My bi fiction rejects your dichotomies
These are various things I've been thinking of because of the "is slash appropriating the gay male experience?" debates, although some are more tangential than others. And obviously I haven't read every post and comment made on the issue(s).
The first post I saw framed it as "straight women writing the gay male experience" and my immediate response was to shrug and say it had nothing to do with me, because I'm not straight and I don't write about gay men. Seriously, in looking back over my fanfic, I think I can come up with one example where the POV character is a gay male. Okay, and one other with multiple POVs where one or two of the lesser-used characters were gay men. So that makes, what, 2 (or 1.25) stories total? Out of dozens? Gay men are also pretty slim on the ground in my original fiction.
And "the gay experience"? Sorry, I'm willing to write characters who are gay or lesbian or straight, but I have very little interest in writing "the gay experience" or "the lesbian experience" or "the straight experience" because monosexuality is booooorrring and also it doesn't make any sense.
I'm bisexual (pansexual, omnisexual, queer, whatever) and I prefer to write bi fiction about bi characters. And if anyone says I can't write about the bi experience, those people should stfu (not that there is only one bi experience, but still). And honestly, if anyone says I can't write male characters, those people should also stfu. For one thing, in a patriarchy, women cannot appropriate men's experience/culture. For another thing, it'd be hard to write bi fiction using only female characters.
And for a third thing, part of the whole point of bi fiction, as I see it, is to actually break down the concept of gender essentialism as the basic dividing line of humanity. To challenge the boxes of gender and orientation that the culture I live in says are so immutable and so separate and opposite. Which is why - yes, the slash trope of "we're not gay, we just love each other" has been used in many highly problematic ways - but I totally love stories where people find themselves wanting something they never expected to want and being confused and then ending up having to define for themselves their own self-identification rather than just falling back on whatever assumptions society has given them, and even ending up defining themselves in ways that run counter to what external observers would tend to assume based on their behavior. I love stories where people have to THINK about who and what they are and want to be.
I also love stories about the future/AU bi poly non-gendered utopia where no one worries about any of this!
(And speaking of gender essentialism... I don't think my life's experience has been at all male, but I'm also not sure how much it's been female. I am trying lately to be more consciously feminist and to spend more time thinking of myself as a woman (or at least realizing how other people are thinking of me and treating me like that) and thinking about female community or solidarity or whatever in spaces like fandom and how gender has affected my life, but... When I read things about "the female experience" of womanliness and femininity and so on, while there are some aspects that do really resonate for me, there are also huge vast swathes that aren't at all like my life. That has an impact on how I do or don't view fictional characters as "male characters" or "female characters" and whether I do or don't identify with them.)
Then I started getting pretty annoyed at all this continued talk of "straight women" and "the gay male experience" and how so many people seemed to be erasing my experience and my stories. And when people started speaking up about how many slash writers were queer, they got told that didn't matter or that they were derailing the conversation, which is even more annoying. And then there's the old "you've internalized your own oppression and therefore your opinion isn't valid" saw which was rearing its ugly head. We have ALL internalized our own oppression, but if you start saying to someone else in the same group as you that they have internalized it more and thus you are the only one allowed to speak because you know better than them... then you're automatically failing.
There are also lots of people using sweeping generalizations (which I do here, too) and saying all slash is X or all slash is Y, which is pretty much bound to be wrong, unless the statement is "all slash is slash" and even then... (omg, have you SEEN me angsting about whether a specific fic is slash or gen or needs what label or is or isn't a certain pairing?) No, I don't think all slash is badly written or all is well written, I don't think all is misogynist or all is homophobic or all is progressive or all is liberating.
I don't think women can appropriate men's experience, but I do think straight people can appropriate queer experience. And men can appropriate women's experience, and queer people can't appropriate straight experience. Because overall, the world society is a heterosexist patriarchy. And cis people can appropriate trans experience, and white people can appropriate people of color's experience. And anyone else who is in a position of power and privilege can appropriate something from someone less powerful and less privileged, while the oppressed cannot appropriate the experience/culture of the oppressor, because the experience/culture of the oppressor is forced on them by default anyway, and they have to understand it to a certain extent just to survive in it.
But while we are speaking of FICTION and ART (and its possible power to change society for good or ill), as a writer I do firmly believe that the answer is NOT for white authors to not write characters of color, for male authors to not write female characters, for straight authors to not write queer characters, for cis authors to not write trans characters, etc etc etc. Certainly as a woman and a queer person I would prefer to see people like me showing up in the stories of the culture I live in. And as a white person and a person who is, uh, comfortable with her physical sex if not always with the whole gender thing, I think I would be behaving badly were I to create fictional worlds that were entirely white and solely full of people who were totally unquestioningly cisgendered/cissexual.
So, yes, I think we as authors/creators/artists/writers ought to strive to portray characters who are unlike us and especially characters who are unlike us in a way that places them on the less privileged end of some aspect of identity. Straight authors, please continue writing queer characters!
Just, you know, we ought to be THINKING about how we portray people, and trying hard to do so well, in a way that is accurate and positive and individual and non-offensive, a way that helps people in the real world and changes society for the better and lessens the privilege gaps we all struggle under, while also telling an entertaining story.
Now I may just, um, la la la, go use the "laugh so you don't cry" principle and write smut about straight boys looking at porn and jerking off together and possibly making out with each other, in an attempt to turn around homophobic machoness into an object I can utilize for my queer female pleasure. Or whatever! (Because I also think women discussing their sexual desires and agency does change society for the better.)
I'm posting this public but I may very well lock it later because it's tough for me to talk about stuff like this with strangers on the internet.
Comments on DW.
The first post I saw framed it as "straight women writing the gay male experience" and my immediate response was to shrug and say it had nothing to do with me, because I'm not straight and I don't write about gay men. Seriously, in looking back over my fanfic, I think I can come up with one example where the POV character is a gay male. Okay, and one other with multiple POVs where one or two of the lesser-used characters were gay men. So that makes, what, 2 (or 1.25) stories total? Out of dozens? Gay men are also pretty slim on the ground in my original fiction.
And "the gay experience"? Sorry, I'm willing to write characters who are gay or lesbian or straight, but I have very little interest in writing "the gay experience" or "the lesbian experience" or "the straight experience" because monosexuality is booooorrring and also it doesn't make any sense.
I'm bisexual (pansexual, omnisexual, queer, whatever) and I prefer to write bi fiction about bi characters. And if anyone says I can't write about the bi experience, those people should stfu (not that there is only one bi experience, but still). And honestly, if anyone says I can't write male characters, those people should also stfu. For one thing, in a patriarchy, women cannot appropriate men's experience/culture. For another thing, it'd be hard to write bi fiction using only female characters.
And for a third thing, part of the whole point of bi fiction, as I see it, is to actually break down the concept of gender essentialism as the basic dividing line of humanity. To challenge the boxes of gender and orientation that the culture I live in says are so immutable and so separate and opposite. Which is why - yes, the slash trope of "we're not gay, we just love each other" has been used in many highly problematic ways - but I totally love stories where people find themselves wanting something they never expected to want and being confused and then ending up having to define for themselves their own self-identification rather than just falling back on whatever assumptions society has given them, and even ending up defining themselves in ways that run counter to what external observers would tend to assume based on their behavior. I love stories where people have to THINK about who and what they are and want to be.
I also love stories about the future/AU bi poly non-gendered utopia where no one worries about any of this!
(And speaking of gender essentialism... I don't think my life's experience has been at all male, but I'm also not sure how much it's been female. I am trying lately to be more consciously feminist and to spend more time thinking of myself as a woman (or at least realizing how other people are thinking of me and treating me like that) and thinking about female community or solidarity or whatever in spaces like fandom and how gender has affected my life, but... When I read things about "the female experience" of womanliness and femininity and so on, while there are some aspects that do really resonate for me, there are also huge vast swathes that aren't at all like my life. That has an impact on how I do or don't view fictional characters as "male characters" or "female characters" and whether I do or don't identify with them.)
Then I started getting pretty annoyed at all this continued talk of "straight women" and "the gay male experience" and how so many people seemed to be erasing my experience and my stories. And when people started speaking up about how many slash writers were queer, they got told that didn't matter or that they were derailing the conversation, which is even more annoying. And then there's the old "you've internalized your own oppression and therefore your opinion isn't valid" saw which was rearing its ugly head. We have ALL internalized our own oppression, but if you start saying to someone else in the same group as you that they have internalized it more and thus you are the only one allowed to speak because you know better than them... then you're automatically failing.
There are also lots of people using sweeping generalizations (which I do here, too) and saying all slash is X or all slash is Y, which is pretty much bound to be wrong, unless the statement is "all slash is slash" and even then... (omg, have you SEEN me angsting about whether a specific fic is slash or gen or needs what label or is or isn't a certain pairing?) No, I don't think all slash is badly written or all is well written, I don't think all is misogynist or all is homophobic or all is progressive or all is liberating.
I don't think women can appropriate men's experience, but I do think straight people can appropriate queer experience. And men can appropriate women's experience, and queer people can't appropriate straight experience. Because overall, the world society is a heterosexist patriarchy. And cis people can appropriate trans experience, and white people can appropriate people of color's experience. And anyone else who is in a position of power and privilege can appropriate something from someone less powerful and less privileged, while the oppressed cannot appropriate the experience/culture of the oppressor, because the experience/culture of the oppressor is forced on them by default anyway, and they have to understand it to a certain extent just to survive in it.
But while we are speaking of FICTION and ART (and its possible power to change society for good or ill), as a writer I do firmly believe that the answer is NOT for white authors to not write characters of color, for male authors to not write female characters, for straight authors to not write queer characters, for cis authors to not write trans characters, etc etc etc. Certainly as a woman and a queer person I would prefer to see people like me showing up in the stories of the culture I live in. And as a white person and a person who is, uh, comfortable with her physical sex if not always with the whole gender thing, I think I would be behaving badly were I to create fictional worlds that were entirely white and solely full of people who were totally unquestioningly cisgendered/cissexual.
So, yes, I think we as authors/creators/artists/writers ought to strive to portray characters who are unlike us and especially characters who are unlike us in a way that places them on the less privileged end of some aspect of identity. Straight authors, please continue writing queer characters!
Just, you know, we ought to be THINKING about how we portray people, and trying hard to do so well, in a way that is accurate and positive and individual and non-offensive, a way that helps people in the real world and changes society for the better and lessens the privilege gaps we all struggle under, while also telling an entertaining story.
Now I may just, um, la la la, go use the "laugh so you don't cry" principle and write smut about straight boys looking at porn and jerking off together and possibly making out with each other, in an attempt to turn around homophobic machoness into an object I can utilize for my queer female pleasure. Or whatever! (Because I also think women discussing their sexual desires and agency does change society for the better.)
I'm posting this public but I may very well lock it later because it's tough for me to talk about stuff like this with strangers on the internet.
Comments on DW.