The Fetish of a Fangirl

by Allison Pang

Doing a little last minute blog post swap with our lovely Linda, who would normally be on tap for Wednesdays. Due to technical difficulties, her regularly scheduled post will be up tomorrow. :)

And now, let's start with the definition of fetish, shall we?

fetish or fetich (ˈfɛtɪʃ, ˈfiːtɪʃ, ˈfɛtɪʃ, ˈfiːtɪʃ)

— n
1. something, esp an inanimate object, that is believed in certain cultures to be the embodiment or habitation of a spirit or magical powers
2. a. a form of behaviour involving fetishism
b. any object that is involved in fetishism
3. any object, activity, etc, to which one is excessively or irrationally devoted

Kind of a broad spectrum there, but I'm going to put my blog post money on door number three today, specifically that breed of fetishist known as the FANGIRL.

A fangirl can squee over anything she damn well pleases, and she often does - objects of insane amounts of affection can range from real people (i.e. actors, athletes, musicians) to fictional characters from books, movies, tv shows or games to pretty much *anything*. You name it, someone out there is going to like it and obsess over it. And twist it utterly to fit their own sordid imaginations.

I speak of rather personal experience on this - yes, I can admit to a large number of fangirl tendencies of my own - but I also run a gaming forum for women. And although we do talk about games, an inordinate amount of traffic still tends to be generated from fans looking for certain characters - pictures, fanfiction, discussions, flamewars - it's all there. (This is particularly true for NPCs that can tag along with you during RPGs - we gets attached to them, my precioussss.)

And so we troll teh interwebs, looking for others that share this obsession - each new picture or bit of fan-written smut to glean onto. They make us laugh or cry and soveryhappy that the story/game/comic will continue, even though it's obviously not canon.

And that doesn't even count slash.

What if Harry ended up with Hermione? Hell, what if Harry ended up with Ron? or Snape? or Draco?

Slash becomes its own self-perpetuating velocity machine in the fangirl's world. Tired of the regular romances within the canon fandom? No worries! Someone out there has drawn the object of your affection. Naked. Sweaty. Hot as hell.

And barebacking his greatest enemy.

*shrugs*

Is it right? Probably not. Sacred? Nope.

Fun? Oh my, yes.