Let Yourself Be ‘Cringe’: Fan Fiction, Shame, and Your Inner Child

My adult fan fiction obsession: the slowest burn in television history, Buddie (9-1-1 photo from Pink News

During my intakes with clients, I often ask, “what did you do for fun when you were a kid?” This is an especially important question when I’m working with someone who struggles with boundaries and work or feels deep shame for what they take interest in.

So much of the training we experienced in our grad program was about exploring our own shame around sexuality, discovering parts of ourselves that we needed to let others see or work towards healing so that we could be present in our sessions with future clients. In order to be present and help others work through shame, it really takes looking at yourself and understanding your own doubts, fears, and wants. One of our long weekends of class, I grouped up with a few women within my cohort at lunch. Somehow, we got on the subject of reading fan fiction as pre-teens, sharing our favorite flavors of smut, something I hadn’t shared with anyone, not even my friends at 13. I began my journey with queer stories sitting at our family computer on fanfiction.net reading dark romance stories about my favorite M/M pairing, Drarry (that’s Draco and Harry for those unfamiliar). Turns out, the other women sharing lunch with me also enjoyed gay smut written by strangers and posted for no reason other than to share. One of my lunchmates gleefully shared that she preferred Gargoyle fanfics (yes, the cartoon statues).

Inner child healing is a phrase that often gets thrown around online but what does it mean to do inner child healing work? I work from the stance that we often know who we are as children. We develop interests and use our imaginations to create worlds and games. We sing, we dance, we draw and make up stories, create connections to our joy and identity. And then the world gets to us. Maybe it's our parents telling us to grow up, be responsible, choose a path for success. Maybe it’s the bullies at recess reminding us that others will always be present to judge us. It could be friends we are trying to fit in with that forces us to strip away pieces of ourselves until we assimilate. Whatever the cause is, we often bury parts of ourselves for safety, acceptance, love, or simply losing ourselves to productivity culture and capitalism. Singing and dancing and creating stories or art becomes a skill instead of something we do because it feels good.

As a sex therapist, I’m thrilled to see so many people exploring new, queer stories in the media, and with the popularity of Heated Rivalry infiltrating hetero spaces, the discussion of fan fiction has never been more present in our culture. I love to see people seeking art that defies capitalism, as Archive of our Own (AO3) is just an archive of people sharing their stories, whether it follows canon or explores an alternate universe. These archives create community and space to explore ourselves with decreased shame. Exploring these parts of ourselves can help unlock joy and desires that can directly affect how you engage in intimacy. Do you struggle connecting with what actually brings you joy? Stay tuned for a deeper dive on how connecting with joy is an act of resistance and can lead to a more fulfilling and intimate life.