Owning It
Cruising around the Fandom Wank scene recently, I was reading the exploits of a frequent wanker who has dipped her feet in many fandoms. One characteristic of this individual is that, although she claims to love female characters and wrote preachy meta about the misogyny inherent in slash fandom, she overwhelming just writes and squees about white men fucking. The reactions from many observers of wank is that there is nothing wrong with being almost exclusively into slash but she should own up to it and stop pretending she is all about the womens, when really she only has a passing interest in them and really prefers to brush them aside so the mens can hump.
And it made me think a bit.
I need to get over worrying about how PC I seem, too. The majority of ships I am into don't "just happen to be het." I like them because I honestly prefer het. I like het ships not just because I like the dynamic, but because they are het. And that is okay. I should not feel obliged to pretend I view every coupling on an individual basis and pay no heed to whether it is m/f, m/m, or m/f. I am inclined to get attached to couplings that are m/f because I simply prefer to read about m/f romance and relationships. Does this make me a bigot or a homophobe or *gasp* heteronormative? It doesn't matter! At least not to me. I am through with faking my feelings for the sake of appearances.
Though Hetalia remains an exception, I don't really want to read about gay male relationships. I have seen meta around from fans lamenting that subtext remains subtext with all the "bromance" trappings and that Spock and Kirk, House and Wilson, Watson and Holmes, will never actually have a real romantic/sexual relationship. And these meta always bugged me, not just because they always leave me wondering, "But what about all of us who don't see this 'subtext' as hinting at anything actually romantic/sexual?'" I know that I would not want to see a Star Trek movie with a Kirk/Spock romance, or watch House if the titular doc was having a love affair with Wilson. I wouldn't condemn them by any means, but m/m romances do not interest me in the least.
I like het. I do not need it to "subvert gender roles" or "challenge the patriarchy" for me to like it. I like all kinds of het romance as long is it doesn't portray abuse or stalking or other unsavory, unhealthy relationships. But most people would agree that that isn't okay in any sort of love story. Heck, I like stories where the girl is swept off her feet and the couple gets married and has babies and etc.
Maybe I like het just because I am a straight girl. Critics of het often accuse het fan of merely wanting the male character for herself and using the female as a cipher/possession sue. This is quite ridiculous, I feel, for a couple of reasons. First is the assumption that this is even true of het fans. I, for one, do not place myself in the shoes of the female character so I can swoon over the male and imagine him with me. I like the interaction between the two, and I admit I tend to gravitate towards pairings where I see the sort or relationship I would want for myself. But it is not a self-insert situation. I do not see myself as the girl in my ships and lust for the guy. Slash devotees often assert that one of the appeals is that they can step into the shoes of either half of the pair and don't feel they have to identify with the female as a rule. But if female slashers find it so easy to identify with either of two male lovers, is it any stretch to say that a female het fan could identify with either the female or the male?
The second reason those accusations are ridiculous is that it implies that there is something inferior about relating to one half of a pairing as compared to playing the role of voyeur in a slash pairing. I know that the romance novel genre is looked down on with snooty disregard by many who consider themselves intellectuals. But the genre persists. I work in a bookstore, I see how it persists. And these heterosexual romances are indeed geared for female readers to lust after the handsome male love interests through the eyes of the female heroine. By what guidelines are slashers deciding this is an inferior practice to imagining themselves on the sidelines watching the romance between two men unfold?
The third reason for ridiculousness is that the accusation assumes that slashers aren't choosing to identify with one half of the male/male pair. I am sure anyone bothering to read this silly rant is familiar with the common stereotypes of the seme and uke. I am not saying that the writer/reader of yaoi and slash must choose to identify with the uke. But very often I do believe she does identify more with one half of the pairing than the other. I'd say that there is as much possibility of a slash writer hijacking a male character as a surrogate as a het writer doing so with a female. And more often than not, she harbors some lust for one or both lovers in the gay pair.
So those slashers who see het as a genre for teenage girls who want to squee and swoon over cute and sexy guys ("bishies," to use a particularly adolescent bit of lingo) and imagine they are the female love interest, while judging their own craft as so much more mature and sophisticated, are not seeing things clearly. And it is this sort of pretension that makes me roll my eyes at slash fandom and also makes me feel more defensive of my love of het.
I love het. I do not, in general like slash. And I am owning that. There are potential couples where I admit that if one of two males was female I might ship it, but as-is I do not. If my favorite het couples were altered by making the females male and no other change, I doubt I would care about them much. I like them because I like them. But also because they are het.
And I am done feeling guilty about that. Done trying to hide it or present myself as being any other way. And of course this all has nothing to do with how I feel about homosexuality or ANY sociopolitical issue. I like to read/write about heterosexual romances (Hetalia notwithstanding) and not homosexual romances (particularly male/male). That is all.
And it made me think a bit.
I need to get over worrying about how PC I seem, too. The majority of ships I am into don't "just happen to be het." I like them because I honestly prefer het. I like het ships not just because I like the dynamic, but because they are het. And that is okay. I should not feel obliged to pretend I view every coupling on an individual basis and pay no heed to whether it is m/f, m/m, or m/f. I am inclined to get attached to couplings that are m/f because I simply prefer to read about m/f romance and relationships. Does this make me a bigot or a homophobe or *gasp* heteronormative? It doesn't matter! At least not to me. I am through with faking my feelings for the sake of appearances.
Though Hetalia remains an exception, I don't really want to read about gay male relationships. I have seen meta around from fans lamenting that subtext remains subtext with all the "bromance" trappings and that Spock and Kirk, House and Wilson, Watson and Holmes, will never actually have a real romantic/sexual relationship. And these meta always bugged me, not just because they always leave me wondering, "But what about all of us who don't see this 'subtext' as hinting at anything actually romantic/sexual?'" I know that I would not want to see a Star Trek movie with a Kirk/Spock romance, or watch House if the titular doc was having a love affair with Wilson. I wouldn't condemn them by any means, but m/m romances do not interest me in the least.
I like het. I do not need it to "subvert gender roles" or "challenge the patriarchy" for me to like it. I like all kinds of het romance as long is it doesn't portray abuse or stalking or other unsavory, unhealthy relationships. But most people would agree that that isn't okay in any sort of love story. Heck, I like stories where the girl is swept off her feet and the couple gets married and has babies and etc.
Maybe I like het just because I am a straight girl. Critics of het often accuse het fan of merely wanting the male character for herself and using the female as a cipher/possession sue. This is quite ridiculous, I feel, for a couple of reasons. First is the assumption that this is even true of het fans. I, for one, do not place myself in the shoes of the female character so I can swoon over the male and imagine him with me. I like the interaction between the two, and I admit I tend to gravitate towards pairings where I see the sort or relationship I would want for myself. But it is not a self-insert situation. I do not see myself as the girl in my ships and lust for the guy. Slash devotees often assert that one of the appeals is that they can step into the shoes of either half of the pair and don't feel they have to identify with the female as a rule. But if female slashers find it so easy to identify with either of two male lovers, is it any stretch to say that a female het fan could identify with either the female or the male?
The second reason those accusations are ridiculous is that it implies that there is something inferior about relating to one half of a pairing as compared to playing the role of voyeur in a slash pairing. I know that the romance novel genre is looked down on with snooty disregard by many who consider themselves intellectuals. But the genre persists. I work in a bookstore, I see how it persists. And these heterosexual romances are indeed geared for female readers to lust after the handsome male love interests through the eyes of the female heroine. By what guidelines are slashers deciding this is an inferior practice to imagining themselves on the sidelines watching the romance between two men unfold?
The third reason for ridiculousness is that the accusation assumes that slashers aren't choosing to identify with one half of the male/male pair. I am sure anyone bothering to read this silly rant is familiar with the common stereotypes of the seme and uke. I am not saying that the writer/reader of yaoi and slash must choose to identify with the uke. But very often I do believe she does identify more with one half of the pairing than the other. I'd say that there is as much possibility of a slash writer hijacking a male character as a surrogate as a het writer doing so with a female. And more often than not, she harbors some lust for one or both lovers in the gay pair.
So those slashers who see het as a genre for teenage girls who want to squee and swoon over cute and sexy guys ("bishies," to use a particularly adolescent bit of lingo) and imagine they are the female love interest, while judging their own craft as so much more mature and sophisticated, are not seeing things clearly. And it is this sort of pretension that makes me roll my eyes at slash fandom and also makes me feel more defensive of my love of het.
I love het. I do not, in general like slash. And I am owning that. There are potential couples where I admit that if one of two males was female I might ship it, but as-is I do not. If my favorite het couples were altered by making the females male and no other change, I doubt I would care about them much. I like them because I like them. But also because they are het.
And I am done feeling guilty about that. Done trying to hide it or present myself as being any other way. And of course this all has nothing to do with how I feel about homosexuality or ANY sociopolitical issue. I like to read/write about heterosexual romances (Hetalia notwithstanding) and not homosexual romances (particularly male/male). That is all.