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OMGWTF

Bloodbending Your Way To A Better Sex Life!
Crossposted from LJ's fanficrants and fanficrants

Dear Avatar fanauthor:

While having Katara use Bloodbending to spice up her sex life is certainly an approach to smutfic I haven't seen before, I think perhaps you need to keep some things in mind.

First of all, a bit of biology - This takes place in the series' third season, which means that Katara's a 14 year old virgin, and Aang is a 12 year old monk. I highly doubt that Aang will be an expert at fingering a woman to orgasm, or that Katara will be perfectly at ease with fellatio her first time at it. And if Katara still has her hymen? Aang is going tohave one heck of a difficult time massaging her G-spot to give her a climax without breaking it, since it does, in fact, get broken later during the fic and gives Katara a lot of owwing.

Secondly, some canon. Bloodbending is a rare, difficult and morally dubious bending art. Bloodbended people fold up and move around like puppets (hence the name of the episode where the art was introduced.) Using it for something as delicate as moving blood to the penis to force an erection is probably not going to have the hoped-for results. Secondly the art is so difficult that even for a very powerful Waterbender, it is only possible during a night with a full moon. I know Katara is smart, talented and creative, but working that hard on bending and giving her first blowjob at the same time is multitasking on an insane level.

And speaking of insane, let's hit my biggest problem with this fic - characterisation! Katara HATES being a Bloodbender. Hates it. She's only ever performed the technique twice - once on Hama, her 'teacher', out of desperation for Aang and Sokka's lives, and once in a haze of rage on a man she believed (mistakenly) was her mother's murderer. Both times she was severely shaken and upset afterwards that she had a) learned the technique at all, and b) resorted to using it. She isn't going to use it to rape Aang.

Oh yes, it is indeed rape, dear fanauthor. It doesn't matter if Aang is depicted as more than willing - Katara immobilizes him, forces an erection from him using a technique of dubious moral nature, gives him no chance to refuse, and goes right to it. That's an act of sexual assault, and on a boy who is twelve, no less. I have met fourteen year old girls desperate to lose their virginity, but this just takes the freaking cake and vomits all over it so nobody else can enjoy it.

No love, me.

(Post a new comment)

	shinga 2010-03-20 07:25 am UTC (link)
	I agree on most fronts, except... Oh yes, it is indeed rape, dear fanauthor. It doesn't matter if Aang is depicted as more than willing ... Isn't the entire definition of rape that the person is unwilling? It might be forceful and OOC and all, but if it's consensual it's consensual. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	sgaana 2010-03-21 12:05 am UTC (link)
	Not when it comes to a child, right? If Aang is 12 in the story, by most yardsticks, he would be a child incapable of giving meaningful consent, wouldn't he? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	alienist 2010-03-21 12:25 am UTC (link)
	On the other hand, we don't really know what the yardstick in Avatar's world is. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

sgaana
2010-03-21 04:20 pm UTC (link)

Well, that's why I said "most". But, I was thinking more that it's the yardstick for most *readers*, and thus, such a story is going to come across to many readers as if it's child-rape by definition.

Which, if you've got a world in which it's okay for those ages, it seems to me that the story would have to go farther in addressing that, to circumvent reader expectations. Whereas, it mostly sounds like this story "forgot" the character ages entirely.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	iczer6 2010-03-21 03:51 am UTC (link)
	But Katara's a child too. She's fourteen when the series begins so it's not she's an adult taking advantage of him. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sarajayechan 2010-03-21 07:20 am UTC (link)
	But Katara's a child too Unfortunately, too much of the fandom forgets this. To them, a girl being motherly makes her a grown woman no matter how old she is. (And in certain cases pretending she's a grown woman means they don't have to feel guilty about writing tons of hot kinky porn about her.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	iczer6 2010-03-21 07:57 am UTC (link)
	Sometimes I do forget how young she is. But then I agree with Shinga though, it's not rape if Aang is willing and I wouldn't consider Katara taking advantage of him either due to her age. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

sarajayechan
2010-03-21 04:45 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, to be fair it is pretty easy to forget how young...well, most of them are, I think, given the kind of lives they lead. (I still cannot believe Nick let Mike and Bryan get away with two 15-year-olds planning to get it on in "The Southern Raiders".)

I think it depends on whether Katara asked his permission. (I think I'd have to read the fic in question to form an opinion here...and I AM morbidly curious.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)

dontgiveahoot
2010-03-21 09:28 am UTC (link)

The problem is that Katara doesn't get his permission to use bloodbending during sex. Similar to gagging someone and then claiming "But they didn't SAY no!", Katara rendered Aang utterly incapable of resistance before starting her sexxors routine. The fact that Aang didn't mind is kind of secondary next to the fact that if he HAD objected, he would have had no way to communicate that fact. That suggests a rapist mentality.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

ladybirdsleeps
2010-03-21 10:34 pm UTC (link)

Isn't the entire definition of rape that the person is unwilling?

You can also define rape as sex without consent.

If the scenario is one where Aang can't share his opinion on whether or not sex happens before it happens, then there's no option to say "no." He may not want to, but ... what if he did? Katara didn't give him a chance, is what the impression I'm getting from the OP is.

From Katara's point of view, it's the same: She forces sex on Aang. In the author's fantasy-land, Aang turns out to be willing, but she took the decision away from him.

That's why some people would consider it rape.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	the__ivorytower 2010-03-20 08:48 am UTC (link)
	I didn't think it was even nighttime the second time Katara used her bloodbending, or that she found it particularly difficult to use (which bothered me a lot in the episode it was in). (Reply to this)(Thread)

dark_puck
2010-03-20 05:22 pm UTC (link)

It was night when she used it the second time. As for the difficulty, well, she didn't have that much difficulty with it (physically speaking) when she turned it against Hama, who'd rediscovered/been practising the art for much longer than Katara had been alive. I think it's partly a power thing -- Katara states in that episode that she's stronger than Hama is. Could Katara use bloodbending in daylight? I think so; others may not.

If you meant MENTALLY difficult... yeah, they really wanted to drive home the "REVENGE IS BAD" idea that episode.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	ladyofviolets 2010-03-20 12:36 pm UTC (link)
	Can we also tell this to the author of "How I Became Yours", too? She may not written Katara using Bloodbending to rape Zuko, but still... Katara used it there to torture and murder Mai. In cold blood. And in broad daylight. D= (Reply to this)(Thread)

	come_love_sleep 2010-03-22 05:20 am UTC (link)
	Um. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	indis_earfalas 2010-03-20 12:43 pm UTC (link)
	I have no clue what this Bloodbending business is, but it sounds really interesting. Bloody hell, more crap to waste my time with. LOL (Reply to this)(Thread)

	re_weird 2010-03-20 07:14 pm UTC (link)
	Some people on Avatar can manipulate water for various tasks (fighting, healing, etc.) Well, blood is another liquid too, right? One character learned how to make people her puppets by bending the blood in their bodies. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	come_love_sleep 2010-03-22 05:22 am UTC (link)
	Well, more that people are great big squishy bags of water; she's not manipulating the blood itself, but the water that makes up the blood/muscles/etc. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	re_weird 2010-03-22 06:17 am UTC (link)
	Shit, this is why I shouldn't comment when studying for finals. Thanks for the correction. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	miome 2010-03-20 02:45 pm UTC (link)
	ow, my brain. do not want! (Reply to this)

sarajayechan
2010-03-20 03:32 pm UTC (link)

And if Katara still has her hymen? Aang is going tohave one heck of a difficult time massaging her G-spot to give her a climax without breaking it, since it does, in fact, get broken later during the fic and gives Katara a lot of owwing.

Aah, but this is FICTIONLAND, where the hymen can only be broken by the magical all-powerful Mighty Penis of Love. I've seen this in an Ash/Misty fic before, where he puts his entire freakin' hand in her vagina without incident but when she gets his wang up inside her it causes "a tearing type of pain".

Katara HATES being a Bloodbender. Hates it.

I remember on the capslock Kataang comm on LJ someone suggested bloodbending could be used for kinky purposes but all I could think was "...yeah, if Katara wasn't completely traumatized at having learned it in the first place".

(Reply to this)

	rosehiptea 2010-03-20 06:18 pm UTC (link)
	Why exactly didn't Katara wait for Aang to get an erection naturally? Or is that a question not even worth asking? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	coffee_mug 2010-03-21 12:46 am UTC (link)
	Also, what kind of 14 and 12 year olds are so BORED by their sex lives they have to try something wildly messed up to "spice it up"? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kookaburra 2010-03-21 04:13 am UTC (link)
	This reminds me of a quote from the Why Women Hate Men blog: "The three most plentiful natural resources on the planet are air, water, and hard adolescent penis." (Reply to this)(Parent)