[3W4DW] 20. Yes, but what are your thoughts on yaoi?

[kaberett]

• that cultural appropriation is shitty and gross
  
• that (out-group) fetishising of queer lives is shitty and gross
  
• that queering media, and representing real queer people, is hugely important
  
• that slashfic was one of the ways I explored my gender identity (without realising it) as a kid
  
• that patriarchy is shitty and gross and is the reason we have predominantly male characters (with personalities, etc) to play with; that we are taught that men are interesting and women are auxiliary and nobody else exists is a huge part of the problem

... but actually, what this question mostly makes me think about is: it's been very interesting, running through this set of prompts. There are several questions I've looked at and thought "... not interested, I want to skip this", and then written for anyway - and working out what to say to something that doesn't catch my imagination has been good discipline (in a way that is very, very different from getting a fanwork exchange prompt that doesn't immediately catch me; presumably because it's lower-pressure?), though I am pretty sure it's not something I want to keep up!

Comments

[kaberett]

13:53 < kaberett> like
13:54 < kaberett> when queers are taught that dudes are the only people worth paying attention to (and this IS a problem that's endemic within queer communities, cf the make-up of stonewall etc)
13:54 < kaberett> it is hardly surprising that when we try to understand ourselves, and represent ourselves, through stories - we end up falling back into the trope of "stories about everyman are for everyone and connect to the universal human experience; stories about women are weird and niche"
13:55 < kaberett> especially given how many of our model stories about women are actually about men?
13:55 < kaberett> and then INTERSECTIONALITY

[randomling]

There is a line of argument I want to make somewhere at some point about how the discourse back in the 90s was that most slashers were "middle aged, middle class, middle American housewives", and how that's a life situation that often causes women to suppress or disconnect from the things about themselves that were "different" - out of necessity, I mean - and how maybe slash provides people a safe avenue and outlet in which to explore that difference in themselves.

...that's a long sentence (it's cribbed from comments made in IRC!).

I think my point is that strictly heteronormative lives (the "middle aged, middle class, middle American" ones, and lots of others) often require you to distance yourself from things that are "different", even within yourself. This can include queerness, but certainly isn't limited to it. One thing slash does is explore what it's like to be different. Sometimes it's about exploring the (real or imagined) consequences of expressing your difference, and sometimes it's a utopian fantasy of what it might be like if your difference was truly okay and unexceptional.

I think both of these explorations are valid and useful, both for the writer and the reader. (They don't necessarily always coincide with the highest-quality writing, but high-quality writing isn't the only valuable thing in fiction - and I say this as a prose snob.)

So I don't think slash is always as simple as "out-group fetishising" in the context of its role in helping people explore difference in a heternormative and patriarchal world. (I don't think you were saying that it is that simple! And I agree that the out-group fetishising is, on its own, pretty gross. But that's rarely the only thing that's going on.)

[kaberett]

Oh, that's another thing - legitimised expression of sexual desire. It's something women ~aren't allowed~ to do; and male-centric slash can neatly sidestep that while giving people identity characters (because, again, everyone is encouraged to identify with everyman). So!