I do agree that there tends to be too much focus on pairings in fanfiction. I remeber from my early fanfic days in the Star Trek Voyager universe that most of what you got was Janeway/Chakotay romance stuff, and that was so not my cup of tea... There were hardly any gen stories around (though I should add that at the time I only read German stories, so the selection was very limited), but judging by the fact that J/C is still the pre-dominant pairing I don't think much has changed.
Downton Abbey is probably the only fandom I don't read any fanfic of, because most of the stories tend to focus on a particular pairing, whether it's the same as on the show or not. I'm fine with the couples we get on screen, but I'm not interested enough in those or any alternatives that I feel the need to read stories about them.
In fact, the only fandom I actively look for stories with certain pairings is Harry Potter; perhaps because there's such an interesting variety of choices. You can be picky, and even rare pairings like Snape/McG have gathered a greater following over the years. But here, too, what I like best are gen stories, or stories that have pairings in the background.
I don't have much fest experience and I never came across fests that had mandatory ratings, but I don't think I'd participate. Sex scenes that were forced into a story just for the sake of fulfilling a requirement are awful. If they're part of the story, if they fit in - great. But otherwise, no.
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I do agree that there tends to be too much focus on pairings in fanfiction. I remeber from my early fanfic days in the Star Trek Voyager universe that most of what you got was Janeway/Chakotay romance stuff, and that was so not my cup of tea... There were hardly any gen stories around (though I should add that at the time I only read German stories, so the selection was very limited), but judging by the fact that J/C is still the pre-dominant pairing I don't think much has changed.
Downton Abbey is probably the only fandom I don't read any fanfic of, because most of the stories tend to focus on a particular pairing, whether it's the same as on the show or not. I'm fine with the couples we get on screen, but I'm not interested enough in those or any alternatives that I feel the need to read stories about them.
In fact, the only fandom I actively look for stories with certain pairings is Harry Potter; perhaps because there's such an interesting variety of choices. You can be picky, and even rare pairings like Snape/McG have gathered a greater following over the years. But here, too, what I like best are gen stories, or stories that have pairings in the background.
I don't have much fest experience and I never came across fests that had mandatory ratings, but I don't think I'd participate. Sex scenes that were forced into a story just for the sake of fulfilling a requirement are awful. If they're part of the story, if they fit in - great. But otherwise, no.