I wandered over here via girlwank as well. I'm also a straight woman new to femslash. I'm so new, actually, that I'm still examining my reasons. I'm also new to the potential political minefields, so there's a part of me that worries if I talk about what I think my motivations are I'm going to get some responses along the lines of, "You're the kind of person we'd really prefer wasn't in our fandoms." Sure, I'm probably overreacting, but. So do other people sometimes.
I think that due to a variety of factors at this point in my life, femslash is a place of safety for me. Thinking about sex can be terrifying for me (many things are terrifying for me these days, yes I'm doing something about that), but not to the point where I am not still a sexual being. I think the difference between my sexual reality and the sexual fantasy aspects of femslash is enough for me to be relatively comfortable.
I'm also one of those people that think that the characters and their interactions in slash usually aren't and kind of aren't supposed to be truly representative of gay men or women. I'm aware that there are people out there in fandom who disagree with that point of view. I never feel confident enough about anything to deny the possibility that someone else knows better than I do. So the more meta the betta! (OK, that was pretty lame.)
Also, I think another aspect of the appeal of femslash is that I'm a generally fannish person, and many of my fandoms have some pretty nifty female characters that I'd like to see as the focus of fannish creation more often. Femslash certainly makes that happen. As you said in an earlier comment here, a guaranteed pass of the Bechdel test. ;)
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I think that due to a variety of factors at this point in my life, femslash is a place of safety for me. Thinking about sex can be terrifying for me (many things are terrifying for me these days, yes I'm doing something about that), but not to the point where I am not still a sexual being. I think the difference between my sexual reality and the sexual fantasy aspects of femslash is enough for me to be relatively comfortable.
I'm also one of those people that think that the characters and their interactions in slash usually aren't and kind of aren't supposed to be truly representative of gay men or women. I'm aware that there are people out there in fandom who disagree with that point of view. I never feel confident enough about anything to deny the possibility that someone else knows better than I do. So the more meta the betta! (OK, that was pretty lame.)
Also, I think another aspect of the appeal of femslash is that I'm a generally fannish person, and many of my fandoms have some pretty nifty female characters that I'd like to see as the focus of fannish creation more often. Femslash certainly makes that happen. As you said in an earlier comment here, a guaranteed pass of the Bechdel test. ;)