A wondering
So do the comments to this post by fandrogyny and the existence of therightfangirl, and the fact that the posts there make me want to tear my hair out and cry and lecture (and comment to the person with the "Lesbianism: it's about girls smooching girls, not transgression against the capitalist patriarchy" icon to say "no, of course not, that's queer!"), mean that my argument about slash's radical political potentials is thoroughly debunked, or was in fact a load of crap?
Thankfully I would say no, not entirely, because I don't think I was ever making any kind of claim for all slashers or even talking about politics in a US-two-party-system kind of a way. I was very careful not to say in that post that fan activity or women writing m/m porn or any similar thing is inherently radical, because it quite clearly is not. Radical things can be done with it just like liberal things and conservative things can be done with it, and the former happen to be the most interesting of those to me when I'm thinking about politics, that's all.
But reading these posts and comments has been, I suppose, a useful if depressing reminder that mine is (sadly for me) not the only way to see the world. Every time I go near the US-conservative blogosphere I get chills. I try not to other people to the point of dehumanisation, I really do, but it scares me to realise not only that if I can have my happy like-minded (well, mostly) corner of the internet, then so can they, but that there might even be significant intersections. My flist has grown a bit lately and I can no longer say for sure, as I once could, that I know the personal ideological commitments of everyone on it; maybe there are more intersections than I think. I'll admit that I find that scary.
The most valuable thing to do now would doubtless be to go read the Republican fangirls' archives and find the points where I might share values with some of them, looking for common ground for meaningful conversation as well as the weak points where I might find space to challenge the ideology of people like them (perhaps my students) at some future date. But I think it would be far too painful to attempt that right now.
I'm making this public only because it follows on from my last public post - I'm not interested in getting into a massive ideological debate here. FWIW. Please don't call the Republican fangirl hordes down upon me.
Thankfully I would say no, not entirely, because I don't think I was ever making any kind of claim for all slashers or even talking about politics in a US-two-party-system kind of a way. I was very careful not to say in that post that fan activity or women writing m/m porn or any similar thing is inherently radical, because it quite clearly is not. Radical things can be done with it just like liberal things and conservative things can be done with it, and the former happen to be the most interesting of those to me when I'm thinking about politics, that's all.
But reading these posts and comments has been, I suppose, a useful if depressing reminder that mine is (sadly for me) not the only way to see the world. Every time I go near the US-conservative blogosphere I get chills. I try not to other people to the point of dehumanisation, I really do, but it scares me to realise not only that if I can have my happy like-minded (well, mostly) corner of the internet, then so can they, but that there might even be significant intersections. My flist has grown a bit lately and I can no longer say for sure, as I once could, that I know the personal ideological commitments of everyone on it; maybe there are more intersections than I think. I'll admit that I find that scary.
The most valuable thing to do now would doubtless be to go read the Republican fangirls' archives and find the points where I might share values with some of them, looking for common ground for meaningful conversation as well as the weak points where I might find space to challenge the ideology of people like them (perhaps my students) at some future date. But I think it would be far too painful to attempt that right now.
I'm making this public only because it follows on from my last public post - I'm not interested in getting into a massive ideological debate here. FWIW. Please don't call the Republican fangirl hordes down upon me.