Outside the borders of Slashtopia

[sqbr]

There's been a bunch of discussion about the portrayal of gay men in m/m slash and published m/m romance recently, and despite this being a fight that doesn't involve me and I shouldn't derail I keep finding myself wanting to rant about side issues, and eventually I decided I needed to get some stuff of my chest to avoid
derailing other people's conversations.

EDIT: This post is not about issues with the way slash or published m/m fiction portray gay men. I think those issues are real, and worth addressing, and I really don't mean to minimise this important question. I'm not talking about it because I'm not a gay man or a writer of m/m fiction, so it's not my question to answer. All the stuff in this post is side issues that have been coming up in the conversation around the question of representations of gay men in m/m, and I decided to needed to get them out of my head so I didn't derail the much more important conversations other people are having. In retrospect..probably should have been a locked post.

I hope I'm not being derailing or appropriative in this post, and am going to try to be open to criticism on that score. Not screening comments anymore because the conversation is moving too fast and noone is saying anything problematic (touch wood).

This is not so much a coherent thesis as a rant. But something I want to make very clear: I am not saying that m/m slash is in any way bad! I'm just saying it's not necessarily better or more special than other sorts of fic, or at least not as special as it's sometimes presented as being.

Relating to this particular argument:
Not all m/m slash writers are straight women. They're not all straight, they're not all women (and the ones who aren't women aren't all men, and certainly aren't all cisgendered men). Not all slash is porn. Not all fanfic is slash. Not all queer fanfic writers write slash. Not all people have any interest in porn (or sex)

M/m slash is many different things to different people. Some like the unrealistic porn. Some like unrealistic soppy romance. Some are actually looking for believable stories about queer men and their lives (which may or may not be romantic or erotic or sexually explicit) And not all stories about queer characters are slash, some of them are het or gen.

The issues and assumptions around m/m slash and f/f slash are related but different, and I'm not sure you can make many generalisations about "slash" that don't differentiate between the two (and just talking about m/m slash as if that's all there is is Not Good).

And in this thread at ithiliana's lj I realised a lot of my annoyance goes right back to my first encounters with slash fandom.

Slash was sold to me, and is often presented in meta, as this wonderful way for women to express their sexuality through m/m erotica which challenges heteronormativity and reclaims popular media through a gift culture.

Which is all true. The problem is that all those things are separate, and not inherently tied up with erotic m/m slash. By lumping them all together and centering erotic m/m slash as their archetypal form you (a)Make m/m slash sound like more than it usually is and (b) erase the awesome things happening in fanfic and remix culture outside erotic m/m slash by and for women.

This isn't universal, but there is a tendency for fanfic meta by women who write erotic m/m slash to act as if that's the only form of fanfic that is really interesting, and at best to say "Oh, yes, I guess this a lot of this applies to femslash/gen/non-porny m/m slash etc too" or "Except for femslash/gen/non-porny m/m slash, I guess, if you like that sort of thing" as appropriate when prompted(*). I don't know how much of this irritation is the result of a few bad apples and how much a more pervasive problem with m/m slash fandom, and I certainly don't mean to paint you all with the same brush. But it REALLY bugs me.

Personally, I don't read fiction as porn, find m/m sex alienating, and only really enjoy stories with female protagonists or at least major secondary characters. So when I encountered fanfic via "All awesome fanfic is slash is m/m porn" I thought "Huh. Fanfic sounds like it could be interesting, but from the sounds of things all the interesting stuff is happening in a genre with no appeal to me. Pity." and didn't get into it. (nb it didn't help that all the evangelical fanfic fans I knew were not only slashers but liked tropes I find really squicky. Which is noone's fault just bad luck on my part)

A few years later when I discovered the joy of gen and gen-ish stories, and then later got into het and femslash, I realised that fanfic fandom challenges heteronormativity (and the kyriarchy in general) and reclaims popular media through a gift culture well beyond the bounds of explicit m/m slash, and became one of those narky gen/femslash fans who pops up in comments and forces m/m slash meta writers to add caveats. (See my list of rants below :))

Modulo issues of appropriation, I agree that it's awesome that slash allows some women (and also some people who aren't women) to express their sexuality in a world that represses female sexuality. But romance novels and het do that for others with different tastes. They are usually more heteronormative (and I can see why that's more of a big deal for LBGT people than me), but they also have actual women in them, and like slash het fanfic creates a space for women with non-socially-accepted sexual tastes like BDSM. (nb I'm not really interested in discussions of what kids of porn are ethical etc, because I don't feel able to judge. Hopefully we can all agree that it's good for the people who like it in principle)

And amongst those of us who aren't using fanfic primarily as a way of finding sexual satisfaction (as well as amongst those who are! Porn can be multipurpose :)) there's still a lot of serious challenging of the oppression of popular culture going on, and I think it deserves just as much attention.

If you're interested in exploring the various aspects of canon for writerly rather than porny etc reasons then you're likely to end up with gen, het, m/m, f/f, poly etc stories depending on the characters. I may not enjoy m/m or poly romance as much as het or f/f but still feel like I should try and have some of those types of relationships (or at least people who are interested in them. Plus asexual characters!) in my work because I want to show the variety of human experience, and because sometimes that just feels right for the characters. This makes me a "slasher" but for very different reasons than are usually assumed.

Mainstream media tends to treat the few female characters it has very badly. Het, femslash, and female-centered gen allow us to make female characters central and tell their stories.

I'm straight and hope this isn't appropriating queer issues, but as much as I understand the argument that unrealistic m/m slash is a valid self expression for women that deliberately doesn't represent reality or real gay relationships (and can enjoy that sort of slash sometimes, though it also sometimes pings as problematic) there's a lot of m/m slash that afaict is trying to write actual queer male characters, and I think that's just as important (and to me more enjoyable). And there's stuff like the stories at queerlygen which are about queerness but aren't slash or porn or romance at all. (I feel I should add something about asexuality here but can't think of the right sentence. But: It exists!)

And there's more to the kyriarchy than gender and sexuality.

Again, I don't want to appropriate other people's oppression to shore an argument about fic preferences, but communities like choc_fic celebrate non-white/POC characters, subverting the white dominatededness of popular culture and, alas, most of fanfic fandom. There are also communities like eid_fic and red_packet celebrating underrepresented cultures and religions.

I got into writing fic when I had to quit my job due to disability, and the first fic I started (and am still working on slowly) was about a disabled character. I have found writing disabled characters
incredibly rewarding, and given the god-awful way disabled characters tend to be written in mainstream culture there's certainly a lot of scope for fic to improve on things. I also really enjoy romances with disabled leads who end up happy without getting "better".
Unfortunately a lot of fic writers seem to see disability as a quick source of angst to be fixed as part of the happy ending :/ Still, disabled fans share recs via places like access_fandom.

I've similarly enjoyed playing around with ideas of class, eg my idea of Mary Sue wish fulfillment is becoming a princess and using those powers to create a representative democracy. I don't know of any class related fanfic comms/sites, though.

So: fanfic, slash, m/m slash and porn are all awesome and overlapping but distinct. Celebrating your little corner is fine but try not to make the rest of us feel put down when you do it.

Some things I happen not to feel like ranting about right now but still deserve rantiness: the erasure of f/f slash and poly fic. The treatment/erasure of male or otherwise not-female-identified fanfic writers. The fact that forms of fanworks outside fanfic are worth exploring. The fact that not everything outside metafandom/OTW-ish fanworks fandom is dull or sexist.

Oh, and if you're going to compare m/m fiction by women to f/f fiction by men I think it's worth noting that a lot of f/f fiction by men (original and femslash) is actually pretty good (see: Revolutionary Girl Utena).

I'm a bit worried that I come across as presenting myself as more awesome than slashers with their shallow interest in sex or whatever, which I eally don't. A lot of porny m/m slash has a lot more to it than porniness, and porniness is a valid form of artistic expression anyway. I can appreciate that and understand people's interest in the medium even if I'd personally rather read something else.

Previous rants on this topic if this just wasn't enough ranting for you:

• What annoys me about fanfic meta about itself
  
• The Revolutionary Potential of Het fanfic
  
• Why do we femslash?
  
• Why I like Gen
  
• Fandom as a female space
  
• Slash/Yaoi misogyny bingo
  

(*)Cue someone pointing out that I've overgeneralised/omitted stuff and me adding a brief edit to paper over the hole :)

Comments

[elaran]

This isn't universal, but there is a tendency for fanfic meta by women who write erotic m/m slash to act as if that's the only form of fanfic that is really interesting, and at best to say "Oh, yes, I guess this a lot of this applies to femslash/gen/non-porny m/m slash etc too" or "Except for femslash/gen/non-porny m/m slash, I guess, if you like that sort of thing" as appropriate when prompted
See, I totally get what you mean but if someone asked me for concrete examples I wouldn't have a clue. But yes, I get that vibe too. It annoyed me a lot when I wasn't into slash and is still irritating.

I am also irritated by the fact that people tend to automatically associate slash with porn. THERE ARE SOME PRETTY AWESOME STORIES OUT THERE WITHOUT SEXYTIMES IN THEM OK!

I also realised that the only reason I read so much slash is because I read so much McShep fic. Slash pairings are the least numerous among my fic-reading but there's such a large quantity of them (that are good) compared to other het or femslash pairings or gen I think.

I have not read many femslash stories (I think I did read some Anne/Diana fic but I loved Gilbert too much for that to work for me).

Also your post has weird spacing issues O_o

from metafandom

[qwertyuiop]

I just want to thank you for this post. This discussion has been bringing up a whole lot of things for me as a lesbian who mostly writes het and femslash, and how I feel about the whole discussion that is happening.

[jesse_the_k]

I am glad you posted this openly. I learn by reading others! So far my fic diet is mostly Fraser/RayK (Due South) and McKay/Shepphard (Stargate Atlantis) because the "slash goggles" aren't really required so much in this source. While there are a handful of outstanding porny fics, much of the porn details come off a buffet menu. (I'll spare you the full list.) It's the stories that I enjoy, especially in SGA, where canon provides such an interesting world, half-built and ready for future construction.

Time to read your Gen posts now.

[sqbr]

Yeah, it would be easier if I was the type to bookmark posts I really hated to refer back to them later but that just seems too wanky :)

I like McShep even though I'm not much of a slasher and dislike not only SGA but (canon) McKay in particular. It's like an inescapable vortex.

I was going to rec you some femslash but then delicious went down!

Re: from metafandom

[sqbr]

I'm glad it was helpful. I know how annoyed I get whenever people are all "And of course femslash is just for lesbians" and it's not like straightness is in general a very marginalised sexuality.

[cofax7]

Wordy McWord to much of this. I like reading meta, but oh do I get tired of being represented to the academic world and the mainstream press only by slash writers. There is more complexity to fan creativity than a lot of people assume, and because slash is... shiny? I guess? -- it gets a lot of the attention, which destabilizes the analysis.

I found Ithiliana's definition of "slasher" to be simultaneously too inclusive and too exclusive: you only get to self-identify as a slasher if you get off on picturing m/m sex? And if I find a Sheppard/Mitchell story hot, that means I'm by definition a slasher?

Eh. Anyway, thanks for this post. As oursin likes to say, It's Always More Complicated.

[counteragent]

Slash is awesome, but I came for the gen and I'll stay for the gen. And I will always wish for more of it! "Wishing for more" was why I got into fandom in the first place.

Not really addressing any important points here.

[gretel]

But all the slash I read is porn!

Actually as much as I make jokes about it, it's actually not the case at all. I like reading slash mostly because I love the trope of boys being boys and eventually falling in love. While still being boys (well boys over the age of consent or whatever).

This probably explains why I read so much Tim/Kon slash actually and yeah the best ones don't have all that much sexytimes. :P

[sqbr]

Yes, and I have come across a lot of people saying "I just skim the sex scenes" (plus others who say "I don't bother reading anything that isn't NC-17", so milage definitely varies)

[sqbr]

Yeah, I think slash is disproportionately shiny, what with being about SEX and going against people's intuitions about female sexuality and having a fairly defined subculture.

Also, unless it's just a coincidence amongst the ones I know, female fanfic acafans seem to be disproportionately inclined to being slashers, I'm not sure what's up with that. Not their fault of course, but I for one am not going to get a Phd in media studies just to spread the word about gen and femslash :D

I found Ithiliana's definition of "slasher" to be simultaneously too inclusive and too exclusive: you only get to self-identify as a slasher if you get off on picturing m/m sex? And if I find a Sheppard/Mitchell story hot, that means I'm by definition a slasher?

Agreed.

[sqbr]

Yes, me too! And then I got into femslash, because I am a glutton for punishment apparently.

[amaresu]

I like this rant. I think you hit on a number of things that have been somewhat bothering me that I couldn't really pin down. The biggest one I just realized the other day in that I don't identify as a slasher despite reading and writing slash fic (in addition to everything else and a ton of gen). And I think it's because at some point slasher came to mean 'person who's only really in it for the hot boysex' and that does not include me.

The thing is I know that's not accurate, but it's what I think of when someone talks about slashers.

I'm gonna go read some of your other rants.

[princessofgeeks]

thank you for the post.

[amilyn]

As a woman (and, secondarily, a queer woman, but that doesn't really has as strong of an impact on this position in this case) whose primary focus and interest is on female characters, I find I am routinely offended by what *I* most often hear about slash, which has been, "Well, we slash because the male characters are the *interesting* ones; the female characters aren't well-written/well-acted/well-conceived/well-developed/insert-excuse-here enough to get me into writing about them." I find myself (often silently, sometimes vocally) offended by the idea that None Of The Women Could Be Interesting Enough To Warrant Attention.

As a friend said, if folks can write a NOVEL about the guy we saw once for part of a page of HP, or as a silent extra in a scene in LotR, or who brought Picard that one padd that one time...and develop that character into someone well-rounded and thoughtful and developed...folks can BLOODY WELL write an interesting female character (who DOES get more screen time than that!) IF THEY CARE TO. We're fans. It's what we do. We take the TINIEST moments and turn them into epic tales and endless meta.

And for those who don't care to write about the women, then I'd MUCH prefer they just say, "Not my interest; I'm more focused on X for my own reasons," rather than try to claim that the female characters "aren't interesting enough" or "aren't worth the time" because that implies--to me--that WOMEN cannot be interesting or worth one's time...and I find that harmful and insulting.

So...thank you for writing and posting!

[miera_c]

Hi. I don't think we've spoken before, but I'm here via havoc, and if I had any skill at math I'd be offering to do your taxes right now.

I agree that it's awesome that slash allows some women (and also some people who aren't women) to express their sexuality in a world that represses female sexuality. But romance novels and het do that for others with different tastes. They are usually more heteronormative (and I can see why that's more of a big deal for LBGT people than me), but they also have actual women in them, and like slash het fanfic creates a space for women with non-socially-accepted sexual tastes like BDSM

Amen. There was a discussion on some blogs I read this week about a rape trial in the UK (I think) where because the woman who was raped had expressed fantasies about group sex, the judge basically threw out the case saying she therefore couldn't have been gang raped. Obvious problems aside, the issue of what fantasies women are allowed, what kind of sexuality is deemed appropriate for them to express, a lot of that comes up in my het!fic and multi!fic writing, and I've seen strains of dealing with this kind of cultural repressiveness even in published romance novels.

I wrote a post myself branching off ithiliana's discussion because I didn't want to bring it up there and seem like I was derailing the legitimate conversations going on. But I have concerns about m/m slash and the attention it gets too, from fandom and from academics (and I am one) and the media producers. And that's aside from the representation issues! *facepalm*

[abyssinia]

*nod nod nod*

I like reading meta, but oh do I get tired of being represented to the academic world and the mainstream press only by slash writers.

There is also the irony of this place we celebrate as a mostly female space where we often discuss the representation (and lack thereof) of women in the media we consume and yet...we present ourselves as predominately writing stories about male-male relationships. If we only want to write about the men, we can't really accuse Hollywood, etc of doing the same.

It's such a limited view of what fandom and fanfic has to offer and the myriad of available human relationships and interactions and experiences we choose to explore.

[musesfool]

This isn't universal, but there is a tendency for fanfic meta by women who write erotic m/m slash to act as if that's the only form of fanfic that is really interesting, and at best to say "Oh, yes, I guess this a lot of this applies to femslash/gen/non-porny m/m slash etc too" or "Except for femslash/gen/non-porny m/m slash, I guess, if you like that sort of thing" as appropriate when prompted

Heh. Yes. As the person often going, "Well, fanfic fandom is more than just m/m slash fandom" in the comments of those posts, I heartily agree. I've written quite a lot of boyslash, but I don't identify as a slasher, and I don't agree with Ithiliana's definition of "slasher," which I think is one of those labels that is generally best if self-applied.

I also have a lot of issues with m/m being the default setting of slash and with m/m slash being considered the apotheosis of good fanfic.

[lanna_kitty]

So: fanfic, slash, m/m slash and porn are all awesome and overlapping but distinct. Celebrating your little corner is fine but try not to make the rest of us feel put down when you do it.

This. Thank you for articulating this so succinctly and well.

(here via Havocthecat's Link)

[furikku.livejournal.com]

Signed.

I'm way annoyed that, as a gal that is p. much only interested in a story if it involves at least one major female character, I'm apparently some anomalous creature or something. Also that one of my preferred types of fic (femslash) is treated like a nonexistent subgenre while the boy/boy stuff is The Main Thing. It'd be cooler if they could at least have distinct names, like how Western animanga fans separate into yaoi and yuri.

(It'd be even cooler if we could have three labeled groups of f/f, m/m, and het, and then further for whatever other combinations there are that I don't care about and therefore don't mention, but I suppose that is too much to ask.)

[snorkackcatcher]

*snort* I get irritated by the "yay only slash matters!" theorists too, so no arguments from me there. :)

(Also though: derail? How the hell can anyone sensibly claim you're derailing a discussion that's taking place in multiple other places by making a post in your own journal?)

[sqbr]

Yes.

[sqbr]

*nods*

And I don't think there's anything wrong with having a term for 'person who's only really in it for the hot boysex', but making it "slasher" implies that "writes slash"=" in it for the hot boysex" which is both untrue and unfair. Especially when using the term "slash" to include f/f!

[sqbr]

I'm really glad to see it's speaking to people (and not creating a mob of angry slashtopians with pitchforks, at least not so far :D)

[sqbr]

Yes! This! I mean I can understand that argument if you really do only write stories about particular kinds of major character, because there are some sorts of roles which are very rarely written for women. But if the problem is that you can imagine minor male characters being interesting but not female ones then the problem is with your imagination not the characters.

[sqbr]

Heh. I actually have a Phd in maths (and don't earn enough to pay taxes. Coincidence?) but thankyou for the thought :D

Yes! Women with non-standard heterosexual sexual fantasies are very marginalised, and really there's NO form of female expression of sexuality that doesn't get you treated like crap.

*reads your post*

Yes! I mean I don't have a problem with individual people writing slash if that's what they like, but the overall trend and attitude is..hinky.

Also yay Toph.