I was going to write a short treatise on what I considered
to be a disturbing trend in some Slash chat rooms I had been frequenting
(no naming names here). It turned into this. <g>
Big Fat Disclaimer (or) This is me, covering my ass: these
opinions are my own, although I know they're shared by many, but
I'm the one taking responsibility for airing them. Please don't misconstrue
anything here as evidence of my being "against" anyone - I'm neither for
or against anyone writing or reading slash in any way they want. These
are just opinions I've formed and observations I've made over the course
of a decade in fandoms and reading other people's opinions and work. Also,
I've used a lot of "you's" here, (and more parentheses that I hope ever
to see again!) but don't take that as evidence that I'm singling you out. <g> I also wish to acknowledge that I'm writing this from a heterosexual
female viewpoint, but that does NOT mean I'm discounting the enormous contribution of bisexual and lesbian slash writers and fans to the Slashverse.
And lastly, just because I offer an explanation of some things here, does not mean I'm claiming that my explanations are the only explanations in existence.
Okay, that's about it... flames will be squinted over,
laughed at, and ultimately given to the cat. :p
...Back to the disturbing trend (cue sinister
music). There have been some increasingly bitter remarks posted by male
(and some female) readers of Slash fiction. The complaints are that the
Slash writer's treatment of male characters is often "wrong".
In what way wrong? I asked. Since the overwhelming number
of Slash writers are female (around 97 in every 100) I thought it would
be wise to be clued in on how we were all screwing up. There were a lot
of answers. I've compiled the most common ones below;
- Women can't understand what it's
like for two men in bed together.
- There are very few gay issues
addressed in slash fiction.
- Physical impossibility of the
sexual act.
- The passive male characters are
often too "feminized".
- The characters do not overtly
"act" gay or queer.
(OR) the characters rarely proclaim
they're gay, they're just two men who happen to love each other and have
anal sex, but they're not gay.
Female slash writers are homophobic
because they're not interested in how we really are, just how their little
fantasies play out.
Safe sex, condoms, and AIDS/HIV
is often ignored in the Slashverse, or treated as non existent.
A woman can never please a man
in bed the way that another man can. (I'll
explain this later)
To all of this, I say: GET OVER YOURSELVES.
Newsflash: women do not write Slash fiction for a gay
male audience. Never have. Never will. It is not the responsibility of
Slash writers to promote positive gay images or portray the gay culture
accurately any more than it's a gay man's responsibility to become an arbiter
of what is appropriate heterosexual behavior. In other words, we are not
taking this upon ourselves and never claimed to. In Slash fiction, female
writers are generally not writing about gay men, even if they're writing
about two men in bed together. They are appropriating men's bodies to explore
an idealized sexual fantasy that bears little- if any- resemblance to reality
or "real" gay relationships. Hence the term fiction.
Women write Slash because they like the idea of two men
together. Period. Condiments optional. All the social and psychological
baggage that goes with being gay in this era of history is largely ignored,
purely because the writer chooses not to make the fact of being
gay the focus of the story. They may want to focus on the love relationship
itself, issues of consent, friendship, loyalty and betrayal, alien invasion,
or maybe just two guys fucking each other through the floorboards. (My
favorite) The main reason they don't focus on gay issues is lack of interest
in waxing political all over their smutty icons. I certainly, am not interested
in doing so, and damn the torpedoes. Slash written by women is defacto
an extension of women's sexuality, not gay male sexuality. If Slash writers
were pressured into writing their characters purely as gay men in gay relationships, I'd never read it, just as I don't read gay porn novels.
Yet, at many junctures since the revolution of Slash reared
its horny little head on the Internet, there has been a steady stream of
disgruntled individuals who have striven to saddleback Slash writers with
the responsibility of making their slashy characters active in the gay
culture, giving them the emotional psyche of gay men, challenging them
with the common problems and stumbling blocks of being homosexual in modern
society, having them "act" queer, and making the sex and dialogue more "believable" by gay men.
Well, bollocks to that. Gay men do not turn me on. In
fact, gay men do not turn most heterosexual women on, even if they are
Slash fans. While this may seem at first glance a contradictory statement,
it's not, because what turns heterosexual women on in Slash fandom is the
intimacy between the male characters, whether that translates into hot
sex, kissing and cuddling, friendship, a stellar break-up scene, ropes
and whips, or what have you. What women do when they write Slash (among
a plethora of other motivations) is smash the chains of male sexuality
and behavior as proscribed to them since childhood. They use men's bodies,
in much the same way that men have always used women's bodies, for their
own enjoyment, in situations of their choosing, in a textual arena where
they exert total and absolute control. Slash written by women is not about
gay men, it's about women exerting sexual power, which, historically, has
always scared the beejesus out of men of any sexual persuasion. (*and I
want to note here that lesbian and bisexual women have always made up a
hefty percentage of slash writers.)
Are there gay male writers of het smut? What about gay
male writers of f/f slash? Do they feel obligated to portray their characters
as heterosexual or lesbian first, and people as second? Is it my right
to pressure them into portraying my sexual orientation accurately? Do I
have the right to get angry when I feel my sexuality has been interpreted
wrongly? I would venture not, and if I did try to pressure them into doing
so, I would likely be rebuffed in less kinder terms than I've stated here,
for much the same reasons.
- Women can't understand what
it's like for two men in bed together.
Neither can I understand what it's like to be a serial
killer, or witness an auto accident or find a drowning victim, but I've
written about all these things. If we were only permitted to write about
what we have personally witnessed, it would be a boring world indeed. Did
George Lucas ever go to the stars? Is Anne Rice a vampire? Thomas Harris
a cannibal? The human imagination is a fertile and potent playground. What
we have not experienced - the unknown -is infinitely more interesting than
what we have, and that enthusiasm will often bleed into the written page
for the enjoyment of many. To answer the charge of "we don't know what
it's like for two men in bed together", perhaps not in the spirit in which
that is meant, since then we would have to be men. The other side
of this is, we do happen to know men's bodies (those of us who are not
virgins, at any rate) and we know what men like in bed and how they like
it. I'm speaking of straight and occasionally bi men. Not gay men. The
charge of women not knowing what gay men feel when they're in bed together
is bizarre, since this is exactly what we like to explore in Slash fiction.
If some claim that our interpretation is inaccurate or based in fantasy
land, that's no reason not to keep right on doing it anyway.
There are very few gay issues
addressed in Slash fiction.
Beyond the "Blair, you're... gay?" lines and the
assorted scenes liberally peppered here and there through fandom where
Mulder's co-workers or Obi-Wan's fellow knights comment on his dubious
sexuality, this accusation is partly correct. There is still way too much
"struggling with my sexuality" themes in Slash for my taste, but do I get
on a soapbox about it? No, I just don't read it. If I want to explore themes
of gay issues in entertainment, I have only to look to the Hollywood film
industry. Almost every film that features a gay character invariably portrays
that character as being gay first and a person second. His
homosexuality is addressed as being foremost in his life and relationships,
as if he were a big gay piece of cardboard that can be inserted anywhere.
Have gay, will travel. How boring. How about a gay character that's an
astronaut first? Bet you won't see that any time soon. Also, few Slash
fans want to explore the issues of gay discrimination as a form of entertainment.
Make no mistake, writing Slash fiction is not an altruistic offering to
gay society from women. It's a kink, it's an obsession, it's a hobby, it's
a turn-on, it's PSYCHIATRIC COUNSELING. What it most emphatically is not,
is social work.
Physical impossibility of sexual
act.
I have heard of this, often and loudly from some, but
I've yet to see a truly physically impossible sexual act described anywhere
in any Slash story. I would be grateful if someone would find this pink
elephant for me and send an URL to my inbox so I can see it for myself
and make my own determination. Also, what exactly is "physically impossible"?
Is it only about position? I find that it is often due to a writer's editorial
gaffe, as in forgetting that Aragorn's leg was hooked around Boromir's arm
three sentences back before stating that "Aragorn began fucking Boromir
enthusiastically", rather than a true lack of knowledge regarding human
anatomy. (After all, the writer possesses such a body) Anal sex without
lube is certainly uncomfortable, but it's not impossible, and it does happen.
Only spit for lube? It's been done. Sperm lube? Done. I've seen sweat lube
and lube made from oily tea (which I thought was ingenious) and lube made
from alien plants. It's all good.
I also take issue with Slash "helper" sites, for a number
of reasons. If I had to pick just one, it would be that the message being
broadcast (on some sites, not all!) with the assistance is that it is somehow
imperative for the Slash writer to be educated about gay culture and the
gay male mind & practices before they can portray sex in Slash fiction.
All wrong.
The passive male characters
are often too "feminized".
To quote another chatter- "BLANK (insert passive character
name here) acts like he's on estrogen. I expect him to grow breasts!"
Yeah. Like that's not a misogynistic remark. My reply
is: So what? The weepy male partner is most certainly not my kink, but
even I have to admit that it's a very popular kink among het, bi and lesbian
female Slash fans and trying to halt it would be like trying to catch the
ocean in a sieve. If it's popular, you can bet there's a reason that the
feminizing of the passive partner trips a few female buttons, and those
reasons are proposed
here
by someone else, much more eloquently than I could offer.
I can sympathize that the "womanizing" of many characters
may not necessarily be a turn-on to gay men, but I have to reiterate that
women do not write Slash for gay men. My advice? If you don't like it,
don't read it.
The characters rarely "act" gay or queer overtly.
How does one "act" gay? Who the hell gets to decide THAT?
Trust me, no matter who laid down those guidelines, and even if Slash writers
decided to follow them, there would be a massive revolt among gay men vying
for the right to dictate what is definitively homosexual behavior and what
is not.
Also, (and many gay readers don't know this) slash writers
are constantly under peer pressure to keep the featured characters in canon
behavior, dialect, and inner voice. If such canon behavior does not consist
of the character behaving overtly gay in public, and the author wrote a
story where he suddenly DOES act like a funhouse mirror of himself, you
can bet there will be private - and public - howls of outrage all over
the fandom. "Who IS this guy?! He's so out of character!"
Bottom line: In general, Slash writers are much more interested
in attaining the respect of their fellow writers, list-sibs, and Slash
fans than they are in pleasing a very small segment of their readership
who claim they are still "doing it wrong." Don't hold your breath.
the characters rarely proclaim
they're gay, they're just two men who happen to love each other and have
anal sex, but they're not gay.
This is the one complaint that I heard that I could agree
with. Yes, there has always been a trend in Slash fiction where the partners
are not termed "gay", as in sexually attracted to men, they just happen
to love this one person, and they want to fuck him and hold him and kiss
him and marry him and be with him forever, but THEY'RE NOT GAY.
I have several guesses as to why some writers take this
position of their characters being "not gay, but in love with a man". One
of my guesses is that this is a response from Slash writers reacting negatively
to the idea of writing their character into a gay mold that they found
personally unattractive (I told you het women aren't generally attracted
to gay men, only to men having sex with each other) and decided to go around
the problem entirely by creating an idealized mindset where one man loves
another man passionately, but he's only in love with that man. Other
men don't do it for him, never have in the past, never will. He's not gay,
per se. He's in love with this other man purely on a spiritual level where
he could never love another.
The idea caught on and now it's almost Fanon in some fandoms.
Okay, it's weird. (shrug) Like I said, I think the whole
thing blossomed from a reaction to being pressured into writing the character
as overtly gay in the first place. Female minds are amenable to abstracts
and convolutions of prosaic Western logic. You call it dodging. We call
it intuition.
Female slash writers are homophobic
because they're not interested in how we really are, just how their little
fantasies play out.
I swear, people said this! To which I reply- Hurrah for
fantasy. I don't need my fantasies reality-checked because then - hello?-
they're not fantasies anymore. As to the accusation of disinterest: Guilty.
The overwhelming majority of heterosexual women are clueless about a gay
culture that excludes them on multiple levels and couldn't care less. How
many gay men read hot het fic? And when was the last time you felt obligated
to pressure men who watch lesbian porn to educate themselves about lesbian
culture or take up their political banner? A sexual kink does not an activist
make. Most men I know who watch lesbian porn also don't actually WANT lesbians,
per se, they just want to see women getting it on, which leads us right
back to where we started.
Safe sex, condoms, and AIDS/HIV
is often ignored in the slashverse, or treated as non existent.
Few female slash fans want to explore the tragedy of disease
as a form of entertainment or sexual fantasy. Deal with it.
A woman can never please a
man in bed the way that another man can.
Honestly, (throwing up hands) I have no idea why I keep
hearing this or WHAT this has to do with the general grousing about Slash
fic, but somehow every time I surf into a slash chat room this sentence
gets posted. My answer: Get over yourself. I've heard this about
a million times and it sounds more bitter and female-phobic every time.
Get this through your heads: NOBODY, man, woman, alien, or bouncing blue
kangaroo, can truly please their partner in bed unless that partner is
sexually attracted to them. I'm talking upstairs, folks. The brain, where
erotica happens. If a man is heterosexual, as in not attracted to other
men, then you're not going to please him. Period. I don't care if you blow
him standing on your head before he fucks you into silly putty. You may
make him come, but that's not the same as satisfaction at all, is it? As
soon as he's shot his load, he's going to be looking around for what really
gets his string taut: a woman.
The same people who claim that only a man can truly satisfy
another man would be horrified if I suggested that a gay man can be trained
into responding as a heterosexual, yet they see nothing wrong with insisting
that women are somehow inferior to men when it comes to giving pleasure
to the male body. It's the same with some lesbians who claim that they,
and only they, know how to give a woman true pleasure. Well, I'm sorry.
For true pleasure I need the one thing a woman can't give me: a man. Not
just a dildo, not just a dick, but a man. A man who smells like a man,
who looks at me like a man looks at a woman he wants to pound into the
mattress. A man's eyes. The feel of his skin, his muscles, the curve of
his calves. Hairy legs. <evil grin> You see what I mean? Sex is one
thing. Any healthy adult can temporarily respond to an intriguing sexual
situation, whether out of ennui or happenstance or just plain curiosity,
but in the end, the deeper needs of the heterosexual, or homosexual, psyche
will always emerge and demand precedence.
So get over yourself! <g>
Parting words: I don't dislike gay men, neither am I homophobic,
naive, or socially irresponsible. I have long enjoyed a close and happy
relationship with several gay friends and couples, and my reasons for writing
Slash - and every woman's reasons for writing Slash, if she's totally honest
- have nothing to do with a secret need to please the gay readers. My reasons
for writing Slash are totally selfish and self-serving. I would write them
if no one read them, just I have Slash stories on my hard drive that will
never be posted (meaningful look at other writers). That they are read
and some people enjoy them and I occasionally get feedback from them is
a matter of joy to me. And so if I've offended anyone here ... well, tough
cookies. :-)
That's not my intent, but I'm not going to apologize for honesty.
-/rant off-
Used with permission, © Kirby Crow.
Kirby Crow's fanfiction and The Obi-Wan Torture Oasis
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