we had a complicated childhood

[lotesse]

I had a thought!

Or rather, rubynye had a thought here, and I liked it and am stealing it. So. The reason why I, as a twenty-one year old girl, like to read stories about young people's sexuality is that I was a teenager not too long ago, and in that time my sexuality was frankly much brighter than it is now. At thirteen it was all fannish and id-driven and had an odd sort of purity, and then at sixteen it was first love and firstyness all around. Things are more complex now - especially the iud nightmare I'm currently booked aboard - and I love revisiting those epiphanies and shivers.

Even going back to being eleven, when my neighbor and I were kind of maybe in love, and we played at resusitation in the pool as an excuse for poorly-executed kisses. My memories from that time are all sort of rosy and happy and breathless. I loved it then, and love recalling it now. Young characters are a vehicle for me to express and write down and preserve those emotions and experiences, or to theorize about the ones I didn't have but could've.

...now that I write it all out, it seems obvious, and I actually feel like I said almost everything in one of my very first posts on this eljay, Sex and Kiddie Lit, and I don't know why it took me so long to put things together.

Finally, a rec: musesfool's incredible, incredibly hot Miss Winchester's Unsuitable Suitor. Wincest genderswap Recency au, Dean as a highwayman, and inappropriate incestuous hijinks at a masquerade that Sammy attends as Artemis. Jesus god, is this fic hot, And satisfying... oh lord.

(still no sign of my cat)

Comments

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the rec!

[shiinabambi.livejournal.com]

Have you done any of the things I suggested before? I know it's horrible when they don't come home. Maybe it's just an illusion of control, and we really can't do anything.... I'd just end up breaking down crying, calling his name a quarter mile from the house.

[lotesse]

Vic, thanks for the story!

[lotesse]

We live out in the boondocks, and the cats run wild over a fairly large area. We don't really have neighbors, and where we'd put up posters I don't really know. We've walked for him, and called, but if they don't want to be found you'll never find them. I haven't seen his body by the roadside, or anywhere else for that matter. I feel like there's very little we can do. He's an old man, he's savvy to it all. Something must have happened to him, or he was sick. But we've pretty much given up hope, by now.

[schoolpsychnerd]

I recall similar experiences in my childhood/early adolescence. I watched a lot of anime, and because I was considered to be very mature for my age, allowed to watch anime that had lots of sex in it (I never recovered seeing la blue girl at 12). I think there is something magical about the time when you're discovering sexuality and in a way lit lets me go back to then and see what others went through, even fictionally.

I miss you terribly darling!! I took pictures of the Narnia exhibit at MGM for you! I hope I'll see you at homecoming.

[shiinabambi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, poor guy...if he was sick, he might have hidden himself intentionally. Cats do that, because they don't really want to be found. Of course it's still horribly sad for you, but there's a certain dignity to it I have to admire.

[lotesse]

I miss you too!!! and love that icon.

...for me, I think it was maybe the copy of Mists of Avalon that my mum gave me for my twelfth birthday. I guess she forgot all the pagan ritual incest sex. Hoo boy.

here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I'm not as close to being a kid or even a teenager as you are, but you've definitely hit the nail on the head for me, too. Whenever I write about teens or kids (or hell, even college students), it's all tinged with nostalgia (especially if I'm writing about them in the time period I grew up in, which, seeing as how most of the guys I like to write teen!AUs about are around my age, is fairly often). Sexuality is big part of growing up, and it's not something I'm going to not write about just because I'm no longer that age.

Also here via metafandom.

[azurelunatic]

That's the exact reason I read it. Aside from the fact that my current sex life is a joke, my adult sex life is satisfying -- it just doesn't have that same thrill of hormone overload and the forbidden that even thinking about sex had when I was 15. If I can't go back, I can read about someone else there, or write about it.

[alias_sqbr]

Hi, here from metafandom, and wonder if the flipside of that effect happens with me: I was pretty miserable as a child and teenager, and was incredibly neurotic and confused about sex, love etc. I'm certainly a lot less nostalgic for my youth than a lot of other people seem to be, apart from the usual affection for 80s video games etc :)

And I tend to not enjoy stories about teenagers and children, especially sexual/romantic ones. Huh. I hadn't thought of it that way before.

[aerama.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom
- Just had to say my dad gave me Mists of Avalon when I was 11 because it was recommended by a friend of his; I don't think he knew entirely what it entailed either. I remember being shocked enough to put the book down - and then picking it back up (it having been put down right next to me as it was).

In any case I think it's remembering all those firsts that make me like first-time portrayals in fanfic versus established relationships. Depending on the writing, it can be so entrancingly full of that shivery delight that pervaded everything at the time in real life, as you say. That need to find somewhere, anywhere, to be alone with someone too, as Tommy James said.
Kind of difficult when you depend on your parents for transportation in those early years. :)