Talking About Hurt/Comfort in Comm Class...

[zneeze]

I love my mass comm class this semester (my first semester in college) because I'm majoring in communications and my professor is really smart and pretty funny. But in class last Wednesday, things just got weird.

We were discussing media literacy and different types of convergence within media, as in technological convergence, cultural, social. To begin talking about social convergence (basically social aspects converging with media), he asked, "Is anyone here familiar with fan fiction?"

Gulp. Um...

And my friend next to me says yes and starts talking about fan fiction, which isn't weird because he's a big comic book fan, so ok, not very awkward yet.

Then my professor says, "And you get into different genres within fan fiction, like there's one called pain/heal, where one character is injured and another character heals him..."

"Like you would have a Starsky and Hutch fan fiction, where Starsky is hurt and Hutch heals him, or a Star Trek one where Captain Kirk is hurt and Spock heals him..."

Heals him? He's making it sound like it's something out of World of Warcraft, "healing" other characters rather than "caring" for them or "comforting" them. At this point, out of sheer frustration if nothing else, I'm saying "Hurt/comfort" to myself. So he hears me and says, "Oh, what?" So I have to say out loud, "Hurt/comfort."

"Oh, hurt/comfort, right that's what it's called. Are you into fan fiction?"

I've been planning a Warehouse 13 sneezefic for multiple weeks, hopefully debuting part 1 here sometime next week (once I get time to start writing it). "I'm familiar with it, I don't like write it or anything..."

And a few seconds later he says how this genre "can take sort of a homoerotic turn in some cases" or something like that.

I'm about to be but, my saving grace, this weird girl in my class, as another example of social convergence, asks my professor if he was familiar with Harry Potter vs. Twilight. And she's just awkward and weird sometimes and I know some people are looking/chuckling at her now, so I feel a lot less uncomfortable for my random outburst of hurt/comfortness. Before long we were talking about Bert is Evil as another example of social convergence, and I was officially in the clear.

Sooo... That was embarrassing.

[Zebra]

Oohh that does sound quite embarrassing. Lucky that girl saved your skin. I remember being in a situation similar to this in a biology lesson talking about viruses and how germs are spread through sneezing. It was pretty awkward too. I feel for ya'!

[Salamander]

Pain/heal?!?! That sounds so weird and hilarious!

It's interesting how when people talk about these "things that happen on the internet,"they tend to just assume that noone in the room knows anything about it or is involved! I had a similar experience talking about slash during my degree. A girl was commenting on how much material is made by men about two women getting it on, and saying that women don't have a similar response. I had to jump in and correct her. Sounds excruciating though!

[VoOs]

And a few seconds later he says how this genre "can take sort of a homoerotic turn in some cases" or something like that.

In some cases? They really have no idea, do they?

I'm sorry you felt uncomfortable, and I can see why, but I would probably have loved to dive into that kind if discussion with a teacher. While I usually don't read fanfiction, the whole phenomenon fascinates me greatly.

[zneeze]

@g123: Oh yes, viruses/germs is always a classic! Thanks for the support!

@Salamander: You're absolutely right, they don't really think about that possibility! Your situation about having to jump in and correct her sounds exactly the same kind of thing as mine - you want to correct them because you know so much about the topic, but you don't want to give away why you know what you know...lol. Thanks for sharing!

@VoOs: They really do not! It was honestly pretty funny at the same time as being uncomfortable, thinking about how non-fetishists are missing out on all of this. Thanks VoOs!