The Problem With Slash
Caught this on Tumblr and it definitely needs to be reposted and have its signal boosted like whoa.
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I think my time on Tumblr has kind of changed my opinion of the slash fandom. Not that I ever really gave it much thought before, but I used to think it was so groundbreaking to view things from a slashy perspective. “This makes sense to me so fuck canon, I’m gonna look for subtext! And I can give logical justification for my pairings because I care about these characters and I know the show better than the actual writers!” To me, slash was just a subset of tinhatting - and boy, do I love tinhatting. There’s something so inherently fun and satisfying about using canon as a loose guideline and “fixing” whatever you think the creators dropped the ball on (or what the networks - and the era, especially in older shows - prevented them from doing, such as non-heteronormative narratives) without imposing those “modifications” on other people. “I know it didn’t really happen… but I don’t care, now it makes more sense to me.” Yay, subjectivity! Yay, imagination! It’s the same reason why I love revisionist fiction.
But now I’m starting to think that not everyone approaches it from this angle, as I thought everyone did, and that for a lot of people on here, slash is just about two hot dudes fucking for the benefit of the slashers’ ovaries (the majority of slashers are straight females. That’s a fact). I’m not saying there are no sensible slashers on Tumblr because there are plenty of people who can both critique and enjoy it and there are plenty of fanfic authors who do manage to get it right… but when ‘gay sex’ becomes synonymous with ‘male homosexual sex’, when ‘clearly they are gay’ really means ‘clearly these two men are gay’, and when a post about preferring gay sons (“I hope I don’t get a straight child! I want a gay son soooooo bad! I can print out some fanfic for them! Isn’t it funny that I’ll know more about their orientation than they do? LOL!1!!!”) as if they’re some sort of accessory gets 3500 notes… well, that… that just reeks of gay male fetishization to me. :/
I’m not even gonna go into the treatment of female characters because that’s a whole other issue.
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And as other commenters have stated, "What I do take issue with is people - mostly straight women - thinking that fanfic gay sex is an accurate representation of gay sex and that real gay sex exists solely for their pleasure simply because it’s often used that way in fanfic. Or that male homosexual relationships should be put on a pedestal as the ideal form of love (“Gay people are just better omg I wish I was a gay man!!!”)… again, because of fanfic. Like, masturbate to two fake dudes getting it on, whatever, but if you’re using slash fanfic to construct this totally inaccurate, sketchy portrait of gay men/gay culture/gay sex in your head, then you’re doing it wrong and you need to stop."
And again, allow me to reiterate for emphasis, as a gay man I will not begrudge anyone for appreciating man on man action. Hell, in fact, hit me up and I can make recommendations for some top-notch media that excellently features it. But when you're fetishizing and appropriating gay men/gay cluture and inacurrately depicting us for your own agenda, then you need to seriously need to stop because that shit is not cool.
_______________________
I think my time on Tumblr has kind of changed my opinion of the slash fandom. Not that I ever really gave it much thought before, but I used to think it was so groundbreaking to view things from a slashy perspective. “This makes sense to me so fuck canon, I’m gonna look for subtext! And I can give logical justification for my pairings because I care about these characters and I know the show better than the actual writers!” To me, slash was just a subset of tinhatting - and boy, do I love tinhatting. There’s something so inherently fun and satisfying about using canon as a loose guideline and “fixing” whatever you think the creators dropped the ball on (or what the networks - and the era, especially in older shows - prevented them from doing, such as non-heteronormative narratives) without imposing those “modifications” on other people. “I know it didn’t really happen… but I don’t care, now it makes more sense to me.” Yay, subjectivity! Yay, imagination! It’s the same reason why I love revisionist fiction.
But now I’m starting to think that not everyone approaches it from this angle, as I thought everyone did, and that for a lot of people on here, slash is just about two hot dudes fucking for the benefit of the slashers’ ovaries (the majority of slashers are straight females. That’s a fact). I’m not saying there are no sensible slashers on Tumblr because there are plenty of people who can both critique and enjoy it and there are plenty of fanfic authors who do manage to get it right… but when ‘gay sex’ becomes synonymous with ‘male homosexual sex’, when ‘clearly they are gay’ really means ‘clearly these two men are gay’, and when a post about preferring gay sons (“I hope I don’t get a straight child! I want a gay son soooooo bad! I can print out some fanfic for them! Isn’t it funny that I’ll know more about their orientation than they do? LOL!1!!!”) as if they’re some sort of accessory gets 3500 notes… well, that… that just reeks of gay male fetishization to me. :/
I’m not even gonna go into the treatment of female characters because that’s a whole other issue.
_______________________
And as other commenters have stated, "What I do take issue with is people - mostly straight women - thinking that fanfic gay sex is an accurate representation of gay sex and that real gay sex exists solely for their pleasure simply because it’s often used that way in fanfic. Or that male homosexual relationships should be put on a pedestal as the ideal form of love (“Gay people are just better omg I wish I was a gay man!!!”)… again, because of fanfic. Like, masturbate to two fake dudes getting it on, whatever, but if you’re using slash fanfic to construct this totally inaccurate, sketchy portrait of gay men/gay culture/gay sex in your head, then you’re doing it wrong and you need to stop."
And again, allow me to reiterate for emphasis, as a gay man I will not begrudge anyone for appreciating man on man action. Hell, in fact, hit me up and I can make recommendations for some top-notch media that excellently features it. But when you're fetishizing and appropriating gay men/gay cluture and inacurrately depicting us for your own agenda, then you need to seriously need to stop because that shit is not cool.