tuatara's Review

This post is in response to the review by tuatara of my story Moxibustion Violation, which appeared on AFFnet on 2011-07-22. In fact, he apparently created an account on AFFnet just to leave the review.

First, let me say that I'm happy to get reviews of all kinds, positive or negative. Hell, what's shocking to me, given the type of story I've written, is that I haven't received a ton of negative reviews. And tuatara's review wasn't even really negative, at least in regard to the story, only toward the other reviewers. I do wish that AFFnet would give me a means to respond to reviews, aside from putting responses in an author's note in the next chapter, when I finally get around to posting the next chapter. Hell, anybody else on the planet could respond to one of these reviews by writing a review of his own. But if I do that the administrators will hide the story and threaten to delete it (since this is precisely what they did when I made some responses of that sort).

Second, I don't want to say anything particularly negative to this reviewer. His review was civil, and he's entitled to his opinion. And I want to hear that opinion. The reviews give me a chance to hear how my readers as a whole feel, and this is how one of them feels.

At the same time, it definitely feels to me as if he's off target. He says, "if I'm to take many of these reviews at face value." Who would take anything related to non-vanilla porn at face value? It's all about fantasy. I sincerely hope there is no one reading my story who cannot separate fantasy from reality. Anyone who would wish for non-consensual scenes from MV to take place in reality would be a sick, sick person.

When people write reviews to express the pleasure they've experienced in reading the story, they are expressing their pleasure in the fantasy. When they tell me what they enjoyed in the story, or would like to see happen, and so forth, it is a given that they are telling me what they liked or hope for from the fantasy. I don't see how anyone could mistake this as a statement of what they like or would enjoy in reality, or even anything remotely close to that. I have certainly never received any such impression (of the latter sort) from any of my reviews, and I hope I never do.

In the end, as with any porn, you should read the things which appeal to your fantasies and avoid the things which don't, and never confuse your fantasies with reality. It seems to me that should go for reviews of such stories as well, at least regarding the reviewers' emotional responses to the story. So I suppose that tuatara is making the right decision to avoid reading any further reviews, if he finds he has difficulty reading them in that manner.