fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2120 ]

[ SECRET POST #2120 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2120 ⌋

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

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Okay, first of all, I'm not a troll. I just would like something explained to me.

I'm a straight female, and I only like het pairings. I used to assume that slash was preferred by gay people. I know, I know! Don't attack me. I know better than to assume something like that now. But I still don't quite get it.

As a straight woman, with het pairings I can sort of live vicariously through the female in the pairing. I can pretend I am her. Slash pairings just don't interest me.

So, my question, I guess, is what is so appealing to slash pairings to so many straight females? A lot of people on my flist are into slash pairings, and I don't want to ask them, because I don't want to offend anyone.

I'm not being judgey, I just don't understand. Explain, please?

Because two hot dudes making out is hot, to many straight (and bi) women. It's really that simple.

Pretty much this.

Also, I've heard some people mention that same-sex pairings appeal to them because they provide an escape from traditional gender roles in romantic and erotic fiction.

I'd say that's secondary, though. Even amongst those who openly state they're doing it to escape gender roles/like the dynamic/etc. the two dudes are almost always hot. For some reason.

While that is certainly true, some people think certain characters make a good couple...and both those characters just happen to be male. I don't ship things simply because of the gender of the characters, their relationship has to intrigue me in some way. Now do some people ship things for purely vain reasons (or other reasons, because there are a million different reasons people can have for shipping something)? Yup. And that's okay too.

Yeah, I can totally see that. But, at least in my fandom, the dudes with the most interactions/most complex relationships are hardly ever shipped, if at all. Even the developers openly admit that the series is "about", by and large, the relationship between two of them. But, one of those men is over 50 and looks it.

Who does get shipped? The two hottest young dudes, who say a total of three sentences to one another throughout the entire canon. For the long, plotty shit as well as the random pwp porn.

So maybe I'm biased. Maybe it's different in your fandoms.

Re: Genuine Question about Slash

elaminator - 2012-10-23 04:22 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Genuine Question about Slash

ariakas - 2012-10-23 04:27 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Genuine Question about Slash

elaminator - 2012-10-23 04:38 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Genuine Question about Slash

ariakas - 2012-10-23 04:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Genuine Question about Slash

elaminator - 2012-10-23 05:06 (UTC) - Expand

Well tbh, a lot of straight women have a lot of different reasons

For some of them, it's that they just aren't interested in seeing/hearing about female genitalia or whatever because they aren't attracted to it sexually. Therefore, when there's two dudes that means they have twice as much dick to look at and it means they're attracted to both parties (this is the same reason a lot of people cite for some men being drawn to lesbian porn)

Some women also feel uncomfortable hearing/imagining their own female sexuality and use slash as a way to indirectly explore their own sexuality (I wouldn't say this is true for the majority of female slash fans though). I feel like I'm not really explaining though...but it makes sense in my head

There are probably a lot of other reasons too, but those are a couple of the ones I've heard (I'm actually a lesbian, so I can't speak from the point of view of a straight woman. I like m/m slash too though. And...I honestly don't know why now that I think about it)

Voyeuristic thing, in part. And also I think it has to do with seeing men showing emotion--our culture tells us that's ~weak and unacceptable and shit, so it's nice to see guys actually being loving and feelings-y. And if there's two of them, and they're doing it towards each other, that's twice as awesome.

I've never really thought of the forbidden emotions aspect before, but I agree that that is an applicable reason in my case.

Yeah, I mean, depending on context, the forbidden/taboo/outsider-y connotations just make it hotter & more passionate.

Yeah, the men showing emotion was the first thing that got me hooked on slash. It just felt so different from all the romance movies I'd seen, where the guy is basically just winning over the woman.

Not everyone feels the need to self-insert into their OTP to enjoy the fic.

Same. I like the dynamic of x and y, and want to read about that. I may see elements of myself in characters, but there's never really any self-insertion going on.

Yep, you nailed it.

Why do straight men like lesbian porn?

Pretty much the same reasons as far as I can tell.

Unless you're confused about that too?

(Not being a bitch here. Seriously trying to answer your question.)

a) The classy part: a lot of show/book/movie casts tend to be male-dominated, both by number of characters and in importance/interestingness of characters and relationships. So wanting to ship the most interesting relationships in the cast statistically -> shipping a lot of male/male relationships.

b) The crude part: straight female equivalent of lesbian porn. One guy is hot, two guys are hotter, and two guys fucking is ten times as hot as that.

c) The gender-related part: a lot of women identify with one half of pairing based on other personality traits they share with that character regardless of whether they share genders. They also (often, but not always) live vicariously through the receptive half of the pairing in sex scenes, which is why characters that lots of people identify with and/or fan favorites are so often on the bottom in porny fanfic.

Yours is the best answer, I think. This is why I like you; your comments are always so well-thought out. :)

OP

Thanks to everyone for the insights!

Thank you, OP - it's been a long time since we've had a good old "what are your thoughts on yaoi" thread ;3

But what are your thoughts on yaoi?!!

Well, I'm not straight, but I ship het, m/m, and f/f. But I guess I've just never done the living vicariously thing? I like reading shippy fic because I like the way two (or more) characters interact in canon and I want to see more of that. It's like making my Barbie dolls kiss each other, or playing The Sims and seeing what fascinating things I can make happen. I'm not part of it, I'm just watching from the shadows with a creepy grin on my face.

I used to be like that. Although, I wouldn't say I was reading het because I wanted to live through the characters. I could just relate.

Then I realized that I liked stories for how people interacted. I get a happy squishy feeling when something is romantic, or touching, no matter the gender attached to it.

I like exploring the emotions the characters go through. There's a different dynamic with all of them.

Part of what originally made it hard for me to understand was the stories that were highly stereotyped. If it's written in a believable way though, I can get behind almost anything.

I personally would rather see TWO men that I find hot gettin on each other instead of one hot dude and a woman. I've never done self-insert, I don't get that AT ALL.

na

I don't get the self-insert thing at all, either. I'm pretty sure I like slash so much largely because I DON'T get super invested in one lead or the other like I do with female characters in het ships. I gradually stopped reading romance novels in the nineties because I hated how women were portrayed in them. Jennifer Crusie was about the only author I could stand anymore and eventually I lost interest in her books, too. When I finally got around to reading slash (I tried to read fic off and on for years and it took me a long time to get the whole point of fic,) it was a revelation to me. I can still read and enjoy romance fiction! It's just way less of a minefield for me when the leads are males.

I'm a bi woman. I often identify more with male characters, probably because of a mix of:

a) male characters are often better developed
b) male characters often get to interact with more characters and get better developed relationships
c) female characters are often stereotypes (you know, shopping and makeup and romance and PMS)
d) I get to see het relationships played out in canon. I'm very rarely interested in exploring what I know canon will. I want to see the outliers.

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