"Queer Female Space" and Race (among other things)
Okay, so I've been commenting all over the latest incarnation of Queer Female Space Discussion in fandom. Highlights include kalpurna here, mskatej here, and cryptoxin here and here, as well as the excellent flocked post by cathexys.
I've posted a fully academicized paper on the subject already, flocked (because I always flock my academic work when I post it); but I'd like to raise some of the questions that continue to bother me in a public conversation.
So there's the utopian idea of a queer female transformative sexualized fannish space, which is full of queered and queering interactions between people and texts, reframing conventional ideas of sexuality by prioritizing fantasy and adopting the language of academic queer theory to describe itself. That's how I understand the queer female space thing, and I enjoy it enormously.
Then there are the critiques: the primary one being that many of the participants and much of the work produced in this so-called 'queer female space' is very heteronormative. I agree that this is troubling, although I think that context isn't entirely ruled out by content, and that one of the "queerest" things about slash fandom is the way that it proves ossified notions of normative sexuality are far from normal.
But I am wondering about another aspect of the queer female space rhetoric, one that I haven't seen discussed in the posts I've read (though I may have missed it, and please point me there if I have). And that's the question of who takes pleasure in declaiming the utopian joys of queer fannish participation, and who doesn't. Let me be clearer: I'm wondering about the intersection between the queer female space issue, which highlights the difference and subversiveness of slashers' activities, and the critique of fandom's reproduction and perpetuation of all those nasty things in dominant culture like racism and antisemitism and, yes, misogyny and homophobia. How ethical is it to get all squee-ful about fannish utopia when it has such great gaping holes in it?
I don't think that many people are really claiming queer female space as a genuine utopia; most of the discussions I have read are carefully delineated by the poster's experience and communities, and raise lots of criticisms beyond the 'what about the straight people?' question which skirts a fine line between homophobia and the refusal to appropriate marginal identity.
But. I still wonder where race, class, and the slow-moving chipping-away at fandom's social-justice cluelessness which I think (utopianly?) is under way, might fit in here. If, for example, fans of colo(u)r and allies might experience the same queer pleasures in fandom but be less inclined to wax utopian about a context in which words and acts which directly cause pain to them-and-theirs can be dismissed as 'squee-harshing' and trolling? If the depoliticization of fantasy which so often goes hand in hand with the way fannish exploration of taboo desires are praised means something very different for some folk than for others? To what extent is the celebratory queer female space also a white space?
My rule of thumb for thinking about my implication in whiteness and other sorts of privilege is to analogise to the way I feel about rich people,* about the assumptions people for whom money has never conditioned what they could and couldn't do make about what should be a priority. If the queer utopia had a $1000 buy-in price which everyone was convinced was entirely reasonable, I would tell it (I hope) to fuck off**; do these articulations of pleasure-above-all have a similar cost, in the form of suppression of criticism?
Let me disclaim again: I know that nobody is claiming 'queer female space' as a monolith. I know that complex criticisms of the idea are as much part of this conversation as assertions of the fun of it. I just wanted to bring this issue in, and see what thoughts people had on the subject.
So what do you think?
* I, um, hate them. I mean, not as individuals and all and some of them are very nice and some of my best friends are rich and yada yada yada; but economic privilege often brings a certain way of approaching the world that I can never feel entirely comfortable with. And thinking about that makes it easier for me to respect that I might have ways of approaching the world that people from backgrounds less privileged in other ways than mine can't feel entirely comfortable with either.
** One could argue that in using the cultural privilege associated by education to move into a different and higher-class social sphere from the one in which I grew up, that's exactly what I've done, and I wouldn't necessarily argue: but then I wouldn't call it utopian or even particularly ethical, either.
One last disclaimer: I am about to go to a conference, and may not be able to answer comments as quickly as I'd like. But I really want to talk about this, and I will be back soon enough!
I've posted a fully academicized paper on the subject already, flocked (because I always flock my academic work when I post it); but I'd like to raise some of the questions that continue to bother me in a public conversation.
So there's the utopian idea of a queer female transformative sexualized fannish space, which is full of queered and queering interactions between people and texts, reframing conventional ideas of sexuality by prioritizing fantasy and adopting the language of academic queer theory to describe itself. That's how I understand the queer female space thing, and I enjoy it enormously.
Then there are the critiques: the primary one being that many of the participants and much of the work produced in this so-called 'queer female space' is very heteronormative. I agree that this is troubling, although I think that context isn't entirely ruled out by content, and that one of the "queerest" things about slash fandom is the way that it proves ossified notions of normative sexuality are far from normal.
But I am wondering about another aspect of the queer female space rhetoric, one that I haven't seen discussed in the posts I've read (though I may have missed it, and please point me there if I have). And that's the question of who takes pleasure in declaiming the utopian joys of queer fannish participation, and who doesn't. Let me be clearer: I'm wondering about the intersection between the queer female space issue, which highlights the difference and subversiveness of slashers' activities, and the critique of fandom's reproduction and perpetuation of all those nasty things in dominant culture like racism and antisemitism and, yes, misogyny and homophobia. How ethical is it to get all squee-ful about fannish utopia when it has such great gaping holes in it?
I don't think that many people are really claiming queer female space as a genuine utopia; most of the discussions I have read are carefully delineated by the poster's experience and communities, and raise lots of criticisms beyond the 'what about the straight people?' question which skirts a fine line between homophobia and the refusal to appropriate marginal identity.
But. I still wonder where race, class, and the slow-moving chipping-away at fandom's social-justice cluelessness which I think (utopianly?) is under way, might fit in here. If, for example, fans of colo(u)r and allies might experience the same queer pleasures in fandom but be less inclined to wax utopian about a context in which words and acts which directly cause pain to them-and-theirs can be dismissed as 'squee-harshing' and trolling? If the depoliticization of fantasy which so often goes hand in hand with the way fannish exploration of taboo desires are praised means something very different for some folk than for others? To what extent is the celebratory queer female space also a white space?
My rule of thumb for thinking about my implication in whiteness and other sorts of privilege is to analogise to the way I feel about rich people,* about the assumptions people for whom money has never conditioned what they could and couldn't do make about what should be a priority. If the queer utopia had a $1000 buy-in price which everyone was convinced was entirely reasonable, I would tell it (I hope) to fuck off**; do these articulations of pleasure-above-all have a similar cost, in the form of suppression of criticism?
Let me disclaim again: I know that nobody is claiming 'queer female space' as a monolith. I know that complex criticisms of the idea are as much part of this conversation as assertions of the fun of it. I just wanted to bring this issue in, and see what thoughts people had on the subject.
So what do you think?
* I, um, hate them. I mean, not as individuals and all and some of them are very nice and some of my best friends are rich and yada yada yada; but economic privilege often brings a certain way of approaching the world that I can never feel entirely comfortable with. And thinking about that makes it easier for me to respect that I might have ways of approaching the world that people from backgrounds less privileged in other ways than mine can't feel entirely comfortable with either.
** One could argue that in using the cultural privilege associated by education to move into a different and higher-class social sphere from the one in which I grew up, that's exactly what I've done, and I wouldn't necessarily argue: but then I wouldn't call it utopian or even particularly ethical, either.
One last disclaimer: I am about to go to a conference, and may not be able to answer comments as quickly as I'd like. But I really want to talk about this, and I will be back soon enough!