prof_pangaea (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
prof_pangaea) wrote2010-01-16 03:09 am
prof_pangaea) wrote2010-01-16 03:09 am
Entry tags:
if it was a real slash story the infant would be james mcavoy's mpreg baby
once 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
no subject
no subject
no subject
2. Your babies. I would have them, geography, prior relationships etc permitting.
no subject
2: i'm afraid that as a gay, i can only have babies if an angsty, yet strangely sexy man (preferably immortal or super-powered) has teh gay sex with me (anal obvs, as it's the only kind that really counts) and then after several chapters of angst and traumatic backstory we decide we want to be together forever. or we accidentally commit mpreg.
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
(no subject)
here via linkspam
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
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.
Exactly. There is nothing wrong with having your own personal kinks and acknowledging them -- just fucking admit it and move on. Claiming your desires make you a better, more enlightened human being than those other perverts out there is no different than saying that the stuff you like is Sophisticated Erotica, and the stuff everyone else likes is filthy porn, and I got tired of that particular discussion about a million years ago.
Have fun in Utah with the nephew, and try not to think about all this fail while you're there.
no subject
yes, i too was left staring at my screen in horror and confusion.
Claiming your desires make you a better, more enlightened human being than those other perverts out there is no different than saying that the stuff you like is Sophisticated Erotica, and the stuff everyone else likes is filthy porn, and I got tired of that particular discussion about a million years ago.
people don't want to like something that can be likened to girl on girl, because it's tacky and makes them think of bros and fratboys. they want it to be better than that, cooler, more edgy, more meaningful. well, most of the people streaming into sherlock holmes fandom right now didn't watch the guy ritchie film and think, "wow, this is so interesting. i wonder how i can invert the heteronormative, sexist paradigm by adopting these male avatars to tell a story rich in meaningful cultural expression." they thought, "these guys are hot. time for a kinkmeme!"
and yes, i shall have lots of fun in utah with family types! it'll be good.
no subject
Drag? Really?
...REALLY?
People confuse me. I read slash 'cause it's got not one but two hawt guys. Same goes for guys watching lesbiporn. It's really not that hard to figure out.
I am going to point out now that while some Draggers are gay, not all of them are, either. And some people just like being able to have more clothing options *shrug*
no subject
but there are all these posts and essays saying that it's very deep and meaningful and not in any way whatsoever like what straight guys do because they're gross. not like magical gay guys, obvs, who are better because they... i don't know, taste of honey, or something. certainly not because focusing on them means you can focus on hot guys without having to ever ruin your fantasies by thinking of women and their girl parts.
I am going to point out now that while some Draggers are gay, not all of them are, either. And some people just like being able to have more clothing options *shrug*
why you gotta come in here with your logics and whatnot?
no subject
no subject
no subject
SERIOUSLY.
I am (thankfully) seeing only what must be sporadic tiny snippets of the outer orbits of this wank, but what I've seen is making my head spin, in very large part because I was not at the meeting where we agreed that when women write stories that involve a sexual or romantic relationship between men, it means only one thing, and that thing is that we are making up men who don't act like men in order to enact some inherently female story about ourselves. (And that we are all doing this as part of our proud shared subcultural movement that shares a tradition of... writing queer men who aren't really men?)
footnote
(no subject)
no subject
But my favorite sentence in the whole thing is this: and guess what? good stories are usually about people, not fetishised objects.
YES.
Have fun with the family, and keep safe while traveling.
no subject
<3!! that was the bit that really got to me -- boling all that down to one preferred storyline of what drag "really" is (which just happened to suit the author's agenda), and then using that to defend an equally reductive definition of what slash really is and who should write it and who shouldn't care if it's written in certain ways.
Have fun with the family, and keep safe while traveling.
thanks! i'm having much fun! still can't seem to get myself to sleep at a reasonable hour though. boo.
no subject
<3 <3 <3
no subject
no subject
Safe travels tomorrow!
no subject
no subject
It's just pretty clear to me that slash has a lot more to do with the psychology of the people who write and read it than the people they're nominally writing and reading about. And I feel like playing in that sandbox brings with it a responsibility to recognize the people who actually own it. Not in the stories necessarily, but slashers should at least be aware that in real life, this issue is about more than their enjoyment of underground romance novels.
no subject
no subject
(no subject)
no subject
I'm one of the "OMG THIS!" commenters.
I don't think of drag as something done in "shows." Drag is my husband's best man at our wedding, in his pink-with-sequins cocktail dress. Drag is loaning my gold eyeshadow to a near-stranger at a convention 'cos he didn't bring makeup that goes with his gold lamé robes. Drag is a woman in an Edwardian tux at a Victorian formal dance. Drag is altering ballgowns to put laces up the back instead of zippers because even if the waist fits, the shoulders are never broad enough. Drag is knowing the sequined sleeve goes on the right arm & the fishnet one goes on the left.
Drag is not a culture I'm appropriating; it's one I live in the middle of. My comparison may be flawed, because it's based on the limited view of my own experiences, but it's not made out of ignorance.
no subject
i'm a gay man, but i'm also trans, and a fairly active participant in the trans community in my city. so you may feel very comfortable defining what drag really is, but i'm not, because i get to have people confuse my identity, and that of my friends, for their own preferred definitions all the time. so you might see *my* friends' wedding from this past summer and think, "oh, that is drag!", and i would see a multiplicity of gender expressions, identities, and sexualities on display, none of which were easy to pin down or define.
now i don't think that i personally live in the middle of drag culture, though i have attended shows and performances, know people who perform drag as well as people who simply enjoy cross-dressing when the mood strikes, and experience the way that drag (the practise itself and how outsiders tend to interpret certain kinds of gender expression) interacts with trans culture and queer culture. but you say that you live in the middle of drag culture. okay. so how does your experience of drag have anything to do with slash? my limited experience leads me to believe it's a hell of a lot more complex than the explanation that
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
no subject
no subject
no subject
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.
Here via linkspam or metafandom or whatevz
Re: Here via linkspam or metafandom or whatevz
here via linkspam...
I write male characters who are me. It is drag.
I have written m/m as a way to explore relationships minus biological inequalities, and as if all relationships had the privileges men take for granted. 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. And that include the porn that I write.
So count me in as one of the OMG THIS responders.
Re: here via linkspam...
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.
Re: here via linkspam...
Re: here via linkspam...
Re: here via linkspam...
lifting boxes? really?
yeah, lifting boxes, really.
anyway, i can't lift heavy boxes because i have chronic tendonitis. :(
no subject
♥ ♥ There are lines between appreciation, misappropriation, and activism. I think some slash operates on a deeper level than boysnog squee in disguise, but the act of writing slash isn't inherently activism.
no subject
exactly. it's what you do with the boysnogs! or the girlsnogs!
no subject
Oh yes, that gets real old, REAL fast. *lesbian femslasher here*
And I'd so love more fic about women in drag. UNF.
no subject
no subject
I'm female, and I don't have a problem with slash being compared to other kinds of porn. I mean, yeah, some of it is just good stories about queer characters, but a lot of it is really just porn. That's fine, and I hate to see people trying to make slash some kind of amazing movement when it really isn't. Especially the female avatars thing- you can do whatever you want for porn, but if I'm reading a character-driven story I'd rather it was actually about the characters. Sure, you always write a little bit of yourself into characters, even if it's just to get a grip on what they're thinking- still, I would never consider one of my characters to be an avatar for myself.
You're definitely right about the cultural forces pertaining to gender in fiction impacting slash. I like femslash and I read it some- but when I think about my favorite characters they're usually guys. Most femslash has to work a little to make the female characters interesting enough to read a story about, and that's unfortunate. It also makes those stories slower to read and less common.
Anyway, thanks again for writing this. I'm still thinking about it, so it's definitely having an impact.
no subject
This, forever and ever amen.
This is a good and thoughtful and necessary post and its perspective is appreciated.
no subject
no subject
no subject