Using an erotic art form to write about 'serious' issues

This started as a reply to this post, which I found via metafandom and which happened to partly address something I've been thinking about a bit recently. It quickly turned into this rambly essay thingie I really couldn't afford to write (I should have been doing university stuff). It's still very 'off the cuff', but realistically, I don't think I'll have the time to restructure and rewrite it; I need to get a move on with some uni stuff in the next couple of days, and that's unfortunately more important than meta. So I'll post it now, unfinished as it is.

This is interesting to me because I am currently writing - for the first time in all my years of writing fanfic - something I am intensely uncomfortable with, and my discomfort is largely related to what you address here:

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