[ SECRET POST #2925 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2925 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 046 secrets from Secret Submission Post #418.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[lb_lee]

Actually, this really bugs me, what you describe, OP!

Like, I'm gay. I like guys. Naturally, when I read romance, I usually want it to be about two guys. (Though for the past year or two, the only ship that has really been of interest to me is two girls. Oops!)

But it actually really bothers me that men, in fiction and out, are often only allowed to express things like emotional pain or fear in the context of same-sex relationships. That just has always felt kinda sad to me, you know; that's not a lesson I would want, say, my straight little brother to learn.

I dunno. I just want guys to feel okay crying and being upset with their girlfriends (or their platonic friends!) too.

[(Anonymous)]

+ 1

It seems like people are more tolerant of men not sticking to gender roles in a same-sex relationship. Maybe it's because of stereotypes about gay men being feminine (or straight men always being masculine - I've noticed that many people will have no problem accepting that a gay man can be masculine, but will refuse to believe that a feminine man can be straight). Or maybe they think one person in a relationship always has to be "the man" so a guy can be less masculine (not that I think showing emotion is necessarily unmasculine) with another guy but not with a girl. And sometimes I wonder if it's because it's okay for a man to see their partner's vulnerable side, but if you're a woman, your partner is supposed to be tough and dominating and protect you (and possibly keep you in line :/ ) so you can't be allowed to see any "weakness."

Anyway, I really hate the idea that it's okay for a guy to be emotional or not fit gender stereotypes in a same sex relationship, but has to be Manly McTestosterone with a woman.

[lb_lee]

Yeah. And at the same time, it bothers me that there's sorta this... presumption that somehow being queer will magically make all this easier for a guy. It's just kind of a mess, and it ties into these kind of gross messages and such. Communication is for "less masculine" men, that there's some sacrifice of masculinity at all in communicating or emoting... it's actually pretty toxic!

And I know when I was first coming out, I tried to massively overcompensate by being as big a macho blowhard as possible. It sucked. I'm glad I'm not like that anymore; I was a royal pain in the ass.

(And this might be why in one of the series I write, the sweet femme guy is bi, not pan, and his not-quite-female alien girlfriend is tough as nails and has trouble emoting, while he cries and likes to talk about feelings.)

[diet_poison]

I hate that too, as a straight woman who reeeeally isn't into Manly McTestosterones. :P

In seriousness though, or at least, from a less self-centered viewpoint: yes. And in general we still police masculinity in so many stupid ways.

[(Anonymous)]

My favourite slash relationships in fic are where neither side are very good at communicating their feelings and a hundred hilarious misunderstandings occur. That's a lot more plausible in a slash relationship, exactly for the standard conventions that say men aren't good at expressing emotions. When there's a woman involved, we expect her to be a lot more emotionally literate.

In real life, however, I'm the opposite. I like to be with men who are open with their emotions and don't mind showing them. I'm always baffled by those who say they can't stand men crying. What, all men, under every circumstance? I can't imagine living like that.

So perhaps if you see it as a literary convention or plot device rather than something that really exists it might be easier. In real life, I've not noticed that women are more emotionally literate than men. Some of the most emotionally repressed people I know are women.

Similarly, most het fiction is written with men as the dominant partner, while that's about the opposite to what I see in real life. It's just fantasy. A very popular fantasy that baffles me, but there you go.

In fic, I like my emotionally repressed guy slash. It's probably why I'm not big into hurt/comfort fic between two men either. It doesn't have anything to do with real life. I'd be appalled at the thought of any of the gay couples I really know being as screwed up as the slash couples I write.

[lb_lee]

Yeah, I guess in my case, I have a hard time seeing it as a purely literary convention when it's something that actually had an impact on me personally. (Before I came out, I always figured I couldn't POSSIBLY be male, because I didn't act the way guys in the books and movies were supposed to. This caused me quite a lot of angst, especially since I had some really douchey friends at the time who liked to mock me for not being butch enough.)

For me at least, sometimes it's hard to tell when a story is "just a fantasy," and when the author really does believe it.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Yes and I 100% agree with you. Though, I'm a queer chick (like, 75% hetero), and in every relationship with guys I've been in, my boyfriends has at times wanted nothing more than for me to cuddle them like babies and tell them everything will be alright. Sadly this is a dynamic I never see happen anywhere to males because in straight fanfic has to be so alpha and in slash fanfic, at least one of the canon characters has to be emotionally repressed that it seems out of character for him to participate.

It honestly makes me worry a little about the fanfiction writers and their love lives, their idea of how guys behave seem so based on media, and that can't possibly be healthy for anyone...

Re: OP

[lb_lee]

I suspect part of it is female fanfic writers often get trashed for writing men wrong, enough for there to be quite a few "how men actually behave" tutorials on the Internet, and so they try to compensate.

Hell, I used to do that before coming out, because I believed that I couldn't possibly be a "real man" since I didn't act like the guys in the books or movies.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I've seen those "how to write men who act like Real Men) tutorials before, as well as mockery directed at women who write men "wrong" or like/fantasize about less "manly" men.

I can find it annoying for several reasons - partly the policing of masculinity, the idea that all men have to act that way, and then the fact that men have to be written "realistically" (realistic according to the masculinity police types) even in fiction that's just meant to be a fantasy, when I don't think there's any such standard when it comes to writing about women. I mean, do people tell men who create "lesbian" porn for straight men that the women have to be realistic and act like real women or real lesbians (not that I think there is any one way for women or lesbians to act!), or are they fine with it being an unrealistic male fantasy? But people can only fantasize about men in a way that masculine/heteronormative men are okay with?

Re: OP

[lb_lee]

But anon, if women started writing men as fantasies, that might make them UNCOMFORTABLE! They might actually start questioning the idea of what women want, and realize that not all women want the same thing!

And then their heads would explode and WOULDN'T YOU BE SORRY THEN.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Quick, hide Mevius: Final Fantasy! The main character's outfit will kill us all!

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

You mean like women have been doing it for decades in romance novels?

This was probably way more serious of an answer than you wanted.

[lb_lee]

Ennnh. Romance novels are a fantasy, yes, but they are REALLY rigid about exactly what fantasy is peddled--or at least, they were five to ten years ago, when my mom was trying to get into the business. The genre restrictions are SUFFOCATING. Fanfic is way more lax about what you write.

(Seriously, my mom I remember had one manuscript get sent back, complaining that her hero didn't have an 'alpha' enough profession. He was a photographer; she had to change it to a journalist.)