An (extremely) Brief History of Slash
Okay, so I just read this article about the motivations to write slash in fanfiction and found myself slightly disturbed by the conclusions drawn by the author.
So, naturally, I have turned to the netizens for their opinion...
What I gleaned from this brief, broadly-stroked (mind out of the gutter, you!) article was:
1. Women are afraid of their bodies/sexuality. Writing M/M fanfiction is a way for women to explore complex relationships, sexual fetishes, and various types of love "without worrying" about how it reflects upon them as women (regardless of their own experiences).
2. This "dialogue" in which women substitute themselves for one of the male characters that they write about, allows them to play out sexual fantasies (like non-con, BDSM, etc.) that would otherwise make them uncomfortable, while simultaneously re-enforcing mass media misogyny (say that 3 times fast) that portrays female (straight) sexuality and genitalia as disgusting.
3. Straight women write gay male relationships in an idealized, fantastical bubble that does not deal with the nitty gritty of homophobia or queer identity in a heterosexual world because gay love is seen as pure (???!?), and the author can skirt the more complex (?!!!!!) and troubling aspects of real world male/female relationships at the same time.
4. Straight men like watching lesbian pornography, so why shouldn't straight women want to indulge in male/male porn as well?
OMFG. I cannot express how much I disagree with all of the above.
It should be noted that the article was SHORT, therefore it couldn't really explore any of these themes in depth, AND it seemed overly focused on the younger female fan (i.e. under 25). But still... While I can see all of the above aspects playing into some motivations for writing slash, NONE OF THEM seem to apply to the slash writers that I know and continue to meet through various fandoms. Am I living in a rarefied internet bubble of some kind?
Yes, writing slash as a straight woman can provide you a 'safe' platform to explore taboo sexual concepts - concepts that you cannot admit a curiosity about without a filter between you and the act. But I'm not sure how one squares that idea with the concept that women are afraid of their bodies and sexuality so we just pretend to do unspeakable things with our phantom fic-dicks instead. I'm not buying into that malarkey at all. I don't think that you can be afraid of something and then sit down and spend hours crafting it and then send it out into the world with your name attached to it. I'm afraid of clowns and spiders - you do not see me making endless clown dolls or fashioning tons of spiders out of pipe cleaners as a result.
Mass media misogyny is a thing. I'm not disputing that at all. And it makes most women hate their body/hair/face/skin/teeth/reproductive organs/emotions/other women at some point in their lives. But I'm not buying into the argument that misogyny is a prime motivator for straight gals writing about gay sex. If it was, there'd be HELLA AMOUNTS of straight-written gay sex on the internet - not just the 45+% that the article's analytics claim.
Finally, while I love living in a time when identifying as gay doesn't garner a person a public stoning in the town square, homophobia is still prevalent just about everywhere, even in fanfiction. I have read lots of slash fiction where "sudden gayness" arrives without discussion or ramifications, but that's usually the result of bad writing or a lack of author imagination. All of the slash fics that I love offer up complex and sometimes ugly views of characters coming out/negotiating their evolving legal status/religious fallout/dealing with homophobia on some level. It isn't a candy coloured bubble that gets idealized so that you can play out your secret straight-girl Harlequin Romance fantasy, but with two guys who have great hair instead. That's just ludicrous. And in what version of reality are straight relationships more complex or troubling than queer ones? Perhaps the author lives in a German drag queen's satin undergarments, but where I live (on planet Earth), being queer still requires a tad more fortitude to negotiate.
But maybe I'm delusional. Maybe I was dropped one too many times on my head as a child. What do you think? How would you explain why you write slash to the article's author? I'm curious...
So, naturally, I have turned to the netizens for their opinion...
What I gleaned from this brief, broadly-stroked (mind out of the gutter, you!) article was:
1. Women are afraid of their bodies/sexuality. Writing M/M fanfiction is a way for women to explore complex relationships, sexual fetishes, and various types of love "without worrying" about how it reflects upon them as women (regardless of their own experiences).
2. This "dialogue" in which women substitute themselves for one of the male characters that they write about, allows them to play out sexual fantasies (like non-con, BDSM, etc.) that would otherwise make them uncomfortable, while simultaneously re-enforcing mass media misogyny (say that 3 times fast) that portrays female (straight) sexuality and genitalia as disgusting.
3. Straight women write gay male relationships in an idealized, fantastical bubble that does not deal with the nitty gritty of homophobia or queer identity in a heterosexual world because gay love is seen as pure (???!?), and the author can skirt the more complex (?!!!!!) and troubling aspects of real world male/female relationships at the same time.
4. Straight men like watching lesbian pornography, so why shouldn't straight women want to indulge in male/male porn as well?
OMFG. I cannot express how much I disagree with all of the above.
It should be noted that the article was SHORT, therefore it couldn't really explore any of these themes in depth, AND it seemed overly focused on the younger female fan (i.e. under 25). But still... While I can see all of the above aspects playing into some motivations for writing slash, NONE OF THEM seem to apply to the slash writers that I know and continue to meet through various fandoms. Am I living in a rarefied internet bubble of some kind?
Yes, writing slash as a straight woman can provide you a 'safe' platform to explore taboo sexual concepts - concepts that you cannot admit a curiosity about without a filter between you and the act. But I'm not sure how one squares that idea with the concept that women are afraid of their bodies and sexuality so we just pretend to do unspeakable things with our phantom fic-dicks instead. I'm not buying into that malarkey at all. I don't think that you can be afraid of something and then sit down and spend hours crafting it and then send it out into the world with your name attached to it. I'm afraid of clowns and spiders - you do not see me making endless clown dolls or fashioning tons of spiders out of pipe cleaners as a result.
Mass media misogyny is a thing. I'm not disputing that at all. And it makes most women hate their body/hair/face/skin/teeth/reproductive organs/emotions/other women at some point in their lives. But I'm not buying into the argument that misogyny is a prime motivator for straight gals writing about gay sex. If it was, there'd be HELLA AMOUNTS of straight-written gay sex on the internet - not just the 45+% that the article's analytics claim.
Finally, while I love living in a time when identifying as gay doesn't garner a person a public stoning in the town square, homophobia is still prevalent just about everywhere, even in fanfiction. I have read lots of slash fiction where "sudden gayness" arrives without discussion or ramifications, but that's usually the result of bad writing or a lack of author imagination. All of the slash fics that I love offer up complex and sometimes ugly views of characters coming out/negotiating their evolving legal status/religious fallout/dealing with homophobia on some level. It isn't a candy coloured bubble that gets idealized so that you can play out your secret straight-girl Harlequin Romance fantasy, but with two guys who have great hair instead. That's just ludicrous. And in what version of reality are straight relationships more complex or troubling than queer ones? Perhaps the author lives in a German drag queen's satin undergarments, but where I live (on planet Earth), being queer still requires a tad more fortitude to negotiate.
But maybe I'm delusional. Maybe I was dropped one too many times on my head as a child. What do you think? How would you explain why you write slash to the article's author? I'm curious...