[ SECRET POST #2721 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2721 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 084 secrets from Secret Submission Post #389.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

So not the hill I wish to die on, but here goes. Women being beaten bloody by men, for sexual purposes, is sexualized violence. Men being beaten bloody by fictional villains -- be they men, women, demons, robots, or whatever -- in popular media is more often than not a completely different thing. The bleeding man gets hero worship for being so brave and manly as to end up a bloody mess after battle. He's not an object to be acted on, like the woman who suffered for a man's pleasure. Our bloody male hero, even if part of fandom does woobify him in their adoration, is still the hero.

[(Anonymous)]

What about when it's done for the female gaze, as in fandom? What about when straight women fantasize about fictional gay men (whether or not they're canon gay, they're often contorted to be gay in their fantasies) being beaten bloody and rendered vulnerable?

[esteefee]

And because the hero is gay he's somehow not heroic? I have yet to see a slash whump story written where the character isn't heroic in some way for his suffering. But I think the bulk of H/C stories are *gen* whump.

[intrigueing]

Not to mention that in quite a lot of both slash AND gen whump, the male character *is* raped and subjected to sexualized violence, and he is still seen as heroic and sympathetic and he is portrayed as brave and strong for suffering such horrific acts, especially if he manages to keep some shred of dignity and defiance about him.

I really think it's about the RL context than anything else. A lot of the reason whump for male characters is so popular and guilt-free is because it's a way of inverting RL power dynamics rather than reinforcing them. But sex and violence is and has always been somewhat related. The whole extremes-of-sensation, viscerally relatable embodiment, heightened awareness of physical bodies, empathy thing. I guess the other element is that it's more likely that a whumped male character will be a main character or otherwise well-developed, while a lot of female ones are flat characters.

Now I feel obliged to plug that AWESOME fan vid about that whole "suffers beautifully" male-whump-in-fandom-trope. You're supposed to pinpoint the moment in the vid where it goes from "yum, hot" to "ew omg this is so gross":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M392_kRIxjA

[esteefee]

I was *just thinking* about that vid. Thanks for finding the link.

[intrigueing]

I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that I had no real line where I went "ew" and stayed in the "ew" zone. Some of the clips made my skin crawl, but then the next clip came and I was like "oh yay!" again.

[esteefee]

haha, me too. I mean, they'd already pulled out the knives and whips before they embedded Han in carbonite...permanent disfigurement versus a little freezer burn? And then came Benton Fraser...oh, you can always beat up the Mountie a little. Yum.

[ketita]

I noticed this too - one minute I'm like D: and then there's Dean with an attractive trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

ETA: another thing is, I think there's a big difference between "fantasy" violence and "realistic" violence. Some of the things they show, like people with glowing sigils and writhing and stuff, I think that if it's not super real it allows people to enjoy the eye-candy more (at least, that's how it works for me). The more obviously fantastical it is the higher chance I'll be able to tolerate without cringing, at least in a mashup video like this that doesn't provide context for the violence happening, so half the time I don't know what's going on.

[(Anonymous)]

No, but the hero being gay does make it extremely creepy for straight girls to perv out on it. Here is a person from a group you have systematic power over--here's them being beat up! Sexy!

[(Anonymous)]

The character is rarely a real gay character though, he's a character that is nominally straight in canon who is turned gay in fic. This is a perfectly okay thing to do IMO, because slash fanfiction is generally focused on interpreting two characters' love as romantic love, it's not focused on a character's individual personal experience of being a gay man. The focus is on the emotion, not the identity. (Hence why so much slash has the main character being bisexual but not really bisexually active, rather than gay and in the closet and having sex with women to hide it. The latter is often seen as too big a leap, except in really long, thoughtfully-written fanfics.)

But the fact usually stands that in canon, the character has never been subjected to homophobia and discrimination aimed at him for being gay in canon, nor has ever been shown suffering from hiding his homosexuality in canon, which is just not the same as a canonically gay character being abused. A character who is never marginalized for his homosexuality in canon is not, technically, a member of a group women have systematic power over.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, wouldn't this be true for the women in fiction being beaten up by anyone? A character who is never marginalized for being female in canon is not, technically, a member of a group men have systematic power over.


No.

[(Anonymous)]

That's not really the same thing. A woman who is female in canon is still female in fanfic. A person who is straight as far as author's intent is concerned in canon, but gay in a fanfic, is quite different. The character was originally crafted to be straight, and therefore was crafted without the marginalization that affects the crafting of gay characters.

A better analogy would be a character who appears to be male or female in canon, but is interpreted as being actually trans in a fanfic. Such a character can suffer cissexism-based marginalization within the fanfic's internal universe, but not as a canonical character when discussing the canon.

[esteefee]

You are oversimplifying the myriad ways women identify with the (purely fictional) characters you are talking about.

[(Anonymous)]

Because bisexual women don't exist?

Becuase gay men don't have systematic power over straight women?

[(Anonymous)]

If you believe that gay men have systematic power over straight women, you are part of the problem.

Straight women are the least oppressed class there is (saying this as woman, btw way.) We have a fuck load of perks no one else has.

[(Anonymous)]

And women are most at risk for being raped.

[(Anonymous)]

Let me guess, you're white and middle-class?

[(Anonymous)]

Screw the middle classes! I will never accept them!

[(Anonymous)]

...my father's other family was middle class...