Why so little genfic?

[author_by_night]

Disclaimer: Entry inspired by a secret on the fandomsecrets community.

Something I've noticed in almost all of the fandoms I'm in or know of -  Heroes, Harry Potter, Wicked the book, Wicked the musical, Rent, Pirates of the Carribean, Supernatural - is that there's a huge emphasis on romance. Actually, often smutty romance, at  that. Meanwhile, in all of those fandoms, save Pirates of the Carribean, the themes of friendship and/or family seem just as important, but they are not given the same amount of screentime. Well, I don't really know if that's the case with Supernatural, but gazing through the comms, it certainly seems to be the case. Also admittedly, Rent is clearly about romantic love, but there's still themes of friendship there too. (Mimi and Angel, Joanne and Mark - a friendship that probably wouldn't normally happen, all things considered - and Mark and Roger.)

I don't have a problem with people's shipping preferences - to each his/her own, right? If you want to write Petrellicest or Wincest, more power to you. Same with if you want to ship Remus/Sirius ( a ship I can see on some level anyway), Harry/Hermione, or Will/Jack. 

But I have  a general question - why is it that in these fandoms, non-romantic relationships, canon or not, do not generally get equal writing time? Even I have to admit that my entrance into the HP fandom came with musings about whether or not it'd be Harry/Hermione or Hermione/Ron, if Remus/Sirius was plausible, etc. I only became a genfic person later on. And even then, I still shipped Remus/Tonks (which wasn't canon at the time) and Ron/Hermione. 

So what is it about romance and smutfics that gains so much more popularity, and why do people see the need to put canon friends and siblings in romantic and/or smutty situations?

Discuss. :)

Comments

[nikojen.livejournal.com]

This probably makes no sense, but I wonder if another factor may be that there's a certain amount of objectification built into the fannish experience that leads naturally to a shippy/smutty end result.

It's most obvious with something like Sam/Dean, where the actors are so damn hot that you'd have to be stone to not notice, but for me personally, even in fandoms where I don't have any overt sexual attraction to my favorite characters, there's still a certain amount of "want" going on with my reactions. I can't always articulate exactly what it is that I "want" from them (except maybe "more of the same"), but the emotion is definitely there... and it's at least in the same ballpark as sexual desire.

If you look at it that way, with all characters serving as objects of desire in some way, it might actually make some sense that fandom leans toward topics that get the ol' hormones raging.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense. I hadn't thought of it like that before, but I really like that theory!