Hurt/comfort and devoteeism: Differences

I wrote in my last entry about some of the service and submission aspects of my hurt/comfort fantasy.  In an essay I found today, a fannish writer explores some of the issues many other fen have with H/C fiction regarding its appropriateness, and calls for increased realism and understanding of medical ailments and disabilities within the genre:

“The comfort is what’s important, the hurt that’s going on, it’s necessary to get to that step. […] Hurt isn’t what these fics are about; the fics are about characters expressing love and devotion for one another by helping one another through the rough patches. Hurt is the mechanism that allows for the comfort. I know it’s not what you want to hear, because it’s the subject of the current debate, but the disability, the depression, the PTSD, they are not the central theme of the story. These ailments are plot devices to enable the comfort that comes after the fact. For me, at least, and I won’t say this is true of the entire genre, I am chasing after the comfort. I don’t want to read a 100,000 word fic about a character who is in pain, suffering alone, and working through his issues alone.”

— hollow_echos, Why Hurt/Comfort, You Ask?

PREACH, girlfriend, PREACH!  I never thought about the H/C genre this way before, but I think this writer hits the nail on the head vis a vis some of the criticism the genre has received.  For me, this essay makes me recognize that my fantasies completely skip the “hurt” part of the hurt/comfort (for example, the two fantasies I delineated in the last post), so it’s sort of a moot point, but still well worth the read.

Though the writer mentions disabiliy (it’s discussed much further in the comments to the essay), my H/C/injury-worship/wound-kissing/whatever-the-fuck kink is entirely different from my devo kink and my attraction to some folk with disabilities.  My H/C and injury worship kinks share a pain and comfort aspect that my devo thing doesn’t include: my devo thing has more to do with a specifically butch characterization of strength.

As I’ve said before, butchness appears to be an inherent aspect of devotee attraction for many; think about that brief shot in the film Saved! where Mandy Moore’s character dumps her para brother’s wheelchair off of the car ramp and he braces the jump like a pro.  I know most devos probably found it way hotter than I did, but it definitely got my attention.  Hell, I think the part of the appeal of the Paralympics is for viewers to “get off” on this butchness, sexually or no.  If you got a few minutes, see these examples.

1) Nike capitalizes on CAB fascination/fetishization of disabled bodies:

2) Canadian Paralympic sledge hockey team with bonus Rick Mercer (Warning: brief shot of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper near beginning):

3) Learn about sledge hockey and the men who love it (This video beautifully illustrates my issue with the term “able-bodied.”  As a CAB, what is my body able to do [hint: not that] and why is it so prioritized and valued over what these or other disabled bodies can do?  But I digress.).  The men also describe how they were injured, satisfying the curiosity of CAB viewers who demand an explanation for why their bodies are not normative:

The men in these videos do not appear to be in search of any comfort.  The fantasy here is, for me, largely about service and submission, but also just plain run-of-the-mill lust.  (If the 2014 team needs a volunteer massage “therapist,” I urge them to contact me.  I imagine: a man lying face down on the bed while I straddle his waist; smoothing his broad back and shoulders with fragrant oils and kneading out all those hard-worked muscles as he groans in pleasure.  [Phew, that wasn’t so difficult.]  Nothing specifically dev about this particular fantasy, I know, but… but, like, there it is.)

As I’ve said before, devoteeism, while often being focused on butch independence, leaves a lot of space for service kinks.  Over at Kink Bingo again, theleaveswant posted an essay and picspam exploring the concept of pervertibles.  I’ll quote from her here:

““Pervert” comes from Latin roots meaning “to turn away” from something; if you cut through the stigma of the word’s history connoting first religious and later sexual misbehaviour, ‘perversion’ is another twist on redirection and transformation. As fans we “pervert” (in this destigmatized sense) by taking the germ of an idea from one piece of art and using it to grow another. […] Once you get into the habit of looking in a particular way, you start to see things you didn’t before in places you never expected—this is what we mean when we talk about slash goggles, kink goggles and porn as a reading practice. Pervertibility is another way of framing these tricks for looking/sensing, feeling for the play potential that was always already there and finding new worlds in the dirt.”

— theleaveswant, The World Is My Toybag: Pervertible Practices (And You!)

The same way a simple act such as cleaning a Dom’s house or serving them tea can become “perverted” into a D/s service scene, so too can many aspects of care and assistance specific to people with disabilities.  Attending a holiday event with a friend, I noticed a man in the crowd who used a wheelchair.  A woman who was with him was at his feet, doing… I don’t know what exactly — possibly massaging a cramp, or helping him shift positions, or maybe he was having her check for a bump or scrape he wasn’t sure whether he had on his foot or leg.  But there she was, in the midst of the crowd, on the ground in front of him.  What an incredibly pervertible scene.

(I lamented to my friend the difficulty of checking out people with non-normative bodies: how does one deploy the lustful gaze that is integral to flirtation without revictimizing the individual, subjecting them to the stares and gawking they so often receive [see, for example, Gawking, Gaping, Staring by crip activist Eli Clare]?

“It’s easy,” she said, “Just make sure you wink.”)

Aron Ralston (warning: graphic even by my standards)

I’m not an emotional person by any standard – Mufasa’s death, and Bambi’s mother, left me cold. However, hearing Aron Ralston’s account of having to sever his own arm to escape being pinned by a boulder left me a little bit misty (although only very, very slightly). Those of strong constitution (like the type of people who would read this blog) can see it below (warning again: the story is even more brutal than you would imagine):

Wow. Just… wow. Now when hearing this story, I’m not sure I can really say I was “stimulated” by it the way I might be by a minor injury. Even with a minor injury, the fetish aspect of it takes time (the whole healing, hurt/comfort thing). With a story like this, it is absolutely heart-wrenching, and beautiful at the same time to hear him tell what he went through, and be so life-affirmed on the other side of it; although the fact that he is a decently built, attractive, relatively normative-looking dude, who now sometimes sports a fetish-fuelling climbing prosthesis, makes him bait for my devo side, and I’m sure for many others as well.  If this guy hasn’t been approached by at least one devo, I’ll eat my hat.

For me, and, as I’ve read,  many others as well, part of the fascination devos have with their crush-objects has to do with toughness, fortitude, and strength.  For this guy, I’m sure even people with no kind of “unusual interest” tumble immediately into this feeling as well.  For the devo, the feeling can become sexual in nature.

This type of thing is part of what makes my particular “interest” feel so amorphous.  For me, there are three aspects in this case:

1) Butchness: Not many things are more butch than having the fortitude to do what Ralston did.  Hell, he even went back to climbing after this incident.  Even straight men rave about how manly and brave this guy is.  This is a commonality I likely share with most devs, or at least the ones who like men.

2) Hurt/Comfort: Even within a framework of butch masculinity, one can’t help but think of what it must have been like for this Manliest of Men when he was finally rescued, the endorphins and adrenaline wore off, and he got the medical attention required.  I feel guilty for imagining him sleeping soundly in a hospital bed under pristine white sheets, with an IV for fluids and antibiotics, calm and serene after his harrowing experience.  Thinking about it almost makes me want to drift into a peaceful sleep – that’s how much I enjoy it, while simultaneously feeling guilt for enjoying someone’s extremely non-consensual pain.  But then, it’s not the pain I enjoy… is it?  Maybe it’s the unique pleasure, relief, and calm that result from the removal of pain and terror that affect me most.

3) Medfet: I am certain many thrilling activities could be facilitated with the use of the “climbing” claw.

I’m glad I’ve gotten myself a forum to explore these feelings.  What does it mean for me as a politically-aware person, as a feminist, as a person with (invisible, non-fetish-fuelling) disabilities myself?  How would I feel if someone were intrigued or even aroused by my depression, or my anxiety, or my ADHD?  But on the other hand, all of these things have helped shape who I am, who happens to be a woman with not much trouble getting laid – so maybe some people have been indirectly turned on by it.