toujours_nigel | (no subject)

I wonder whether the purity brigade on tumblr and elsewhere have ever read something like The Persian Boy, where a 10 y.o. watches his family murdered and is himself castrated and sold into slavery, subsequently forced into prostitution and sold at... about 13 as a sex-slave to an Emperor and then at 15 handed over to his successor as spoils of war. Our protagonist of course falls wildly in love with said successor and spends the remainder of the novel besotted.

But one wonders how even the canonical tags would be received: Slavery, Underage Rape, Underage Prostitution, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Underage Sex, Age Difference, Power Imbalance. Nor is all of it presented as outright evil, some of it is indeed romanticised quite a lot.

I ponder because I'm writing in the fandom after years, and in the intervening time anti culture has become extremely prominent. But also my other fandoms where teenagers have sex they have it at a fairly equitable level. Emperor and slave is... not it, but hilariously I have a suspicion that the underage would summon more hostlity. Perhaps I'm being cruel.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I... think i read this book???

as a young thing!

it did not warp me. not appreciably.

i had forgotten it, honestly.

Clearly you need a Renault (Re)read. *g*

is that renault??? sheesh, man

this is what comes of having been a voracious reader in my youth and then falling off a cliff and never reading anything again.

I realised sometime in college that I'd read The Hobbit in fifth or sixth grade and never registered it, or connected it to LotR when I read that in high school.

I have an inkling that book fandoms perhaps dodge many of the anti troubles compared to movies/tv shows. Perhaps because there's a smaller overall audience?

I'm sure. This in particular has always had far fewer active fans.

As most if not all anti-wanking is basically shipwank in a new candy-coated shell, I would wager antis would go to bat for pure, unproblematic Alexander/Hephaestion and their wholesome love and put Bagoas in a shelf where no one may look at him.

Edited 2018-12-21 21:35 (UTC)

Still very underage though, but I'm sure you're right.
I'm busy falling into my usual habit of bridging the V into a proper triangle and just thinking about cross-posting to tumblr made my blood run cold.