Aha. See, my reading pattern in fanfic is not substantially different from my reading pattern in original fiction. I want the same things from both, and the chief difference is that in fanfic I'll endure lesser quality.

I find sex in fanfic a bit tyrannical, honestly. It bothers me that the range of human experience is so often narrowed to the sexual, nay, the romantic-sexual. That's fine, for what it is, but it's such a huge volume of fanfic that all other fanfic is affected by it. (Which is why the definition of gen has bloated so excessively.) I have had readers interpret my writing of a married couple as romantic/soul-bondy, despite textual evidence to the contrary; as if people can't be married and sometimes hate each other. As if people can't be intense with one another in a way that explicitly skirts the sexual. As if every sex act were always an affirmative expression of emotion. It's tiring, and it's a facile interpretation of the complexity of real-world emotions, and it makes me crazy that I have to wade upstream against the norm to bring even the most basic ambiguity into a relationship.

What I want are readers who approach a story with an open mind; and I guess I blame the similarity and repetitive architecture of romance-oriented fanfic for allowing readers to close their minds so effectively.