Bisexuality and Fanfic
trobadorahas an interesting post on biphobia in fanfiction that got me thinking:In fanfic, all too frequently characters who have had heterosexual relationships are presented as gay and closeted. (Not bi and closeted.) In fannish squee, slashy subtext is generally welcomed as "gay". It hardly ever seems to allow for bisexuality.
1) This is so not my ( Read more... )
1) This is so not my ( Read more... )
But of course this is just me - I put a lot of effort into not noticing prejudices of every sort, and not getting upset about the ones I do happen to notice. Of course different strokes for different folks, I know a lot of peeps adopt alternative strategies for whatever reason. We all have different triggers and ignition points. And I admit I did once lose it and ask my flist not to claim Ianto was being badly written for having 'switched' from straight to gay. (What can I say - I'd been having a bad month. Even the best of us give in to the siren call of PC at times ;)
I find myself getting flummoxed by terminology
Oh well aren't we all. It takes several paragraphs to describe my sexuality, not any single word, and it certainly comes under the heading of TMI so I am not inclined to do it with any but my closest friends. So for the benefit of strangers I will happily use words like 'gay', queer' or 'bi' simply as useful shorthand to help them grasp the general idea of 'a minority sexuality'. I tend to assume most other 'gay', 'queer' etc. people use the words in a similar way. One thing we do all have in common, I assume, is that we have probably had to think about our sexualities a lot, and thus are rather aware of all the complexities. This makes it extra odd to me that homosexuals might be prejudiced against bi folk. I can maybe see it if I sort of squint sideways and assume a certain amount of the cabin boy kicking the cat, but it still doesn't quite ring true. My inclination is to dismiss the claim as attention seeking. Apart from anything else, unless you spend your life amongst homosexuals who happen to have the prejudice, why would it even matter? As you say, it is hard to spot where the systemic problem might lie.
it assumes sexuality can be quantified, that we can possibly mean something by the English phrase "one hundred percent straight" when really, we can't
I think most people will agree one should never say never, but I also think I can happily grasp the idea of sexual phobias and squicks. And it does seem to me that a lot of heterosexual people have the equivalent of a phobia or squick at the thought of sex with someone of their own gender. So on those grounds I think it is fair for them to say they are 100% straight, just as I can say I am 100% not interested in eating live monkey brains. Yes, with appropriate therapy I could doubtless overcome my aversion, but since I have no interest in even considering such therapy the matter is moot.
The phenomenon of homophobia does fascinate me. I can't understand why it even exists in the first place, let alone why it is perpetuated. Cui bono?
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We can explain bi and lesbian writers erasing women in m/m fic either as biphobia or as misogyny. Do we even need as complicated an explanation for the straight women who may be erasing women in m/m fic? And if I'm erasing men in my m/m, misandry strikes me as a more likely culprit than biphobia (but then I'm the worst person to judge, being me).
Oh definitely misogny in my case. Never felt it was anything more complicated.
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When I say my motive is misogyny, I don't actually mean I think that is a bad thing. The main root of my 'misogyny' is that I live in a female dominated environment, and I write for escapism, including escapism from being female. So I write male dominated stories from a male POV. So when being slightly flippant with my old mate alixtii I will cheerfully claim that as misogyny, and doubtless he can deconstruct it in radical feminist terms to show aspects that are rooted in genuine societal based female-phobia. I'm not actually claiming to be a female hater though, or not very seriously.
I know though that some people turn to fiction or other media for not just escapism but for self discovery. And for them it can play a vital role in holding up different mirrors so they can find out who they are. I acknowledge this though as an observer and don't as a writer feel any obligation to provide them with alternative mirrors. I very much believe that each individual writer is entitled to write whatever they personally want and they should reject all pressure from readers to supply whatever particular thing the reader would prefer. I think this holds true whether the thing being asked for happens to be unicorn fic or more bi relationships. As a writer it's not my job to solve other people's identity problems. I'm a great believer in the maxim that if they want something different they should write it themselves. Or if they refuse to believe they are capable of writing then they should provide patronage to ghost writers who will. Ultimately all we ever write are our own stories, so if someone feels their personal story isn't being told their only option is to write it for themself.
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Yes, but it's not polite to do this in public, at least not to people in the (virtual) room.
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This hasn't been my experience. I see complaints about invisibility as, well, complaints about invisibility. I'm very secure in my identity as a bisexual/queer woman, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to see people who are like me in that way represented in the tv and movies that I watch and in the books and comics that I read. That doesn't mean that I don't still get upset when people say that bisexuality isn't a "real" sexual orientation, that bisexual people just haven't made up their mind, that people who say they're bisexual just want to have a lot of sex, that bisexual means polyamorous, etc.
And there seem to be plenty of bi people in the media, at least as many as vanilla homosexuals, so I've personally never felt particularly invisible.
"[A]t least as many as vanilla homosexuals" is not what I would define as "plenty" when it comes to the media. I'm hard pressed to think of any bisexual people in media. I hear there are/have been some on shows I don't watch (Gray's Anatomy, Bones, Torchwood), but I'm hard pressed to think of ones on shows I do/have watch/ed, and I definitely feel like the (still small) number of gay men and lesbians in the media far outpaces the number of bisexuals in the media.
One thing we do all have in common, I assume, is that we have probably had to think about our sexualities a lot, and thus are rather aware of all the complexities. This makes it extra odd to me that homosexuals might be prejudiced against bi folk. I can maybe see it if I sort of squint sideways and assume a certain amount of the cabin boy kicking the cat, but it still doesn't quite ring true. My inclination is to dismiss the claim as attention seeking. Apart from anything else, unless you spend your life amongst homosexuals who happen to have the prejudice, why would it even matter? As you say, it is hard to spot where the systemic problem might lie.
I agree that there's an illogic in members of a sexual minority being prejudiced against members of another minority sexuality solely because of the latter's identity labels, but I don't think the answer to that conundrum is, "Therefore that prejudice doesn't exist." I think there is some logic behind the prejudice actually (resentment that bisexuals are able to access a lot of heterosexual privilege, for one), but also, has logic ever been a prerequisite for prejudice?
I'm really uncomfortable with the framing of this as "attention seeking." I think it is bisexual people saying that their experience isn't getting represented -- is getting ignored or misrepresented -- and that this is a problem. Their experience may be different from your experience, even though you both claim the same umbrella identifier term, but that doesn't make their experience invalid.
I don't even know where to begin with "unless you spend your life amongst homosexuals who happen to have the prejudice, why would it even matter?" Are you conceding that the prejudice DOES exist and we should just try to avoid the people who have it? (Which, one, undermines the sense I get of your general argument in this comment, and two, is a really problematic statement to be making about any experience of prejudice.) Isn't the whole claim of trobadora and chasingtides and others that we/they ARE surrounded by people who have this prejudice?
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