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Erotica readers and writers...

Following today's fandom!secret on this topic, some questions about... foreskins!

Here's the secret someone posted:

Do they have a point? I was going to do a poll, but LJ is being very naughty about polls.

What are your thoughts? Should fic writers mention foreskins more often (for characters who are likely to be uncut?) Do you not need or want this detail? Do you assume they're there anyway, depending on how you imagine the characters and who they are? Is this something you've never really considered, either way?

Do you not give a hot damn?

ELVES? VAMPIRES? HOBBITS??? I don't even know.

Are you pretty sure Jack Harkness has a fiveskin? Because I am.

ETA: Thank you to my f-list (unlike the F!S thread) for not being judgey about people's parts. Every cock is pretty!

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I think they are probably right. I also think that it's not a detail I necessarily need as a reader, just as I don't feel I need the obligatory lube sentence. But if someone writes a non-Jewish British character as explicitly cut, I'm like what the hell?

Well, some are cut for medical reasons. But, no, I don't want to know whether there's a foreskin or not, just as I'm not interested in descriptions of the shape of someone's vulva. There's eroticism and there's TMI, and that's definitely the latter.

It's just one of those things I just don't think about. I just don't care and it's the same with condoms, not many people use them in fanfics.

ok i might be getting too much queer all over fandom BUT WHAT THE HELL IS THE OBSESSION WITH FORESKINS

FUCKING GROSS OK JUST LEAVE THAT WHOLE AREA BE

IT'S CALLED GLOSSING OVER DETAILS, FANDOM

UGH THE ENDLESS DEBATING OVER HOUSE'S DICK UGH

You know what happens when I'm with a dude for the first time and he's not cut? I say, "Oh. Okay," and continue with whatever we were doing.

IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL WTF.

Moreover, I don't see how or why it would be mentioned, beyond a laborious, pre-sex scene description.

Once a guy is hard, especially if you're not used to seeing foreskins or unless you're looking for it, it doesn't matter if the foreskin is there or not.

Sheesh.

I guess I just want to know what fic the OP was reading that they even get annoyed by this!

Well, personally, I don't really care whether they say foreskin/no foreskin or not. It seems... Like needless detail. And like someone above said, TMI.

Well, okay, before I go any further, caveat: I am a lesbian, the closest I will get to a penis is the naked photoshoot that I did with my college BFF (and a hundred other people), and I think the whole thing is pretty gross.

All that aside, I don't really get the foreskin debate because I don't see why it should be mentioned in the first place? I mean, maybe people go into long descriptions of dude's cocks in fic and I just gloss over that part? But I just assume, you know, that it's there regardless of whether or not it's explicitly mentioned. I feel like, if anything, making a big deal about the fact that the dude has a foreskin would take me OUT of the porn. It's like fics that go to all the trouble of making sure it's mentioned that the characters are using a condom, even if it's REALLY IMPROBABLE that a condom would be there/be mentioned. (I once read a Without a Trace fic where Danny and Martin were having sex in the photocopy room and Danny just like, magically pulls a condom out of a cabinet. I laughed so hard I almost peed. THE FBI IS CLEARLY TOTES OKAY WITH THEIR GAY SEX LIFE.)

I don't know if any of those sentences made any sense. I HAVEN'T REALLY SLEPT IN DAYS D:

Well. I generally don't mention it unless there's a spesific reason to do so, OTOH hand I *assume* the non-American non-Jewish characters *have* one and so if it comes up, or it seems like something that scene/character would think about, I do.

I must also say, however, that I really, really dislike the whole ew, dirty, dirty foreskins thing. That's a crappy message to give anyone about their genitals and no better than 'ew! smelly cooch!'

I don't really care much, since (my haphazard google searching reveals that) some estimates put about 20% of males in the UK as cut for varying reasons. And for the sake of porn, unless you have a driving need to know in order to make your sexual fantasy complete, I don't get why anyone would care. This always smacks to me of some person who had a grudge against writers from another country--it's true, a lot of american females writing erotica are going to automatically assume cut, just like a French writer might assume not. I don't bitch about it when I read SPN fic about Sam and Dean's uncut cocks.

I don't think foreskins are dirty (though I do have opinions on them in the medical sense), but I don't care either way if they are there. And you know, tongue fucking things is hott.

Completely unrelated to big dickings and more on the secret itself, I'm tired of this whole "if you do x i judge you/think less of you" thing. God people. These aren't secrets anymore. It's just a bitching forum. You know what a secret is? Something you wouldn't tell another living soul, not "something I only complain about to my closest fandom friends in private emails". Something like, "I masturbate in a Snoopy bathrobe when I watch old episodes of Rainbow Brite, and I'm thinking of Harry Potter from Book One." THAT'S A SECRET.

Edited 2010-02-05 04:48 (UTC)

And now I want to see the ten second fic where we discover Jack was in fact cut once upon a time, and the second thing he notices after the Bad Wolf incident is that something's in his pants that wasn't there the last he checked.

Also, unless there's a weirdass deal made out of a guy not having one, I assume it's there. Sometimes a mention is with the flow of the story, sometimes it's really not. The end.

(Trufax TMI: my kid's uncut. I may have to resort to hunting down Britporn when he's (much) older just so he can see what it's supposed to look like.)

What rm said.

I mention foreskins during blowjob descriptions, if appropriate. It's just another thing to play with, as far as I'm concerned. I don't see the big deal, and I certainly don't see the squick about it from people who have no qualms writing/reading about rimming etc. But hey, YMMV. It's all cool by me. :)

I don't require them to mention it. But if they imply or state that there is no foreskin, I totally agree with the secret. (Incidentally I don't think I know anyone who's circumcised and I don't think that's unusual for non-Americans.)

I generally assume that characters are uncircumcised in most cases (with exceptions such as those you noted above), but I don't need to be told this explicitly. However, I do think that there can be valid reasons for mentioning foreskins (and I have done so myself) -- for instance, if character A is teasing character B by gently rubbing B's forskin over the head of his cock or something.

Well, I think foreskins are hot, so I tend to mention them in my smut. It's fun writing for a British fandom so I can include them without getting eyebrow raises. Actually, in the Rent fandom, I tried to include them as well, but it always had to be Roger because Mark was canonically Jewish and if I wanted to include his cock as uncut, there had to be a story behind it, and that's not the kind of thing you want to get into when you're writing a 1000 word PWP.

But if there isn't a mention of a foreskin, I'm not hitting the back button. It's not that important. Especially since in a lot of smutfic, there are probably thirty other reasons to hit the back button before I even get to the potential foreskin.

I think if you have a kink for it, add as much description as you like. I'll probably skip over it because, although I love porn, the usual 'it's hard, it's big, it's thick, it's ready to roll' description will do me. Feel no need to get out a measuring tape to detail length and circumference for me, or give a detailed description of texture and taste (because I'm never going to believe anyone's come tastes like mint or vanilla or - in Ianto's case - coffee anyway).

My hubby's un-cut and I can honestly say I've never given his foreskin any particular thought or smothered it with attention during sex.

I find that I'm not really very descriptive when it comes to genitalia anyway. I like sensory descriptions more than clinical ones, you know?

This.

I just assume Jack's not cut, and Ianto's not, and real!Jack is, and you know, wtf ever. ;) And then I don't mention it because it doesn't seem pertinent unless it's an OMG!Cultural moment.

FFS.

Unless there are specific sexy things happening with the foreskin, that is...

:D

Well, for one thing, I agree with the assertion this sort of thing is suited more toward fanficrants. =) Beyond that, I really don't need THAT much detail in what I read. Unless there's a really important, plot-related reason to know that the guy is or isn't cut -- and that includes PWP stuff, like say someone exploring the differences because they're curious about how it feels for a guy who's uncut -- I'm perfectly happy being in the dark. I mean, shit, I wrote Legolas/Aragorn and I really didn't feel the need to go into detail about the state of their cocks, outside of aroused or not. =)

um unrelated but I finished the thing. =D

I don't have a TMI limit in smutfic. If a smutty story is dirty enough (read: poop or blue chickens or something) to make me go ":O", I'll go from finding it hot to finding it fascinating. The better the writing, the less offensive the kink.

Mentioning foreskin is fitting if it's fitting. I've used it when it fit, left it out when it didn't. It's another thing to play with, to stray from the boredom that is insert-a-into-slot-b-oh-I-think-I-read-this-yesterday porn. I like writers to take sidewinding paths with sturdy anchors in situation and character. Character A habitually twiddles his thumbs in canon, thus character A believably plays with foreskins in an explicitly detailable way, especially if nervous about a first time. etc.

When other people mention foreskins, I get a little thrill because of my aforementioned RL affinity. I have a deep loathing for circumcision, male and female alike. But of course it exists all over the place, and I wouldn't want a character to share my loathing unless it actually suited him or her.

Well... I actually don't care - or rather... never ever thought about that.
To be honest... I think it's not like it makes any difference in the end (but I don't know, I don't have any experiences to judge this). Guess it might be worth mentioning if you go for an extended description of (mutual) masturbation or blowjobs, though - that is if you're loving details; apart from that I think it kinda belongs to the category of TMI.
But yeah... so much for that.

The comments make me paranoid about my own porn. Because, hi, ginormous queer who writes more from research (which includes seeing what/how other people write porn) more than experience.

But then, I think I'm ok, because the porn I write is pretty detailed in descriptions of everything, so leaving foreskins out of intricate descriptions seems wrong.

And I'm pretty anti-circumcision generally, but that's not why I write about foreskins in my porn. I think it's more of a problem with the writing when the author is writing about foreskins simply because they're anti-circumcision, and therefore using the story as a vehicle for that opinion rather than it being relevant/appropriate to mention that detail of anatomy right there.

So like, in summary, foreskins aren't icky, and I think they should be written where appropriate (and as someone who is a stickler for cultural accuracy too, I agree to an extent with the post secret-er). The problem is when the fourth wall gets a hole in it and what I'm reading is quite obviously the author's soapbox as opposed to a work of fiction I'm being carried away to.

Coming from a country and a culture in which the cut penis is quite possibly venerated it took fanfiction for me to realise that indeed not all men are circumcised.
I mean, all the guys I've had sex with were Jewish, the other majority in my country are various kinds of Muslims and the only men I would think would be uncircumcised are Eastern European immigrants which I didn't sleep with at the time and the last time I slept with someone who has a cock was four years ago... so... yeah.

But yeah, I actually quite like the detail if it's part of the describing the cock in detail and if it's missing from someone who comes from a country/culture/religion that doesn't require cutting I'm going not actually going to think about it, until I think about it. Because my automatic assumption is "no foreskin".

Which I agree is odd and a bit sad.

Edited 2010-02-05 09:18 (UTC)

This is fascinating. I think the only time I've mentioned foreskin was in a foreplay context.

Lord, this all reminds me of the 'Was Methos Circumcised' debate in Highlander.

On a personal note, the ex was born in '59 and was cut. Both my brother, born in the 60s were too.

Foreskins are FUN to play with. And uncut peens are usually a lot more sensitive. Yeah. Fun.

Renee

it's one of those things that i don't feel needs to be mentioned unless it's actually pertinent to what's happening right in that moment - meaning, unless they are like playing with and getting all foreskin happy, it's not totally necessary
likewise, it shouldn't be made a point that someone is cut unless... there's a point, a reason that is relevant to the story

you know what i mean?

I don't care much about it. prefer if it's not mentioned. Anyway I noticed that in fanfiction (harry potter) they mostly don't mention it, but in gay novels.. they do.. I wonder why.

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