With apologies for gendered pronouns, I give you:-

Conspicuous Consumption

By Fortuita James

I consume. Avidly. Voraciously. Countless pearls that
drop from the minds of countless slashers drifting out
there in the ether are sucked wholesale into my brain.
And from time to time in the course of this consumption,
I am brought up short. Not by a beautiful turn of
phrase, or rich description, or even a startlingly
unexpected plot development. Those things may have a
similar effect, but what has arrested my eye of late is
a creeping realisation of the insidious presence of
presents.

Presents. That's right. Gifts. Parcels from Santa, or
in this case, from that heavenly bit of lovebunny that
forms half of any given slash pair.

Not so odd, you might think. We all give presents, don't
we? I would have to acknowledge that I personally give
presents quite frequently. They are an excellent way to
cheer, brighten and prettify, and not always the object
of my largesse, but myself. Presents are variably
charming, ranging from the smallest, sweetest impulse gift
to that car incredibly indulgent parents might purchase for
a coming of age. They are not, however, the primary
demonstration of love.

Showering with gifts is far from being a dominant ritual
in fanfiction. (Showering with each other is much more
common.) When it does appear, however, it is frequently
overwhelming. Both parties are caught up in transports
of ecstasy over the exchange. The giver is thrilled that
he so ideally expressed his love and the lucky recipient
is in a rhapsody of joy over tangible evidence of
something he presumably had no cause to doubt in the
first place. And if he *did* have cause to doubt, I can
only shudder at the thought that a gift would be an
appropriate method of reassurance.

I have no objection to the odd appropriate bauble. I
don't even mind objects being invested with emotional
values. What I really can't handle is my favourite
characters having a capitalist frolic where there is no
discernible motive for such behaviour.

Ultimately, gift giving is an act of silence. Surround
it with as many words and explanations as you like, but
it is the object that asks to be remembered. The weight
of such emotion should not rest on things. The *real*
importance, that which remains, is the reason, the words
and the history that has gone to create the space where
a gift can be given. Without these, a present is nothing;
it has no meaning. The intensity of history is what we
want to see, and it is too often lost under a great big
whack of department store shite.

Presents should not be substituted for the hard yards,
because without that context, a reader won't care. The
best that can be expected is a kind of vicarious
avarice. Oooh, isn't it *pretty*.

fortuita@hotmail.com

[Why no, I had a perfectly lovely Christmas. Why do you
ask? ]