I should've been more clear; I didn't mean to imply that the two always go together. That's why I added the "no sense of self" part, because I can see how someone would choose to be submissive, and that doesn't bother me quite so much. It's when someone is so broken or so lacking a sense of self that they just let or want someone else to totally control them.
I stopped reading Pet pretty quickly, and what bothered me wasn't the Spike part. It was Angel ordering Wesley around, I think in part 2; it just totally and completely squicked me. Reading it, I wanted to beat Angel's face in. I just hated it. It was totally an emotional reaction, and in writing this I was sort of trying to figure out why that is.
I can't imagine myself ever doing that or ever letting someone else do that to me, and if someone tried to do that to me, I'd never ever submit. But then, I've always had issues with authority, too; I'll do what someone says if I approve of it and understand why. But I'll never, ever blindly do something just because someone else tells me to, and I get really squicked when people blindly follow orders.
I think people always, always have to question what others tell them to do; it's essential that they make their own choices based on their own ethics and not follow unless it's something that they understand and accept. I just see this type of behavior leading to peer pressure, bullying, ostracizing people who are different, watching others be persecuted and not speaking out. Watching horrible and wrong things happen and not doing anything about it because you don't question. Maybe my squick is really people obeying without questioning. And one of the things I love about Spike is that he always questions, even when he's totally in love he questions his lover when he thinks she is deluding herself of making a mistake. If you take that away, you take away something that I love most about him--his refusal to blindly follow. (And I think part of the reason I dislike Angel is that he expects people to blindly follow him, and he tends to blindly follow others. He bows to fate whereas Spike challenges it.)
Eh. See, it's totally personal. I don't think there's anything wrong with people who enjoy reading it, and they probably like it for different reasons than the reasons I dislike it. I'm just trying to figure out why it bothers me so much. I didn't mean to make any assumptions, as I'm the first to admit I'm completely clueless about the whole dominance/submission thing; it's very foreign to my experience and way of thinking.
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Date: 2003-10-14 08:29 pm (UTC)I stopped reading Pet pretty quickly, and what bothered me wasn't the Spike part. It was Angel ordering Wesley around, I think in part 2; it just totally and completely squicked me. Reading it, I wanted to beat Angel's face in. I just hated it. It was totally an emotional reaction, and in writing this I was sort of trying to figure out why that is.
I can't imagine myself ever doing that or ever letting someone else do that to me, and if someone tried to do that to me, I'd never ever submit. But then, I've always had issues with authority, too; I'll do what someone says if I approve of it and understand why. But I'll never, ever blindly do something just because someone else tells me to, and I get really squicked when people blindly follow orders.
I think people always, always have to question what others tell them to do; it's essential that they make their own choices based on their own ethics and not follow unless it's something that they understand and accept. I just see this type of behavior leading to peer pressure, bullying, ostracizing people who are different, watching others be persecuted and not speaking out. Watching horrible and wrong things happen and not doing anything about it because you don't question. Maybe my squick is really people obeying without questioning. And one of the things I love about Spike is that he always questions, even when he's totally in love he questions his lover when he thinks she is deluding herself of making a mistake. If you take that away, you take away something that I love most about him--his refusal to blindly follow. (And I think part of the reason I dislike Angel is that he expects people to blindly follow him, and he tends to blindly follow others. He bows to fate whereas Spike challenges it.)
Eh. See, it's totally personal. I don't think there's anything wrong with people who enjoy reading it, and they probably like it for different reasons than the reasons I dislike it. I'm just trying to figure out why it bothers me so much. I didn't mean to make any assumptions, as I'm the first to admit I'm completely clueless about the whole dominance/submission thing; it's very foreign to my experience and way of thinking.