sundries, now with extra nutrients

[rm]

How "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" contributes to sexual assault.

The journalism (and journalists) behind the Rekkers revelation.

A Day in Gay America.

Hey, can we get the Dragon*Con roll call? It seems likely that Patty will not be coming along this year as she'll be taking her comps, and it's probably better if I'm out of her hair for that. So who all do I have to hang out with?

Willow killed a deer!

---

For those of you not following along at home, it's emerged that a series of events happened at a con wherein some con attendees were hit on in a predatory way, invited up to a room under false pretenses and effectively walked in on an orgy and/or a sex show and then had some degree of trouble leaving the room because the doorway was blocked by a naked woman.

When the people who were made uncomfortable by this spoke to the ConCom, they decided to ban the folks responsible for the situation from the con in the future. This was all done discretely and no one except those involved ever would have known about it until the responsible parties tried to register for the con again, were told no, and then the issue got taken public, both by the folks banned from the con, and by people who experienced the original problem. Some of this happened on an anonymeme. I hope that's a reasonably accurate summary; considering it's a lot to read and not my fandom (SPN), I'm working from a deficit here. All the links that eventually get you a picture of events are can be found on unfunnybusiness.

Subsequent to all of this tumbling out in the last 24-hours or so, a whole lot of pretty fucked-up conversations have sprung up off this thing, that are relevant no matter what spaces you play in, or how you play.

1. There's been a sea of frigging victim-blaming, asserting that the people who wound up at the sex-show/orgy were at fault for going up to someone's room and/or being freaked out and/or not just getting over it.

That's not okay.

Have you ever been to a con? You meet random people, they say they have booze and fanvids and whatever in their room and you and your friends go check out their room party. People do it all the time, especially at smaller cons where people at least feel like they more or less know everyone.

Not to mention, if someone gets my friends and I up to a room party under false pretenses, I have the right to be like "what the fuck?" I have the right to be uncomfortable. I have the right to decide that someone else's idea of a good time isn't mine, and I damn well have the right to be pissed off or freaked out if it's then made difficult for me to leave in a manner that invades my personal boundaries.

I also have the right to change my mind about whether I want to be a part of something and to be upset when that change of heart is not respected.

2. The sea of victim-blaming has, of course, been followed by a swathe of people accusing those who were uncomfortable with what transpired of sex-negativity. There's also been slut-shaming. Neither are acceptable.

To be frank and non-poetic, this completely pisses me off.

Newsflash: I can like sex just as much as the next person or more and still not want to wind up at a surprise sex party.

Newsflash: No one has to like sex the same way you do or as much as you to be cool. People are allowed to be sex-negative. Lots of people have good reason to be sex-negative. I hate this thing where we decide on a few acceptable standards of sexuality and if you don't meet them you aren't cool. Knock that shit off.

Newsflash: Your so-called sex-positivity is no excuse for bad manners. You don't need to slut-shame in order to address someone using their sexuality to be harmful to others.

Newsflash: Just because someone enjoys porn doesn't mean they want to enjoy your porn.

3. An anonymeme was involved and that makes a whole lot of people say this isn't worth taking seriously.

Look, in general, I fucking hate the anonymemes. I range from not getting it (why can't you just use your name to say what fic you don't like?) to thinking their primary purpose is for bullying. I don't visit them anymore, because they make me upset and that's silly of me and I don't have the time for my emotional response to these things.

That said, this entire incident has brought home to me that anonymemes actually can have value beyond random amusement: harmless and not.

The fact that this involves in anonymeme is no reason to take this less seriously.

Anonymity does not inherently devalue speech, especially in a case like this.

Going to a ConCom with an issue is hard.

I've done it exactly once, and I think you all know me as loud, self-confident, and as someone who often feels very little mercy for those I feel have wronged me. But you know what? I felt like a fucking asshole the time I had to do it. And, I had to be bolstered by my friends who saw the incident in question. I was certain I would not be believed, that my concerns would be dismissed as either female hysteria (an exceedingly unpleasant feeling when you're me and you're dressed like Captain Jack, let me tell you) or BNF diva bullshit. Neither of those things happened, and the situation was dealt with discretely, but dude, it SUCKED. So if you're getting all up on someone for not feeling comfortable stepping forward and dealing with this issue in public, instead of, as they did, discretely with the ConCom, You Just Don't Get It.

Because you know what? I should have gone to ConCom at another con last year, when I was cornered and harassed and prevented from getting to programming I was on, because a man and his son felt they had more right to stop, touch me, and pose for pictures with me, than I had the right to go do what I was there to do. I was a Guest at this con, and I didn't go to the ConCom, because I'm a minor Guest and again, didn't want to look like a hysterical woman or a diva. But what they did was wrong and threatening, and I should have said something.

If it's hard for me to say something, it's hard for ANYONE to say something. Period.

All of the above brings us to our next point: large swathes of fandom (yes, even the parts of fandom that are mostly female, and, in this case, especially the parts of fandom that are mostly female), hate women. bookshop says it all exceptionally.

But I need to do more than just link to this. I need to add my voice to it. Because it sucks. I am in a fandom with an entire genre of stories labeled "Gwen-bashing" because some people hate the main female character on Torchwood just that much.

Now here's the deal. Out here in the real world, if Gwen existed, I doubt we'd be friends - she's so normal, I don't know what we'd talk about. Actually, I doubt I'd be friends with any of the Torchwood team. I wouldn't stand up to Jack enough for his taste. I'd have a thing for Ianto and have trouble making eye contact and he'd hate that. Owen's probably a dick to any bird he doesn't want to screw. I'd make Tosh nervous. But I don't hate any of those characters for that, and I certainly don't need to write reams of stories about how Gwen is stupid or selfish or getting in the way of Jack and Ianto's true love. And, quite frankly, it offends me that other people do.

Look, I don't have the best self-esteem. I expect other people not to like me, and I expect to be punished for my nature. And sometimes, it feels better to quietly insult and berate myself than to take a deep breath and get over it. That's my damage. And it's pretty deep and fundamental. I fake rising above it well, and sometimes I even do. But it's a real, pervasive part of the experience of being me, just as my experience of stories is a real and permeable part of my own narrative is fundamental to how I experience the world.

One of my favorite quotes is by Sei Shonagon: "I have knelt on this book until my knees bled."

This quote speaks to me of two things -- of disappearing and also too of demanding my place in the world, and the terribly high costs of both.

I submit myself to stories; I kneel to them without care for myself: fictions, and also my own narratives of my own life. I disappear into them. I erase myself. As a writer and an actor I value this skill. As a person who has chosen (historically with reluctance) to be their own master, I also recognize it as a character trait that's often dangerous that I am blessed to be able to put to good purpose. I am only able to experience narrative as a sometimes holy thing because sometimes, too, I hate myself.

But I also create stories. I put my blood into them. I make them true. I make them breathe. I make them, and through them, myself, something you can't look away from. Blood is wrath, and blood is love, and blood is life.

So when bookshop talks about female erasure in fandom, I nod in self-knowledge. I nod at my own internalized-misogyny, no less present for its complexity because of my genderqueer status (which is not the simple result of said internalized-misogyny). I nod, knowing the power of personal erasure; I nod knowing what it is to crave that. I know, I know, I know this thing.

But what is good -- even in some very convoluted and not necessarily healthy ways -- for us sometimes as individuals, is terrible for us as a collective culture.

I have knelt on this book until my knees bled. And then sometimes I stand. And I hand it to you. A lot of people despise me for that, but someone has to go to the borderlands and bring the stories back. And there is a cost, but it need not be our permanent selves or public self-flagellation through the humiliation of the creations of others.

Comments

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

Whatever issues I have with Gwen is due to more what the writers were doing to her specifically and the rest of the cast in general in the first season of Torchwood. We were told over and over how elite these folks were, and they kept making lots of decisions that made me seriously doubt that. To borrow a phrase from TV Tropes, they were playing endless rounds of Keep Away with the Idiot Ball. And I say this as someone who loves the show.

I understand that law enforcement in the UK don't usually carry firearms, and I am presuming that the violent crime rate may not be the same as it is here in the US, but I have to admit that her brain freeze in the standoff in the woods in "Countrycide" left me boggled. She comes across someone strangling a team member and doesn't pull the trigger? I am supposed to believe that she received no training as a cop to overcome the natural brainfreeze that can come about in violent situations?

However, I did like what happened with Gwen in "Sleeper". We have been told that she is the "heart" of the group, but in that episode I finally got to see her use her skills in a situation, playing Good Cop to Jack's Bad Cop to draw out Beth's human side to stop the invasion. Still, a lot of the action is a bit too reminiscent of Abu Graib for my tastes.

[elisi]

Thank you for this post - it can't have been easy to write, but it is all the most important and impressive and hardhitting for that. (I hope you know what I mean. Words aren't my friends today.)


Willow killed a deer!
And lied about it...

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

OK, the whole WinCon thing is having resonance for me with that Open Source Boob Bullshite that went down a few years ago and some stuff from LosCon. There used to be a lesbian couple that attended LosCon every year where one would lead the other around on a leash and hobbled.

I'm no prude by a long shot. I'm poly, I've dabbled with BDSM. But *DO NOT EVER EVER EVER* scene in a space not explicitly designated for that behavior. And did I say EVER?

I find that to be massively nonconsensual. It forces one of two and only two reactions: acceptance or dismissal. In essence, you cannot unsee it or "just not look." Damage already done, thanks. And no, the public space at a general SF con does not qualify as an area designated for scene-ing.

WinCon? Oh, that just goes one step further. Props to the ConCom for doing the right thing and banning their asses. Honestly, had it been me, I would not only told the concom, but called in hotel security and potentially the cops.

You wanna have your private orgy? Rock on with your bad self. Get other people in on it under false pretenses and then make it difficult for them to leave? See above about nonconsent.

I have no mercy, none, when it comes to that. Nuke 'em and let somebody not me sort it out.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Actually, I sometimes don't like Gwen because of the way she was written. Her gender has nothing to do with it. With the exception of one crackfic, I write Gwen as a smart, strong, caring individual which is how the 'heart of TW' should have been written IMHO.

As for liking/disliking characters, my favorite is Tosh. My least favorite is canon Owen, who lets see, is a date rapist, and a thoroughly unpleasant excuse for a human being. Jack, Ianto and Gwen take the middle slots but alternating ranking depending on episode.(I liked Suzie a lot as well).

But I think all the characters are thinly drawn and highly flawed. Take Ianto. Is he a lying liar who lies or a crybaby or the best guy ever? I can't believe I'm the only person who likes a good Jack/Ianto fic followed by a Kareokegal Idiot!Ianto smackdown story. And is Jack a hero or a conman? Evil!Jack, or even Clueless!Jack can make for as good a story as heroic Jack.

So why the distinction of Gwen-bashing fic? I'm not sure I know. Yes I think there are those who hate Gwen because of her alleged interference in the Ianto/Jack relationship. Others became upset that every other character had to die or be destroyed (including Jack) so that RTD could have his Excalibur show.

Like all the other characters (especially Owen), she is sometimes written as a very selfish and dishonest person. My personal objection is to being told that I have to see these as qualities differently if they reside in Gwen than if they appear in any other character. I hated Owen when he used the date rape spray just like I hated Gwen when she retconned Rhys (I do not dislike her for sleeping with Owen, however). And I be just as peeved if you tried to find an excuse for Owen's actions.

Sorry to ramble on, but think fandom is very diverse and multilayered (unlike the show). And I don't think you can unilaterally attribute dislike of Gwen to misogyny anymore than you can unilaterally attribute dislike of Jack/Ianto to homophobia.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

But the thing is, seeing those qualities as different in Gwen is exactly what this bashing phenomenon does - as you say, all the characters in this show are flawed, and all of them suffer from poor writing choices at some point, but none of the other characters have this level of vitriol levelled at them on such an organised scale. You raise the case of Owen, who is also an often unpleasant and morally very questionable character, more so than Gwen, I'd argue, since date rape is well, date rape, and yet while some people don't like Owen because of that, there still aren't entire communities dedicated to discussing what a bastard he is. There isn't an entire genre of fic dedicated to punishing and shaming him. That puts the Gwenbashing phenomenen far beyond the normal practise of some people just not happening to like a character.

There's the tonal quality of the discourse (she's routinely described in some circles as a bitch, a slut, a whore, a harpy), the focus on shaming her for her sexual behaviour (her making eyes at Jack is apparently less forgivable than Owen's date raping, Jack's history of torture and child trafficking, and Suzie murdering people), the way she's so frequently - still - characterised as a direct rival to Ianto, despite no canon evidence of any anomosity between them. Yourself you cite the deaths in CoE as a reason why some people hate her, and yet there's no reason to hate her because other characters died unless you're already harbouring a deep resentment against her for existing in the first place - or viewing her survival and Ianto's death as some kind of Gwackish victory over Janto. Are there some people who don't like Gwen who aren't misogynists? Sure. But is the phenomenon of Gwenbashing misogynistic? No question.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I mostly agree with you. I do think there is mysogyny at work for some folks. My point is that I don't like using a broad brush approach to fandom. And I don't get the sex shaming stuff at all.

I think at least some dislike of her character is really a dislike of where RTD took the show. Lot's of people want the show to continue to be Jack-centric. Not Gwen-centric or Ianto-centric. So its not Gwen per se that they dislike, but that they believe that RTD killed everyone off to get the show he wanted originally but couldn't get - Excalibur or Gwenwood or whatever you want to call it.

I think a fair number of people see this is a victory of the Gwen character over the Jack character. Some of that may be due to misogyny, but speaking for myself (which is the only thing I know for sure), is that my Torchwood is centered around Jack. I wouldn't be interested in a TW headed by Ianto or Tosh any more than I'm interested in a TW headed by Gwen. Fuuny thing, the more I write the characters, the more I like Gwen and the less I like Jack. But that still doesn't change my position that for me, no Jack = no Torchwood.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

But all this Gwenwood stuff is pure and absolute speculation at this point, since we have no idea what direction RTD is taking the show in, or even if it will continue, let alone who'll be the focus if it does. There's no evidence at all he intends to focus on Gwen to the exclusion of Jack from henceforth. If anything, it's Gwen's character who's more at risk of never appearing again, since I doubt she'd be in a US Torchwood, whereas Jack might well be. So again I don't see that as a valid reason, since I don't see how it can be an issue unless you (generic you, not you you) were already paranoid about it.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. But the Gwenwood stuff really cranked up right after CoE. There were three things in particular that I recall happening one after the other. First Eve Myles made some comment that she was drama of TW and Jack and Ianto were the comic relief (I may be misquoting and she may have been misquoted from the get go). Feelings were running very high at that point, and what probably was an off-the-cuff comment became huge drama.

Around the same time JB's book had come out and he apparently had negative comments about how CJ was portrayed in CoE and how he was treated on the set. I believe he did say something negative about Eve in this context but since I haven't read the book this is totally hearsay.

And then RTD kept poking the fandom (I know you and I disagree on this point) which got some fans pissed off again.

It seemed liked all this rumor/speculation/factoids came together to produce the "Oh no, its going to be Gwen-centric, not Jack-centric" angst. Along with "he used our Jack to get his original show." And that's where the Eve/RTD/Gwen comments all morphed into confusion. That confusion persists even on AGA today where people have to be reminded that its an anti-Gwen site, not an anti-Eve or anti-RTD site.

Now with time having passed - it does look like its TW-USA or bust. And I agree in that case the Gwen character is more at risk. Though really I think either character would be reduced to a cameo.

Personally, I think setting it 50 years in the past or 100 years in the future back in Cardiff/London solves a whole lot of problems - and allows for a fresh start.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Not liking Gwen (or any given female character) isn't the problem. "Gwen-bashing" as a genre is, things like "Anti-Gwen Allies" is the problem. Those two things exist in the form they do for a lot of reasons, but misogyny is high, high on the list in both cases. It's disingenuous to say otherwise.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I don't agree. I think in any fandom certain characters bring out very strong positive and negative reactions.

And RTD has a habit of taking initially likable main characters and morphing them into thoroughly unlikable people. I started out liking Rose, by the end of her story arc, I loathed her. Ditto Ten. Ditto Jack.

Now Gwen in CoE is another thing entirely, but she had no resemblance to pre-CoE Gwen. She strikes me, to quote the Doctor, as something Wrong. Pre-CoE Gwen started off interesting but by the end of S2 she had little that I admired. Hey RTD is the writer and can make them anyway he wants. But as the viewer, I'm not obligated to adore them. Especially when the writer makes his expectations of my adoration obvious.

There are a whole lot of people who were thrilled when Ianto was killed. Was some of it homophobic? You betcha - when you see a "ding, dong the queer is dead" thread on a sci-fi board - its kind of hard to refute.

But once we put aside the 14 year old boys who were on that thread, I've read far more comments from people who thought he was a whiny boring character. Not cause he was gay or bi, but because that's the way he was written in some episodes. Others felt that having Jack in any sort of monogamous relationship (and there's no indication that he was) was antithetical to his character. And yes some felt Jack should be with Gwen.

And while there isn't a community dedicated to the anti-Ianto's, I've seen numerous discussions on individual journals (and not just Kareokegal's) on Ianto's many flaws. I'd be willing to bet if someone started an anti-Ianto community it would have quite a few participants and most of them wouldn't be homophobic. And I think it would be disingenuous to assume that they were.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I really don't think that an anti-Ianto comm on LJ would get many people signing up to it. Of course, it's all speculation, since such a comm doesn't actually exist (and that in itself speaks volumes), but I think that even most people in fandom who don't care for Ianto that much don't want to risk removing themselves from general fandom discourse by actively bashing him. You can only really get away with that for female characters.

Now, it may well be true that in other sections of fandom, an anti-Ianto comm might do quite well, especially the corners of fandom in which homophobia is rife (I am extremely glad that I never saw the "ding-dong the queer is dead" thread). But I don't know about those parts of fandom, so I can't comment on them. In LJ fandom though... I don't think an anti-Ianto comm would do well.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

> Willow killed a deer!

Hang on tight.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

re: Gwen
I like the character because I find her decision-making interesting. IMO, she's evolving into someone who's almost..I want to say she's becoming a sociopath, but that's probably not the right word. I see her going from fairly fluffy at first to someone who will go to great lengths to protect her sweetheart, whether or not he wants protecting. I see a darkness in her as a result, and so while I do think her character is perhaps overused as 'the heart of TW' I think there's a whole lot more going on.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

As someone who has served, I think that DA/DT is a pile of insanity. I know I'm in the minority here, but I think that if you sign up to serve it should not matter , a soldier is a soldier. I would stand and fight next to another soldier regardless of their sexual orientation. On top of that anyone who signs up to put their life on the line deserves respect above and beyond.

I know there are bashers inside, and that the culture can be terribly homophobic , but this is no different than the rest of the world, and it will pass.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

Newsflash: I can like sex just as much as the next person or more and still not want to wind up at a surprise sex party.

Can I just tell you how difficult it was for me not to post a "Surprise Buttsecks!" lolcat .gif in response to this?

But I didn't.

Because I'm a LADY.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

All of the above brings us to our next point: large swathes of fandom (yes, even the parts of fandom that are mostly female, and, in this case, especially the parts of fandom that are mostly female), hates women.

In some ways this isn't all that surprising if you look at many of the more popular shows in fandom. Stargate (all) is close to a boys only club, Supernatural is sufficiently steeped in concentrated misogyny that I'd be surprised if most serious fans didn't have at least some fairly big unconscious issues, and many other popular shows have similar issues. What I wonder about is whether or not the culture of a fandom is different when it's based around shows that both have multiple important female characters and are signficantly less misogynist than the norm for TV - Buffy is an obvious if somewhat dated example - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a more recent example.

I've only read a little Buffy fic, but I've read lots of T:SCC fic and you see a lot of female characters being written well and non-offensively in that fandom - stories about being a mother, non-scary het stories, and femslash are all very common, and I have no idea if both shows and fanfic that doesn't erase women leads to a fan culture that's less problematic, but it seems possible. At that point, the issue becomes why are so many of the shows that become large fandom magnets so misogynist. There are clear exceptions - Farscape was wonderful in many ways and had a large fandom, but especially in the last 7 or 8 years, most of the shows that have become big in fandom are ones that range from simply having very few female characters (like every version of Stargate) to ones that are actively misogynist.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I have to ask this, not for any other reason than for my own curio. What , in your view, makes a show misogynist? Is it just the lack of female characters or does it require that the female characters have stereotypical roles or re presented in a less than front row manner?

As a person who writes , I would hate to think that I would be labeled a misogynist simply because I had few or no female characters in a work.

To me , Buffy on television has always been typical TV T&A that was designed to make ratings, despite good writing and a kinda interesting storyline. This is why I rarely watched it and every time I try it just reminds me of Baywatch ( another show I loathe).

Stargate Atlantis, which I likes quite a bit, had IIRC a woman director running the whole stargate operation , at least one female warrior type and several scientist types. I can't say much for the others, I never really got into them.

To me in order to be misogynist you have to show a defined hatred of women/girls. Simply leaving them out would not qualify to me ( IMHO ), unless it was intentional ( say the writers get together and declare 'no women in this show, they just screw things up' or some such )

I think we have come a long way by example, taking say Star Trek the old series where the female characters were either in stereotypical roles ( telephone operators, sex objects, seductresses, or 'just there' walk on parts ) to Star Trek TNG ( Tasha Yar , the Troi family, and more than a few underground fighter types ) and DS9 ( the religious leader .. I forget her name ).

Would you consider Firefly misogynist? I understand some people have issues with the Inara character or the sex trade as it is shown in the show ( hell even the reboot of Battlestar Galactia left out the sex trade that was in the original ) , but as a whole is it considered misogynist?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

What I've seen of SGU (which I'm watching regularly) and what little I saw of SG-1 & SGA was simply that the shows were strongly male focused, telling the stories of the male characters and largely dealing with the female characters in their effects on the male characters. So, I'd call these shows somewhat misogynist because they had little to do with female characters other than as sidekicks or assistants. It didn't look much better than the best parts of old Trek, which is pretty sad. In this day and age, shows that feature female characters pretty much exclusively in the background are not IMHO OK.

OTOH, there are plenty of popular shows that are far more misogynist - hitting the low hanging fruit here - Supernatural is a truly impressive example - every female character on the show is either a dead victim in (at most) a few episodes or a dead villain in a few episodes, or at absolute best, seemingly good, but turns out to actually be evil and is killed by the protagonists. I'm not exaggerating a bit when I describe that show as being about two white guys traveling the US finding dead women and people of color and then killing even more women and people of color - it's that bad, and it's a darling of fandom - ick.

Another example is Eureka - I watched the pilot and that was enough for me - a town of superscience geniuses and genius kids - all of which were male - they also had wives and daughters, who were not superscience geniuses - with the exception of the woman running the hotel & what looked like brothel - who was revealed to be evil at the end of the episode. That's misogynist TV.

I have some issues with Whedon's occasionally rather relentless focus on rape, but no I didn't find Firefly to particularly misogynist - the society was, but it was also clearly not an idealized or even a particularly good society.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Interesting bits .... I'll have to take a look at some of these shows. As I mentioned before , in SGA the head of the whoel program was a woman, and I recall there was one not-form-earth woman fighter ( she actually reminded me of a klingon ) and there was the head scientist from SG-1 who crossed over into a almost relationship with the geeky science guy. Does that change anything ?

Eureka, I watched a few episodes of ... as I recall the sheriffs daughter was one of the genius kids, although she did work as a waitress.

I am limited in me exposure to Whedon's work but I don't recall rape in any of it other than the implied threat of rape twice ... once in the last episode of Firefly , and once or twice in the movie when discussing reavers.

My puzzlement is that by definition misogynist implies hatred , distrust or contempt. Simply leaving them out of the story IMHO does not equal misogynist writing... maybe backwards or non modern but still not hatred. Perhaps if it could be proven that their being left out was on purpose that would be one thing - but other than that it just seems like a cultural bias and not hate.

If a story was focused mainly around male characters , like say a show like Oz , set in a all male prison , would it be considered misogynist simply for not having female characters .. even though the plot would not support them?

I would dare to say compare things like All In The Family with Gunsmoke. Archie Bunker was clearly misogynist in his contempt for women, distrust of them doing anything other than menial or expected tasks, however Gunsmoke was about cowboys , cattle, horses, and gunfights.


When I started writing CHOWN I specifically requested guidance from RM about how to introduce female characters ( and some of them of alternative sexuality ), because as part of the plot I wanted to show the eventual increase of women in the hacker / underground scene. That is not to say that they are not present - they are - but they are usually understood (incorrectly) to be girlfriends or hangers-on.

Again , these are only my opinions, and are presented for discussion/debate.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Supernatural is sufficiently steeped in concentrated misogyny that I'd be surprised if most serious fans didn't have at least some fairly big unconscious issues

I'm not going to debate the point you're making about the show here (as it happens, I've never watched an episode) but I have to say I think it's deeply unfair to extrapolate about the people in a fandom based on the content of a show. It is entirely possible to be fully aware of how a show is faily, to be knowing and critical about it, and yet still enjoy it, and want to play with it, or even use fic as a medium for fixing it. Such generalisations about fans really aren't helpful, can never be entirely true when you're dealing with such a diverse beast as fandom, and are edging into to realms of an ad hom attack (don't get me started on the number of snidey passive-aggressive assumptions made about people who enjoyed CoE, helpful in no form of discourse except one of resentment).

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I watched 8 or 9 episodes before I gave up in horrified disgust. As I mentioned in another response, it's quite literally a show about two white guys traveling the US finding dead women and people of color and then killing even more women and people of color. While I agree that it's possible with enjoy that show without having issues with misogyny, I'd honestly expect that to be about as common as it is for regular consumers of some of the more violent and misogynst porn out there to not have issues with misogyny.

I avoided CofE, but from everything I've read and heard about it, it was vastly less problematic and offensive than some of the popular series out there.

Heads Up

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

Oho! SPN Fail Girl and her hubs gonna be at Dragon*Con. They better not pull that there. Cos' that's a con not a'feared to pull in the ATL boys in blue if it comes to it. That is, if other congoers don't get to them first.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

One of the things that has made me extremely uncomfortable in terms of my own reaction to CoE has been that, when you look at CoE objectively, I think it actually comes out quite positively for women. It seems natural that the three people to rebuild Torchwood from this point will be women -- Gwen, Lois, and Johnson seem like the most likely candidates -- the next Prime Minister will be a woman, and Bridget Spears is likely to be her right-hand woman. Overall, that's actually pretty awesome.

Yet, in spite of that, my gut feeling is that I was somehow "locked out" of Torchwood with CoE, that Torchwood somehow had no more room for me, and I know I've seen other people saying similar things -- I have certain theories as to why this is, most of which I won't go into now, but I have no doubt that a big part of it is that I, like so many other women, have been trained to access texts via male characters, and that Ianto happened to be a character that a lot of women found very accessible (for many different and complex reasons, I am sure).

I think that highlights a certain disconnect between women and stories about women. The part of my brain that is given to self-flagellation (which is not a terribly logical or useful part of my brain) tells me that my grief for Ianto is a punishment for not deprogramming myself effecitvely enough, for failing to invest enough of myself in narratives about women.

[speedingslug.livejournal.com]

Gwen was the most realistic character in the show, I never could understand why people give her a hard time.

[nova-bright.livejournal.com]

Newsflash: I can like sex just as much as the next person or more and still not want to wind up at a surprise sex party.

YES JESUS GOD YES. I've been publicly nude in a non sexual context a hell of a lot. I've been to Kink clubs. I've been to sex parties!

None of that negates the fact that at ANY TIME ANYWHERE I can feel uncomfortable with the idea of sex and not want to participate activly or passivly.

This is an amazing post, thank you for it.