[ SECRET POST #1389 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1389 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 11 pages, 251 secrets from Secret Submission Post #199.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'm certainly not whining about being overlooked

Then why do you keep mentioning that "Gay men are invisibilized"?

If it came from a confrontation, well, that's reasonable? But there's no need to keep that there long afte rthe confrontation has passed.

Your male privilege is showing. "Come on, ladies, this was a couple of years ago already, just let it go and stop taking pride in your achievements or specificities - even when they are still going on right now."

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

Because they are? There's a difference between pointing something out and whining about it.

I'm happy to check my privilege here, but there's something kind of off-putting about loud proclamations of fandom as 'female culture', especially when it comes to slash fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't understand why it's off-putting though, since as other people have explained, it's very much true, especially in the one area AO3 is most concerned with, which is fanfic. How can a culture which has been dominated by women not be declared a "primarily female culture"? Just because there are men participating in it, doesn't make it less female, especially when these men have traditionally been concentrating on some very specific areas (like sci-fi).

Think of it the other way around: how many times have you heard a culture to be "a male culture", regardless of what kind of input women may have had in it? The Army, the corporate world, the industry, science, and I don't know how many others: all of them have been loudly proclaimed to be "male cultures" until pretty recently (and some of them still are), no matter that women may have contributed to them or not, or to what degree. What you're seeing here with AO3 is simply the reverse phenomenon.

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

The part where it's off-putting to me personally is in the way that gay male sexuality has been commodified in fandom -- particularly in fanfic culture -- by often heterosexual women. So like, calling it a 'female culture' underlines that certain women with straight privilege have appropriated my identity in ways that are often harmful.

I totally get where you're coming from here, and my reaction to this honestly may not be a rational one so much as a very irrational one based on My Feelings About Yaoi.

[(Anonymous)]

I understand your irritation but... well, to put it frankly, welcome to women's world? Both straight and lesbian female sexualities have been commodified by males forever - even while at the same time, those same men often denied real women their sexuality IRL. I can understand that it's irritating to you to see this phenomenon being applied to you and your sexuality by women now, but really, it's not quite fair to deny us women the right to objectify another sexuality for our own pleasure, when we've always had to endure it ourselves, and still do now. In a way, it feels like us women STILL don't have the right to live out our sexuality in the ways that WE LIKE and choose - like we STILL have to defer to men to be told how to get off and/or allowed to indulge in our women-made fantasies :/

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

Well I understand that point, really I do. I mean, I identify as a male feminist, I write feminist criticism, I try to check my male privilege all the time. I do understand that female and male sexuality are not historically equivalent, and I do understand that women need to feel free to express their sexuality after centuries of oppression.

But how is it progressive to be part of the problem? This isn't the Oppression Olympics, and "straight men commodify lesbians all the time" isn't an excuse for straight women to commodify gay men. It's just not. The structures of gendered power are different, of course, but you can't ignore intersectionality as it applies to privilege dynamics. Straight privilege is a powerful thing, and I don't think it's 'men taking women's sexual choices away' for gay men to ask hetero women not to fetishize them.

I don't have a problem with all slashfic, so it's not that I think straight women need to gtfo or something. I just think that a lot -- dare I say the majority, because fandom is huge and way bigger than LJ and most people writing smutty fanfic (on FF.net, etc) just don't care -- of slash fiction involves the appropriation of gay sexuality by non-gay people and the propagation of really harmful stereotypes about gay men. It's not harmless just because it's not the patriarchy doing it.

So I guess on some level, proclamations like the one at AO3 are like big signs saying 'we will fetishize your disenfranchised minority group for our own pleasure and then act like you are irrelevant to fandom', even if it's not the intention. Because it often feels that way, and so even something relatively minor like this feels like an overt acknowledgment by a major fandom archive of the belief that straight ladies should be totally allowed to write problematic shit about gay men without being criticized because Men have wronged Women. It's a serious failure to examine intersectional privilege, imo.


uh wow sorry about all those feelings and sociology buzzwords in a single post.

[(Anonymous)]

I understand the problem of intersectional privilege, but...

I don't think it's 'men taking women's sexual choices away' for gay men to ask hetero women not to fetishize them.

The problem is that women are not allowed to fetishize ANYTHING that relates to men. If we fetishize strong, macho men, then we are told that we make "normal" men insecure, that we help maintain a culture of sexism, and so on. If we fetishize sensitive, gentle men, then we are told that we emasculate "normal" men by asking them to become stereotypical girly women. And so on. And now we're also told that we can't fetishize gay men either. In short: we're not allowed to fetishize men AT ALL.

But keep in mind that the fetishization of women is still going strong at the same time! If we complain about the portrayal of women in media, we're told that it's just fiction or to suck it up or whatever. When we point out that porn is completely unrealistic, we're told it's not for us anyway. When we criticise lesbian porn for men, we're told that it's just about men liking women.

We are being fetishized by men all the time, AND at the same time we are told we must never fetishize men of any kind. That's a bit harsh, don't you think?

I don't have a problem with all slashfic, so it's not that I think straight women need to gtfo or something.

See, I totally agree with this, and I wish you would rail against this specifically, rather than against slash by and for women in general. This fight can and should go side by side with the fight to establish the difference between the way women are fetishized and the way they really are. But asking women to atively work against one of our own, rare sources of enjoyment in fandom when we are still being smacked by sexism left and right, both in fandom and RL, is a bit too much.

proclamations like the one at AO3 are like big signs saying 'we will fetishize your disenfranchised minority group for our own pleasure and then act like you are irrelevant to fandom'

Look... I see what you're saying, but what you just said between quotes? That's what we women live all the time, both in fandom and outside. Is it right to turn around and do it to other people? I personally don't think so, but some people do. "You hurt me, I hurt you", or at least "You hurt me, I don't listen to you" are classic ways to cope. You are speaking here as a GAY man, but for many women, you are first and foremost a gay MAN - and they will support your plight only as long as you don't ask them to sacrifice something of their own. The minute you start acting like a man - for example by trying to regulate female sexuality - they'll drop you like a hot potato.

To put it another way: intersectionality is important, but you must be careful not to use it to stifle female sexuality. The fight for our right to live out our sexuality as we like it is NOT a fight we have won yet, FAR from it, so many feminists will be legitimately wary of a man, any man, working against it.

so even something relatively minor like this feels like an overt acknowledgment by a major fandom archive of the belief that straight ladies should be totally allowed to write problematic shit about gay men without being criticized

I understand, and I agree that sending out such ambiguous messages is problematic. However, look at it this way: this is just one archive in fandom - a major archive, sure, but still just one archive in fandom. IOW: one small place in one small area of the world. That is the kind of pathetic (as in genuinely sad) solution we women STILL have to resort to in order to feel somewhat validated in our hobbies, fantasies and sexualities. Think about that.

So basically: you have a point, of course you have a point! There is no denying that. But asking women to put gay men's interests before their own interests is once again telling women to put MEN before them - and that's not going to go down well with quite a few feminists.

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

The problem is that women are not allowed to fetishize ANYTHING that relates to men. If we fetishize strong, macho men, then we are told that we make "normal" men insecure, that we help maintain a culture of sexism, and so on. If we fetishize sensitive, gentle men, then we are told that we emasculate "normal" men by asking them to become stereotypical girly women. And so on. And now we're also told that we can't fetishize gay men either. In short: we're not allowed to fetishize men AT ALL.

I think the first two points are ridiculous, though, and the product entirely of threatened patriarchy. I think you should be allowed to fetishize heterosexual white men however you like, because you're not exerting any privilege over those people. Obviously the dominant culture is going to rail against you for it, because the dominant culture is sexist and awful, but that's how dominant culture operates. It doesn't mean you 'deserve' somehow to exert your hetero privilege over gay men.

See, I totally agree with this, and I wish you would rail against this specifically, rather than against slash by and for women in general.

I never railed against slash by and for women in general. I rail against slash that perpetuates negative stereotypes or that fetishizes and dehumanizes gay relationships for the purposes of kink. Big difference, but that does describe a vast amount of the slash out there.

But asking women to atively work against one of our own, rare sources of enjoyment in fandom when we are still being smacked by sexism left and right, both in fandom and RL, is a bit too much.

I'm not asking anyone to work against slash as a genre. I'm asking hetero people in fandom -- which generally prides itself on being progressive -- to put as much thought into their portrayals of gay men as white people are made to do about their portrayals of POCs, as men are made to do about their portrayals of women, et cetera.

Look... I see what you're saying, but what you just said between quotes? That's what we women live all the time, both in fandom and outside. Is it right to turn around and do it to other people? I personally don't think so, but some people do.

Yeah, and I think they are wrong. I think that I have a right to think that, as part of the group they're doing it to.


To put it another way: intersectionality is important, but you must be careful not to use it to stifle female sexuality. The fight for our right to live out our sexuality as we like it is NOT a fight we have won yet, FAR from it, so many feminists will be legitimately wary of a man, any man, working against it.

Of course, and I'm not trying to argue for blocks on female sexuality. I'm asking for some tasteful thought and tasteful action from anyone. I feel the same way about "lesbian" porn starring straight gender-normative women made for hetero dudes, trust me. To put it another way, if this was an issue where it was popular to portray black men in problematic ways, and black men objected, would white women say that because of patriarchal oppression, they have the right to portray men of other races however they like? Obviously race and sexuality aren't equivalent, but it's the only salient example I can come up with for some kind of comparison, here.

So basically: you have a point, of course you have a point! There is no denying that. But asking women to put gay men's interests before their own interests is once again telling women to put MEN before them - and that's not going to go down well with quite a few feminists.

I guess at the end of the day I just don't see why 'female interests' have to coincide with problematic portrayals of minority groups. Surely it's possible to write slash fiction without being glib or offensive in your handling of the gay characters; I've seen it done many, many times. But it's not done enough, and so when I see something like the ambiguous AO3 message it sends the message that fandom doesn't care and shouldn't care.

I've quite enjoyed this discussion, by the way.

[(Anonymous)]

I have to run, so I can't reply point-by-point, sorry.

* I think one big problem here is that intersectionality does not necessarily look the same depending on where you stand. You as a gay man see bad slash as badly fetishizing gay men, and are understandably upset by this. Many women, on the other hand, see slash only as a way to get two men together; it's not about homosexuality, it's only about some of us straight women liking guys and thus liking it even more when there are two of them together - and from this standpoint, having slash be criticised feels like an attack on our fetishization of men in general, which goes right back to the societal denigration of female sexuality. I have a bit of a hard time explaining this, so I don't know if you understand what I mean?

* Kink is kink is kink. In particular, kink doesn't have to be realistic. For example, rape is a horrifying experience IRL, but rape fantasies are as old as the world. Rape fantasies objectify rape victims and are often highly unrealistic, but most people understand that rape fantasies are not about the reality of rape, but only about the kink of ravishment. Similarly, yaoi and stereotypical slash are not about the reality of gay men, but only about the kink of having a Big Manly Seme and a Weepy Girly Uke getting it on together. It's a kink, and it shouldn't be taken as an indication of what a writer thinks of gay men IRL.

* Most slash writers write what they know, or think they know. If what they know is what they are being exposed to in the mainstream media, then their ideas of gay relationships are going to be severely skewed. Expecting often very young straight female writers to know better about gay men than what they see and read in media around them is unrealistic. You first need to have that media portrayal be made more accurate, and then we'll see about telling young female writers to know better. It's the same fight as feminism, really: it's better to fight for better portrayals of women in the media, and to praise the ones we do find, than to come down on average artists who obviously blandly reproduce what they are being fed. The average artists will know better once they are SHOWN better, not before that.

All that said, I agree with your conclusion:

I guess at the end of the day I just don't see why 'female interests' have to coincide with problematic portrayals of minority groups. Surely it's possible to write slash fiction without being glib or offensive in your handling of the gay characters; I've seen it done many, many times. But it's not done enough, and so when I see something like the ambiguous AO3 message it sends the message that fandom doesn't care and shouldn't care.

Yes it's doable. But it's a very complicated issue, with hurt feelings and deep-seated fears of invalidation everywhere. Intersectionality is never far from infighting, after all.

[(Anonymous)]

I fucking love you.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm happy to check my privilege here

No you're not.

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

lol ok anon thanks for your contribution to the dialogue