fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #782 ]

⌈ Secret Post #782 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 165 secrets from Secret Submission Post #112.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 1 2 3 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When I say 'marked gender' I mean that in our society, a male gender is seen as a neutral state, and it's a female gender that needs qualifiers. This happens in numerous ways - eg. women's rights are referred to as some sort of separate category from human rights, books on topics which affect women are seen as women's literature rather than mainstream literature, etc. But yes, the fact that slash fandom targets male characters because they're male characters is one reason why I adore it - it makes women's desires central, and normalises the act of desiring men (female heterosexuality is paradoxically taboo - we're meant to just be perved at, not be the ones doing the perving). I often wonder if slash would exist without sexism. I'm not sure that it would - at least, not in the rule-34 way that it does IRL.

I think you have a good point about the fleshing out of badly-written or bit-part men, though. People really don't put as much effort into the female characters. :/

See, I think slash would, but it might not have a slash for slash's sake. There are plenty of people that are interested in it just because they are interested in same gender dynamics. There is also the standards thing, because I do think people have higher standards for what makes a female character interesting as opposed to what makes male characters interesting.

And I also think there is a point, where while slash is rebelling against sexism in most texts it also reinforces said sexism and creates a bit of its own shades as well. Its like a double edged sword, while you get rid of the sexism that may be inherent in the female character in the text, you bring it in with the idea that the answer is to exclude them all together. The idea that men are intrinsically more interesting because they are considered the default and that their bonds are somehow more stronger or powerful then any bonds that women may forge is deeply troubling to me.

As I am not heterosexual and do not really desire men (which, I should say lesbian slashers don't tend to write slash because they desire men, so the slash community isn't all that uniform in its motivations), and unlike a lot of fandom, I have a much harder time warming up to male characters then to female characters.

I think because of this my response to sexism in the text in regard to female characters is different from yours, (which isn't to say yours is wrong), but when I don't like how a narrative treats its female characters my response is either a) drop the series entirely and never look back or b) explore female characters through fandom, whether it be in a gen, het, or femslash way. But then for me, even if the female character is marked as woman first, I don't necessarily mean that strips that character to be uninteresting or even flat. It depends on the canon really.

What I do question about the "female-disliking as a rule" part of fandom is basing the criticism on the character due to their femaleness and just that, because I can't understand the idea that just being a woman in a text is enough to make the character wholly unlikable.

it makes women's desires central, and normalises the act of desiring men

...wut? By taking women out of the equation and depicting the men being perved after as completely uninterested in them? Normalise, I do not think it means what you think it means.

No, I'm pretty sure of what I mean there. Making desiring men so normal that everyone does it as a matter of course - just as desiring women is supposedly so normal that everyone does it, just as we're repeatedly told that female bisexuality is supposedly a ploy to attract men, just as women are supposed to admire the looks of other women rather than of men - is normalisation. Denormalising male heterosexuality is another side of the same coin. Slash is by women for women, and taking women away from being sex objects and instead allowing us to be author and audience for a consumption of men is pretty cool imo.

One thing I haven't much thought about before, but maybe denormalising male heterosexuality is something women do in fandom in order to make it feel 'safer'? I dunno about that one - lately all my slash characters have been bi - but I can see it.

Femdom. Look into it.

What makes you think I haven't? :) I'm confused as to what you mean, though.

[ SECRET POST #782 ]

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