[ SECRET POST #900 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #900 ⌋

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

101.


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102.
[Scrubs]


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103.
[Daniel Radcliffe & Tom Felton]


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104.
[Phantom of the Opera]


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105.
[Vampire Knight, Twilight]


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106.
[Fallout 3]


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107.


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108.
[Trek/SPN]


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109.
[Little Shop of Horrors]


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110.


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111.


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112.


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113.
[Pushing Daisies]


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114.


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115.


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116.
[Total Eclipse]


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117.
[Prison Break]


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118.


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119.
[MGS, FLCL]


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120.
[ReBoot]


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121.


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122.
[Super Junior]


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123.
[Producing Parker]


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124.
[LotR]


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125.


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126.


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127.


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128.


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129.
[FF9]


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130.
[Stephen Fry]


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131.


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132.


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133.


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134.


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135.


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136.


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137.


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138.


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139.


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140.


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141.


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142.


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143.
[Constantine]


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144.


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145.


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146.


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147.


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148.
[Hourou Musuko]


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149.
[Red Dragon]


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150.


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151.


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152.


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153.


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154.


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155.


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156.


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157.


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158.


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159.
[Secret Diary of a Call Girl]


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160.
[Stephen Colbert]


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161.


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162.


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163.


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164.


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165.


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166.


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167.


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168.


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169.


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170.


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171.


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172.


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173.


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174.


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175.
[NCIS]


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176.


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177.


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178.


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179.


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180.
[LOST]



Notes:

Sorry for the earliness.

Secrets Left to Post: 09 pages, 207 secrets from Secret Submission Post #129.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - doing it wrong ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[pikabot]

And calling pairings with strong female characters "slash-like" is just insulting.

Haha, thanks, I knew something about this was bugging me that I was missing.

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

Why is it insulting, though? Slash is made by women; it's a relationship women want to see. So for a het pairing to resemble that... what's the problem?

[pikabot]

Because it's implying that the only way for a relationship to be equal is if the woman is cut out of it.

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

No, it's implying the dynamic happens more often on-screen between potential slash ships than het ships.

[pikabot]

...no.

Look. Look at the terminology being used. "Slash-like". As in, in imitation of slash. As in "similar to slash but not quite there". When you use that term to describe ~equal relationships~, especially in an idealized manner, you are implying that the best a relationship containing a woman can be is ALMOST there. This is the meaning that your words carry!

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

Well, if you want to get into semantics here, "slash-like" means like slash. As in, resembling it. As in, having the exact same qualities. You put the negative connotation there, not anyone else.

[pikabot]

If something has the exact same qualities as something else, we don't say that it's 'like' that other thing. We say that it is. Using slash as a standard that all relationships are held up to is degrading against women, whether you want to admit it or not.

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

Okay... "these het relationships are slashy." Is that better, or is the adverbial form not enough?

If the relationship a woman writer enjoys and wants to see extrapolated is contained between two men, why is it degrading for her to write about it? Does she need to genderswap one of the characters to make it better?

[pikabot]

Okay... "these het relationships are slashy." Is that better, or is the adverbial form not enough?

Exact same shit. It's not the wording, it's the use of relationships between men as an ideal against which heterosexual relationships are negatively judged.

If the relationship a woman writer enjoys and wants to see extrapolated is contained between two men, why is it degrading for her to write about it?

...what? Where did you even GET that?

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

But het relationships should be negatively judged when the people in it are expected to fall into certain roles according to gender. That was what slash was reacting to when it was created (by no coincidence around the time of women's lib). Slash was never meant to an emulation of gay relationships, you know. The men in slash ships are often proxies for women's feelings (that may resemble what social deems as "masculine") or an idealization where they could embody certain "female" characteristics (the "female characteristics" being social constructed, of course). The best slash challenged gender constructions.

Using slash as a standard that all relationships are held up to is degrading against women

That's what I was responding to. Slash is often an idealization of either a relationship women would like to see or be in, or a representation of a relationship women might actually have. So why is it degrading for women to explore use slash to explore that?

[pikabot]

ಠ_ಠ

That's it, I'm done talking to you. You're not even trying to address what I'm actually saying any more. Either you're using that old Straw Man fallacy deliberately, or you're suffering major reading comprehension failure.

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

Dude, that's all on you. Sorry that you're having trouble explaining yourself, but if you wanna get all srs bsns and frustrated over nothing up in here, okay.

[runic-binary.livejournal.com]

Just jumping in for a minute: You don't win just because you're either too thick-headed to communicate correctly or being deliberately misleading in order to make yourself appear educated. You have to present an intelligent and properly expressed argument while considering your opponent's logic, and you have done neither of those things.

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying anyone's winning anything here. She wanted to give up on explaining what she meant, which was apparently that to use a relationship that didn't include women (on the surface) was degrading to women when held up as an ideal (which is what slashing attempts to do sometimes). I asked that since slash was made by women, for women, how does it really degrade women, but she doesn't want to go into it, so again - it's on her. I didn't give up on trying to hash this out.

[runic-binary.livejournal.com]

...Oh, I see what the problem is. No, they didn't want to go into it (correct me if I'm wrong, pikabot because that's not what they were talking about, and constant attempts to reassert the fact that your point was irrelevant weren't getting through. Jesus, anyone would have given up after that.

The point, as I see it, is that conflating the terms "slash-like" and "equal", as they pertain to a relationship, implies that a relationship built on parity and mutual understanding cannot exist simply between a man and a woman, but rather two men or a man and a "masculine" woman - a woman who acts as a stand-in of sorts for a male counterpart to her male significant other. Now, if I understand you correctly, you assume that the term "slash-like" as applied to a relationship implies that the relationship is one of equality because slash is a genre invented by women, priginally used to express the ideals of a heteronormative relationship that said woman holds ideal or prefers - one of equality.

The problem is that this idea is backwards. You assume that slash itself is a genre created by women an an expression of the ideal male/female relationship rather than, primarily, because they find the preexisting, male dynamic between the characters involved attractive. Essentially, you imply that in order for a heterosexual relationship to be equal, it must be comparable to a relationship between two men who act like men, because the women who write about it find that attractive, and apply that dynamic to themselves and their relationships.

I see why you think what you do, and how it makes sense to you. But it breaks down. You want to say that slash is based on heteronormativity, therefore heterosexual relationships can safely be compared to slash, which is still a roundabout and ridiculous way of expressing the original sentiment, but what it reads as is that an equal relationship is defined as one based on male power and dominance.

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

I don't consider slash to be wholly about equality, which is what I should have corrected a long time ago. Also important is that it's about relationships where gender roles do not have a place.

When a lot of gendering falls along the lines of strengths/weaknesses, there is a desire to render the point of gender moot, which is what slash does. Behaviors are no longer become a "male" way of acting or a "female" way of acting (which is a socially constructed notion to begin with) - in a slash ship, behaviors just become how these particular characters are acting. When - I don't know - Kirk is acting "weak" in what is a traditionally feminine way in relation to Spock (like, say, bottoming), it's not because a certain weak behavior is expected because that's how women are, it's because it's a facet of his personality.

You assume that slash itself is a genre created by women an an expression of the ideal male/female relationship rather than, primarily, because they find the preexisting, male dynamic between the characters involved attractive.

That's not exactly right. Let me try to explain what I assume:

I think when women looked at Kirk/Spock, Mulder/Krycek, or Duncan/Methos, they saw a hugely interesting dynamic that transcended gender. You know, they saw men, who were on equal footing, being vulnerable and intimate with each other, saw them supporting each other or saw them engaged intensely with each other, and they saw them being "men" but they also saw something of themselves in them, too (and not just in those who "bottomed"). So they started writing about the dynamic as they saw it.

So when I talk about idealization, I don't it's correct in saying it's an idealization based on men being "men." I think it's an idealization based on being able to embody certain characteristics and not have gender come into it - "strong for a woman", "weak for a man." Which challenges heteronormativity, I think. I absolutely do not think that slash is based on heteronormativity - the opposite, in fact.

[(Anonymous)]

Way to be rather hypocritical. I know this idea is crazy, but perhaps a woman being strong (or weak) is part of her character, and not the fact that she's a woman (or resembles a man)

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

I just said that the men had "feminine" characteristics, so the women related to that. So I'm talking about behaviors having no basis in gender. I'm not talking about women needing to resemble a man to be strong. I am saying that what gets called "strong" is often attributed as a "male" thing by society and people want to break free from that, that people want to see either gender carrying the whole rainbow of "masculine" and "feminine" characteristics. Men just get used more often because 1. there are more fleshed-out male characters than female and 2. attractiveness does still play a role, and the straight women who write slash like to think about attractive guys.

[(Anonymous)]

That's not what you said. You said

"When a lot of gendering falls along the lines of strengths/weaknesses, there is a desire to render the point of gender moot, which is what slash does."

Implying that only slash can make gender moot, when any combination can do this.

Attractiveness plays a role? In other words you're basing this on gender. You aren't making gender moot, you're just changing the gender dynamic. It's no different than a woman and a woman or a man and a woman. Frankly you just can't get passed the female in said relationships. That does not make you 'gender equal' or more open minded, it simply makes you gender biased.

[runic-binary.livejournal.com]

That's all very interesting, and you bring up some fine points, but the fact remains that referring to a heterosexual relationship as slash-like is still sexist. No matter what the intent or the logic beyond the description, slash depicts a relationship between two men, and a heterosexual relationship includes a woman. Comparing the relationship between a man and a woman to that of two men, as though a relationship between two men is the default standard for equality - because that is how it reads, regardless of the intent - is no less offensive than defining a homosexual relationship by heteronormative terms as though they are the default standard.

[(Anonymous)]

That's all very interesting, and you bring up some fine points, but the fact remains that referring to a heterosexual relationship as slash-like is still sexist.

I don't understand this. Recently, I fell in love with a het pairing that reminded me of the dynamics in slash, specifically in terms of gender having nothing to do with it. I even described it as "het, with a slash dynamic", so it's like I understand the words you're saying, but they don't make any sense to me. You're not the first person that has said that slash is misogynistic for "erasing women" or that to compare the two is offensive, but I think it's really just a matter of the wires being hopelessly crossed.

[(Anonymous)]

Because you're saying a strong woman resembles slash; in other words she's strong because she's like a man. God forbid a strong woman and man in equal footing resemble just that, a strong woman and a man on equal footing.

Just because it's made by women doesn't mean it can't be sexist.

[sessile29.livejournal.com]

Well, when a lot of weaknesses get touted as so-called "feminine" characteristics and a lot of strengths get touted as so-called "masculine" characteristics (by society, of course, and not that these characteristics are inherent in men or women), things get complicated.

Is the characterization of guys in slash pairings representative of the masculine ideal, or is representative of how women want to see guys act or how women see themselves reflected in how guys act? Is a "strong woman" only strong because she resembles a guy or because she embodies characteristics that usually get considered as masculine? Is a strength only a strength when guys do it, or because society prefers to see men strong? Complicated.

I think slash can be an idealization, and sometimes people want to see the het ships resemble that ideal, and I think the ideals are ones that go beyond gender and slash uses a same-sex pairing to embody that.

[(Anonymous)]

See, you're trying to draw this back to your idea that slash is somehow the cornerstone of equality, when it isn't. You have rose-tinted glasses when it comes to your prefered pairings, and frankly it shows in a huge way.

Het isn't one cookie-cutter archetype, it has many (as does slash) There is no pairing that hasn't been done before, nor is there a single gender-genre that embodies said characteristics, no matter how badly you want to delude yourself into thinking otherwise. To say that a het couple can only be equal when it is like slash is saying that it has to be the male/male dynamic for it to be strong.

A woman doesn't need to be like a man to be strong, and to say that your *ideal* somehow makes this possible is laughable. Your pairings don't go beyond gender, because you base them soley on the gender and not the content.

[(Anonymous)]

THIS.