fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #340 ]

[ SECRET POST #340 ]

⌈ Secret Post #340 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Posting for Shahni! And early because I've got ~~pseuicide~~ class.

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 150 secrets from Secret Submission Post #049.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 3 4 ] broken links, [ 1 2] not!secrets, 0 not!fandom.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Wednesday, December 12th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Please bare with me, while I digress a moment and tell a little story.

I love Spider-Man for various reasons. I have several friends who like Batman. I am not overly fond of Batman. Most conversations I had about him until very recently went like this:

Me: I like Spider-Man.
Friends: Ha! Why? Batman's so much cooler.
Me: I like his powers. And he's funny.
Friends: Batman doesn't have powers - that makes him SO much
cooler than Spider-Man

I grew to HATE Batman. Not so much because of the character but because of the way my friends reacted to me not liking the character. They framed all their arguments in such a way as to make me feel inferior just because I didn't share their opinion.

Recently I made a new friend and a very similar discussion to the old Batman/Spider-Man debate popped up.

Me: *repeats opinions over why I like Spidey and not Bats*
New Friend: One's not better than the other, they're just different. Personally, I like Batman better but given what you told me about your preferences I can see why you like Spidey more. And I can see why you really don't like Batman if that's the reaction you got in the past.

Now, which conversation do you think I walked away from feeling better about? Which do you think actually lead to more mature discussion? Even though she disagreed with me, my new friend at least acknowledged that I could have a different opinion than her. And you know what? She's actually got me reading Batman stuff now...

Look, all the OP and the tl:dr commenter are asking for is to have their opinions acknowledged (NOT agreed with merely acknowledged) without being treated like idiots. They are not saying yaoi is evil. They are not saying they think it should stop. They are just saying they don't like it, and that they should have the right to say they don't like it without being macroed to death ro treated like fanbrats

Oh man, thank you. Thank you very much.

I get where you're coming from. Really. From what I'm reading, you're saying if the other side would just acknowledge your pain, then everything would settle down and you could move on.

The problem is, we each have to take personal responsibility for our own issues. Sure, it'd be nice if other people would just do "fill in the blank", but it's not something we can sit back and expect. Expectations of other people's actions just leads to disappointment. So we have to take control of our own environment. Maybe that means putting boundaries on our discussions of Batman vs Spiderman.

I know I'm sounding like Dr. Ruth here, but all we've been doing so far is picking at scabs and it's not getting us anywhere. The more people pick at scabs, the more back and forth occurs, the more heated things get, the more wording gets sloppy, the more offense gets taken, until finally someone (on whatever side) is able to say, "Aha! I knew it," and flounce off with the satisfaction that their thoughts on yaoi were finally proven correct(after enough picking at the scab).

I'd rather just quit picking.

You have all the right in the world to pick at a scab out in a public forum and say you don't like yaoi. Question is... what does it accomplish?

>:( What is all this reasonableness, it does not belong!

...It accomplishes the removal of a scab and a couple of interesting conversations?

Mostly, though, it has been a release gauge. I bottle everything remotely contraversial, because I know it brings the wank. So I actually got to state my opinion, and now I feel better. It's done! My opinion is online! I have actually said something, and I have gotten support, polite disagreement, and what looks very like an accusation of homophobia. Plus macros.

It's oddly liberating. Which is kind of the point, really, of any secrets blog or comm, isn't it?

what interesting conversations? haven't a lot of the anons been going on about screetching at each other and flinging shit and twigs in their 'rightness' on the subject?

Erh. I think you missed the point that people have, several times, in the comments here said "yeah, we know. It sucks."

The fact that people have said that and no one acknowledges it sort of pokes holes in your theory.

http://community.livejournal.com/fandomsecrets/107510.html?thread=24924662#t24924662
http://community.livejournal.com/fandomsecrets/107510.html?thread=24784886#t24784886

I point you to my two favourite responders? &heart; Polite debate and disagreement, and I feel much better for it, because although they clearly do not agree with me, they bring new viewpoints for me to look at that aren't about how stupid/homophobic/hate-filled I am.

God damn but you're pompous.

Yes. What I was pointing out is that most people either said some variation of "deal with it" or "yeah it sucks, whatev." But the commenter above essentially said "If only people would acknowledge het fan's PAIN, we wouldn't hate yaoi so much!" which is a) a flat out lie, since plenty of yaoi fans are het fans and we understand and acknowledge it's a bitch and still think you should get over it, and b) ignores the fact that there were people sympathizing and it didn't change much of anything.

Nothing will change, but I feel a lot better for saying something. And the people who did respond politely, either way, were awesome.

And hey, I had my first kitty-macro and my first accusation of homophobia. It's a really good reminder that staying really quiet is the best plan after all, so it wasn't a total waste.

Then yay. :)

Can I just say though, as tactfully as possible, that I hope you don't wear your "first accusation of homophobia" as a badge to whip out at every opportunity to support a theory that saying "I dislike yaoi" = "GTFO, homophobe". (Because one cat macro does not a fandom-wide theory make, especially in the face of all these other posts made by a wide variety of people from all walks of life.)

(Okay, so there was no tactful way to say that, but damn, if we went through all this tl;dr to have someone walk away with one cat macro, then that would suck mightily.)

That seemed pretty tactful to me. But I won't take it seriously, don't worry about that. I'm just a little amused, because I did actually think accusations of homophobia were one of those things everyone's heard of but never actually seen. An urban legend or something similiar.

and yet here you are, still commenting, still telling everyone how much it doesn't bother you and how you love a good argument yadda yadda

Way to trivialize by making a comparison to comic book characters.

Friends: Batman doesn't have powers - that makes him SO much
cooler than Spider-Man

It does make him more badass.

And, therefore, cooler.

ILU.

That is all.

Because fandom is always MUCH MORE SERIOUS BUSINESS than comic books.

*points at above cat macro*

Fandom is not wholly separate from real world issues. Fandom is not completely free of things like heterocentrism. Yes, it's a little off-putting to see this topic equated with "omg, Batman or Spidey u guyz?" And no matter how much the people who aren't down with slash or yaoi or whatever try to say that they aren't homophobic, well... every rant, every discussion I've ever seen or been in on the topic has come off as vaguely tinged with homophobia and a general lack of awareness of how cultural/societal norms can be bigoted. Like it or not, we all bring baggage to fandom.

And I see no cat macro, but it was probably lame anyway.

"I find your statement to be ironic and full of lulz," is what the macro said.

I do understand where you're coming from, on the heterocentric (what a fabulous word, I must use it more often) front. However, I simply see this as being the result of a culture where statistically, 90% of the people are heterosexual. Homosexuality is not the norm. It never will be (hopefully, or the human race won't survive very long).

I think that this whole argument is being blown out of proportion. Yes, some of the people who whinge and moan about yaoi are probably homophobic. No, not all of them are. It doesn't smack of homophobia at all in my opinion to say something like, "Dear God, could I find something in fandom that isn't yaoi for once please."

In conclusion - people have different preferences. Most of these preferences are as trivial as favorite comic book characters - I certainly care about as much about someone's orientation as I do about their favorite anime. And what this basically comes down to is what kind of porn people like to read (or not, in the case of the genficcers), which, as I mentioned above, is certainly not serious business.

However, I simply see this as being the result of a culture where statistically, 90% of the people are heterosexual. Homosexuality is not the norm. It never will be (hopefully, or the human race won't survive very long).
Are you an advocate of the free market of sexuality? VOTE RON PAUL!!!

"Dear God, could I find something in fandom that isn't yaoi for once please."
How are you not finding it? Seriously. Is someone hiding all your not-buttsex? That's the only conclusion I can come to.

I certainly care about as much about someone's orientation as I do about their favorite anime.
I wish I could get married to my boyfriend but I can't because the state government only recognizes Sailor Moon marriages and we are Pokemon fans :(:(:(:(:(

Thank you for your hard work. You manage to actually make me sound rather like a bigot. I expect it took effort.

This "free market of sexuality" concept is interesting. Please explain further what exactly it is you meant. PS: Ron Paul is an anti-federalist, a stance I happen to agree with. No, I don't intend on voting for him. But yes, he occasionally makes sense.

Please see "creating an intelligent argument" and notice that not all views expressed in a level-headed, balanced argument have to be your views. I enjoy my buttsex, thanks.

As to the last - I wasn't talking about what our esteemed, backwards government may or may not let people do with their lives. What I was talking about was preference, which is an entirely different thing. Whether you are homosexual or not is only relevant to you and your partner. It is none of my business, and therefore, I do not care.

Again, I must wonder if you were a journalist at some point. You're certainly adept at removing people's quotes from the context in order to make them sound foolish.

Re: 27: A theory on all the recent yaoi posts

(Anonymous) - 2007-12-12 15:11 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 27: A theory on all the recent yaoi posts

agentmoreau.livejournal.com - 2007-12-12 15:17 (UTC) - Expand

Homosexuality is not the norm.

But there's a difference between the norm (the "majority") and the normative ("recognized as normal and not treated as the exception"), and that I think is what we're mostly going for and what often goes unacknowledged!

But it is the exception. The "rule" is heterosexuality - because it is the majority. The "exception to the rule" is homosexuality. "Normal" is, yes, relative, but I wish "not normal" wouldn't hold such bad connotations - because "not normal" simply means "something that is not the norm" by which I mean the statistical norm.

Re: 27: A theory on all the recent yaoi posts

harukami - 2007-12-13 02:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 27: A theory on all the recent yaoi posts

farasha.livejournal.com - 2007-12-13 02:11 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 27: A theory on all the recent yaoi posts

harukami - 2007-12-13 02:22 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 27: A theory on all the recent yaoi posts

farasha.livejournal.com - 2007-12-13 02:32 (UTC) - Expand

I certainly care about as much about someone's orientation as I do about their favorite anime.

Oh you do not. I wish people would stop treating sexuality like it's incidental in society. It isn't. It's huge. And we make impressions based upon it: we look at how feminine or masculine a person's appearance and behavior are, we speculate about sexual partners, we discuss crushes and dating and marriage, we make jokes about sex, and we used marginalized orientations as insults.

I'm incredibly queer and I'm homophobic because I was raised, as we pretty much all were, in a society where heterosexual norms are praised and homosexual norms as laughed at, ignored, or rallied against. But I'm willing to acknowledge those biases, examine where they came from, and try to overcome them. But anyone who says they have no biases is simply not aware of them. Moreover, it's a little insulting that something affecting my day-to-day life doesn't rate much higher than my taste in fictional characters (which affects pretty much not a damn thing). I hear it being compared to physical traits, like hair and eye color too, but that's also disingenuous; people comment on my hair and eye color all the time, positively and negatively. People notice this shit and it affects their opinions.

The point is that, no, we are not a point where it's all just innocent preference, and I am deeply suspicious of anyone who has to whine on and on about how they can't find anything that hasn't been touched by the gay, since obviously something touched a nerve there.

Re: 27: A theory on all the recent yaoi posts

farasha.livejournal.com - 2007-12-13 09:18 (UTC) - Expand

Wow. If you let fans make you hate the source, you really are doing it wrong.

And honey? They're only being treated like idiots because they're acting like idiots. If they'd left out the the "I want to read my gen/het without having to see all this icky boysex" line, it would've been a reasonable secret. But that part? There is no way to read that except "make it stop so I can read my fic in peace." And that, my dear friend, is called an entitlement complex.

Fans will write and post what they want to write and post. Don't like it? Tough shit. You don't get to dictate what fandom produces for your own convenience. Either learn how to use search filters, or wade through the crapfic like the rest of us and shut up.

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