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

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

[neonstilettos.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the post. The fetishization and exploitation of lesbians by straight men has always made me feel threatened/uncomfortable (I'm bisexual, though) and seeing the exact same sentiments expressed by women in fandom toward gay men is pretty damn awkward.

What extra-bugs is when those same women use straight men's exploitation of lesbian relationships as justification for their fucked-up fetishizing of gay men, as if it's okay to act like a jackass just because that guy over there is doing it too.

[rhosyn-du.livejournal.com]

YES. That drives me crazy, especially when they frame it as "but it's okay for men to say things like this about two women!" Uh, no. It is really fucking not okay, actually, and it is similarly not okay when you say them about two men.

I think the problem is compounded by the fact that fandom places stories that fetishize homosexuality in the same category (slash/femslash) as stories about GLBTQ characters, but I'm really unclear on how to even begin addressing that.

[reddwarfer.livejournal.com]

Wow. I can feel the rage actually simmering. Yes. I've been bi since...forever. And the idea of someone asking me to kiss someone else (seriously, wtf?) or how I have sex with other women (major wtf) is repulsive. I've dealt with slash fans that don't agree with homosexuality. (or saying this one male character only is with this other male character because he loves him-but he's not really gay...or because the other male character is so much like a woman)

I think warning for slash/no-slash, het/no-het, etc is just wrong. List your pairings and be done with it.

[shamusandstone.livejournal.com]

*emphatic gesturing* Yes, yes, a million times YES!

I had an intensely aggravating time at Pride in Toronto last weekend for some of these very reasons: thousands and thousands of tourists and locals coming to watch the freaks prance and snog, on command, for their amusement; to take pictures of or with (often running up to people, posing next to them long enough for a friend to snap the photo, then running away again without speaking) the extravagant plumage and the exposed skin (especially cismen lining the Dyke March to load up their cameras with tits); and to applaud our bravery for making such a gesture. Fuck off! I'm not here for your titillation, or to give you an opportunity to feel smug about living in such a "tolerant" age or nation. It grates me that this happens in "real life" (I strongly question the aspersion in this framing that "online" activity is not "real"), but that it happens in spheres where I've grown pleasantly accustomed to a relatively high degree of awareness or willingness to become-aware . . . that just makes me feel crawly.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

(I strongly question the aspersion in this framing that "online" activity is not "real")

The inherent sementic/logistical quandry of using "real life / online life" have led me to abandon those as much as possible. I think I picked it up from watching Lain, but I tend to refer to online things/life/activity as the "wired" instead now.

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

What you said! Thanks for this post!

[amalnahurriyeh.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this, in general.

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.

Ah, this brings me back to my ideological "everyone is queer! bourgeois heterosexuality is an oppressive trap that we will all inherently fail! just admit it and get over yourselves!" days of collegiate youth. Wait, actually, I still believe that. Just at a lower volume.

I have to say, as a relative fandom n00b (about a year of being active, as opposed to lurking), it is just weird how simultaneiously queer my spaces are (full of female people having RL sex and relationships with female people, and also deeply embedded in squee-over-hot-girls talk) and how...not straight, but heteronormative, or at least compliant with heteronormative feminine practice. I mean, for the first time in my life I'm surrounded my women talking about getting in shape for bikini season. Whereas I get in shape for bikini season by...finding my bikini in my drawer. And my bikini is a set of men's trunks and a racing top. Obviously, the level of fail you're describing is much more serious--but still, occasionally I just want to say, "Why is everybody acting like straight girls?"

Sorry for going tl;dr; I just wanted to comment, especially since I've read a few of your posts before, appreciated them, but never said so. So I'm saying so now.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I find that sort of stuff really weird too. I've never really been a part of the lesbian community, but since I have a female partner now and occassionally she reminds me that we need to go dancing to music recorded after 1950 we go to gay events -- I'm always really taken aback by this. I'm not interested in it, although I suppose I've also always had the luxury of not being interested in it -- I've got a lot of size and shape privilege and can and do also pass for a man when I want to, so I've never had to work at being that girl. Ever. I don't know what to make of it. Yay that lesbians really are just like straight women? Or boo that marking to our fears of inadequacy trumps all? Scares the shit out of me.

Asking Permission

[njc2007.livejournal.com]

I should probably do this through private message; but it I am working on very little sleep lately and haven't taken the time to figure that out yet.

I am on a couple of panels at Polaris (http://www.tcon.ca/polaris/modules/tconguests/) next weekend and would like to raise some of your issues for audience discussion. Do you mind if I do this? The panels are:

Romance vs. Erotica vs. Porn
Description: Sex is part of the human experience, so of course it is written about, but how much you write and in what detail can change the whole flavour of a story. How does one write romance? When have you moved into erotica? At what point is something porn, or "just" porn? Most importantly how does one do all of the above well?

In Character, In Bed
Description: Characterization and setting can't be ignored when writing erotic fanfic. Where do you draw the line and when do you play fast and loose?

Thanks.

Re: Asking Permission

[rm.livejournal.com]

Sure, feel free. Getting more people to talk about this stuff can only be good. These days I play mostly in Torchwood fandom, which should be the awesomest place in the world for queer people, but often isn't -- so that alone tells me, wow, we so do need to be having these conversations.

Let us know how it goes!

[easilymused1956.livejournal.com]

I find this whole 'thing' so distasteful I want to spit. I was forced to leave fandom four years ago and just came back. Now I'm not to sure I want to stay and play.

RM, I commend you for starting such a compelling conversation.

Renee

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know, all of this said, it's not all bad. I have the most amazing collection of friends I've met through fandom, including my parnter.

I think ne of the reasons this issue is so bad in fandom right now is because LGBTQ issues are so at the forefront politically at the same moment when suddenly there is a decent amount of queer canon content and many of the people out there dealing with that and enjoying that content may not feel they know actual gay people or grok the ways in which these political issues aren't a matter of fashion, but queer lives and livelihood.

Ideally, this should be rgowing pains, fixable growing pains. But it's up to us to break out of the "don't say anything critical" mode (and also the "say catty things without addressing the real issues" mode and the "only say stuff that's critical anonymously" moder -- I think at least pseudononymous accountability in these conversations is very useful) that encompasses so much of fandom on so many issues to make sure it is just growing pains.

[candika.livejournal.com]

HooRAY! Great post! This needs saying often and loudly.

The level of arseholishness, bad manners and privilege in some parts of fandom over these issues is stratospheric and people need to be called on it every time they do it.

Further comment for the benefit of certain slashers: if someone who is heterosexual is writing, reading and enjoying slash, then that is an indication that there is at least a smidgeon of queerness in your sexual and emotional makeup. Admit it and deal with it!

[moorspede.livejournal.com]

Wonderful post, thank you!

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

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.

This post was incredibly well-thought-out, and covered a number of awful marginalizing things that I had no idea people were crude or stupid enough to even ask for, let alone expect.

But I singled this paragraph because one thing that seemed to get lost in all of yesterday's Vid!Fail was the notion of promoting Video Awards with open submissions and then restricting it to "non-slash" material because the single judge "doesn't like that and doesn't want to watch that"... as if none of the potential vidders (actual people, not fictional characters) might be gay themselves.

The "no gay stuff in fandoms with gay content" was bad enough, but prohibiting slash content "just because" and thinking that no-one would have a problem with that... it's as another poster said, if that note had said "No PoC, because I don't like looking at them" I think even the comm's moderator would have realized what THAT looked like.

"f*% yeah! You like that, don't you! Take it! Take it!"

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

Well said. It strikes me that there are some parallels here with the way that young teenage boys, (or in fact, grown men) get weird and often offensive ideas about women from watching too much pornography.

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

sorry, posted too early.

This parallel in failure to articulate the lines between reality and sexual fantasy, and genre trope. What actually happens in real life often has little to do with what looks good on camera, or eases a narrative, or operates as an artistic fetish, or as a simplified marker for a reader, or as the aristotelian known.

[rotaryphones.livejournal.com]

I want to thank you specifically for your differentiation between fetishizing homosexuality, and fetishizing queer people at the cost of seeing them as actual people. I'm yet another lesbian reading and writing m/m, and I worry - despite being queer myself - about fetishizing someone else's identity. And yet I could never read or write slash between characters that were no more than objectified puppets.

I'm sometimes bothered by the slash-without-consequence stories, in which the characters are suddenly gay and it's the easiest thing in the world and no one has a problem with it, least of all the involved couple. I understand when people say there's a positive message in these types of fics, but I think your post is going some way to explain why I'm more likely to feel offended. It's using homosexuality at one's convenience, rather than understanding what being queer is actually about. Anyway, thanks for the post!

[demon-faith.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. It describes my feelings well on a number of topics, and...I honestly can't believe some of the things people do. Really.

I identify as bi and my long term relationship happens to be opposite-sex. I love slash fiction, including some aspects of the pr0n, but I'm not really into explicit het. I'm often questioned about this by people who think it's bizarre that I don't want to read het - why shouldn't I want to read it? What's wrong with me for not liking to read this?

Most people who don't want to read slash fiction are not questioned like this. I find that very strange - also, annoying.

[buckfush530.livejournal.com]

Heh. My slash-addict friends think of het readers as "degenerate", so at least some people have your back? Fire with fire?

[halfbloodme.livejournal.com]

And people wonder why I shy away from dealing with new fandoms or people within existing fandoms that I don't already know and who don't know me. I am sick of being used as an amusement factor. Period. I used to have a three strikes policy, now it's a one strike policy.

I have dear straight friends who write amazing slash fic and I've been complimented on my het fic, but as you stated, it's a part of our sexual and emotional identities. We talk to each other, we question if we're putting in something that is offensive or on occasion physically possible but our aim is ultimately to write something that our readers will want to read.

I am sick of being marginalised for who I am. The reality is I work, I love, I live, I have hobbies. Pretty much the same as all my straight friends. I am not a toy for someone else's amusement and I'm fairly sure that a lot of the everyday discussions I have with my other half and with my housemate are the same as those of my straight counterparts.

You want to write about people like me, go ahead. Just back up your writing by supporting the Queer community in a REAL fashion. Don't objectify us.

[kokibi.livejournal.com]

Via meta:

I love you. I've actually seen some of this at cons myself - and whoa, does it make you feel like awful.
Especially things like "who tops", as if these people just can't grasp that a)it's none of their business, and b)there is usually no rigid top/bottom dichtonomy. And if there was, it's still not their business.

Best thing is then to ask the same about their relationships (I mean, if they ask others, why can't we ask them for details on their sex life?) - and have them suddenly snap at you because 'it's rude'. Yeah, Sherlock. That's the point.

But that is just what stood out. I had to nod at every single paragraph of yours.

[belladonnalin.livejournal.com]

This is great. This is a full half of the complaining emails I send to my friends - HI, WE'RE REAL LIVE QUEER PEOPLE IN YOUR FANDOM, COULD YOU PRETEND AT LEAST THAT WE'RE HERE?

[kylenne.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom. I've been involved in fandom to some degree or another for about 15 years now, and I don't have enough WORD in the world for this post. Holy fuck did you ever nail it. I think it's gotten worse too, which is interesting because my first really active fandom after Highlander was the Xena fandom, which was queer as fuck and probably set my expectations for acceptance of LGBTQI fans as real life people a little too high.

I'm a queer-identified bi woman, and while I don't expressly identify as genderqueer, I am tall and androgynous, crossplay a great deal and due to my build can (and do) easily pass for a stereotypical willowy bishounen. Don't get me wrong, I adore playing the drag king but lately I have really questioned whether I want to do it anymore, simply because I'm just fucking tired of ignorant straight girls and their hetero privilege. It's gotten to the point where it really feels no different than the drooling straight boys who start trying to suggest threeways and shit when they find out I'm bi and poly. It's dehumanizing and degrading, and as my circle of friends is almost entirely queer, every one of them has similar stories. I can only imagine how much worse it feels for my dude friends, who can't take the costume off at the end of the day.

Personally I think my patience for this kind of assy behavior has gotten even lower lately, due to all the various fail flying around fandom, and Prop 8, and lack of action on DADT/DOMA, etc. I'm just really tired of heterosexist fans appropriating our lives and experiences as queer people in order to fap but not giving a damn about us as actual people, in a climate where we are facing so many political challenges and we are fighting for our community's right to exist as something more than second-class citizens. It really chaps my ass to realize that the half the jackass "fag hags" whooping and hollering at the Hawt Gay Doodz at Pride last weekend probably didn't lift a finger to help us work for marriage equality in our state. At least I didn't see too many of them at the protests. It makes me appreciate our straight allies who don't have their heads up their asses that much more.

[kahvi-elf.livejournal.com]

here via metafandom

I want to thank you for your post.
I had this nagging feeling for a long time that there are people in fandom that fetishize homosexuals in slash and idolize queer people in an unrealistic way. Since I've been lurking at the fringes of fandoms for years now (was active back in the 90s) I wasn't sure if it was a misconception based on not enough information and a few extreme RL encounters.

Asking to kiss for other people enjoyments, asking who's top ... *headdesk* some people apparnetly never heard about 'privacy'.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Thank you--great post!

I've never had anyone ask me any of the idiot questions or ask me to kiss my wife in public... but I'm middle-aged and, I hope, past the point of being a fantasy object.

There's an incredible amount of entitlement floating around on the Internet, and I don't think it's just in fandom though some of it seems to be particularly obvious there. E-book theft is one example -- hey, it's out there, look at me sharing with my friends (and never mind you're stealing part of the writer's income everytime a 'friend' steals a copy). This may be a rationalization that if fanfic is free, all fic should be... I know of at least one writer who has stopped publishing in e-book format, and I don't blame her. "If it's on the Internet, it belongs to MEEEE," is as juvenile an attitude as I've ever heard.

Fictional slash doesn't bother me at all; the key word is "FICTION." I think it's seriously overdone--even when I was writing fanfic, I only ever saw a probably slash pairing for two or three shows. Real-people slash... is, IMO, the definition of objectifying people, because it isn't just 'gay guys,' it's real live human beings. (Please don't bother telling me how wrong I am, RPS-ers; I'm not going to read replies.) As for those who write slash but believe gay is Teh Ebil... well, they have to live in their own heads, I don't, and I'm glad of it.

I've been the object of that 'women shouldn't write m/m' crap (both from gay men and one irate feminist bully who decreed that queer women should write f/f--presumably whether they like to or not) and trying to tell anyone what they should write is just ridiculous. The action-adventure-mystery type story has been my fiction of choice since I was old enough to read, and it's what I enjoy writing. As far as I'm concerned, a good writer will write realistic, believable characters, whatever the genre; paper-thin stereotypes are as much bad writing as bad attitude.

But after reading a post in an Amazon thread, from a young gay man who was appalled at the yaoi stereotypes and irritated that anybody would treat the genre seriously, I could see the point. It's the same as the moronic f/f scenarios written for men's porn, and it's written for basically the same reason. As long as it sells, nobody's going to make any attempt to stop it--and it will sell, because it's always easier to retreat into fantasy than to deal with reality.

I'm not as active in fandom as I was before I started writing pro. But I met my wife in fandom (though that was pre-Internet, even pre-computer fandom--smaller groups of people, letters written on paper that gave one a chance to think about what was said before mailing it off, and smaller conventions that led to more gradual relationships. I have to thank fandom for a lot, even though it does seem that overall fannish attitudes have deteriorated in the past decade or so. It could be that fandom has a much larger population and less real connection, like a big city, or it might be the overall attitude of entitlement in society at large.

I do hope that your post will get some people thinking.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

You already know I have nothing but a big bucket of WORD for this, but thank you for saying it.

[kittysorceress.livejournal.com]

Thankyou!

I tell you, the number of kids who join our university's queer society for the "lulz" is really just not on. The ONLY gay bar in my CBD of my city has become almost entirely frequented by gay men with straight women watching them, or the straight girls doing a Katy Perry while their boyfriends watch. My girlfriend and I aren't so willing to perform like trained seals, and nor are most of our city's lesbian crowd. But, we start our own club in the suburbs, and sure enough, we're already attracting the watchers.

And I know this sort of thing has been going on for far too long, thanks to the porn industry, but really fandom... where people can just say "I think X and Y should get" has sort of messed up the way in which people see relationships working.

I mean, when at least half the posts in the Merlin fandom in regards the cast are "OMG BRADLEY & COLIN R SOOOOOO HAWT. THEY ARE TOTALLY DOING IT. LOOK AT HOW THEY TALK TO EACHOTHER" and written by others university age students, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised that so many people turn up to Jellybabies with these ideas that they'll be a fly on the wall in every queer drama on campus.

I am so thankfull to you for this post. Really.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

Well said! The insensitivity of some people is mind-boggling.

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

A little late on the commenting front but thanks for this.

I saw the video contest page and was utterly disgusted as well but didn't feel like wasting my time on an arrogant bigot.

Thanks as well for pointing out the existence of genuine queer people in the fandom and the fact that we are not here to perform intimate acts on command for the pleasure and amusement of random air-headed hornysexuals.

Hopefully this has opened a few eyes.

Please continue using your powers for good. ;)

[bofoddity.livejournal.com]

This is a great and important post. Sums up my feelings about this.