WriterCon: *fail edition

[rm]

WriterCon has two types of programming: programming that is planned and panelists chosen by Con Programming, and programming organized by attendees and included on the official con schedule but not really endorsed or not by WriterCon. This, as you might imagine, can make things a little murky. I do like that both types of programming exist at the con, but I thought it needed more clarification in places. I explain this because it's necessary to some of the *fail issues I'm about to address.

I also want to note, in what I will go into in a separate post, that there were many, many things I loved about this con: including the focus on transformative works craft, the multi-fandom attendees and the really fantastic efforts of accommodation the Con Staff made towards folks with special needs, including dietary. I have never, ever felt like a con staff cared more about each of its attendees on an individual basis.

Which is why when fail came, I was like "woah, what the fuck?!"

Sadly, I think much of the fail is a product of the fact that people have become defensive. People are scared of these discussions, and I have to say while they are often unfun and heartbreaking (who wants to be the target of this stuff? who wants to realize they've hurt people or a community they care about no matter how inadvertently?) -- jeez they are not going to kill you, and they certainly aren't a reason to fail more.

Like most SF/F and fandom cons, only about 5% of the attendees were PoC. Honestly, this was more than I was expecting, and it was nice to see that these people were part of programming and not just on RaceFail-related topics. Also a plus -- lots of fliers for the Carl Brandon Society.

However, at more than one panel more than one person noticed folks avoiding calling on PoC attendees and had to step in and make sure those people got heard. FUCKED UP.

Of the official programming there was a single panel entitled "Evil in Our Midst: Dealing with racism, sexism and homophobia in fandom." Because of my flight schedule, I was only able to attend half of it. I have to assume it was placed towards the end of the con so that if it went badly, it wouldn't affect the mood of the whole con, but these issues can't be afterthoughts, and scheduling things in such a way to make sure the issue isn't infused throughout the con and prevents people from attending is really problematic. On the plus side, the attendance was pretty damn good anyway!

The panel was made up of a fantastically diverse group and was so able to encompass a lot of perspectives. However, the panel was moderated by a straight, white woman, and I couldn't figure that out. Did the PoC and queer folks need translation? Could they not speak for themselves? This was uncomfortable to me at the time, and has become increasingly more upsetting to me in my head (yes, there's the sexism angle, but because the con was more than 95% female, a white, straight woman in this case is totally a part of the dominant group and appointing her to the position of power was sort of creepy - no slight on her (ETA: who has subsequently posted some great stuff, linked to later in all this, about privilege -- so I get why she was chosen, but the impression is delivered sadly doesn't stop being problematic and I have to believe that other people on the panel would have been equally capable of moderating), I'm just not sure this was thought out super-well.

The panel was necessarily very 101-level although some really interesting stuff came up, including a discussion of Bollywood as a fandom (what does it mean when we fan an entire culture? are you wearing a saree because you like the aesthetic or because you're cosplaying? do you get how that impacts actual South Asian people?) and the usual vaguely derail-y things ("should our goal be not to offend anyone?").

Then I had to leave to catch my flight.

And then apparently other things happened that people who were there and people who were on the panel will address at more length and more accurately than me, but the phone call I got at the airport included the report that someone got up and said they felt marginalized for being straight and that they felt marginalized for being in a fandom and having a child, and I can't not address this. (ETA: I have subsequently learned that in small post-panel discussions the woman's point was actually about age-ism in fandom, which is a very real and legitimate problem, but hopefully those discussions also highlighted how incredibly fail-y and rude it was to say "am I not fucked up enough to be in fandom?" -- I'm not fucked up for being queer and my friends aren't fucked up for being transfolk or PoC: further insight into events here: http://community.livejournal.com/writercon/228157.html / http://rahirah.livejournal.com/411832.html (same post, different comments)).

I am queer every day. And every once in a while I get to hang out in a queer space, such that I don't have to worry if I'm dressing femininely enough to get through airport security or if kissing my girlfriend on my street corner at 11:30 at night is really the best fucking idea in the world.

And I get that feeling marginalized even for a minute is weird and can be heartrending. I get this specifically as it applies to fandom: a lot of us were outcasts growing up, a lot of us don't have face-to-face fannish communities to be a part of where we live, and when we go to a con, we want everyone to be just like us. We don't want to be outcasts -- not still, not again.

But I gotta tell you something -- and this isn't about bias and oppression and marginalization, it's just about life -- it's what I learned from fencing, from learning to fight: We all die alone. And we all fight alone. And we all live alone. On some level, we are always, always, always in a space where no one can know what we are feeling and how strange and terrible and lonely we are -- whether we're straight white guys or people of color or queer folks or a mom at a con.

And in being who I am -- someone who is melancholy and mournful, who views the solid presence of other people in my life as a one-in-a-billion craps shoot I can't believe I won -- you have all my compassion, all my love, all my sympathy and all my interest, because that is, innately, how I react to people who, like me, who know this nature of aloneness. You are beautiful to me.

But you need to step back. Because no, you are not marginalized or oppressed because you are part of the dominant group and people who are part of other groups are stepping up to say that we want some damn consideration. Nor are you marginalized or oppressed because you chose to have a kid. I spent most of the weekend with a woman who is second-generation fen and her baby; we wrote fic together, talked about slash and hung out with her wife. So no matter how different you may feel from what you perceive to be the majority of fandom, no one is being oppressed because they have a kid -- if someone's rude to you, that's actually something else -- the -ism's are something way beyond rudeness or you feeling awkward or out of place.

Look, I don't like being part of a marginalized group. It's not fun or romantic. Some of us -- both in these groups and outside of them -- have to learn this, just as many of us have to go through the thing where we learn there's nothing cool or fun about poverty or having to whore (as opposed to choosing to engage in sex work) to put food on the table or get the damn rent paid.

And that's about all I'm capable of saying without resorting to a great deal of obscenity, so I'm going to stop there on this particular part of the situation.

Moving on, I think no one is well-served by there just being one panel for the racism, homophobia and sexism conversations, as they are three very different things. Because transformative works fanishness is perceived as so female dominated (and probably is) the sexism discussion must largely be about internalized-sexism and that's a profoundly different conversation than the conversation about queer fetishization. And race issues are very different from that -- because I can look gender-conforming and straight going through airport security, while PoC don't suddenly get to be white when shopping, going through airport security or taking flack from asshole cosplayers who don't understand the idea of color-blind casting.

People who are family to me in the immediate sense (good friends and creative partners) and in the distant sense (fellow fen) are in pain over what happened, and so am I. It's upsetting, and as one of the panelists kept saying, we need to learn to listen harder and fail better.

The other case of (specific as opposed to atmospheric) *fail happened in a fan-led discussion that was about addressing slash how and whether it should take into consideration real, actual queer people. This panel also had much positive discussion, some of which started to get past a 101-level I thought, but the moderator had a clear agenda that, to me, felt like "those damn gays are meddling in our porn."

The discussion included a hand-out of potential discussion questions, many of which I found mind-blowingly offensive (I've made a deal with at least one other attendee that we're going to post them all with our answers on LJ over the next week or so), and the woman hosting the panel repeatedly snarked on our table (we were not the only queer people speaking up, but we could, rather legitimately, be perceived as a unified force, as it were) for being articulate and was particularly dismissive to the two PoC people at our table (and the combination of "articulate" and PoC is one of those very loaded, sneaky RaceFail things that happen sometimes and that was seriously, seriously sketchy).

I was shocked and appalled, and while some of this woman's viewpoint would have been potentially useful on a panel, to be an individual with an agenda on a sensitive issue with unvetted programming?!?!?! -- WOW. Not Okay.

Also, bisexuality is real. People not getting this came up all over the place -- in slash convos, in convos about internalized-sexism, in people chatting about Torchwood.

Finally, I want to return to the theme of defensiveness. We're now in a phase of this process, of talking about "the evil in our midst," wherein too many people are either bracing themselves for a fight because of the backlash the people speaking out are getting (I think of my table at the above-mentioned queer panel) -- which of course isn't necessarily constructive but something I think we have an unfortunate right to, or looking for a fight, because suddenly (like the straight person who said they felt marginalized in the first panel I talked about) they aren't part of the dominant group all the damn time.

Additionally, people need to stop dismissing conversations about these issues as wank. Wank is when we gossip about people's egos or get into flame wars about how someone behaved at a con or deal with things that make no sense to most of us: like Snape's Wives. Dealing with racism, sexism and homophobia = not wank.

So what good came out of all of this for me personally:
- I have even more love and respect for my friends, especially having watched ones who don't want to have to be the educators on these issues do it anyway.
- I met some really cool new people.
- I did see people have ah-hah! moments.
- I did learn that there are actually large swathes of fandom that missed the RaceFail thing entirely, and so were just sort of getting caught up on how big the problems are.
- I did see the larger community of the con close ranks against fail when it happened.
- I feel more confident in the value of my being willing to talk about this stuff. I don't like falling on this grenade over and over again, but since no one expects me to be "nice" or "non-threatening" or "look the other way" I have more latitude to say what needs to be said.
- I have new frameworks for the discussion.
- Hey, the Carl Brandon society totally deserves my money.

Comments

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

Also, bisexuality is real. People not getting this came up all over the place -- in slash convos, in convos about internalized-sexism, in people chatting about Torchwood.

And those of us who claim that label get categorized from both sides of the gay/straight divide, too.. one hesitates to ask what form the FAIL came in. (You're not really interested in same-sex relationships/slumming/fence-sitting/can't make a choice/Bi people are really straight/gay at heart... the list goes on..)

20 years of owning this identity, and I'm sure I'll still be surprised by some new form of FAIL... all we can do is keep talking...

[rm.livejournal.com]

The fail was less ugly than that -- but the one that really jumped out at me was when someone asked if it was okay to pair Ianto with Tosh in Torchwood, because wasn't that denying his gayness? Both are arguably canonically bisexual. Certainly, both are shown having sexual interest and involvement with both genders.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

What show were these people watching?

Really, now. That's just bad viewer attention and comprehension.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

That's just...I don't get it.

It's okay to pair anyone with anyone on Torchwood or in any other fandom. That's why it's called fanfiction.

It's one thing to prefer the canon pairings or the canon sexual orientations from a given program, but people experiment all the time when we're not watching! :D

Is it denying a character's heterosexuality to write slash fiction involving him or her?

[rm.livejournal.com]

The question came out of a discussion about internalized sexism and how some slashers vilify canon female partners of male characters or write them out of having ever existed on the show in the first place. So there was a discussion of erasing identity.

(I do for the record agree that anyone should write whatever floats their boat, but they should do it with an awareness of the context it exists in and be aware that if you write whatever you want, people can also comment with whatever we want -- I believe we need a more openly and constructively critical fandom culture).

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. I agree that context is key (and readers do not buy a story anyway without some kind of context/explanation).

But yeah, Tosh and Ianto? This is one reason why I like writing in this fandom!

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

sorry, my comment reads slightly more like an attack list than I'd intended it to. (I have hot-button issues, who knew?) That said, "Denying his gayness" reads clearly to me as an aspect of "You have to be one or the other, you need to pick."

As an addendum to that, I read Ianto's canon line "It's not men, it's just him. It's only him." as the flip side of that same problem: the writers being unwilling to commit to the full extent of his bisexuality, he's "really straight" at heart, except that he's in love with a man.

*sigh* you're right, it could have been worse. I've definitely heard worse. but with you, I'd like us to fail better. :D

[rm.livejournal.com]

All cool, unfortunately now you have to listen to me defend Ianto's honour.

I think the Lisa thing gives us a Ianto who is, as a friend puts it, "obsessosexual" -- which is to say, that the "only Jack" remark is so in-keeping with his shit it's ridiculous. I also think that even after he dies we're shown ianto is a lying liar who lies, who was in the midst of an awkward moment with family -- so who knows! There's also a moment in one of the tie-in novels where he has a self-hating bisexual moment in an argument with Gwen. I think all these things are very much the Ianto I came to know from the show, and feel right to me, but I also think that the writers perhaps didn't think about how this stuff would come off to a more casual viewer, and maybe made a misstep there. Of course, maybe they thought about it and said "fuck it, Ianto's crazy is Ianto's crazy and that's what we gotta do."

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

ianto is a lying liar who lies, who was in the midst of an awkward moment with family

1. I love "obsessosexual" as a term. :D

2. Having been trapped in similar awkward moment with my mother (in a car, in Wisconsin), can easily envision that line as evasion tactic #1. because I was thinking about it from writer!fail perspective (due to spoilers/time/distance), it didn't occur to me as an option at the time of viewing. I believe, in fact, my response was "You f*cking wusses!"

where he has a self-hating bisexual moment in an argument with Gwen.

3. Admit I have read none of the tie-in novels (I'm not quite that level of fan), and am curious to know what the moment was, what did he say, etc. I mean, it's clear in CoE1 that he's having a little bit of an identity definition crisis, with Jack being the textbook definition of unhelpful in response (which made me want to kick him.) But he didn't necessarily come across as self-hating, more slightly giddy and cute until Jack punctures his little happy bubble, at which point he immediately shuts down/closes off facially. (am thinking of the hospital sequence here specifically, which just has all *kinds* of interesting dynamics going on.)

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

:: As an addendum to that, I read Ianto's canon line "It's not men, it's just him. It's only him." as the flip side of that same problem: the writers being unwilling to commit to the full extent of his bisexuality, he's "really straight" at heart, except that he's in love with a man.

This might be one of my favorite lines EVER, because there are just so very many things it could mean. I think a lot of it is Ianto turning defensive in the face of unexpected questioning (or the writers being defensive? I don't believe so, but it's possible!)... but the first time I heard it, it translated in my head as "It doesn't matter how I define myself at this point, because the ONLY person I love is a man." (So yeah, as <lj user="rm" says below, obsessosexual. I love that word.) I hear "It's not men" as "It's not ALWAYS men" or "It's not NECESSARILY men" or "It's never been men BEFORE" -- or, my favorite, "It's not men, plural; it's man, singular." I guess it comes down to this, where I'm concerned: I'm bisexual too, and that line made me smile.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

as noted in comment to rm above, I watched the show well after being spoilered, so didn't have quite the same level of emotional shock: was viewing instead at the writer!fail/criticism level, and thus the line made me react with "F*cking wusses" and throwing her two-year-old's plushie toy somewhere near the screen. I think I like your interpretation better. :D

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

o.O

By that logic, the original K/S pairings couldn't have been done.

Scuse me while I find something to smack my head against. As usual, a meaty post, with lots to think of.

(EG, it occurs to me the very *attitude* that marginalization can somehow be cool, fun, or romanticized is itself composed of such privilege as to blow me away...)

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I'm at the point now where I'm afraid to say that I am.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

*hugs* (and that's all.)

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I should be braver.

My $.02 on bravery and out-ness.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

As bisexual women, we are in a position of peculiar privilege that I would argue no other (queer) orientation has.

Firstly, there is a sense of societal approval, skeezy/"can I watch"/"i kissed a girl"/"girls gone wild" though it may be. We don't get frowned on the way that lesbians, gays, trans, or bi men do, because we get owned by the male media gaze for entertainment. There's a WHOLE lot of layers to this, and I suspect I'll get lit into for being simplistic or pomo feminist or something, but it's true.

Second point of privilege: We have the option of 'hiding', 'pretending' to be straight. If I'm out with a boyfriend, or a bi male friend is out with his (female) long-term partner, we don't have to own the other half of our identity. We look heteronormative. As rm notes above, she has to be queer, or think about being queer, or think about its impact, every day. As a bisexual, I have a privilege and a safety she does not have.

Because of those two points of privilege, I feel that I also have a special responsibility to be out, and be vocal, about who and what I am.

I came out at Berkeley, at age 19, about the time that Queer Nation was doing a lot of kiss-in and visibility protests around the Bay Area. I did some activism work, but seriously, you're preaching to the converted around here. When I left for graduate school in Indiana, though, it was a VERY different story. I got involved with the GLB Speakers Bureau, whose job it was to set up discussion panels in various (usually undergrad) classes and go in and talk about what it means to be GLBT and be out. Audience can ask any question they want, and it's your job to respond reasonably, to debunk, clarify, narrate, or whatever's called for. We got a lot of sympathetic questions, but we also got a lot of flames. It can be hard to face, and I walked away from some of those panels ready to cry, or scream. But the best question I ever got asked came off one of those: "If you like guys AND girls, why don't you just pretend to be straight?"

My answer to this is that I owe it to the folks like rm, who cannot and should not have to 'pretend' to be straight. I owe it to the kids I was teaching, to demonstrate that not everyone is like them. and I owe it to society, to stand with my queer brothers and sisters, and not pretend or hide, but talk about my experiences, and my identity, and continue to confront the tough (and even the hate-filled) questions.

That answer isn't for everyone. But ask yourself why it's important for you not to pretend to be straight, why you identify, even if it's just for yourself. and maybe it'll help you find your answer, the next time you want to be brave. :D

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

Relatively new to this identity myself and I'm still in what seems to be the initial shock period. I had no idea people would go to such lengths to willfully disclude or ignore. Sad, naive little me.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

oh, no, don't let stuff I've said discourage you. and things are a lot better than they used to be, we are a far more recognized-as-separate identity than we were when I first came out (and yeah, god, it really was 20 years ago, trying not to think about how old I am...)

That said, you're still going to have different battles to fight. if you're female, it's really really hard to get out from under the 'bi-girl object' of straight-boys' pron-induced fantasies. you're also going to have to prove that you're more serious about your identity than those "i kissed a girl" kids. I know gay men and lesbians who are reluctant to date bisexuals, because they've had their hearts broken by 'experimenters'.

Bi men have their own sets of issues to deal with, and I think they may encounter even more cultural resistance on both the gay and the straight sides. (and they, even more than women, tend to get hit with the 'promiscuous' stereotype.) but I'm a bi female, so I don't want to speak canon-authoritatively about bi men. :D

It's getting much better. I work a lot with 18-25-year-olds (I do vintage dance & reenactment stuff like Ren Faire as hobbies), and they seem to take this stuff a lot more easily and less seriously than I've had to, which as an activist makes me really happy. Means it's working. :D That doesn't prevent me from getting (quietly) irritated when one of them uses hir identity as bisexual/polyamorous as an excuse to behave in a way that manipulates and hurts other people, but they still have the *ability* to do it openly in a way that I didn't at their age.

This has gotten longer than I intended as a response! but I wish you luck as newly-out, and that's an awesome and brave place to be. :D

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

And one more thing (because my eye is drawn like a damn magnet to anything about bisexuality, it seems) -- it AMAZES me how RenFaire and similar communities are generally so open to fluid sexuality. And people wonder why I'm friends with so many lovely RenGeeks! :)

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

It's the theatre. We understand masks and roles and costumes and partitioned identities and performance of something-we're-not better than anyone. :D

[genmaicha.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for your reply.

I'm actually not really very out yet, but I'm working on it, in my slow, shy, anxious steps. (I'm a longtime doormat who has to overcome the idea that doing something that would make others disappointed in me is the Worst Thing I Could Do, How Dare I.) And I've already made plenty of mistakes in trying to find my place.

I'm in a heterosexual marriage, which also, you know, clouds the issue. After all, how do I know I'm bi if I'm with a man, and why am I even thinking of it at all if I'm married?

But people closest to me are supportive, and that makes so much of a difference.

Thanks again. I'm still working at figuring everything out, and comments like yours are really helpful. I'm glad that it is something I can talk about with complete strangers on the internet.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You knew you liked men before you ever had sex with one, you don't have to have sex with a woman to know you find them attractive.

Look, if you're queer, you're always going to experience the world through a queer lens, even if other people lack the information to experience _you_ as a queer person.

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

After all, how do I know I'm bi if I'm with a man, and why am I even thinking of it at all if I'm married?

I love those questions. I usually answer with something like "How do you know you're attracted to men?" "I just do." "Right. Sooooo...." *invitational pause to draw comparison...*

[pseudo_tsuga.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I just had to reply with this icon. Being someone who figured out I was bi about two years ago, it's still very headache inducing, especially considering how "out" I am with people. For example, if I'm in a large group of straight people and they're assuming I'm straight too, should I correct them? I do find guys attractive but the same goes for girls. On the other hand, it feels pretentious and self-righteous and it'll just make a huge awkward pause. (It also makes me dump my issues on strangers! Feel free to ignore all that if you want to).

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I love the icon!

As to who to tell and how, that's something everyone has to decide for themselves. You know more about your friends than I do, to guess when and how is the best time for them to hear about it.