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edenfallingThere is an imbroglio going around some* fannish circles about slash and professional m/m fiction and how it is often appropriative and disrespectful to/of gay men, and how gay men are being hurtful in criticizing female expressions of sexuality through slash, and god knows what all else. Recently this has developed side issues about the way the issue is persistently framed as 'straight women vs. gay men' which ignores the fact that (apparently) the majority of slash writers identify as some variation of queer.
(You can find some of the latest round in this metafandom post, if you are curious.)
I, meanwhile, am sitting back and going WTF at all this, because whatever other people may be getting out of slash or putting into it, what I am doing when I write two men in a romantic and/or sexual relationship (which I have done, though I seem to lean more toward het or threesomes when I actually write sexual -- or presumably sexual -- relationships... and I write femslash, too) is exploring how those particular characters might behave in such a relationship.
In other words, I write character-based stories. And stories about specific, particular characters in a relationship defined by their specific, particular qualities and circumstances are the stories I am most interested in reading, as well. (Plot, world-building, and nifty thematic ideas are also good lures. *grin* And so is sex, sometimes, if and when I am in the mood, and if and when a story convinces me that this particular sex scene is realistic for these particular characters in this particular setting and plot circumstance. Otherwise I will probably be skimming right over your carefully written sex, sorry.)
Anyway, for me, slash has nothing to do with exploring my own sexuality, or acting out my sexuality through male proxies, or playing around in drag, or whatever new analogies people are coming up with. It has very little to do with sex, honestly. (The same goes for het and femslash and poly and whatever else people get up to by way of sexual/romantic relationships.) I am interested in character as displayed through relationships, and relationships as an influence on characters and actions; it is all about being human in community with other humans. Sex/romance/love just happens to be a convenient way to explore emotional and social connections, sometimes -- though generally speaking, even when I write actual sex scenes, they are not the point of the story.
I grant you, this attitude is almost certainly influenced by my general asexuality, but I would be willing to bet that character study and development is a significant part of a lot of other writers' motivation for writing slash... or at least the people who write stories where you cannot just run a global search-and-replace on the characters' names and then have the fic work just as well -- or just as badly, more likely -- in half a hundred fandoms.
But that does not make for good arguments or sociological essays, I guess. *wry*
*I say 'some' because it is clearly completely off the radar of, like, eighty percent of my flist... which I am pretty sure is related to the fact that a lot of my flist is mostly in animanga fandoms and another, somewhat overlapping proportion does not seem interested in pan-fandom meta. (This is, incidentally, much more true for LJ than DW; I use DW less for fic reading and more for thinky semi-sociological reading.)
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Please note that this post is not intended as an attack on anyone or anyone's point of view. I am just saying that for me, this whole argument is like reading local news from a foreign country, because none of the perspectives (except maybekaz's post about invisible asexuals) have much to do with my experience of the world.
(You can find some of the latest round in this metafandom post, if you are curious.)
I, meanwhile, am sitting back and going WTF at all this, because whatever other people may be getting out of slash or putting into it, what I am doing when I write two men in a romantic and/or sexual relationship (which I have done, though I seem to lean more toward het or threesomes when I actually write sexual -- or presumably sexual -- relationships... and I write femslash, too) is exploring how those particular characters might behave in such a relationship.
In other words, I write character-based stories. And stories about specific, particular characters in a relationship defined by their specific, particular qualities and circumstances are the stories I am most interested in reading, as well. (Plot, world-building, and nifty thematic ideas are also good lures. *grin* And so is sex, sometimes, if and when I am in the mood, and if and when a story convinces me that this particular sex scene is realistic for these particular characters in this particular setting and plot circumstance. Otherwise I will probably be skimming right over your carefully written sex, sorry.)
Anyway, for me, slash has nothing to do with exploring my own sexuality, or acting out my sexuality through male proxies, or playing around in drag, or whatever new analogies people are coming up with. It has very little to do with sex, honestly. (The same goes for het and femslash and poly and whatever else people get up to by way of sexual/romantic relationships.) I am interested in character as displayed through relationships, and relationships as an influence on characters and actions; it is all about being human in community with other humans. Sex/romance/love just happens to be a convenient way to explore emotional and social connections, sometimes -- though generally speaking, even when I write actual sex scenes, they are not the point of the story.
I grant you, this attitude is almost certainly influenced by my general asexuality, but I would be willing to bet that character study and development is a significant part of a lot of other writers' motivation for writing slash... or at least the people who write stories where you cannot just run a global search-and-replace on the characters' names and then have the fic work just as well -- or just as badly, more likely -- in half a hundred fandoms.
But that does not make for good arguments or sociological essays, I guess. *wry*
*I say 'some' because it is clearly completely off the radar of, like, eighty percent of my flist... which I am pretty sure is related to the fact that a lot of my flist is mostly in animanga fandoms and another, somewhat overlapping proportion does not seem interested in pan-fandom meta. (This is, incidentally, much more true for LJ than DW; I use DW less for fic reading and more for thinky semi-sociological reading.)
-----
Please note that this post is not intended as an attack on anyone or anyone's point of view. I am just saying that for me, this whole argument is like reading local news from a foreign country, because none of the perspectives (except maybe
kaz's post about invisible asexuals) have much to do with my experience of the world.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-25 04:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-19 02:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 06:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 03:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 04:20 am (UTC)On the other hand, I think it is better to talk about stuff, however ineptly and however much at cross-purposes, than to seethe in silence and/or sweep issues under the carpet. I know there are a lot of things I would never have thought about without some of these discussions, and I am lucky enough to be able to ignore them if I want, so, you know, I figure if they annoy me that is my own problem and I should probably stay out of it and be glad that the issue in question does not hurt me where I live.
I only ended up posting about this issue because a lot of the ideas expressed by people supporting slash confuse me so much (slash is like drag? really?), and have so little relation to my experience of the world, and I was trying to explain my reaction to myself. (I am kind of weirded out that it has been linked on
Sorry for the deleted comment; I got distracted and hit post way too soon.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 03:05 pm (UTC)I kind of wish I wasn't so cynical.
No problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-19 03:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 06:20 am (UTC)Yes, this. It seems such a strange thing to use as a definition. (...I suppose my ability to say that is a sign that fandom and society have changed a lot over the past few decades, though they are still, obviously, far from perfect. Probably slash-vs-het was a much more fraught and significant distinction back when slash was mostly underground.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 03:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 04:12 pm (UTC)I'm glad I'm not alone in this.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 03:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 06:46 pm (UTC)In other words, me too.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 03:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 08:18 pm (UTC)Thanks for writing this up in a clearer fashion so I can just point people here when I need to \o/
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 03:27 am (UTC)As for relying on canon interactions for plausibility... well, I sometimes write pairings that have very little canon basis (or no canon basis whatsoever, in the case of crossovers), but there the challenge is to say, "I have such-and-such relationship as my end; how can I get there in a relatively plausible and in-character fashion?" But that is still extrapolation from canon, and with constant reference to canon, so I guess it's a similar idea, just from a different angle.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 04:59 pm (UTC)oh, i'm glad i read this post. thanks for making it public!
(here via metafandom)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 04:58 pm (UTC)this!!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 09:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 03:41 am (UTC)...
Moving on! As you say, the gender of the characters is only part of their overall characterization, and is not the deciding factor in whether I find a pairing interesting or worth writing about. And if I am going to write about a pairing, I am going to write about those specific people, not just generic bodies having sex.
Here via Metafandom
Date: 2010-01-20 09:15 pm (UTC)Re: Here via Metafandom
Date: 2010-01-21 03:46 am (UTC)Here via Metafandom
Date: 2010-01-20 09:16 pm (UTC)I mean, I can the see where everybody who's weighed in on the issue so far is coming from, but I'm a little baffled about how to react to it. When I ship Person A and Person B (and sometimes Person C, too), the reasons, even if they only make sense to me, stem more from something about the characters themselves and how they interact with one another, as opposed to whether they're two males (or two females, or a male and female, a combination of the above, or otherwise).
Re: Here via Metafandom
Date: 2010-01-21 03:53 am (UTC)I think maybe it boils down to this: I write characters in relationships because I think said relationships are interesting and/or make sense in relation to the characters' personalities and (potential or textually explicit) sexualities. I am getting the impression that many other people ship and/or write characters in relationships because those pairings are useful in regard to their own sexualities, as well as, hopefully, plausible for the characters in question. And that position -- using characters as sexual proxies -- is very hard for me to wrap my head and gut around.
I suppose it might make more sense to me if I were not basically asexual and aromantic. *shrug*
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-20 10:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 03:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-21 02:52 am (UTC)Hi! I agree and this post is relevant to my interests.
Date: 2010-01-21 11:17 am (UTC)I'm tagging this page there under meta. And if you know of stories that you feel include asexual characters or relationships or write relationships from an asexual perspective, I'm currently chasing all the links I can find, and any help pointing me in asexual directions would be much appreciated.
Re: Hi! I agree and this post is relevant to my interests.
Date: 2010-01-22 02:24 am (UTC)I have never specifically looked for asexuals or asexual perspectives in fic, sorry.
*dons self-promotion hat* In my own writing, though, I have one Naruto story (Compatibility) that is about a strong, loving, non-sexual relationship between three people (Shino, Hinata, and Kiba), and it actually includes some discussion of sex and love and related issues. Of course, it also includes depiction and discussion of insects living inside people's bodies, so that could be a squick problem.
I also have a very unfinished fragment of a Harry Potter story (Aphrodisia) in which Neville Longbottom was functionally asexual (and heteroromantic, given that Ginny Weasley was the other main character), though I did not think of him as asexual while I was writing, which puzzles me in retrospect because his asexuality was a major plot point. It was problematic, though, because my original idea was that Neville's asexuality was caused by residual damage from the Cruciatus Curse, and while that made sense within the context of my plot, it nagged at me and is part of why I abandoned the story.
Lastly, I write Tom Riddle and Jadis (the White Witch) as asexual, but since they are villains, that is probably not helpful in a positive portrayal of asexuality. *sigh* *removes hat*
Thank you so much!
Date: 2010-01-22 01:32 am (UTC)Re: Thank you so much!
Date: 2010-01-22 03:59 am (UTC)Here via metafandom
Date: 2010-01-22 02:17 am (UTC)It's not that I think the discussion is unimportant; it's just a little misaimed, I think. It's as you say - fanfiction is about specific already existing characters and worlds - so is it really good writing to apply the values of the U.S. of our time and universe to everything?
(And yeah, to a Swede the discussion is very U.S.-centric. We do have a lot of homophobia left, but we also have a gender-neutral marriage law (finally), just to mention one thing.)
I mean, talking about "the gay experience" as someone called it is incredibly important, and it's good that books talk of homophobia in our societies, and if you're writing a story that takes place in our time and this world, not including it would be wrong. But somehow I really doubt that Naruto would have the same problems...
Also, as you say, I think most fanficcers do write for characters, first and foremost. I know I do (though I've written PWP as well).
Well, sorry for the rambling!
- lanjelin@dreamwidth
Re: Here via metafandom
Date: 2010-01-22 04:15 am (UTC)I guess... I think I am also slightly surprised that misrepresentation and screwy gender dynamics in m/m romance is such an issue when there is a hell of a lot of weird gender-related stuff stereotyping going on in m/f romance as well. On the other hand, I suppose the issue is that in m/f romance, whether it's written by a man or a woman, there is at least some basis of the writer's own experience going into the story, whereas if a woman writes about two men, there is less commonality between writer and characters? On the third hand, it's not as if male writers haven't spent centuries utterly fucking up when writing women of whatever sexual orientation; this is not some new and special snowflake issue just because it's happening in reverse to men now. And on the fourth hand, if I am annoyed and hurt by male portrayals of women that I consider wildly misrepresentative, it is not at all surprising that men are annoyed and hurt by female portrayals of men that they consider inaccurate and insulting, nor should that annoyance and hurt be dismissed. (...too many hands!)
It's a messy issue. But I think the basic points of both sides -- that gay men should be written as people (and as men, not as women... though that gets into ugly gender issues really fast, since defining what is 'male' and what is 'female' and so on is, well, let's not go there) and not as sex objects or stereotypes -- and that women have a right to our own sexuality and expressions thereof -- are valid. It's just that any right, when pushed to an absolute, tends to run right over other rights, so there is always a delicate negotiation of how to give everyone as much freedom and respect and safety as possible.
Um. Sorry for blathering on at such length.