Het!Reid vs. Slashy!Reid

[poeticpathetic.livejournal.com]

We had a great discussion going on here about Reid as written in slash fics.  Some people touched on Reid written in het fics as well and I was hoping to explore that a little more.   I know het isn't as popular amongst fandoms as slash is (and this is across the board), but I've seen two distinct variations of Reid in het fics, and I'm new to the genre.  There's the confident, self-assured Reid who's clearly aware of what he's doing, and then there's the Reid who is a total fumble and fail and lets whoever he's with sort of take over.  What do you think is more accurate and why do you think we see two ends of the spectrum?  What episodic evidence do we have when it comes to formulating Reid's sex-life, if any, and how do you interpret it?

Comments

Late but

[nights-fang.livejournal.com]

I don't think either portrayal is accurate.

Reid, despite his shyness is a very strongly independent person. He may not have an Alpha-Male personality but he has very much raised himself and been the caretaker for his own mother since he was a kid. Thanks to that, he pretty much is the type of person to keep control over a lot of aspects of his own life, especially his emotional control. He's used to finding solutions to his problems on his own, and probably just likes to avoid asking for help, simply because he's used to not asking for help. We've seen how he clearly feels odd telling Morgan about his nightmares, and asking for help. He is definitely going to carry that into any serious relationship he enters, be it a homosexual or a heterosexual one. He'll give up control, but only to a certain limit, and for certain aspects he'd probably refuse to relinquish any sort of control whatsoever.

As for his awkwardness and shyness, he is shown to get over that once he knows where he stands. Whenever he's introduced to the law enforcement the team is working with in the case he's does the whole awkward hand-wave thing, but once the team has settled in he pretty much asserts himself.

It may be because of Reid's past. Reid fits the stereotypical Woobie, and any woobie character always gets a little more bastardised than the rest.