case: (Default)
Case ([personal profile] case) wrote in [community profile] fandomsecrets2012-07-10 06:14 pm

[ SECRET POST #2016 ]


⌈ Secret Post #2016 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #288.
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.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
I hate this argument a lot. When I write filthy porn about dudes, including mpreg and slavery and self-lubricating assholes and w/e, it's because I want to get off and I don't want to put female characters in those situations. There's a lot of het and even f/f porn like that outside fandom, and a lot of it is written by men whose self-insert fantasies include the subjugation of women. Which is a big fucking deal in the real world already, and I don't need it in my porn too.

Also maybe more importantly, biology does not fucking equal gender. Just because a guy gets pregnant it DOES NOT MAKE HIM A WOMAN. Anymore than a trans* guy stops being a guy if he chooses to get pregnant. So calling all a/b/o fic a statement about women is pretty offensive (obvs it can be, but that is on the individual author).

This comment is not just directed at you, obviously. I just had a rant building.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 06:30 am (UTC)(link)
FUCKING THANK YOU.

FFS, when did a kink stop being just a kink? I've got a noncon kink a mile high but that doesn't mean I'm ever comfortable reading m/f noncon. It's too close to home. I can put a man in that same situation and find it hot because there's enough distance there that I don't read it as reflecting on me.

But for crying out loud, whether I kink on it for men or for women, that doesn't ever men I think anyone deserves to be fucking raped or that I'd find it hot if they were. Real life rape is a tragedy and a trauma and horrific, I would never wish it on anyone. But fictional stuff is fictional and it has absolutely no bearing on my views on men, women, or anyone at all. It's just a kink.

And I get really freaking pissed off at the "omegas are just women!" comments. No, they're men. Men who bottom during sex, even men who are biologically compelled to bottom during sex, are still men. It's this twisted way of somehow shaming people for playing with gender roles that I truly do not understand and I feel like I need to be sexist somehow to even get where they're coming from. "Omegas are parallels to women because they need to be protected and are hormonal!" Uh, what? How the hell does that apply to women anyway? I used to see the same stupid things said about yaoi back in the day and it didn't make any sense to me then either.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 01:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"Omegas are parallels to women because they need to be protected and are hormonal!"

Hahahaha, no. Omegas are parallels to women because they are socialised to submit to their alphas, to roll over and accept that bearing young is their duty and vocation, to not go into certain jobs, or not work at all solely because they are omegas/subs, are expected to be quiet while alphas talk, must take orders from any alpha etc. Worst of all, the fact that it's treated as the acceptable norm that everyone accepts because it's biological, and the narrative offers no comments whatsoever that there's something wrong with it, that's the offensive part.

To each their own with the kinks, like you say - I'm not against anyone writing it to their hearts' content, but it would be nice if the author acknowledged that this dynamic is fucked up and oppressive.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 08:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Thread OC

But I don't hear people saying "parallel" to women, I hear people saying omegas reflect the authors' opinions on women. Yes, the treatment of omegas is fucked up in part because it's parallel to the fucked up treatment of women in the real world. But if you create a world where women are not the class treated in that fucked up way, it is purposefully creating distance from the real world idea that female=submissive/born to breed/etc. It divorces the idea of a class of people who are put in that fucked up position from gender. That is one thing I like about it. It doesn't always have to be a woman in that role.

Also, many, many authors do acknowledge it's fucked up and oppressive. That's why it has non-con warnings on it, and forced pregnancy warnings, and slavery warnings. This seems like sort of a strawman to me because I see way more a/b/o fic properly warned for and noted than not. Unlike a shitton of mpreg and rape-as-love stuff that crosses the same lines for me.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-12 03:20 pm (UTC)(link)
It is purposefully creating distance from the real world idea that female=submissive/born to breed/etc. [...] It divorces the idea of a class of people who are put in that fucked up position from gender.

I disagree. First of all, biologically the definition of a female is "the sex which produces stationary ova," which is (I presume, this is very rarely explained) what omegas do, which is also the reason they are subjugated. Thus the 'verse doesn't divorce itself from strict gender politics, it merely creates a third gender (and not even that, sometimes - there are omegaverses in which there are no women, period) and subjugates it, in which case I can't help but get a little skeeved out at the author's treatment of the childbearing class. My general question is therefore how do you differentiate between omegas and women?

If it's properly labelled, cool. Sadly, I've come across a few fics in which there was the non-con label, and the poor omega suffered through some pretty horrific abuse with his alpha, who then got overthrown and the new alpha pretty much did the same thing, only with less beatings and sleaziness, and voilà, magical happy ending. Which may be me complaining about the quality of writing.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-12 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't define "woman" as "possessing primary female sex characteristics." I define it as "being a sentient being who identifies as a woman." There are definitely a/b/o fics that get into dirty talk and verbal humiliation along the lines of "like a woman" or descriptions of "manpussy", and I'm not really into that because it's enforcing the shitty gender dynamics from our world on one where they don't have to exist. But for me that's not inherent in the trope, and in my experience it's much more prevalent in mpreg fic that isn't a/b/o.

there was the non-con label, and the poor omega suffered through some pretty horrific abuse with his alpha, who then got overthrown and the new alpha pretty much did the same thing, only with less beatings and sleaziness, and voilà, magical happy ending

This is a really good point, and I agree it can be hard to tell whether an author is condoning the second alpha's behavior as non-abusive. Because obviously it is abusive, and that's worth acknowledging. In the only a/b/o fic I ever wrote, the two characters were friends and the omega went into heat unexpectedly, and in my mind the fact that the omega underwent this gradual loss of self that he didn't want or expect was creepy as fuck. But I'm sure some people read it as a happy ending, and that definitely goes the other way too. Just because I see abuse doesn't mean the author or anyone else does.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-13 01:04 pm (UTC)(link)
See, that's what I can't figure out: how is the sharp division and inequality between alphas and omegas not enforcing the shitty gender dynamic? The species is divided into two reproductive kinds, one of whom (doesn't really matter which, though it's most often the childbearing kind) is subjugated, stereotyped and subdued based on their biology - let's take a step back and forget about labels here - how is that not the exact same thing which happens to women in our world? I'm not getting in the gendered insults, that's obviously a whole another bag of stones. My understanding of the omegaverse is this: by the rules of the society they live in, this class of people is perceived as inferior and in need of guidance solely because of their biology (incidentally the biology relevant to reproducing). It might be that I just get too invested in the 'verse when reading, but that bothers me, very much so.

I second your definition of "woman," but I am not arguing that omegas identify as women. They identify as omegas, which is a term, basing on the biological, cultural and societal cues of the omegaverse, directly equivalent to what we call "women."

The other anon ignored the question, so let me just ask: in the context of omegaverse, what makes the omega a man?

(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 12:41 pm (UTC)(link)
this, seriously. this is why i really can't stand most feminists. learn some analytical skills before you start spouting crap about a complex topic. being a woman does not automatically qualify you to discuss feminism with insight.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 08:53 pm (UTC)(link)
AYRT

Most feminists I know are way more thoughtful than most concern trolls on the internet. Don't give up on feminism, anon!

(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 01:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Also maybe more importantly, biology does not fucking equal gender. Just because a guy gets pregnant it DOES NOT MAKE HIM A WOMAN. Anymore than a trans* guy stops being a guy if he chooses to get pregnant.

I'm pretty sure biological gender is determined by which party provides the ovum, regardless of who carries the young (see seahorses). So in a/o omegas are females.

As for gender, 99% of fics has them socially conditioned to bear young and be submissive to the alphas, deeming them unable to perform certain jobs based on their alignment, socialising them to stay home and bear young, which parallels the conditioning of women rather aptly. A trans guy is still a guy, an omega is not.

If that's your kink, power to you, all I see is a woman with a penis being put in her place and justly dominated by her master.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-11 09:05 pm (UTC)(link)
AYRT

Biological gender is way more complicated than that, or any woman who was infertile would not be biologically female.

And a man who is an omega is still a man, even if he's conditioned to play what we think of as "women's roles", which we think of that way because real world gender politics is so fucked up. When I look at a fantasy world where gender does not culturally define submissiveness, I don't see it as a commentary on women. I see it as a commentary on what it would be like if women weren't the ones in that position of collective powerlessness. And I like it.

I don't read omegas as "women with penises"; I wouldn't like it if I did. So I guess we see these things differently, and that's fine.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-12 03:06 pm (UTC)(link)
It's really not: the definition of female is "the sex of an organism which produces the ova." Infertility has many, many causes and manifests in different ways, and I'm pretty sure not having ova is one of them, but even if the reproductive cells were gone, the reproductive organs would be there, in some form.

My problem is that I can't see what makes the omegas men anymore. I'm a fan of mpreg, so it's not that I have "lolwhut, gets pregnant = female" goggles on, it's more that in all the fics I have read I couldn't see what precisely made them men, as opposed to differently shaped women.

(Anonymous) 2012-07-12 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not going to argue with you about the characteristics of biological sex. Even being biologically female in the sense you mean doesn't make someone a woman. If a person self-identifies as a woman, then she's a woman. I'm not going to argue that.