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prof_pangaeaonce again someone has noticed that a lot of slash is written by straight (white) women, and that a lot of slash is appropriative and fetishistic, so once again there is much hand-wringing and many desperate attempts to justify taking over sites like afterelton.com in order to complain about how homophobic russell t davies is for killing off fandom's woobie (weirdly enough, no one tried similar tactics after bisexual toshiko was killed, i can't imagine why), as well as the writing of stories where RTD is hit by a bus, or subjected to homophobic abuse, in order to put him in his place. meanwhile other parts of fandom are setting up straw man posts such as, "should women be allowed to write slash??" as if anyone has ever seriously told them the answer is no. people are horrified that slash might be the equivalent of girl on girl porn made for straight guys, because... er, i'm not sure why. because that erases all of the completely imaginary gay activism that straight slashers think they've indulged in by liking boysnogs? who knows. but apprently that meant the hunt was ON for something new to compare slash to!
so now slash is just like drag? seriously? i'm no expert on drag, other than having gone to a few shows (which is probably more than many of these "omg THIS!" commenters have done) and yet somehow i know that drag is a very complex practise with hundreds, even thousands of years of history behind it, that is enacted differently in every culture, that has roots in performance, ritual, and the arts, as well as purely "gay" culture. yes, those kirk/spock zines your aunt used to collect are pretty old, but it's not quite the same! and yet someone has written the following:
My standard line in this argument is comprised of two words: drag queens. Which I expand thus: women (most women) understand that (some) gay men have created a really distinctive and important form of cultural expression, saying things they couldn't say otherwise, through the adoption of female avatars from popular culture. And it seems to me that gay men should understand that (some) women have created a different and yet equally important form of cultural expression, saying things they couldn't say otherwise, by adopting male avatars. As a woman, I have been mostly--but not always and entirely--welcome in gay male spaces, and I think that women should mostly--but not always and entirely--welcome gay men into their spaces. So I think the parallel isn't to lesbian porn, but to drag (even the power relationships are more parallel, and I think drag better demonstrates the power of the alliance between women and gay men.)
aaaaaaand of course the comments are filled with "oh god, this parallel is PERFECT because now i don't have to worry about thinking about appropriation anymore. thanks!!" even though all drag is not about or from "gay" culture ("gay" seemingly standing in for modern, western, male, cis, white, homosexual culture, of course) let me just say (more to the people so eagerly jumping at anything that will let them off the hook of having to think about the realities of intersectionality and appropriation than the original poster, whom i think is wrong, but seems thoughtfully wrong, at least): way to attempt to appropriate even more gay culture for yourselves, slashers. oh, by the way, fuck off.
in all seriousness, why are people still arguing that slash is inherently about women using men to tell women's stories? am i in a coma, mad, or have i travelled back in time? is it crazy for me to write/read slash because i want to write/read about the two characters, and not shitty author avatars? being a female writer means a woman will probably always write with certain awarenesses or experiences that have been informed by being female, not that they're always writing about women in disguise.
obviously, in professional fiction men are the default and so harry potter has to have a male protagonist if it's going to become a "universal" phenomenon, but frankly the same market forces are not at work in fandom, because we're not selling anything. obviously the same cultural forces ARE at work, since so many people seem to think that a story about women can only be interesting if the women have cocks, but hey, we knew that. people just need to stop using thinly disguised internalised misogyny as an excuse for why slash is just "inherently" more interesting and own up to the fact that they like to get off (emotionally or sexually) on boysnogs. there is nothing morally wrong with this until people start declaring that the fact that they like to fetishise said boysnogging means they are true liberal activists/feminists/performers of important cultural expression. boysnogs =/= important cultural expression in and of themselves -- it's the stories you try to tell with them. and guess what? good stories are usually about people, not fetishised objects.
tl;dr: soz if the thought that much of slash really *is* the equivalent of girl on girl distresses you so much, but it is. most slash is like some unholy combination of girl on girl porn and the movie shoot 'em up, except the slash version of shoot 'em up would replace the paul giamatti character with one played by jason isaacs, and would replace the scene where clive owen fucks monica belluci in the middle of a gunfight with a scene where clive owen fucks james mcavoy in the middle of a gunfight. and yes, i would watch this.
ps: am going to utah tomorrow to visit family and finally meet my baby nephew, so if i'm not around for a bit that's why. pls to not be burning down the internets in my absence. <3
so now slash is just like drag? seriously? i'm no expert on drag, other than having gone to a few shows (which is probably more than many of these "omg THIS!" commenters have done) and yet somehow i know that drag is a very complex practise with hundreds, even thousands of years of history behind it, that is enacted differently in every culture, that has roots in performance, ritual, and the arts, as well as purely "gay" culture. yes, those kirk/spock zines your aunt used to collect are pretty old, but it's not quite the same! and yet someone has written the following:
My standard line in this argument is comprised of two words: drag queens. Which I expand thus: women (most women) understand that (some) gay men have created a really distinctive and important form of cultural expression, saying things they couldn't say otherwise, through the adoption of female avatars from popular culture. And it seems to me that gay men should understand that (some) women have created a different and yet equally important form of cultural expression, saying things they couldn't say otherwise, by adopting male avatars. As a woman, I have been mostly--but not always and entirely--welcome in gay male spaces, and I think that women should mostly--but not always and entirely--welcome gay men into their spaces. So I think the parallel isn't to lesbian porn, but to drag (even the power relationships are more parallel, and I think drag better demonstrates the power of the alliance between women and gay men.)
aaaaaaand of course the comments are filled with "oh god, this parallel is PERFECT because now i don't have to worry about thinking about appropriation anymore. thanks!!" even though all drag is not about or from "gay" culture ("gay" seemingly standing in for modern, western, male, cis, white, homosexual culture, of course) let me just say (more to the people so eagerly jumping at anything that will let them off the hook of having to think about the realities of intersectionality and appropriation than the original poster, whom i think is wrong, but seems thoughtfully wrong, at least): way to attempt to appropriate even more gay culture for yourselves, slashers. oh, by the way, fuck off.
in all seriousness, why are people still arguing that slash is inherently about women using men to tell women's stories? am i in a coma, mad, or have i travelled back in time? is it crazy for me to write/read slash because i want to write/read about the two characters, and not shitty author avatars? being a female writer means a woman will probably always write with certain awarenesses or experiences that have been informed by being female, not that they're always writing about women in disguise.
obviously, in professional fiction men are the default and so harry potter has to have a male protagonist if it's going to become a "universal" phenomenon, but frankly the same market forces are not at work in fandom, because we're not selling anything. obviously the same cultural forces ARE at work, since so many people seem to think that a story about women can only be interesting if the women have cocks, but hey, we knew that. people just need to stop using thinly disguised internalised misogyny as an excuse for why slash is just "inherently" more interesting and own up to the fact that they like to get off (emotionally or sexually) on boysnogs. there is nothing morally wrong with this until people start declaring that the fact that they like to fetishise said boysnogging means they are true liberal activists/feminists/performers of important cultural expression. boysnogs =/= important cultural expression in and of themselves -- it's the stories you try to tell with them. and guess what? good stories are usually about people, not fetishised objects.
tl;dr: soz if the thought that much of slash really *is* the equivalent of girl on girl distresses you so much, but it is. most slash is like some unholy combination of girl on girl porn and the movie shoot 'em up, except the slash version of shoot 'em up would replace the paul giamatti character with one played by jason isaacs, and would replace the scene where clive owen fucks monica belluci in the middle of a gunfight with a scene where clive owen fucks james mcavoy in the middle of a gunfight. and yes, i would watch this.
ps: am going to utah tomorrow to visit family and finally meet my baby nephew, so if i'm not around for a bit that's why. pls to not be burning down the internets in my absence. <3
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 10:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 10:42 am (UTC)doctor who is an interesting fandom because slashers don't tend to know what to do with it, since the majority of the characters (beside the doctor) are female, as well as super awesome (so the "the female characters just aren't as interesting!" reasoning tends not to work so well). there is just not enough cock and so most of the serial "any cock will do" slashers wind up over in torchwood, which is how we get awful shit like that RTD rps where straight women lecture gay people about what homophobia REALLY IS. we do get a certain amount of threesome fics, usually with rose, the doctor, and random cock (jack or handy, depending), which use the random cock as sexual thrill for the true, heterosexual love, but that's a different, though semi-related, issue.
Re: Here via linkspam or metafandom or whatevz
Date: 2010-01-21 10:43 am (UTC)Re: here via linkspam...
Date: 2010-01-21 10:52 am (UTC)so there's no point in my reading anything you write, then? okay.
I have written m/m as a way to explore relationships minus biological inequalities
um... what the fuck? are you saying women's bodies are actually "biologically inequal" to those of men, and not merely seen as such by a sexist society? or are you saying that my, and your, trans body is "biologically inequal" to that of a cis man? either way, please reconsider your words. or fuck off.
The only way I can write f/f relationships and let my characters do everything I want them to do, is to pretend that they exist in an AU where women have the same privileges that men take for granted.
do you never write m/m where the men are of different races? different backgrounds? different classes? nationalities? species (depending on the fandom)? if so, then you already deal with relationships with intrinsic inequalities/privileges, and your comment makes no sense.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 10:54 am (UTC)exactly. it's what you do with the boysnogs! or the girlsnogs!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 03:33 pm (UTC)This, forever and ever amen.
This is a good and thoughtful and necessary post and its perspective is appreciated.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 06:33 pm (UTC)Re: here via linkspam...
Date: 2010-01-25 01:54 am (UTC)I just wanted to point out to you that your sweeping generalisation can be contradicted by a few actual examples.
In fact, I write much more f/f than I do m/m. And you might enjoy it, how do I know.
I would like to discuss further with you, but I am not sure you are going to be discursive-- it looks like you are in a ranting mood here, by the way you have attacked my statements. I don't mind a challenge but I sure do wish you could wave a magic wand and erase my life experiences before you tell me to fuck off for having had them.
Re: here via linkspam...
Date: 2010-01-25 05:19 pm (UTC)that's nice -- in fact that's great, and the relative dearth of femslash and femslash writers when there is such an overabundance of writers willing to write and read and defend the sanctity any story about two guys with cocks is what prompted my post. but i'm not sure how i was supposed to glean that fact from a comment where you stated, "I write male characters who are me. It is drag." which is not something i am interested in reading, most especially in the middle of this discussion where i've been detailing why i find the slash = drag comparison to be reductive, ridiculous, and offensive.
I would like to discuss further with you, but I am not sure you are going to be discursive-- it looks like you are in a ranting mood here, by the way you have attacked my statements.
i have little patience for statements which imply that women's or trans people's bodies are "biologically" or in any intrinsic way "inferior" to a cis man's, and i don't see why saying so in any way erases your own life experiences. like i said, if that's not what you meant to say, you should reconsider your wording, because that's sure what it sounded like to me. if it was, then i stand by my own words.
Re: here via linkspam...
Date: 2010-01-25 06:18 pm (UTC)You translated my term, "inequal" as "inferior." I am a bit more precise in my vocabulary than that.
But there are a myriad of ways in which my body fails me in competition with men, physically --and certainly culturally, since our society is geared towards male abilities by default.
In my life I have noticed the ways in which;
Men can, generally speaking, lift much heavier boxes than I can. And for longer periods, despite the weight and aerobics training I put myself through-- which as it happens, I can't really do any longer because my female body is breaking down a bit from the pressure.
Men can play professional sports in ways (culturally developed, admittedly) women cannot. If I write Age Of Sail, those were men racing up the mainmast, not women.
Men can, with equal training to me, pull a really big crossbow that I cannot pull.
Men can sweep me into a big hug and whirl me around, and generally speaking, I cannot return the favor-- and if the contact is more violent, I know that my female body will lose the contest.
Men can shove into someone else's body with their clitoral analogue in a way I cannot. Silicone just isn't. The. Same. And my fist doesn't always fit.
YMMV, and I really hope it does.
Let me say that age might be part of this disconnect between you and I. I am 53 years old. Every day of my life I wake up with a piss hardon that doesn't actually exist. And I do mean every day of my life, it happened when I was five years old, it happened when I was twelve, when I was sixteen, during two pregnancies, and it's still happening. In my youth there was absolutely nothing to be done about it-- except drag and a carefully cultivated sense of humor.
You young whippersnappers, and all that. I am not certain of your age, but I get the feeling...
lifting boxes? really?
Date: 2010-01-26 01:10 am (UTC)no, i'll also say that i most definitely noticed that when your comment that men's and women's (possibly trans men as well?) bodies are "biologically inequal" was challenged, you came up with a list of ways the cis male body is supposedly superior, and not one way in which a female body could be seen as superior, instead of a failure.
i'm not even going to touch the assumption about my age, and the inherent dismissal contained within it, except to note that that, along with your comments about my emotions getting the better of me, and my apparent ignorance regarding drag (despite my having already addressed something similar earlier in the comments (http://prof-pangaea.livejournal.com/181890.html?thread=1178498#t1178498)) are pretty impressive attempts at derailing. and i don't see how saying that men can lift heavier boxes than women, or shove their cocks more easily into other people's bodies, has anything to do with slash being the same as drag, or the fact that huge swathes of fandom will do anything to defend their love for paying attention to any cute white guy with a cock while defending their right to ignore the rest of the human population as less inherently interesting/progressive/transgressive/sex positive, or whatever other bullshit excuse they're patting themselves on the back for on any given day of the week.
yeah, lifting boxes, really.
Date: 2010-01-26 02:37 am (UTC)Regardless of how you feel about it, you are mistaken when you dismiss the women who found a resonance in the drag queen simile.
anyway, i can't lift heavy boxes because i have chronic tendonitis. :(
Date: 2010-01-26 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-31 07:32 pm (UTC)