Warning: generalizations are used liberally below. Mentally preface all statements with “in general” and don’t yell at me. For purposes of definition, “standard” is meant only in terms of familiarity and the intent of the distinction is solely to indicate something a reader might find jarring if there’s no reaction to it written. While every preference is equal in value, some are more familiar than others, and some are familiar to almost everyone. That should affect the level of description of emotional reaction.
I’m a male who reads and writes fanfic. Why? Because when it comes to gay smut, women do it better than men. Male-consumed pornography is transaction-oriented (just the act) with “characters” that are completely objectified and without any narrative context (the pizza boy showing up does not count as “plot”.) Not helping is that porn stars are generally not actors, they are professional objects. In fanfic, there are characters to care about, sex that makes narrative sense (even in PWP!) and real artistry like that is rare in commercial porn. Some people prefer commercial visual porn, and that’s fine. But I find written scenes do more for me, and I’m betting the majority of people who are reading this feel the same way.
There are two points I want to make in this post:
1. What I mean by wrong: What’s wrong with sex in fanfic is that what you think is wrong in in fanfic sex is not wrong. There is nothing that you can write in fanfic that is wrong. What you choose to write is absolutely fine, no matter what it is. What is wrong is when authors are made to feel that certain things are required, when they should not be. There is nothing wrong with BDSM – quite the opposite – but BDSM is hotter if the author is aware he or she is writing it. If not, key emotional and physical reactions might be skipped over that take the reader out of the story.
2. There are a few anatomically questionable things that pop up a lot in fanfic. Things that I consider “wrong” are labelled with *** These are not terribly important, but if something anatomically questionable comes up, or something that is a fetish pops up constantly as “standard”, it can take a reader out of the moment. They are not strictly “wrong” because everyone is different and there may very well be people for who these things are very “right”. But in general, not, and so if they are included a writer might want to highlight emotional and physical reactions in these cases.
Loki is the Philosopher King 