Some Data and Analysis on Genre Identity/Preference in Tolkien Fandom

[dawn_felagund]

Over on the post about my paper presentation this weekend, the issue of genre was brought up because I didn't address it in the paper but I definitely asked about it in the survey. I decided not to include it in the paper because it involved defining and explaining terminology (genfic, het, slash) that I just didn't have time for, and I wasn't sure

Comments

[heartofoshun]

akin to a virtual coming-out, something that a lot of people may not be willing to do for a variety of reasons

I can see how that might have been an issue for a lot of people. The Tolkien fandom as a whole was certainly not open or accepting when I encountered it! Much less so than the world I had been living in for quite some time. I had not heard such reactionary BS in literally decades as what I stumbled upon in the Tolkien fandom. I found it hard to be polite about it and it did me lasting damage. It used up all my patience.

Perhaps there is a certain element of "female gaze/attraction" for me in writing slash fic, but that is far from my primary motivation. It just makes it easier for me. My principle reason for enjoying the genre is wanting to "queer" Middle-earth and reaction to my loathing of the type of formula romance which dominated het fic in the Tolkien fandom at the time I came around. My first novel was a het novel, which tried to turn that love-marriage-baby-carriage story on its head. Mine included pre-marital sex and infidelity--like in real life! That business in "Laws and Customs among the Eldar" on the question of marriage to the end of Arda is worse than my Catholic upbringing and contrary to human nature.

It made me want to run in circles and pull my hair out screaming that people wanted to adopt the Law and Customs uncritically while being perfectly willing to alter all kinds of other details. I think also my interest in slash was initially very particular--Maedhros/Fingon--I was new to The Silmarillion when I came to fanfiction and actually thought their relationship might be implied or construed as canon. Reading Tolkien's letters and his biography cleared that up for me pretty fast. I adored The Iliad as a kid and I loved Mary Renault's work. There was a rebellious element of wanting to read and write it also within this judgey Tolkien fandom. Mainly I wanted to balance the world in my fiction.

I don't want a fictional world without a spectrum of sexual preference and gender identification. But it's not a political campaign for me in my writing. That's I save for real life. Although, like real life my fiction includes an ugly side--not everyone is universally tolerant and welcoming in those questions. One could make a fantasy world like that--I love Ellen Kushner's world. But we all write best what inspires us--the story we fell compelled to write, not the one someone else thinks we should write.

So I never liked the old slash genre of everyone in Rivendell is gay and randy and somewhere among the flower pots are a couple of women, implied maybe.

(Oh, god--with big dumb jolly jock Glorfindel topping frail, bookish, cranky little Erestor. Shudder! Never say never--I've read a couple of good ones of those. Not a model for me of what I want though.)

[oloriel]

I think also my interest in slash was initially very particular--Maedhros/Fingon--I was new to The Silmarillion when I came to fanfiction and actually thought their relationship might be implied or construed as canon. Reading Tolkien's letters and his biography cleared that up for me pretty fast.

I continue to wonder. (I do not consider the biography reliable, since Carpenter clearly wrote what he thought Tolkien's readers desperately wanted to read. From the letters, we know that Tolkien was a fan of Mary Renault, too, so that suggests he at the very least wasn't stopped from enjoying a story if it had homosexual characters in it.) There are some pretty strong parallels between the Thangorodrim rescue and the Prometheus myth, along with some Ganymedes thrown in. Depending on how far you're willing to take those hints...

(After all, Tolkien was classically trained before he turned to Old English. He also played Mrs. Malaprop in a school performance of The Rivals. OMG TOLKIEN CROSS-DRESSED!)

I don't think Tolkien thought that out, of course. I mean, he doesn't really talk about sex much at all, heterosexual or otherwise, does he? It's pretty clear what Morgoth would like to do with Lúthien, for instance, but what the Silm says is that he "conceived in his thought an evil lust". We're left to ponder what that evil lust might be. (WHATEVER MIGHT IT BE.) The BoLT is only a little more explicit with its talk about crushing flowers. In LaCE we're told that "the union of love is indeed to [the Eldar] great delight and joy" (which is more than some conservative fans are willing to acknowledge! ;)), but just what exactly that union of love entails... we're supposed to guess for ourselves. There's no clear "insert peg A into slot B" anywhere, is there? There are no sex scenes anywhere, even between, Beren and Lúthien, or Galadriel and Celeborn, or Éowyn and Faramir (oh wait, THEIR HAIR MINGLES DRAMATICALLY IN THE WIND, THAT SAYS IT ALL). If there are no explicit heterosexual sex scenes, I don't think we should expect explicit homosexual sex scenes. Doesn't mean there's no sex happening -- of either kind!

[heartofoshun]

It is interesting also that Mary Renault until quite late in her life had only implied love scenes also. The Persian Boy goes a great deal further than her previous books in the direction of being explicit.

My main impulse when I first read Maedhros/Fingon in the texts is that it was obviously implied--that this would be less clear to me than it would have to Tolkien with his classical education and all. Hey, but what do I know? People still argue about the nature of the implied relationship between Achilles and Patroclus--which was obvious to me as an innocent Catholic schoolgirl. And so romantic.

Meanwhile, we have Tolkien's life-long belief in the fundamental and most satisfying friendships in life were among men (which could weigh the scale in either direction). Nothing sexual in his case onee presumes, but intense and limited to the same sex; which by my youth was strange indeed.

[oloriel]

I've always thought (though I'm not sure this would hold up to proper research! ;)) that in general, sex scenes became more explicit as the last century progressed. So initially, love scenes would happen off-stage or be implied only, and then it became more and more acceptable to describe the act.

Haha! I remember when that awkward Troy movie came out, some people were all "See? They're just cousins!" while others calmly pointed out that this just meant their love was incestuous on top of homosexual... (Hence the icon, of course.)

Not sexual, but certainly romantic, I'd think. And yes, kind of strange. But then, people believe all sorts of funny things about sex and love. In ancient Japan, it was well-known that true love was only possible between men, and only if one of them was superior in age or rank. Like, you had a wife because you needed children, but everybody knew that if you ever found romantic love, it would be with a man. Funny how things go.

[dawn_felagund]

Okay, Oshun's comment destroyed me, and this one put the nails in my coffin. I'm done. I didn't know that posting this long-ass table of dry data would end up making me laugh so hard!

Darth's 22 Words You Never Thought Tolkien Would Provide certainly suggests that, in the early years, Tolkien envisioned a world that wasn't quite as sexless as the canatics would like to think.

In LaCE we're told that "the union of love is indeed to [the Eldar] great delight and joy"

I remember being rather surprised that Tolkien was that explicit! This isn't the joyless for-procreative-purposes-only sex that, to take the word of more conservative writers, was all that existed in his world. And L&C isn't exactly an early text like the wordlists Darth used and so can't be so easily written off as inspired by the randiness of youth ... ;)

[oloriel]

And L&C isn't exactly an early text like the wordlists Darth used and so can't be so easily written off as inspired by the randiness of youth ... ;)

Well, it's the Jewish/ old testament stance on sex, really. The whole thing. "Sex is fun and meant to be, but only between married couples." (I am obviously paraphrasing.) So it means Tolkien isn't sticking to the Catholic interpretation (OMG!), but it's still a Biblical tradition. ;)

[dawn_felagund]

it did me lasting damage. It used up all my patience.

This destroyed me when I first read it last night. My heart sank a little at the end of the first sentence, thinking that thin skin and grocery list of ailments to which Tumblr is prone had rubbed off on you. Then I got to the second sentence! :D

I don't want a fictional world without a spectrum of sexual preference and gender identification.

Amen. And I continue to insist that the texts support that position more than the canatic's totally heteronormative Arda.

[heartofoshun]

Here is the issue for me. I found it very difficult to reconcile the technological and magical level of a society and a people which could produce the Silmarili, communicate long distances by means of the Palantiri, produce something like Galadriel's mirror, be capable to developing skills of Ósanwe-kenta, the Rings of Power, etc., etc. and yet hold Medieval or Victorian positions of intolerance on questions of sexual preference and gender identification.

Or to the reader/writer who wants to believe in the ideas about those things as detailed in Law and Customs might believe those messy (and wonderful) parts of being human might have been eradicated: one can read the stories, their victories and their failures, quite the contrary, the Eldar, for example, are beautifully, painfully, tragically, and spectacularly human. Then with that comes all the baggage--the infinite variations on these questions among humankind! Who wants to even imagine life without all that?

[heartofoshun]

I am not sure I understand your point? I don't think mine was very clear either.

I do suffer from a sort of fandom PTSD and Tumblr has aggravated it for me because the lecturing and hectoring reminds me of the Bad Old Days. Entering the Tolkien fandom with its homophobic, anti-m/m and anti-f/f elements and people calling for warnings about sex (other than simply noting there is adult content) and the phobia about handling things that happen in real life like infidelity or sex outside of marriage or whatever, surprised and appalled me. It looked and felt and smelled like censorship to me. And this was supposed to be fun and art and storytelling. Truth is I don't like to be told what to write by anyone.

[dawn_felagund]

I must have misunderstood you; I didn't doubt that you'd lost your patience from fandom but did think you meant it kind of tongue in cheek. I did find the way you worded it funny! I'm sorry!

On the last sentence ... neither do I. It's really quite easy for people to avoid my work if they don't like what I have to write about.

[heartofoshun]

OMG! I am so embarrassed! I was a little loopy from the painkiller and feeling terribly depressed also yesterday. I know I should stay away from public forums when I am feeling so rotten.

It has been a fairly incredibly stressful week (or couple of months!) for me. Feeling better today.

I forgot to tell you. I did get to go through the entire presentation (both the recording and on paper). It's excellent. It was quite an organization task to handle so much material, retain the contain and purpose, within such strict limits. The accompanying handout was really useful tool.