The spammage continues

[veronica_rich]

(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.

Comments

[justawench.livejournal.com]

I've mentioned my reasons for preferring slash before, but to recap some highlights:

*It contains twice the hot men of het pairings!
*I have an attitude of "been there, done that *yawn*" toward het sex scenes.
*To address her sociological issues - I enjoy that the partners are on equal footing, no danger of pregnancy, etc.

Am I lesbophobic by saying that I just really don't care for the female anatomy? I don't care for het porn because of the extreme close-ups. It does nothing for me. I'm all about GLBT rights, and this lady pisses me off by suggesting otherwise. I'm pissed off that I have to defend my preferences at all.

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

Am I lesbophobic by saying that I just really don't care for the female anatomy?

I dunno. Am I homophobic because I find m/m slash one big irritating yawn?

[justawench.livejournal.com]

I was really responding sarcastically to the blog author's suggestion that writing male slash makes me lesbophobic.

slash fanfiction is a conservative genre written by women who conform to patriarchal ways of thinking, and which is characterized by lesbophobia, homophobia, woman-hatred and severe phallocentricity

Apparently, writing slash makes me homophobic, too. *scratches head*

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

Apparently, writing slash makes me homophobic, too

Well, I'm not sure where said bloggers experiences lie, but my first introduction to LOTR online fanfic was to a group of slashers who believed that their slash was real. In pursuit of disseminating this theory - I mean: True Version of Reality - quite a lot of "facts" about homosexuality in general were pulled out of the asses of those who were neither male nor, strictly speaking, gay. Some of the stuff used as "proof" that a particular slash pairing was real was so stereotypical to the point where people did call it slightly homophobic.

[captsparrow4evr.livejournal.com]

No, you're a misogynist of the "worst kind." You not only hate yourself but all women because you don't like to look at womanly parts. There's no pleasing this type of person because she just wants to be right, no matter what. And if you would manage to find a way to use her own words against her, she would respond that you didn't understand what she meant.