Slash & Het & Femmeslash

[redbrunja]

I had a whole bunch of friends come over for my belated birthday party, which was a blast. I'm really lucky in that my friends are friendly with each other, so if I step out for a minute I don't have to worry about anyone being left out of the conversation.

Only downside is that I'm super behind on comments, but that's a small price to pay. ^_^

And now, meta.

When people get to discussing slash and het (note: femmeslash is almost never mentioned in these discussions) there will be, at some point, at statement to the effect that 'slash and het are equally problematic' meaning that arguing that one is inherently better is pointless. The fact that neither genre is more feminist or subversive by default is true but what doesn't get mentioned is that het and slash and femmeslash are troublesome and empowering in different ways.

Before I begin, a few notes:

-no genre is quantitatively better or worse than any other. Romance novels are not less worth-while than lit novels, nor are they automatically written with less skill.

-every genre (especially in fanfic) is largely composed of horrible stories.

-not every story or fanfic says or is trying to say something subversive or culturally relevant. This is okay. Stories can be neutral. They can just be there to be PWP, they can just be there to watch the characters have adventures.

That said-

At its best, slash is both subversive and feminist, a genre written by women for women and comprised of narratives removed from the heteronormative culture standards.

At its worst, slash is misogynistic and forces blatantly sexist roles on the characters involved, while erasing and vilifying women and femininity. Additionally, it can be portray men in unrealistic and objectifying ways.

At its best, het is a way to celebrate relationships between equals as well as deconstruct and explore traditional and nontraditional gender roles. Also, it can be used to forfront forefront female characters who are often not given the same screentime as their male counterparts.

At it's worst, het supports sexist dynamics and glorifies the male point of view, as well as reinforcing the idea that all women must be in a relationship to be happy, that that The Man You Love > Everything Else In Your Life.

At it's best, femmeslash gives even more screen time and attention to the ladies and allows authors to explore issues that might feel unnatural or out of character for a male character to be party to. Additionally, because femmeslash is less popular within the fandom, I have noticed a trend for there to be more well-written fics when looked at proportionally.

At its worst, it objectifies women and supports the idea that lesbians do not get happily ever afters.
supports the idea that lesbian leads to death.

Your thoughts?

[ETA: I'VE EDITED THIS A BIT TO REFLECT POINTS THAT COMMENTATORS MENTIONED, TO CLARIFY SOME OF MY THOUGHTS, AND ADD THINGS I FORGOT.]

Comments

[nimblnymph.livejournal.com]

I just wrote a rather long reply to bellzooks about that, so I apologize for keeping this brief since I don't feel like reposting everything I just said:

1. When yaoi was first introduced, it WAS intended as a feminist outlet. It was written by women for women because they were unhappy about the poor representation of women in manga. And it's unfortunate that they had to play into the male-dominant standard to do this, but they did what they had to do to get their stories and voices heard.

2. Yaoi, like many things, has shifted in relevance and meaning over the years tangentially to the changes in societal views. For the last 10-15 years, yaoi HAS been more about bringing awareness/celebrating gays rather than women expressing themselves through men. The same shift in meaning can also be applied to the seme/uke relationships. At the beginning, seme and uke was only used to help define the hidden female character in the story. Now, it's been twisted to mean the woman or submissive partner, which wasn't always the case in classic yaoi.

And I agree with you that being part of the slash fandom doesn't make you an advocate for gay rights. While there IS a certain element of it that is being used to help spread awareness and potentially change closed-minded perceptions of gays and lesbians, a lot of the slash fandom objectifies gay relationships by women-- much like lesbian relationships are objectified by men. So no, it's not by any means a perfect medium for getting the message through. But there are those who DO try and use it for positive results.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

That is a really good point. Because I have seen the disconnect among slashes in acting like slash is okay but homosexuality is not, or acting like gay people are gay for the slasher's entertainment.

There are some very negative stereotypes about the gay community, and some of them are actively encouraged in the slash community: for example, the uke/seme stereotype, wherein one man must be 'the woman' and the other must be 'the man'. That mindset in particular has spread beyond fandom, and while I'm not saying that it's at all to blame on female slashers, some parts of the slash community are encouraging it. I can't help but think that women using one of the men involved to represent 'the female persona' (as mentioned above, as well) is a part of that, and I think it can be pretty negative both for gay rights and for feminism. Writing about two gay guys doesn't necessarily equal writing something that isn't heteronormative, given some of the more unfortunate fandom tropes.

Word to this. And it's really a shame that a genre that is nominally about gay characters can NOT represent homosexuality.

Great icon, by the way.

[hieronymousb.livejournal.com]

I really agree with you that forcing heteronormative roles into homosexual pairings can get fairly problematic. Some couples of any variety may enjoy taking on aspects of roles -- some women do, after all, choose to be housewives -- and that's fine, but what I oppose is the notion that couples absolutely have to adopt traditional "male" and "female" slots. And unfortunately, I notice the slash community can sometimes make a huge issue of who tops or bottoms, to the point of not finding a pairing tasteful if the roles are allowed to reverse or if a the pairing is not portrayed with the tops/bottoms fitting according to how the person likes them -- which just goes to show that our society is so ingrained in the notion that one person must fit one standard that we cannot conceive of it being the other way around, and that this is a huge deal for the reader, or even perhaps fetishized accordingly.

However, that being said, I want to say that the issue of slash's (usually female) authorship versus its (obviously gay male) content cuts both ways: I absolutely think women who write slash and are interested in the gay community owe it to the gay community to be accepting and to educate themselves on deeper issues pertaining to LGBT concerns. Frankly, I think slash may actually be a good stepping stone for this, in the case of some young girls. I was about 16 when I first wrote slash and developed some interest in m/m relationships in fiction, and for me, this correlated with a growing natural interest in my own lesbianism and my own curiosity about LGBT issues. So while a lot of girls hamfist their portrayals of such sensitive topics in their early fiction, I think many of them will be on the right track in the long run. 13-year-olds will be 13-year-olds. But that's quite apart from the people who are intolerant of actual homosexuality, but like slash. I cannot even begin to comprehend that.

Lastly, when I said this issue cuts both ways, I mean: I've also seen the problem of gay men coming into the slash community and assuming positions of authority towards the women writers, and I've seen women allowing this to happen, or fawning over the guys, and the guys expecting special privileges. Now, I think this is decisively uncool. Sure, guys writing friendly tips for female slash writers is well and good (such as the late Minotaur's points about gay sex, for slash writers), but there is, dare I say, a level to which assuming authority can become another example of male privilege. Because honestly, while slash writers need to understand that gay men are not just Shinies who exist in a fictional vacuum, gay men also have to accept that on some level, slash is about female sexuality, too, and so it doesn't necessarily have to be 100% realistic, and it doesn't have to compromise aesthetics that appeal to women.

And honestly, most guys do realize that. It's just sometimes that it becomes a problem.