Now nobody cares about that issue. That doesn't make the point moot, it tends to support my argument that the value of the literature culturally is far greater than the infringement on the individual at the time.

Not really. It means that the hopes and feelings of people 100 years dead are generally not of much interest to those 100 years later. Look, Frost was a lousy father, and we don't much mind because, hey, good poetry, and we're not the kids in question. That doesn't mean that being a lousy father is okay. It means the poetry is alive and the victims are dead.

I disapprove of putting real, living people into fiction, no matter how many great writers do it. And when I read the great writers who do it, it is because they are great writers, not because I therefore approve.

Jane Austen uses "ain't." Which happened to be correct usage in her day. Somebody who uses "ain't" in a novel today, in a non-dialect context, will be laughed at, no matter how many times s/he says "But Jane Austen did it!" "But Joyce did it!" is no defense to "Writing about real people is cruel and creepy."

And I'll be damned if Joyce wrote fiction in which Sarah Bernhardt was fellating Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, which is actually what we're talking about. It isn't just that real people are involved, it's that real people's sex lives are involved.

yes. ick.(Not that is very intelligent coming after quotes and citations,) But still, I think it crosses a moral line to disseminate things like that. If you must, keep it for yourself.) YMMv, of course.

500?

...first ever number sluttage.

runs away again

If it’s not RPF, then it’s not relevant to an argument on the ethical merits of RPF, is it?

It is if we're arguing that using real people in fiction is something Writers Shouldn't Do.

So your entire argument rests on the cultural value placed on the work of art?

No, I'm using works of established literary merit to show why you can't simply say that using real people in fiction is wrong.

And I'll be damned if Joyce wrote fiction in which Sarah Bernhardt was fellating Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

That's not the point, I don't think. Any real person could object to a whole slew of things short of blowjobs. The real person ita objects to any writer representing her in their work even if she's saving baby kittens from Republican cat-skinners.

But the precise thing I object to about Real Person Fic is that it's often Real Person Sex Fic. I should have cut to this issue several posts ago.

If people were writing "David Bowie takes me out to dinner and chit-chats" stories, I would be indifferent. It's the "Everybody in N!Sync gets off with each other and a raccoon" fiction that I find deeply offensive.

I find an enormous difference between "Sarah Michelle Gellar gets stuck in Buffyland and does okay as the Slayer" (which I read once, and was pleasant enough) and "Sarah Michelle Gellar Has A Three-Way".

That's not the point, I don't think.

I understand how it's not the point of your point, but the point is that it is a point of a lot of RPF. I mean, I think it a very different thing to mention Sarah Michelle Gellar in a story (hey! it's that actress!) than it is to write a story in which she and James Marsters are fucking on top of the craft service table.

edit: Phenomenal cross-post.

I find an enormous difference between "Sarah Michelle Gellar gets stuck in Buffyland and does okay as the Slayer" (which I read once, and was pleasant enough) and "Sarah Michelle Gellar Has A Three-Way".

Because the second, to me, is painfully close to the "Sarah Michelle Gellar bobbing for COCK" spam that I am SURE that I think is wrong and offensive.

You know, I have never gotten the Bobbing for COCK! spam. I feel so deprived.

(I find both of the above examples slightly off-putting, the more nakedness and fluids involved the more off-putting.)

Here's a question I've never had satisfactorily answered, in spite of having this discussion > 10 times. Why do people use real names?

I mean, wouldn't it be safer to have a story about a teeny tiny actress with long blond hair, on a TV show about butt-kicking, whose name is Heather Jean Glaser? Or, say, Destiny Stabs the pop singer, and her mad passionate affair with all five members of Five Boys N*Hair Gel? And if enough writers of this barely-disguised fiction got together, and all used the same code names for the objects of their affections, wouldn't it be the same pleasureable effect for the readers in the know?

Maybe that's more work than the pleasure is worth.

It is if we're arguing that using real people in fiction is something Writers Shouldn't Do.

Honestly, I thought we were debating the ethics of RPF, not the use of real people in other works of fiction, particularly great works of literature. That also seems to be the assumption of most of the others taking part in this discussion. I'm thinking that this difference in the subject of the debate is likely the reason many of us are challenging your arguments, Hec.

One of the novels on my mental backburner is about a time traveler who becomes a baseball player--just your basic goofy, fun, little love story. I'd never thought of it wrt RPF before, but I've wrestled with the issues of how closely my invented major league should tie to the real one. Obviously, I'm going to sufficiently fictionalize the actual team he plays for (the Mariners, natch)--e.g. my version might have a Japanese star player, but he won't be a finesse-hitting outfielder, and I'll give him a different personality than my perception of Ichiro Suzuki. But after that, it gets complicated--do I use real players from other teams, or fictionalize them, too? I'm leaning toward fictionalizing, not least because many of them are ex-Mariners or might be Mariners by the time I actually get around to writing the book.

But OTOH, I'd feel silly changing the entire history of baseball, and not have my time traveller learn all about Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. Maybe I'll just set some arbitrary cutoff, like no real people who played or managed after 1980, but I haven't come up with a solution I really like yet.