It's not about the porn
Disclaimer: You are perfectly welcome to claim that I have no idea what the fuck I am talking about. I am only eighteen years old, my life experience is disturbingly tiny, but this is a subject that is absolutely fascinating to me and I would love to hear your thoughts, as well. Also I wrote this at 2 AM.
So I want to stand up on this soapbox today and talk about slash fanfiction. And I want to start out by saying that I enjoy reading porn written about hot guys as much as the next girl (on livejournal, at least), I have written it before and I will write it again. This applies to Real Person Slash (which is what I'll be talking the most about, right now) as well as fandom slash.
So. Today this was posted in ontd_startrek, and as I commented there, it's a fascinating read and well worth it, but there's something...missing in the explanation of why slash appeals to fangirls so much. And maybe it's missing because it's certainly not a universal thing and, if it were mentioned, would have had to have been done so in a much more personal style than the rest of the essay. Or maybe it was missing because it's not something that everyone thinks about. But as well as the "OMG HOT" factor and the "They're equals" factor, which are explained much more eloquently in the essay above, there's the liberating sensation of seeing, even in a fantasy, two men showing love for one another, without the shyness and the taboo placed upon them by society.
Now. There are so many levels of love that it's impossible to fathom. I think that it's entirely possible for someone to love someone else, for someone to even be in love with someone else, and have absolutely no sexual motives. And by "think" I mean I know this to be true - I've experienced it for myself, and I've seen it stretch between an entire community of people.
This next part will make you think I am a giant hippie, and probably a bit bizarre, but I'm alright with that:
I may have mentioned to a few of you that I work at a summer camp for improvisational theatre. This is true. However, this camp is also the most incredibly rich, loving community that I have ever heard of, seen, or experienced in any way, and exists almost as a separate reality, a separate society, from the outside world. It is a community that teaches play, give and take, trust. I have lain for hours in a pile of people, not even knowing whose hands I'm holding, not caring because I knew and I truly loved everyone that was there. I have walked through a crowd without passing a single person that I did not hug - a real hug, with real emotion in it.
Within this community, the boundaries of personal space are, obviously, somewhat lax, and affection reigns supreme. I've seen grown men kiss each other goodbye on the lips - friends, mind, not lovers. People lie in pairs, heads in laps, spooned together, on the grass as they wait for workshops. And it's not to say that nothing is sexual - that would be an impossibility. But nothing is assumed to be sexual. A kiss doesn't necessarily lead anywhere, an embrace from behind can just be an embrace from behind. Snuggling on a couch can be just snuggling - an impulse to touch, to appreciate, to hug. To make someone know, through physical contact, that you care for them.
This is something that is distressingly, even horrifyingly, rare between anyone that is not romantically involved, and between two males it is almost entirely unheard of. Male celebrities? We won't even go there. (Well, we will, but not for a few paragraphs yet.)
A reason for that is homophobia. Not even necessarily the rampant, all-out, queer-bashing violent homophobia, but casual homophobia, the kind that uses "gay" as a substitute for "stupid", the kind that can have gay friends but could never be alright with being thought to be gay themselves. The kind of homophobia that is terrifyingly universal.
It was the first kind that started it - a building, building wave of a Gay Scare, where every movement was under suspicion. And when you're a celebrity, an actor or a singer, when you're already under the intense scrutiny of the public - well. And the second kind maintains it - a sort of societal veil, kept up through slang and snide laughter, that it's not normal to be gay, that you are 'turned' gay, that every man starts straight and has to step out of that - break down some sort of door, destroy something, in order to be anything but. Even accepting parents, when their children come out to them (younger and younger, these days) are prone to asking, "How can you be sure?" But when was the last time, when little Jane announced that she was going to marry that Timothy boy someday, her mother leaned down as asked, "But are you sure you're straight? Don't you think you're a little young to be able to tell?"
(I understand some of this - the world of growing up, of especially high school, is often much harder for gay boys and girls, and parents wouldn't want to subject their children to that if it weren't necessary. But that's not always the reasoning behind the question, and the standard is still double.)
Now I want to look at how this pertains to fandom, and to Real Person Slash in particular.
I've been finding myself taking off my tinhat more and more, recently, and getting almost...frustrated with fandom. Because we are almost part of the problem - more sets of eyes, combing every action for hidden gay meaning. And yes, we applaud it rather than deplore it, but for the shy that might be even worse. And a touch can be just a touch, affection can be just affection, and when we add sex to every hug it makes me a little bit sad, even as my fiendish brain laughs with glee.
Let's take, for example, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. Now. I do not know either of these fine gentleman personally, but I (like any good fangirl) have made a study of their photos and interviews and quotes and, seriously, all tinhatting aside, I think that they are in love, completely and utterly. And this doesn't mean they're in a relationship. It doesn't mean that they're having sex. It doesn't even mean that they're not having sex with (or even being in love with) anyone else. It means that they love one another. It means that if they came to my improv camp, if they were part of that community (like they were in a dream I had once), they would be curled up in one another, spooning and snuggling.
And we take that and make it sexual.
And that's okay. Because we're just fangirls, we're not doing anyone any harm, and it certainly shouldn't (and doesn't, really, from what I can tell) offend Jared and Jensen that we do. And it's hard for many people - hell, it's hard for everyone, I think - to express the amount of love that they seem to have without it getting hot and heavy.
And this is where the tin hat, though battered, comes into play.
I think that physical attraction can come after love. I think that as I get to know someone, their character defines and sharpens their looks. And I know that the first time I kissed someone, rather than being kissed, I was doing it because I wanted to show them how much they meant to me, and that it led to my current, serious relationship of two years. My boyfriend is very much outside of most of the boxes I check on a list of physical attributes that attract me (see every picture of Tilda Swinton, but especially the ones right here, and every picture of the aforementioned Jensen Ackles), but that doesn't stop me, with my rose-coloured glasses, from finding him absolutely magnetizing. I also believe that sexuality is a fluid thing; (almost) no one is 100% straight or 100% gay. (Feel free to disagree - as a bisexual girl with a het leaning I might be biased about these things).
And yes, part of me would like to believe that Jared and Jensen have sex. Because it would be hot, but also because it would mean that they've found a way to express to one another what they feel, with their bodies if not with their words, and that's what I want to read about.
Now: The issue of the "bromance".
Believe it or not, I am a huge fan of how popular this term is getting. A name for a relationship between two men that is not automatically assumed to be sexual but is still closer than friends? Hell yes. Let's take two pairs that have recently been labeled as such, and that I also slash, Colin Morgan and Bradley James of Merlin and American Idol's Kris Allen and Adam Lambert.
Colin and Bradley are young (although I shouldn't talk), adorable, and total dorks. They flirt constantly ("Your cheekbones are really startin' out in this shot, mate." "You liking them?"), are "inseparable", share a bizarre sense of humor, and have so much onscreen chemistry that...well, you'll be hard pressed to find a fan of the show that doesn't ship Arthur/Merlin, even if it's on the side of their Arthur/Gwen and Merlin/Morgana (or vice versa). Perhaps my favorite moment of their bromance, that Bradley talks about at every opportunity, was when Colin was asleep next to Bradley on the plane and Bradley told a joke that no one laughed at, Colin woke up and went, "AHAHA."
At improv camp? They're totally spooning, asleep on the grass in the sun. In fact, this relationship is so exactly close to what I've seen friendships evolve into, at camp, that it's dizzying.
With these two, I don't think they're having sex. I don't tinhat, with them. But I read the fic, because it's the moments where they reach out and touch that show who they are to each other.
As for Kris and Adam....I don't think I have to say much on the subject, really. They're pretty much famous for it. The nail polish, the "crush", the flirting, the laughter, the way they talk about one another to the press. But I wanted to talk about Kris and Adam because of an important factor: Adam is gay, and out, and has admitted attraction to Kris.
Well. What does this change, you ask? Didn't you say sexuality was fluid, that attraction came after love?
Yes. I did. And that's not what changes. What changes is that these two have managed to stay friends, convince the majority of the world that they are friends, that they are "bros", I guess, halves of a bromance, and that that's all they are, mostly without assumption that there had to be something going on. The term "bromance" is like a shield - getting too close to a male friend of yours? People starting to whisper that you're gay? Nah, man, it's cool. Just a bromance. And in one way that's hindering - because it still doesn't address the fact that it wouldn't be cool if you were gay - but in another it's incredibly freeing, allowing that modicum of love to show without censorship.
For the record, I don't think they sleep together either. I think that if Katy didn't exist, if Drake didn't exist? They would be lovers, and out as such. But they do, and Kris wouldn't cheat and neither would Adam, so no, I don't think anything's happened.
But for these two I write fic. And I was seized with the knowledge that I had to, as soon as I was introduced to their amazing story. I had to put into words what I saw in their eyes, what I saw in their hands. Because they're beautiful - the love they have, whatever level you want to call it, a bromance, a crush, love, being in love, something as yet unnamed.
And I hope...I hope this continues. I hope it becomes more and more acceptable to have bromances and maybe finally actual romances with friends. I hope we start naming all the degrees of love as acceptable, a stairway from "friends" to "committed relationship" where the movement between is so subtle that it never catches the eye of the homophobes.
...I hope this still makes sense when I wake up tomorrow morning. Goodnight, dear f-list, and congratulations if you made it this far.
So I want to stand up on this soapbox today and talk about slash fanfiction. And I want to start out by saying that I enjoy reading porn written about hot guys as much as the next girl (on livejournal, at least), I have written it before and I will write it again. This applies to Real Person Slash (which is what I'll be talking the most about, right now) as well as fandom slash.
So. Today this was posted in ontd_startrek, and as I commented there, it's a fascinating read and well worth it, but there's something...missing in the explanation of why slash appeals to fangirls so much. And maybe it's missing because it's certainly not a universal thing and, if it were mentioned, would have had to have been done so in a much more personal style than the rest of the essay. Or maybe it was missing because it's not something that everyone thinks about. But as well as the "OMG HOT" factor and the "They're equals" factor, which are explained much more eloquently in the essay above, there's the liberating sensation of seeing, even in a fantasy, two men showing love for one another, without the shyness and the taboo placed upon them by society.
Now. There are so many levels of love that it's impossible to fathom. I think that it's entirely possible for someone to love someone else, for someone to even be in love with someone else, and have absolutely no sexual motives. And by "think" I mean I know this to be true - I've experienced it for myself, and I've seen it stretch between an entire community of people.
This next part will make you think I am a giant hippie, and probably a bit bizarre, but I'm alright with that:
I may have mentioned to a few of you that I work at a summer camp for improvisational theatre. This is true. However, this camp is also the most incredibly rich, loving community that I have ever heard of, seen, or experienced in any way, and exists almost as a separate reality, a separate society, from the outside world. It is a community that teaches play, give and take, trust. I have lain for hours in a pile of people, not even knowing whose hands I'm holding, not caring because I knew and I truly loved everyone that was there. I have walked through a crowd without passing a single person that I did not hug - a real hug, with real emotion in it.
Within this community, the boundaries of personal space are, obviously, somewhat lax, and affection reigns supreme. I've seen grown men kiss each other goodbye on the lips - friends, mind, not lovers. People lie in pairs, heads in laps, spooned together, on the grass as they wait for workshops. And it's not to say that nothing is sexual - that would be an impossibility. But nothing is assumed to be sexual. A kiss doesn't necessarily lead anywhere, an embrace from behind can just be an embrace from behind. Snuggling on a couch can be just snuggling - an impulse to touch, to appreciate, to hug. To make someone know, through physical contact, that you care for them.
This is something that is distressingly, even horrifyingly, rare between anyone that is not romantically involved, and between two males it is almost entirely unheard of. Male celebrities? We won't even go there. (Well, we will, but not for a few paragraphs yet.)
A reason for that is homophobia. Not even necessarily the rampant, all-out, queer-bashing violent homophobia, but casual homophobia, the kind that uses "gay" as a substitute for "stupid", the kind that can have gay friends but could never be alright with being thought to be gay themselves. The kind of homophobia that is terrifyingly universal.
It was the first kind that started it - a building, building wave of a Gay Scare, where every movement was under suspicion. And when you're a celebrity, an actor or a singer, when you're already under the intense scrutiny of the public - well. And the second kind maintains it - a sort of societal veil, kept up through slang and snide laughter, that it's not normal to be gay, that you are 'turned' gay, that every man starts straight and has to step out of that - break down some sort of door, destroy something, in order to be anything but. Even accepting parents, when their children come out to them (younger and younger, these days) are prone to asking, "How can you be sure?" But when was the last time, when little Jane announced that she was going to marry that Timothy boy someday, her mother leaned down as asked, "But are you sure you're straight? Don't you think you're a little young to be able to tell?"
(I understand some of this - the world of growing up, of especially high school, is often much harder for gay boys and girls, and parents wouldn't want to subject their children to that if it weren't necessary. But that's not always the reasoning behind the question, and the standard is still double.)
Now I want to look at how this pertains to fandom, and to Real Person Slash in particular.
I've been finding myself taking off my tinhat more and more, recently, and getting almost...frustrated with fandom. Because we are almost part of the problem - more sets of eyes, combing every action for hidden gay meaning. And yes, we applaud it rather than deplore it, but for the shy that might be even worse. And a touch can be just a touch, affection can be just affection, and when we add sex to every hug it makes me a little bit sad, even as my fiendish brain laughs with glee.
Let's take, for example, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. Now. I do not know either of these fine gentleman personally, but I (like any good fangirl) have made a study of their photos and interviews and quotes and, seriously, all tinhatting aside, I think that they are in love, completely and utterly. And this doesn't mean they're in a relationship. It doesn't mean that they're having sex. It doesn't even mean that they're not having sex with (or even being in love with) anyone else. It means that they love one another. It means that if they came to my improv camp, if they were part of that community (like they were in a dream I had once), they would be curled up in one another, spooning and snuggling.
And we take that and make it sexual.
And that's okay. Because we're just fangirls, we're not doing anyone any harm, and it certainly shouldn't (and doesn't, really, from what I can tell) offend Jared and Jensen that we do. And it's hard for many people - hell, it's hard for everyone, I think - to express the amount of love that they seem to have without it getting hot and heavy.
And this is where the tin hat, though battered, comes into play.
I think that physical attraction can come after love. I think that as I get to know someone, their character defines and sharpens their looks. And I know that the first time I kissed someone, rather than being kissed, I was doing it because I wanted to show them how much they meant to me, and that it led to my current, serious relationship of two years. My boyfriend is very much outside of most of the boxes I check on a list of physical attributes that attract me (see every picture of Tilda Swinton, but especially the ones right here, and every picture of the aforementioned Jensen Ackles), but that doesn't stop me, with my rose-coloured glasses, from finding him absolutely magnetizing. I also believe that sexuality is a fluid thing; (almost) no one is 100% straight or 100% gay. (Feel free to disagree - as a bisexual girl with a het leaning I might be biased about these things).
And yes, part of me would like to believe that Jared and Jensen have sex. Because it would be hot, but also because it would mean that they've found a way to express to one another what they feel, with their bodies if not with their words, and that's what I want to read about.
Now: The issue of the "bromance".
Believe it or not, I am a huge fan of how popular this term is getting. A name for a relationship between two men that is not automatically assumed to be sexual but is still closer than friends? Hell yes. Let's take two pairs that have recently been labeled as such, and that I also slash, Colin Morgan and Bradley James of Merlin and American Idol's Kris Allen and Adam Lambert.
Colin and Bradley are young (although I shouldn't talk), adorable, and total dorks. They flirt constantly ("Your cheekbones are really startin' out in this shot, mate." "You liking them?"), are "inseparable", share a bizarre sense of humor, and have so much onscreen chemistry that...well, you'll be hard pressed to find a fan of the show that doesn't ship Arthur/Merlin, even if it's on the side of their Arthur/Gwen and Merlin/Morgana (or vice versa). Perhaps my favorite moment of their bromance, that Bradley talks about at every opportunity, was when Colin was asleep next to Bradley on the plane and Bradley told a joke that no one laughed at, Colin woke up and went, "AHAHA."
At improv camp? They're totally spooning, asleep on the grass in the sun. In fact, this relationship is so exactly close to what I've seen friendships evolve into, at camp, that it's dizzying.
With these two, I don't think they're having sex. I don't tinhat, with them. But I read the fic, because it's the moments where they reach out and touch that show who they are to each other.
As for Kris and Adam....I don't think I have to say much on the subject, really. They're pretty much famous for it. The nail polish, the "crush", the flirting, the laughter, the way they talk about one another to the press. But I wanted to talk about Kris and Adam because of an important factor: Adam is gay, and out, and has admitted attraction to Kris.
Well. What does this change, you ask? Didn't you say sexuality was fluid, that attraction came after love?
Yes. I did. And that's not what changes. What changes is that these two have managed to stay friends, convince the majority of the world that they are friends, that they are "bros", I guess, halves of a bromance, and that that's all they are, mostly without assumption that there had to be something going on. The term "bromance" is like a shield - getting too close to a male friend of yours? People starting to whisper that you're gay? Nah, man, it's cool. Just a bromance. And in one way that's hindering - because it still doesn't address the fact that it wouldn't be cool if you were gay - but in another it's incredibly freeing, allowing that modicum of love to show without censorship.
For the record, I don't think they sleep together either. I think that if Katy didn't exist, if Drake didn't exist? They would be lovers, and out as such. But they do, and Kris wouldn't cheat and neither would Adam, so no, I don't think anything's happened.
But for these two I write fic. And I was seized with the knowledge that I had to, as soon as I was introduced to their amazing story. I had to put into words what I saw in their eyes, what I saw in their hands. Because they're beautiful - the love they have, whatever level you want to call it, a bromance, a crush, love, being in love, something as yet unnamed.
And I hope...I hope this continues. I hope it becomes more and more acceptable to have bromances and maybe finally actual romances with friends. I hope we start naming all the degrees of love as acceptable, a stairway from "friends" to "committed relationship" where the movement between is so subtle that it never catches the eye of the homophobes.
...I hope this still makes sense when I wake up tomorrow morning. Goodnight, dear f-list, and congratulations if you made it this far.