Coming out...or not
Recommending a nice post by bluefall here on characters leaving the closet. There's nothing I can really add to it, but the basic idea is just that slash so often deals with ostensibly straight characters, and so writers often deal with the characters themselves coming to the realization of being gay, but sometimes the process of coming out to other people is overlooked.
Of course that made me think about slash I've read...
I've often said that I felt lucky being in fandoms that took place in other worlds because authors could then choose how they wanted homosexuality to be viewed in their worlds. Not because I don't want authors dealing with coming out as an issue, but it's nice for them to have the option of dealing with it the same way they would deal with a het romance with the explanation being that in this society it's just not a big deal. It's funny, actually how often I heard that as a blanket criticism of the way slash was handled. For instance, people talking about how ridiculous it was to have Frodo and Sam go back to the Shire for a rainbow wedding with everyone in attendance, as if this was in any way "realistic."
Now, given Tolkien's background sure you could say that the author probably never envisioned the Shire as having gay marriage, much less celebrating such a thing. But for me, at least, that didn't mean I thought hobbits canonically had a horror of gay sex. Fics that struck me as the most believable tended to be those that assumed hobbits expected that sort of experimentation in early life with the understanding that some people always preferred their own gender.
I think one of the reasons I appreciated authors having that option--even if they didn't always use it well--was that so often when people did deal with coming out it became very by-the-numbers. This is why I liked bluefall's post so much because it just goes into how complicated the coming out process can be, how it's different not just for every gay person but for every person that gay person chooses to come out to or not.
It also makes me remember many arguments in fandom about people using homophobia to bash characters. The character the person didn't like was always "randomly" homophobia and decided they hated the character who was gay. What was interesting was even that was often very black and white. For instance "Ron loves Harry--he would never hate him for being gay." Or "Hermione's intelligent and sticks up for other groups' rights--of course she'd totally accept Harry being gay!"
Both of those things are totally valid in writing a story where Harry comes out to Harry and Hermione, but there's no reason they both have to be true. First because one shouldn't assume that a character's reaction has to either be extreme homophobia or total acceptance (with a single compromise in "accepting but stupid" for Ron sometimes). If an author has enough of a grasp on his/her personal version of Ron or Hermione they could make both of those things work. I mean, it's just like anything else. If somebody reads some of the casual hetero-normative stuff in Weasley conversation as coming from a very conservative outlook about stuff like that why couldn't they have Ron--and perhaps the whole family--have trouble with gay people? As long as the author understands that that attitude doesn't immediately erase his other feelings about Harry, it can make for an interesting conflict. Really, if loving someone previously meant you were incapable of also rejecting them for being gay a lot of gay people would have been spared a lot of grief!
Likewise, Hermione doesn't strike me as someone who would be homophobic either but if an author had some clear idea of how she would be--maybe based on an otherwise intelligent person the author knows--they could make it work. I remember one story that did that, actually, where Hermione wasn't hateful, but it turned out she considered homosexuality a psychological problem.
I suspect the problem sometimes for a lot of fanfic authors, especially beginners, is they don't really want to get into the head of anybody really homophobic. They'll use them as a villain, maybe, but don't want to make them all that sympathetic or reasonable. It's much easier to define the good guys as the ones who are open-minded and support the love even while wanting to show the pain homophobia causes--even though you cut out a lot of pain by making the homophobics people you wouldn't want to be friends with anyway. I remember, actually, that this was one thing that struck me as strange back in Nocturne_Alley. I remember feeling like the adult population of Hogwarts in that rpg was incredibly consistent in being passionate about gay acceptance, it seemed. There were a couple of student characters who were played as insensitive on the matter, but the adults were all horrified at the idea of one student calling another one queer. I don't think there were any adults I remember who were apathetic about it or bemuse by the uproar.
Anyway, that was a total tangent. This whole post is really a tangent. Go read the other post for a more interesting discussion of the subject from the point of view of the person coming out!
Of course that made me think about slash I've read...
I've often said that I felt lucky being in fandoms that took place in other worlds because authors could then choose how they wanted homosexuality to be viewed in their worlds. Not because I don't want authors dealing with coming out as an issue, but it's nice for them to have the option of dealing with it the same way they would deal with a het romance with the explanation being that in this society it's just not a big deal. It's funny, actually how often I heard that as a blanket criticism of the way slash was handled. For instance, people talking about how ridiculous it was to have Frodo and Sam go back to the Shire for a rainbow wedding with everyone in attendance, as if this was in any way "realistic."
Now, given Tolkien's background sure you could say that the author probably never envisioned the Shire as having gay marriage, much less celebrating such a thing. But for me, at least, that didn't mean I thought hobbits canonically had a horror of gay sex. Fics that struck me as the most believable tended to be those that assumed hobbits expected that sort of experimentation in early life with the understanding that some people always preferred their own gender.
I think one of the reasons I appreciated authors having that option--even if they didn't always use it well--was that so often when people did deal with coming out it became very by-the-numbers. This is why I liked bluefall's post so much because it just goes into how complicated the coming out process can be, how it's different not just for every gay person but for every person that gay person chooses to come out to or not.
It also makes me remember many arguments in fandom about people using homophobia to bash characters. The character the person didn't like was always "randomly" homophobia and decided they hated the character who was gay. What was interesting was even that was often very black and white. For instance "Ron loves Harry--he would never hate him for being gay." Or "Hermione's intelligent and sticks up for other groups' rights--of course she'd totally accept Harry being gay!"
Both of those things are totally valid in writing a story where Harry comes out to Harry and Hermione, but there's no reason they both have to be true. First because one shouldn't assume that a character's reaction has to either be extreme homophobia or total acceptance (with a single compromise in "accepting but stupid" for Ron sometimes). If an author has enough of a grasp on his/her personal version of Ron or Hermione they could make both of those things work. I mean, it's just like anything else. If somebody reads some of the casual hetero-normative stuff in Weasley conversation as coming from a very conservative outlook about stuff like that why couldn't they have Ron--and perhaps the whole family--have trouble with gay people? As long as the author understands that that attitude doesn't immediately erase his other feelings about Harry, it can make for an interesting conflict. Really, if loving someone previously meant you were incapable of also rejecting them for being gay a lot of gay people would have been spared a lot of grief!
Likewise, Hermione doesn't strike me as someone who would be homophobic either but if an author had some clear idea of how she would be--maybe based on an otherwise intelligent person the author knows--they could make it work. I remember one story that did that, actually, where Hermione wasn't hateful, but it turned out she considered homosexuality a psychological problem.
I suspect the problem sometimes for a lot of fanfic authors, especially beginners, is they don't really want to get into the head of anybody really homophobic. They'll use them as a villain, maybe, but don't want to make them all that sympathetic or reasonable. It's much easier to define the good guys as the ones who are open-minded and support the love even while wanting to show the pain homophobia causes--even though you cut out a lot of pain by making the homophobics people you wouldn't want to be friends with anyway. I remember, actually, that this was one thing that struck me as strange back in Nocturne_Alley. I remember feeling like the adult population of Hogwarts in that rpg was incredibly consistent in being passionate about gay acceptance, it seemed. There were a couple of student characters who were played as insensitive on the matter, but the adults were all horrified at the idea of one student calling another one queer. I don't think there were any adults I remember who were apathetic about it or bemuse by the uproar.
Anyway, that was a total tangent. This whole post is really a tangent. Go read the other post for a more interesting discussion of the subject from the point of view of the person coming out!