another dispatch from the department of strange reviews

[edenfalling]

I got this comment today on a slash story from several years ago:

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It's old. It's odd. It's short. And I am homophobic.

But still, it's good for a laugh, and definitely WAFF-y. :) I like it.
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...

Um. That. What???

I sent a neutral response because I can't help suspecting this person is a troll, but I wanted to say something more like this:

Dear [Redacted],

You don't need to tell me that you're homophobic before praising my story. In fact, please don't.

I am willing to concede that your intent may have been along the lines of, "I don't usually like Pairing X but you wrote it well enough that I enjoyed the story anyway," but you know something? I am not thrilled by those reviews either. I understand that they're meant to compliment my writing ability by saying I persuaded readers to like something they usually dislike, but... I don't actually need to know that you usually dislike the aspect in question, whatever it is. Just say you enjoyed the story, no qualifications necessary. That is more than enough of a compliment -- and in this particular case, also avoids the problem of making me feel vaguely icky in a complicit fashion.

--Liz

Comments

[branchandroot]

*hand over eyes* That's an award winner, all right. Eww.

[edenfalling]

It gets weirder. He sent a humorous, coherent response to my response explaining that he found my stories via a rec binge through TVTropes and various Spacebattles forums -- the latter of which would definitely explain the "oh help, it's slash" reaction -- and finally got around to reading 'the, uh, less epic-ly named fics out there. +grins+' (See what I mean about him having an actual sense of humor?) Then he started reading some of my other stories after hitting the last posted chapter of "Guardian," and I guess didn't stop to check the author's note of the slash fic in question before he'd gotten caught up in the majority of the story that is not, you know, two men having sex.

I just. Why does introducing yourself by saying "Hi, I'm a homophobe!" ever, ever, EVER seem like a reasonable idea? Particularly to a person who seems otherwise capable of putting words together in a reasonable fashion?

[branchandroot]

I honestly have no clue. It happens depressingly often. Like people think it's some kind of acceptable character trait or /eccentricity/, and not disgusting bigotry. Worlds of argh.

[edenfalling]

Hmm. Going off on a tangent, I wonder if some of it is a lack of vocabulary for discussing kink preferences? It seems to me that the male sections of fandom are much less versed in that sort of thing, and so don't have the background to realize that preferring not to read slash does not necessarily mean they are homophobic. Not finding something sexy in fiction does not automatically translate to abominating that thing in real life. (I grant you, in this particular case there is obviously a LOT of overlap, but even so.)

[branchandroot]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's some of that. The /straight/ male sections of fandom seem to shear off from those discussions just as hard as they do from the actual slash, because omg girl-sex. *rolls eyes mightily*