veronica_rich (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
veronica_rich) wrote2008-03-26 01:44 am
veronica_rich) wrote2008-03-26 01:44 am
The spammage continues
(I feel like this should become "Vacation: Day Five-01" or something)
Surely everybody and their pet iguana has likely seen the link to the blog entry by now from the woman who claims that writing and reading m/m slash is perpetuating male heirarchy and expectations, rather than being the subversive, non-mainstream thing we all thought it was when many of us got into it several years ago - before the mainstream actually had ever heard of "slash" or "fanfiction."
My take on slash is that I enjoy it as a form of romance in a way that I don't any longer enjoy the vast majority of "typical" m/f romance novels, by and large. When I buy a book, I buy something about science or history, or suspense and sci-fi, but rarely do I buy a categorical romance, though I did when I was much younger. I understand this sounds like a rather shallow reason for enjoying something that takes up several hours of my life each week, but it would be disingenuous for me to pretend otherwise.
And as much as I love reading and occasionally contributing my own meta on my preferred slash pairings, the fact is that I rarely give it the kind of internal examination we were required in college to give Chaucer, or the reasons behind the 19th century labor movement. I am capable of that level of dissertation - I just don't want to, with slash, or even fanfic, all that much. Perhaps this is why I grew so impatient with all the POTC meta-chatter following DMC - are we not allowed to have something we just enjoy, without having to defend why, so long as we're nice to our fellow fen and don't try to step on their toes? I mean, I asked someone at another post earlier to define radical feminism and explain its appeal over what he called "liberal/status quo feminism." And while he gave me a pretty good explanation, and it's something I would gladly see parts of applied to real-world changes ... the fact is, when you try to apply it to something you do alone in your off-hours to unwind, it just comes across as so much overblown horseshit. Am I alone? Or just exceedingly shallow, that I don't see "something" political in EVERYTHING that comes across my field of vision on a daily basis?
EDIT: Unless lesbian fanfic is being written with an eye toward reality (e.g., women who don't have Barbie-figures and long, flowing hair, who don't want a man in their bed or between them and their girlfriend, or WATCHING), how is it any different from what I have to put up with out of many men on a regular basis? The only difference between their lesbian fantasies and my m/m ones is that they can discuss theirs out in public and it's accepted as being part and parcel of being a hetero man ... but if I try to discuss the fact that I like to watch two hot men get it on for my benefit, I'm perverted and weird. So ... I'd love for this FEMINIST to tell me why I should spend MY time and effort perpetuating a MAN'S fantasy in written form.
Surely everybody and their pet iguana has likely seen the link to the blog entry by now from the woman who claims that writing and reading m/m slash is perpetuating male heirarchy and expectations, rather than being the subversive, non-mainstream thing we all thought it was when many of us got into it several years ago - before the mainstream actually had ever heard of "slash" or "fanfiction."
My take on slash is that I enjoy it as a form of romance in a way that I don't any longer enjoy the vast majority of "typical" m/f romance novels, by and large. When I buy a book, I buy something about science or history, or suspense and sci-fi, but rarely do I buy a categorical romance, though I did when I was much younger. I understand this sounds like a rather shallow reason for enjoying something that takes up several hours of my life each week, but it would be disingenuous for me to pretend otherwise.
And as much as I love reading and occasionally contributing my own meta on my preferred slash pairings, the fact is that I rarely give it the kind of internal examination we were required in college to give Chaucer, or the reasons behind the 19th century labor movement. I am capable of that level of dissertation - I just don't want to, with slash, or even fanfic, all that much. Perhaps this is why I grew so impatient with all the POTC meta-chatter following DMC - are we not allowed to have something we just enjoy, without having to defend why, so long as we're nice to our fellow fen and don't try to step on their toes? I mean, I asked someone at another post earlier to define radical feminism and explain its appeal over what he called "liberal/status quo feminism." And while he gave me a pretty good explanation, and it's something I would gladly see parts of applied to real-world changes ... the fact is, when you try to apply it to something you do alone in your off-hours to unwind, it just comes across as so much overblown horseshit. Am I alone? Or just exceedingly shallow, that I don't see "something" political in EVERYTHING that comes across my field of vision on a daily basis?
EDIT: Unless lesbian fanfic is being written with an eye toward reality (e.g., women who don't have Barbie-figures and long, flowing hair, who don't want a man in their bed or between them and their girlfriend, or WATCHING), how is it any different from what I have to put up with out of many men on a regular basis? The only difference between their lesbian fantasies and my m/m ones is that they can discuss theirs out in public and it's accepted as being part and parcel of being a hetero man ... but if I try to discuss the fact that I like to watch two hot men get it on for my benefit, I'm perverted and weird. So ... I'd love for this FEMINIST to tell me why I should spend MY time and effort perpetuating a MAN'S fantasy in written form.
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But still, there's not too many of those either. Maybe we should ask for the link to the archive where they can be found in such vast quantities that they can be used for research material :)
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As for me, well let's start with the fact that my back is GOING to go up anytime some 20 yr old babyfangirl starts to tell me that she's studying fandom for YEARS (years! I tell you! years!). I've been active in fandom and writing fanfic for 10 years. That's MY credibility. I don't write slash and rarely read it - but as a het writer, I'm going to take umbrage at the notion that all fanfiction simply reinforces the patriarchy. I don't like weepy clingy needy women in RL or in my fic. (Which would explain my adoration of Elizabeth Swann and Kara Thrace) I don't write 'em and I don't read 'em. The greater challenge is writing a relationship between two strong independent people, but it's what attracts me to the characters and drives me to try to write.
From what I could read (and my eyes kept glazing over so I may not have read all or read her correctly), there is no satisfying this girl. She doesn't like het because it reinforces the patriarchy. She doesn't like slash, because it reinforces the patriarchy. She doesn't like sex, apparently, because sex requires one to penetrate and one to be penetrated. Gee, last time I looked, that's the way we were designed (het or slash). So are we all - in RL and in fic - supposed to just masturbate?
And while I've said I don't read that much slash, if the "they all turn hetro at the end" was so prevalent as she claims, I sure would have run across it once or twice. Instead, I've never seen it; nor have my friends who read and write copious slash.
In the end, she started her "research" with her conclusions already drawn. And amazingly (WOW!), she found only stories that back up her conclusions! What A Coincidence! (/snark)
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And no, we're not supposed to even masturbate, anywhere, ever. We're asexual, we must be, since we don't have a clue what to do with our patriarchally-inclined selves and are confused of our own personalities to the point where we start turning gay men straight, straight men gay, we can't decide if we're all lesbian under the mask of being heterosexual, that mask that we're clinging on for dear life in our lesbofobia, and, oh, heck, let's just face it, we are in denial of sexuality even existing, in any form, we hate women just as much as the whole male gender does, and we curse the suffragettes for ever starting that whole nonsense in the first place. Man powa!
And if anybody dares to say that I am wrong, that this isn't the ultimate truth above all truths, I'll throw a tantrum and flip them the bird, cause I've researched this issue for, liek, at least three minutes and know, oh, everything.
*g*
Btw, someone has actually asked for reference links but so far none has been posted. I'm SO going to check back on that, just because :)
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My guess is, seriously now, that she doesn't have the faintest idea what she is talking about. I don't believe anyone who likes to read slash can relate to just about anything she's proclaimed as a result of wide results.
I sincerely hope that she is going to do an academic dissertation of that, would be a damn shame to do all that work for years and get laughed at by the very people the study is about.