Many people, encountering fanfiction for the first time, wonder why so much of it is erotic. Anne Jamison, in Fic, gives a pretty good answer: a lot of fanfiction questions mainstream assumptions about gender, sexuality, and desire. But writing erotic fanfiction is also a wonderful game. The fanfiction community might be the first place where a woman is encouraged to enjoy her sexual fantasies and praised for the dirtiness of her imagination. Writing and reading fanfiction is a social, communal activity, and considering how much shame is still attached to the expression of female sexual desire (what’s so funny about it?) the creation of shared erotic fantasies is still radical.
Introduction to The Communications Officer’s Tale, The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age (via francescacoppa)