(no subject)
Thoughts on slash and just what it is about two boys shagging:
See, for me, the question of why straight girls like slash is, at least on the surface, pretty straightfoward. Boys. Shagging. Boys pretty, two boys even prettier. So much for straight girls.
But why do I like slash? Moreover, why have references to queerness in mainstream novels always made my heart go pitta-pat in a way that nothing else really has? So much so that in one novel I read on page 598 or something, there's a reference to some random relative who lived in San Fransisco with an Airman and this struck me so deeply that, depsite the fact that it was irrelevent to the plot, I remembered it for years? Of course, I spent many years trying to figure out if I actually was looking at homoerotic subtext or if it was just my brain being dirty. Then, I reread and realized, yeah, they're clearly canonically gay. And then I found slash and realized it was a moot point. But the fact remains: Boys in love make me go squee like few other things, including female queerness. Sure, I read lesbian fluff, have several very bad lesbian novels on my bookshelf at home... but it doesn't hurt the way boys realizing they like other boys does.
And I realize that it's not really so much about being a fag-hag or a girlfag. Oh, I like the gaybois I know in real life, but it's not the same dynamic. It's all about the fictional gaybois, the literary gaybois, the Beautiful Slash Objects.
And it's not like I'm all about reading pulp written by actual gaymen. That's written for a different audiance, with different kinks, and they aren't mine. I mean, h/c is not a big thing in gay porn. Nor is UST, from my understanding.
So, for all we're stressing realism, for all I scream "canon!" really, I love playing in a fictional universe, and yeah, I feminize my gaybois, because I write the world and I write the Stargate universe from my perspective, and my perspective is decidedly feminine.
But explain to me this: gay male porn is about very masculine guys, very muscled, very... macho. And straight men's lesbian porn has very feminine women, high heels and lipstick and all. While in lesbian porn and in slashfic, the characters are somewhat androgynous. Is this a fundamental difference between boys and girls and what turns us on? Is it a function of the social construction of gender?
Am especially curious to hear from the gaybois on my list who read both slash and gay porn written by gay men.
See, for me, the question of why straight girls like slash is, at least on the surface, pretty straightfoward. Boys. Shagging. Boys pretty, two boys even prettier. So much for straight girls.
But why do I like slash? Moreover, why have references to queerness in mainstream novels always made my heart go pitta-pat in a way that nothing else really has? So much so that in one novel I read on page 598 or something, there's a reference to some random relative who lived in San Fransisco with an Airman and this struck me so deeply that, depsite the fact that it was irrelevent to the plot, I remembered it for years? Of course, I spent many years trying to figure out if I actually was looking at homoerotic subtext or if it was just my brain being dirty. Then, I reread and realized, yeah, they're clearly canonically gay. And then I found slash and realized it was a moot point. But the fact remains: Boys in love make me go squee like few other things, including female queerness. Sure, I read lesbian fluff, have several very bad lesbian novels on my bookshelf at home... but it doesn't hurt the way boys realizing they like other boys does.
And I realize that it's not really so much about being a fag-hag or a girlfag. Oh, I like the gaybois I know in real life, but it's not the same dynamic. It's all about the fictional gaybois, the literary gaybois, the Beautiful Slash Objects.
And it's not like I'm all about reading pulp written by actual gaymen. That's written for a different audiance, with different kinks, and they aren't mine. I mean, h/c is not a big thing in gay porn. Nor is UST, from my understanding.
So, for all we're stressing realism, for all I scream "canon!" really, I love playing in a fictional universe, and yeah, I feminize my gaybois, because I write the world and I write the Stargate universe from my perspective, and my perspective is decidedly feminine.
But explain to me this: gay male porn is about very masculine guys, very muscled, very... macho. And straight men's lesbian porn has very feminine women, high heels and lipstick and all. While in lesbian porn and in slashfic, the characters are somewhat androgynous. Is this a fundamental difference between boys and girls and what turns us on? Is it a function of the social construction of gender?
Am especially curious to hear from the gaybois on my list who read both slash and gay porn written by gay men.