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Note: This site has turned up again, can you believe it, with a new URL, boasting many more stories in an easy posting archive. If you're a fan of this band, go for it.
So, I surfed in and took a look around. The site has a very good graphical interface, with a montage of pictures arranged to the right of and below main window with its scroll bars; control buttons were to the left, in a funky pixellated font in keeping with the nature of the group. In addition to stories, there were band pics, artwork, some good Orgy links, and a creative use of the Sims computer game -- the male characters were named after the band's members, and sent on simulated dates. There were also detailed guidelines for submitting stories to the site and the site's mailing list, all neatly organized. I was very impressed with the programming and the clean, sleek look of it. I wasn't so impressed with the material. I'm not really into this group, and so I didn't expect to relate to these sexual fantasies the same way a fan would. But. Because these are stories, I did expect to be entertained by and/or enlightened about the subject matter, and I wasn't. In the five stories I read and ten I skimmed I didn't see the members of the group depicted as anything other than predigested pulp. I didn't get a feel for their personalities, outlooks, motivations, or quirks; I didn't even get a good mental image of what they looked like. (One of the members is of Indian or Central Asian descent; this was never mentioned.) I couldn't even get worked up over all the sadistic things that happened... disembowelings, rapes, and incest that made the boyband slash I've been reading look positively apple- cheeked. What I did get was a lot of overblown gothic angst. I found most of the stories were of the relationship vignette kind, slice-of-life sexual encounters that made little sense. In Rayvin's "Sound Mind and Body," for example, the nameless narrator stalks and ultimately murders Jay, the group's lead singer, for no clear reason; in "Gnawing," by Gynger Lyszt, the raper of Jay is Amir, a fellow member, whose cryptic excuse is "It has to be done." I don't know about you, but if I was going to rape and mutilate someone, I'd make damn sure I knew why I was doing it. The same problem comes up again in "Immoral Lust" where Bobby, the drummer, shares a semiconsensual fuck with his twin because... well, it was never exactly stated why the illicit passion suddenly loosed itself at that particular place and time. It just happened. (I took a personal offense to the story as well because of the cutesy, hey-we-really-love- each-other ending that was tacked on.) The lack of motivation made the piquant sadism considerably less shocking and titillating than it was written to be. OK, I know this is fanfic... it's shared fantasy material for which the subjects already exist and are known to the fantasizers, so you could say *any* description or motivation is superfluous. But many of the much- derided boyband fanfics have plots (and surprise, some of them are quite good) as well as character, so I really couldn't understand why these stories were so unimaginative. It was like every other author wrote the same thing over again, in a slightly different style. To be fair, there may have been better storylines in the PG and R-rated material, but I'm a sex stories reviewer; I only do the hard stuff. A few of the writers tried to sketch in the blanks of the band's daily life. "Eraser" was a crossover about a sugary affair between Paige, Orgy's bass player, and NIN's Trent Reznor that blossoms while the groups are on tour in Germany. A name-dropping hip-cool factor ("I nodded to Ryan, who was doing shots with Gen from the Genitorurers") was reached for, but was unconvincing because it was so obvious. The story descended into soap opera when Paige uses his "angel" to stir up feelings of jealousy in Jay, his bandmate and ex-lover who discarded him for "that whore Amir"... a very female development, and I stopped reading at that point, because, after my marathon LotR reviews, I was tired of seeing male characters estrogenized. I also got tired of hearing about boxers... no one wore underwear, only boxers... I mean, come on, wouldn't you think a group as badass as this one would wear something more risque, or go without underwear altogether, rather than wear these square, silly, shortlike garments? (Note: The majority of young men prefer Jockeys and briefs because they are cheaper, more comfortable to sleep in, and become progressively softer as they are washed; they also take up less space in drawers, do not wrinkle, and are convenient for keeping your t-shirt tucked inside your pants. Of course, it may be that "boxers" is now parlance for "any kind of male underwear" among writers of a certain generation... if so, please inform me.) The other semi-real story, "My Frustration," by Shane, takes us inside the studio where Orgy is recording, A series of escalating, rather groundless, insults between members Amir and Jay lead to a lovingly described fistfight between the two, which goes on for many paragraphs and ends with a rape. This was the best of the stories I read, since there was a plot, some motivation, and a climax and aftermath. The fight scenes were well done with good descriptions, and the story ended cynically, as a good nu- metal fic should. As to why female writers are so driven to torturing their idols, maybe it all goes back to archetypes, the Greek God Dionysius being torn to pieces by his wild Maenads. I do know that, as a female, the stories spoke to me on a level that conventional porn does not, even as I derided them. Pointless as they were, I actually felt embarrassed as I read, the thrilling shame that comes from breaking a well-established taboo. I felt I was doing something truly forbidden, whereas with regular porn -- even the sickest and kinkiest -- I don't. If there's a difference between 'male' and 'female' porn, this is it.
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