent' a lot of female prostitute AUs that I've seen), it's fairly dangerous if it includes anal sex, not only from a disease perspective, but from an injury perspective. And for a lot of people, it's a job that has not only strong social disapproval, but more than that, kids aren't raised to think this is a good idea. Overcoming that kind of mental conditioning--be it religiously based or not--is something a lot of fic skim over. Being willing to have sex with a lot of differnet partners for fun, to me, is a universe different from charging money for it.

Beyond the realism factor (which honestly I don't care about that much except for teh fact that on this particular issue, I can't get away from it *because* of what it is), it's also the humiliation factor. With a few exceptions, rentboy AUs rarely work from any angle *but* the degradation/humiliation of the rentboy in question, their tragicness, their lack of choices, their deep emotional scars, etc. I'm separating this from kink-fic, written to fulfill a kink--it's painful to read this and most of the time, I simply don't see the character they are using as the rentboy *being like this*.

But again--rentboy is almost a full squick--I can't be objective. And honestly, Shusu is pretty much the first time I *did* get the kink potential from it as well as feel like the character *could be* like this.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I love the rent!boy kink -- and shusu's doing one that's more than just prurient sex fest? How did I miss this?

*Icarus goes to haunt shusu's LJ, and shake it until the rent!boy falls out.*

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

You've prompted some fascinating conversation in your comment section! Here's my bit:

According to the estimable Dr. Drew Pinsky, who is generally very well-informed and non-judgmental about these things, women who become prostitutes *always* have a background of sexual abuse at the hands of a male authority figure at some time during their formative years. It's a job built on the terrible traumatization of a child. The inside of a prostitute's head is not a pleasant place to be, no matter how chipper, upbeat, or matter-of-fact she seems to be about her situation. They do not think well of men and they are not happy people -- frankly, it's better to flip burgers, but it doesn't sound like that's a viable choice for these broken women -- if I remember correctly, they need to punish men (by making them lose all control and behave "like pigs instead of human beings" as one ex-hooker being interviewed put it) and they need to punish themselves (by treating themselves like an object, a "thing.") No idea if this holds true for male prostitutes, Dr. Drew seemed to be talking about women only when I've heard him speak on the subject.

A lot of ex-prostitutes seem to go in for becoming born-again Christians or evangelists, giving control of their lives over to a higher being, like Linda Lovelace or Laurin Chapin, the youngest daughter on Father Knows Best who was forced into prostitute after the show was canceled.

Mrs. Warren's Profession

[executrix.livejournal.com]

But in any occupation, pay and working conditions make an immense difference. I can see that it would be a risk that being a part- or full-time sex worker could easily impair one's own private sex life (although I don't think that's true in all cases) but a lot of people are much more interested in money than in sex anyway.

As Shaw points out in Mrs. Warren's Profession, people with lousy jobs are also very vulnerable to sexual harassment. If you have to give the foreman a blowjob just to keep your rotten job in a sweatshop, I can certainly understand the appeal of getting paid as much for giving a john a blowjob as you got paid for hours or even a whole shift in the sweatshop.

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Hi, here through metafandom! Different people may have different reasons for the kink, but the impression I always got (mostly having read it in the Supernatural-verse, which would apparently fit your exceptions for when it's plausible) is that it's a new spin on the rape h/c fic. Rape as a device for angst and/or h/c is a bit out of fashion (still happens, but not like it used to), because of the political implications. But rentboy fic offers a lot of the same possible avenues for h/c, including the sexually possessive/angry/protective reaction of the other half of the OTP.

metafandom made me do it

[teh-nos.livejournal.com]

Has anyone said "othering the poor" yet? Cos that does occasionally cross my mind re: the ubiquity of rentboy!fic in the wide pool of fandom. But they're usually only being hookers until they get rescued by the charming prince who spirits them off to his castle in the clouds and heals the physical and emotional wounds with sex.

I think it's another facet of the way we seem enjoy humiliating characters before love heals them.

[valkyrie4clex.livejournal.com]

I'm just thinking of a few "rent-boy" fics I've read and some of them do work for me because they start with the premise that the "boy" is underage and on his own for various reasons, and usually in hiding -from authorities-family-etc. . I remember reading (or seeing in documentaries-movies) that a lot of young people who end up hooking get into it because they are runaways; don't have work permits/aren't old enough to get legal jobs; or get hooked on something and will do whatever they can to get the kind of money that being hooked requires {other than being hooked on fandom which is MUCH cheaper than it was before the internet :) }.

It's when grown men who have done other kind of work and lose their job and jump into being a hooker that i have trouble believing it.

Then there are exceptions to this - one of the best is a PROS au -"NIGHT MOVES" by Courtney Gray- where Bodie had chosen the profession and becomes quite wealthy with it - but this might not count as RENTBOY fic because Bodie is very in control with it- choosing who and what he will do.

Just peeking out of lurkdom - back i go.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I suspect part of your problem may be--as it is for me--that, unless it's clearly marked as pure fantasy, the inclusion of prostitution suggests a turn towards gritty realism in a story, and so when the subject is not handled realistically (as in, the bizarre tendency of everyone to take up that line of work without much explanation or justification), it seems particularly jarring. There's nothing like an overwhelming sense of "Wow, I am reading the work of a cosseted middle-class person who doesn't even know she doesn't have much life experience" to ruin a story for me.

Here from <lj user="metafandom">

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

I do find this a rather strange affectation. I suppose Pretty Woman and Holly Golightly probably have something to answer for, but (from the fairly gritty streets of Bradford via the part of the voluntary sector that actually works with girls and boys on the street)I struggle with the fact that most sex workers have terribly low self-esteem. These are women (I only really know anything about the women) who really wished they could have finished school and got a job in a shop, or gone to college and been a hairdresser, but they didn't think they were "good enough" to do these things, so they went on the streets instead, because all you have to do is stand on the corner and some guy will do the rest.

And by way of contrast, there are a whole raft of women who will do *anything* - scrub toilets, gut chickens, sell the Big Issue, work three jobs at once - to keep body and soul together, but they would *never* go on the streets.

Now obviously, that's a moral/ethical/self-worth judgement on their part. But IRL the people who are desperate but *don't* turn to prostitution are making a judgement of that type. So for it to work in a fic with a developed character, the question would have to be - "would that character make that judgement - to reject prostitution as a means of earning money."

Jack Harkness, to take one of the examples above, almost certainly wouldn't make that judgement. Prostitution would not be any more odious to this character than scrubbing toilets or gutting chickens as a job to pay the rent, and the money might be the deciding factor.

Again with Dean. The character probably wouldn't see whoring as being any worse than thieving or begging. It would just be doing what he had to do.

However, I can't see the squeamish Rodney selling his body. I can't see the upright Mack Taylor selling his body (not that I've ever seen a fic with that premise). I can't see Martha Jones selling her body, but I could see situations in which a young Rose Tyler - no qualifications, not confident, dead end job - might have gone down that path.

Outside of a crack!fic world, or specific AU's (such as where the character is very young and abandoned in the world) that would be the test for me.

tanarian wrote an excellent, if rather harrowing in places, Torchwood fic where Ianto Jones is captured by slavers who sell to exotic brothels, and it takes a year for the rescue party to find him. What is interesting is that she didn't write hot slave!sex - it just wouldn't work for the character. Instead, to avoid going completely mad, he goes slightly mad, walling off "Ianto Jones" in his head, and just being "the whore" who is the one who does all the stuff with the clients. The mission turns out to be not rescuing him from the brothel, but rescuing him from his own defence mechanism. An odd burst of realism in what one would have expected to be a fantasy.

Re: Here from <lj user="metafandom">

[fyrdrakken]

*Must not go digging through tanarian's journal seeking that fic...*

Aw, crap. :Goes to see.:

[fyrdrakken]

You know, this is the kind of thing so far from what I'd normally be interested in that I'm not sure I'd ever even read a rentboy fic before -- until I got pointed at one last week that was actually not bad. In that it took advantage of a canonical abuse situation with access to high tech of the indistinguishable-from-magic variety and suggested a variation where the evil character had mindwiped the other one and dumped him somewhere with three pills in his pocket of a drug that was severely addictive for their species. Let him hang out for a few months being a junkie whore. It worked but I can see how rarely it would work as a fic setup.