Oh Noes! There's Gay People In My Fandom!

[rm]

I want to preface this by saying that not only do I not have the solution, I'm having a hard time defining the problem, because it's more complex than it seems at first glance. I also want to preface this by saying I'm not interested in the misery olympics, nor do I speak for (or about) all fannish types or all queer folks who intersect with fandom. I'm also not interested in explaining Privilege 101 to anyone. Yes, I'm expecting a bit of awareness or prep work to ride this ride. (ETA: Since I am starting to get some comments that Don't Get It, let me direct you to: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/)

Let me also say that this isn't remotely as artful as it could or should be, because I'm sorta pissed off right now.

Fandom has a problem. It's about gender, sexual-orientation, arousal and privilege.

Facts as I see them:

- people write fanfic and create fanart and fanvids. Much of this content examines relationships emotionally and/or sexually. Some of this material reflects the canon relationships of programs, some doesn't. Some of this content reflects gay relationships, some straight, with a decent amount of "other" (poly, other-gendered, etc etc etc) thrown in.

- the relationship structures/types are, in some circles, viewed very much like a genre. Het or Slash becomes a genre as much as Romance or Horror does.

- through this relationship orientation/structure/type being viewed as a genre situation, a number of trends, some problematic, begin to occur. These largely seem to center around a disconnect between fiction and fantasy.

And that's where the following rant comes in:

Real, live queer people exist out there in the world and real, live queer people exist in fandom. And I am sick and tired of us being either something merely fetishized or relegated to a genre either appealing or not.

I am _not_ saying that het people shouldn't be writing slash (one unfortunate drama I've seen on the Internet lately), because hey, what turns you on, what interests you, no matter who you are, THAT'S PART OF YOUR SEXUAL AND EMOTIONAL IDENTITY TOO and I'm all for it.

But, for fuck's sake, if you're going to write slash, you don't get to do that and then say that real life homosexuality is immoral (yep, seen this one in fandom -- and yes, I'm looking at you, Harry Potter fandom) without there being repercussions in the sense of community disapproval.

You also might want to consider that going to a Gay Pride parade just to ogle same-sex couples kissing and not because the parade is fun or important or meaningful AND BRAGGING ABOUT IT, is also a bit outre (yep, seen this one in fandom recently too).

You might also want to take a step back from calling every random celebrity queer couple heroes for being out in places where it's largely safe to be out. I'm not saying it's not brave -- it's hard to be famous and gay and people still get bashed even in places like New York City. But, people have given up their lives in this struggle, and for those of us in the struggle, even if we're pretty privileged and haven't had to do the scary stuff (and for the record, I have been a target of anti-gay violence, harassment and rape threats; I've sat in the ER with friends who have been bashed) -- it's creepy when you call us heroes because you like watching us kiss/hold hands/fuck (yep, seen this one in fandom recently, and yeah, I'm looking at you Torchwood fandom). I am not a hero for turning you on, and neither in John Barrowman. Got it? Good.

Now, while we're at it, you might also wish to remember that while your fictional queer people may be posable dolls, real-life queer people aren't. Think fucking twice about asking people to kiss for your amusement, even if they've been perfectly willing to do it before because the gay people who aren't targets of that moment, who are sitting there in that room with you? It can make us feel like shit, because wow, wouldn't it be nice if you were as interested in our stories as our flesh? (And yes, seen this in fandom recently. Seen it at cons. Seen it towards celebrities, seen it towards cosplayers, seen people not get the difference between choosing to do something for one's own amusement as opposed to an audience. Had this shit directed at me, even by people I consider friends. NOT COOL, PEOPLE.)

And tangentally related to the above? Don't ask couples who the top is. Seriously. Don't. Fuck you. (and to continue on a theme, seen it in fandom, seen it directed at celebs, seen it directed at fans, had it directed at me -- why is it so hard to understand that just because someone will seemingly talk about anything you don't have a right to know anything you want? Also the simplification of gay sexuality into role a or role b is really fucking rude).

Now, you don't like slash? It's not your genre? It doesn't turn you on? THAT'S FINE and you're not being homophobic. The problems always start after that -- and those problems? Yeah, sometimes that is homophobia in action. Here's some shit you might want to think twice about doing:

- When you list stuff you don't like in fiction, try not to bookend references to homosexuality with things like horror, incest, rape, etc. Because that? That sure looks homophobic. (Hey fandom, this one happened YESTERDAY).

- When queer content isn't to your taste? Don't call it icky. (DOES NO ONE HAVE ANY COMMON SENSE? -- also yesterday in fandom)

- And seriously people, when there's a discussion about what categories are and are not included in an awards community or whatever, have enough of a clue to realize that heterosexual content is privileged in the media and that gay content isn't. Having awards for that limited amount of gay content in the mainstream media is not actually "the same sort of discrimination" as awards that purport to be for all content but that actively exclude gay content. (That was also this morning, fandom).

Advice in four words: PRIVILEGE - LOOK IT UP!


Look people, it's pretty simple. Slash is a word for a type of content that pairs two characters of the same gender together (the specificity of whether this means non-canon pairing or includes canon pairing is a debate, but not one relevant to this post), and you can feel pretty much any which way about it, I don't much happen to care -- because the issue here isn't sentiment, it's conduct.

But what slash means is that the content it applies to tells stories about gay people: what they do at work, what they argue about in the kitchen, what they feel in their hearts, and yes, often enough (because holy crap, the Internet is for porn) how they fuck.

The key words in the above sentence, in case you got distracted by the implication of curtains!fic or porn: "stories about gay people."

Gay people are real. We are in your fandom. We are very happy to be here. We are happy to exist in fandom content in a way we don't often in the original material content. We, and the fictional characters whose lives reflect our own to some small degree, get to have full lives here in a way we don't often get from ABC or NBC or CBS or the BBC or WHATEVER at 8pm and sadly for many of us, in a way we don't always get to have with our families or in our workplaces.

So stop treating us like we're fictional. Like that real gay people are inconveniences or blow-up dolls or just some weird, slightly novel, abstract idea.

It's rude, it's ignorant, and most importantly, it's boring. Knock it off.

Comments

[tamanth.livejournal.com]

So stop treating us like we're fictional. Like that real gay people are inconveniences or blow-up dolls or just some weird, slightly novel, abstract idea.

THANK YOU. You say it so much better than I can, and yet I have to try day after day.

[omnipresentdmat.livejournal.com]

Thank you for expressing this a million times more eloquently than I ever could. I've recently run into people who think I'm just too damn touchy about the whole subject, but it's really important to me. I actually got into a bit of an argument about people raising their ratings unnecessarily for same-sex romance in fic with someone on my flist who believed that since that's the standard in every day life there's no reason to believe it wouldn't be the standard in fandom as well. I, however, like to believe that fandom is less ignorant about such things since it's not very likely that, IRL, the people producing the queer content are also the ones raising the ratings on it.

As a lesbian who reads and writes mostly m/m slash, I think my perspective is a little different from the majority of fandom, but I know I'm not alone in that. It's interesting to think about the fact that most other lesbians I know in fandom also write m/m slash (and I do have friends on my flist from all of the shipping camps), but it's most likely due to how women are written in most fandoms and that's another matter for another time. Honestly, there was a while where I had a big problem with the idea of slash as a genre--it seemed a lot like making gay relationships into something completely other and separate from straight relationships--but fandom also tends to classify het and that sort of thing so I see it as less disturbing than I used to.

I'm actually writing a fic about the forced outing of a celebrity and I've come across a lot of people who don't like the idea of acknowledging the sexuality issues at all. I suppose they see it as a positive that they're not thinking in terms of their sexualities (supposedly), but I really think that slash fic that acknowledges the realities of being GLBTQ is important and shouldn't be ignored.

LOOK AT ME RAMBLE, SORRY ABOUT THAT. I have a lot to say about this topic, but I've already written way too much so I deleted a few paragraphs because SUPER FAIL, SELF. It might seem pretty disjointed because of that. Mainly I just want to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for writing this.

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

As a lesbian who reads and writes mostly m/m slash, I think my perspective is a little different from the majority of fandom, but I know I'm not alone in that.

*waves hello*

Nope, not alone.

And I'm right there with you on the ratings thing.

WTF, mate?

[phaenix-ash.livejournal.com]

This is why I don't have time for fandom. I have to keep the level of obnoxious ignorance in my life at a certain level or my head explodes and seeing my in-laws this weekend maxes that out for at least a few months.

[threewalls]

Yes. So much, yes.

The queer stories I can find in fandom have a better variety (easily down to weight of numbers, perhaps) and a sense of ... ubiquity that I can't find in mainstream media. I cherish that ubiquity of queerness. I cherish being able to write while worrying less about the fall-out of queer characters in my work; that I can write them all queer if I want to and this is unlikely to raise comment.

I cherish hanging out in fandom circles where the presumption is that one is queer (that I'm queer), not straight. It's not everywhere, and it always hurts when I run into fandom places where it's not, but it feels better than what I've found offline. I am more out in fandom than offline. Even with all this crap, because it's not like outside of fandom is filled with glowing examples of queer friendliness either. Fandom seems to treat fictional queer folk like people more often than mainstream media; now to treat non-fictional queer folk like people, too (and I don't mean anything to do with RPS).

I do think this critique, this attempt to name the problem and discuss it, is needed. I expect more of fandom. Not only because we spend so much time empathising with queer characters, but because a not trivial segment of fandom is queer. When people act like this, it reminds me that they think everyone around them, the majority, or at least everyone 'important' is straight. And, as you more eloquently put it, that is not so and why did any of us ever thinking pretending it was was a good idea?

But I am also angry/disappointed with the number of commenters who have seen this post as an opportunity to chime in that they've always expected less of fandom in particular.

[thickets.livejournal.com]

Here via a friend's linkage~

I have seen this a bit, and I can definitely believe it's widespread.

The only really big incident I've seen is a particular individual ... in a fandom I shan't name ... who wrote numerous fics involving a very popular slash pairing in that fandom. But at some point she had a "crisis of faith" (in this case, Islam rather than Christianity), and swore to never write slash again. So she deleted all of her slash fics ... and then proceeded to start writing the same pairing, but with one character genderswapped.

....

Granted, she had written some genderswap ... and hey, I like some genderswap ... but what bothered me so much was: Hey, you know. You're still, technically, writing about two male characters. It's like, hey, if you're going to become a religious bigot, at least do it right. This way, you're just being fucking fail on both fronts.

[thedigitalkuri.livejournal.com]

I'm not in fandom anymore. I was as a very young person, and I looked back at what I wrote and it was not good. (Youth, ignorance, you know XD) However, I know a lot of people in varying fandoms and the sentiment expressed in this post and comments also is important.

I think the most important part of this post and the part we have to thank you for is the touchstone of reality. It would never cross my mind to go up to a couple of any orientation and ask them to do anything intimate in public. Pose for pictures, kiss, grab-ass, or what have you. Here on Earth that is awkward and creepy. I've had it happen to me too, not even with a significant other. A some male friends of mine, upon learning that I was into the women promptly asked if I would be obliged to kiss my (rather attractive!) straight friend. The response was a serious and pointed 'NO', from us both.

As a queer girl who enjoys the m/m, I think that it serves a purpose and if carefully done does not fetishize - but the effort and time should be put in to portray characters correctly. Not every gay boy has limp wrists, was beaten by his family or suffered horrible trauma. As in other writing, time and care should be put into plot, characterization and everything else.

When fandom leeches out into real life and the creepy behavior spills over, that's when some wrists need to get slapped hard.

Here via: gallo_de_pella

[oaktree89.livejournal.com]

This.

[alittleviolet.livejournal.com]

<3 Thank you. I think a lot of people forgot homosexuality was marginalized because no one was speaking up for us. It's easy to roll your eyes and pass over things because they're awful, but it's "just the internet" and suddenly these same people are appearing at your coffee shop twittering away about who you're holding hands with.

Link follower

[abunaisakana.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, and YES.

I've always found a measurable amount of members with hostility/fear/disgust towards homosexuality within the slash/BL/whatnot community quite BAFFLING. I've also encountered a number of female... "closet cases" who use girls dressed as boys crossplay as some sort of safe outlet - while prefacing any actions or desires that "in real life of course homosexuality is wrong but..." (anime cons have Vegas rules, I guess).

Re: Link follower

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. As someone who cosplays male characters, well, I can't tell you how many weird fucking things peopel have said to me (and I do me me, Racheline, not the character) while dressed as Snape or Jack Harkness.

The biggest, recurring one is people I've never met, coming up to me and opening with "I hate you" and ten explaining to me, ether n a hostile way or in a confessional way (I didn't agree to hold this, although I suppose I'm glad I can make peopel think) that they resent me for being attractive to the as said character because they are straight, and then they walk away abruptly. It's pretty awful and weird, and never involves anyone stopping to consider my own gender identity -- it's like the amount of casual fail because peopel are wrapped up in their own trauma (about something that doesn't need to be trauma) is epic.

[heather.livejournal.com]

Here via a link from my f-list. Great post, and thanks for making it.

[trie-squid.livejournal.com]

Here due to bifemmefatale.

Did fandom go collectively not-smart or something? *boogles*

But, more to the point, *APPLAUDS*!

This is wonderful and erudite and brilliant.

Thank you so much for having such a smart outlook.

Although there were many ideas that were poignant and needed to be brought to the surface, what was particularly of interest for me was ---> I am _not_ saying that het people shouldn't be writing slash (one unfortunate drama I've seen on the Internet lately), because hey, what turns you on, what interests you, no matter who you are, THAT'S PART OF YOUR SEXUAL AND EMOTIONAL IDENTITY TOO and I'm all for it.

I think sometimes this gets lost in a lot of privilege conversations, especially since what makes up identity is so complicated and influence comes from so many places.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for noticing that. I think it's an important part of hte discussion, and that if more people who have been treating GBLTQ people in fandom badly registered their own interested in slash content in ths way, there'd be less crap dished out to GLBTQ folks in fandom.

[gloss]

Thanks for this -- you rant with great verve and elegance. I not only nodded along but did a couple fistpumps, too.

A couple years ago, I fled wider fandom to escape its queer fetishization; I'm *really* glad to see that your post on the topic has garnered much more positive responses than some back then. Maybe things *are* getting better.

[sweet-fallacy.livejournal.com]

+ I'm glad that you pointed out that people have given up their lives in this struggle because this seems to be an aspect of the struggle that many conveniently forget about.

+ Don't ask couples who the top is. What the-- People actually do that? Really? I've witnessed people being subjected to the kissing prompt - which is infuriating enough - but this goes beyond absurd.

+ if you're going to write slash, you don't get to do that and then say that real life homosexuality is immoral WHAAAAT?! Seriously? I can appreciate pushing the boundaries of taboos in fiction as an exploration (of sorts) of the human condition, but damn.

+ I'm sure I had more points to comment on, but I'm sort of losing the will to live at the moment.

[coco-beans.livejournal.com]

"I want to preface this by saying that not only do I not have the solution, I'm having a hard time defining the problem,"


The best line ever.

[sylvertongue.livejournal.com]

Damn, I love you.

[sylvertongue.livejournal.com]

Erm. I love your writing and the way you express yourself, more specifically. Sorry to be too familiar!

[therealycats.livejournal.com]

When you make posts like this I really, really wish I knew where all these special people come out to play because I would LOVE to read the actual comments and posts that started them (because I do like to harm myself by raising my heart rate and making myself violently angry at things beyond my control). Then again, when you make posts like this, it makes me happy that I'm not that deeply involved with any fandoms these days, beyond fan art and graphics and the occasional intelligent meta discussions that pop up from time to time.

With about 150 comments already, there's nothing I can really think to add that I'm sure hasn't been said already.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Thanks for writing this.

I think you get to the heart of what objectification really is here -- that is, treating groups of people as "posable dolls". I've worried, sometimes, as a straight woman writing slash, that I contribute to the objectification of people who are gay. I've always tried, in my fic, to go for identification, rather than objectification, but I am sure that there are have been many times when my privilege has blinded me.

I think when you get people who say things like "I like slash, but homosexuality is wrong" that reveals a major fail of identification on the readers' part, and I think that's very similar to what goes on in a lot of mainstream pornography aimed at het men -- they like the porn, but in the context of a society that constructs women as "wrong" in so many ways.

To the issue of straight people who expect queer people to "perform" for them -- that's actually something that's concerned me about my writing of slash lately. I was at a meeting of my uni's LGBTIQ Ally Network a few months ago, having a conversation where I could have mentioned that I write slash. Now, I don't normally tell this to people who know me IRL, but this was one situation that I could have -- but I didn't, because I was scared that the people I was talking to -- the people I'm allied with -- would feel objectified by that. And I'm still not sure of what the implications of that are -- was I just recognising that it was inappropriate to mention writing slash in that particular venue, or does the fact that it felt inappropriate in that context indicate that there are larger problems with the way that I approach writing slash as a straight woman?

(Btw, I know that this is stuff I have to work through myself, and that it's not anyone's job to educate me. I'm just putting those questions out there because your post here has made me think about them some more, not to imply that I am owed an answer.)

[semirose.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh yes. There are way too many things in this point I can point to and give my own personal experiences with. I've actually had someone tell me I wasn't a real lesbian (which I'm not, I'm bi, but it's still ridiculous) because I like and write slash fic. Fandom can be so freaking ignorant it drives me crazy.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

semirose said: I've actually had someone tell me I wasn't a real lesbian (which I'm not, I'm bi, but it's still ridiculous) because I like and write slash fic.

Nova, one of the great Blakes7 slashers, had a great reply to this--she said she didn't write m/m slash from the lesbian part of her identity, but from the fag-hag part.

[fiercelydreamed.livejournal.com]

God, thank you.

[oaktree89.livejournal.com]

I can't believe people have the nerve to write slash, and then claim that homosexuality is immoral. That's sick.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Thank you for arguing this so cogently. I'm sick of the people who say, "I write about murderers and I don't have to support them in real life, so why should I support gay people just because I write slash?" You have answered that very nicely indeed!

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

here via metafandom.

I'm sick of the people who say, "I write about murderers and I don't have to support them in real life, so why should I support gay people just because I write slash?"

... I do not even know what to say in response to that. Like- where do you even START?

Anyway, this post has also made me realize that one of the reasons why fic where one character is defined as "the top" (not in a BDSM way, but as if it's a necessary element of being gay) always kind of weird me out just a little. It's like reducing someone's sexuality to a ticky box.

(I should add that I know that often people do have preferences - it's more the assumption that anyone in a homosexual relationship MUST have that preference and further once that preference is defined MUST stay in that role at all times that weirds me out, because it's simplifying things far far too much.)

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

THANK you. This touches on so many things I've had to actively try to get across to a few of my straight fandom friends. The fact that it's been happening for years and so few people actually stop and think about how fandom can come across to gay people is somewhat ridiculous.

[zephyrprince.livejournal.com]

w007 gayboi in fandom REPRESENT!

Also:

And tangentally related to the above? Don't ask couples who the top is. Seriously. Don't. Fuck you. (and to continue on a theme, seen it in fandom, seen it directed at celebs, seen it directed at fans, had it directed at me -- why is it so hard to understand that just because someone will seemingly talk about anything you don't have a right to know anything you want? Also the simplification of gay sexuality into role a or role b is really fucking rude).

Yeah, no kidding, don't ask who the top is. It's so much more complicated than that, people...!

[akaspeedo.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Just--yeah. I'm so glad I found you on lj.

[leodragon1.livejournal.com]

I cannot believe how rude people can be. Asking people to kiss in front of you? Questioning them about their sex life (like whether they top or bottom)? Calling them icky?

I wouldn't do that to anyone, het or gay or whatever. HAVE COMMON DECENCY, PEOPLE.

[leodragon1.livejournal.com]

Also, reading slash but then saying real life homosexuality is immoral?

*boggles*

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I feel like I'm reading something from 2005, when I got into this whole issue with another fandom.

*sigh*