Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2012-12-29 02:53 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2012-12-29 02:53 pm
[ SECRET POST #2188 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2188 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 102 secrets from Secret Submission Post #313.
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.
no subject
Like... take a listen to this song here, for a minute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXuy_5xpNNI
(Linking the version with the lyrics, so it's totally clear.)
Why is there no uproar about this song? Why don't I find rants about Jeffree Star fans being unhealthy if they enjoy that song?
Part of it may be that Jeffree's stuff is openly dark, so it's clearer it's not all supposed to be OOOOOO YAY OOOO... but at the same time, that song does seem to me to be intended to be sexy.
And from the little I've read of both Twilight and 50S, the characters who do these things do describe themselves as having problems, as "50 shades of fucked up, etc."
So is one okay and the other not? And if so, why?
Could be people have a damn good reason, but... it's always seemed to me to be that 50S and Twilight hatedom is a thing. A trend.
Maybe I'm just cynical, but I tend to think that for most people, the Concern About Women Fans is social-justice icing on yummy hatedom cake, not the other way around.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-12-29 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-12-29 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)I would tend to agree with this.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-12-29 11:08 pm (UTC)(link)From what I've seen, in 50 Shades, the narrator acknowledges that Christian has issues, but there is nothing that indicates their eventual relationship isn't perfect, even when it is pretty messed up.
People can read whatever they want; I know that my tastes in fiction don't always match up to my real life tastes (I love reading misunderstanding angst with a happy ending, am a big huge fan of actually *talking to people* in real life). However, while I'm not saying everyone needs to decry the series and talk about how much they hate them, reading and enjoying them is a little different from actually saying you think the relationships portrayed are healthy, good, romantic, and unproblematic. Because they aren't. Christian Grey, at least, checks all the boxes for an emotionally abusive partner. You can enjoy things you know are messed up. You can enjoy them in spite of or even because of it. You can want relationships many would consider fucked up. But denying that they're fucked up at all? Setting up abusive behavior as an ideal outside of fiction (which some, though certainly not all, fans of the books do) is a different matter.
I wouldn't say that anyone who enjoys the books has issues-- that seems extreme and unlikely. But I think that the books and the reaction to them are an expression of romantic/sexual culture today, which praises men and privileges their authority, desires, and needs over those of women. So no, saying the relationships are great, romantic exemplars doesn't make you fucked up. But it does mean that it is likely you have internalized certain gendered norms in a way that means you may not perceive emotional abuse as abuse, but rather as normal or right (even desired, in the way that society portrays harmful and messed up possessiveness as a sign of real love). And... that's pretty sad, to me.
To each their own-- people have a right to read, feel, and want whatever they want, in fiction and in real life. But I do think it's perfectly valid to object to the books because of their problematic content (even if a lot of those objections are secondary to joining the 'cool team' of hating on popular things).
no subject
http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/tag/fic%3A%20elj1%20fify%20shades%20of%20grey
with situations in which Ana is being provocative, apparently on purpose. And while I get why people might not like that, it also perplexes me, because "SAM" or "smart-ass masochist" is a thing, in the BDSM Scene. With a NAME, even. And James is doing it very wrong, yes, but it's like the very idea is weird or wrong -- yet in that actual community, it's a common thing. Some people like it and some people don't, but it's a thing.
And I keep seeing what to me reads like stuff like that, where it's not so much that James is doing it wrong that seems to be the issue, but that she's doing it at all. And that makes me a little uncomfortable, honestly, because as much as I dislike 50S, I really like that BDSM is a thing to *talk* about now. A thing that is really being embraced as sexy and not as weird.
I mean, yeah, ten years ago it wasn't like people thought I was serial-killer crazy, but people like me were weird. Now people like me are what every housewife seems to daydream about being.
So when people are all SKLJSDJHGVKJSDF STOOOOOOP THIS CRAAAAAAAZY TRAAAAAAAAAIN BEFORE IT'S TOOOOOO LAAAAAAAAATE I'm like "...stop what I always was? Stop the sort of stuff I always looked for, because it's problematic? It always was. I always knew it was. I wanted to find people like me and stories about people like me."
I mean, The Story of O? PROBLEFUCKINGMATIC. But people liked it and people read it because it was what was out there -- what was for us and about us. And it has the same damn flaws -- the tops are HORRIBLE. It's only made clear O consents at all what, halfway through the book?
But there aren't flyers about that and endless secrets. People don't (well, unless they're second-wave radical feminists) talk about how that's not an allowed fantasy. And yet with 50S it's everyone stop the presses oh my god oh my god stooooop.
It's not even "Here's GOOD BDSM romance." It's just OH GOD PEOPLE ARE GETTING OFF ON THIS THEY'LL BE DAMAGED FOREVER GODDAMN. And I'm like, do we care about the straight female subs and want them to find healthy relationships or is this that whole same shit different day oh my god PEOPLE ARE SUBMISSIVE?!?/1/ELKDJERKSLGJLSFDJSGF
I can't tell. But I think a lot of it's hatedom -- and refusal to ask what fantasies this is actually tapping into and talk about what the healthy versions of those would be, because hate, distress, and concern trolling are tons easier.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-12-30 01:21 am (UTC)(link)I do think people frequently blur the lines between criticizing the totally unsafe and emotionally abusive aspects of the books and criticizing completely valid kinks and sexual preferences. There is nothing wrong with a woman being submissive. (That criticism has always burned me in the same way that hating women who informedly want to cook/clean/stay at home with kids or whatever. Yeah, maybe part of it does come from internalized social norms-- but we're all always in dialogue with social norms, whether we're rejecting old ones for a new set or maintaining tradition. As long as it really is a free choice, why should you get to decide what valid motivations are? It's ridiculous and totally opposed to my views on feminism, which pretty much involve free, informed, not coerced consent to any decision-- sexual or not. Anyways that was a vaguely related tangent, sorry.)
But in any case, I think your points are right on. I hate that a lot of criticism of 50 Shades, especially in popular media, comes with the punchline "lol they like dominance/submission/pain/anything less than vanilla sex." That's... not really the point. I have zero problem with BDSM, and I think it seems pretty natural that people are into power play in bed, however far they take it, because of its prevalence in our lives and relationships in general. I mean, I would say that I find plenty of the ideas in 50 Shades promisingly hot, if they were done well/consensually without the really gross trappings of extremely dubious consent, coercion, and emotional manipulation. Basically, it's not the sex I object to, it's the relationship, and its portrayal as ideal.
But I wish more criticism came with a why and an acceptance of the lifestyle, condemning the complete flouting of "safe, sane, and consensual" instead.
I will say I think the abundance of criticism of 50 Shades is pretty much in proportion to its ridiculous prevalence. I also think a lot of criticism of it, even putting hatedom aside, comes from a place of truly gross misogyny, which hates the idea of women having active sexual drives and kinks (even if those kinks involve submission to a man). I also think it's totally ridiculous to say that anyone will be messed up because they got off to 50 Shades-- let's be honest, people got off to dominance/submission/sadism/masochism/whatever kink you want to name long before 50 Shades came around and apparently said it was "okay." So... that seems dumb. People are into what they're into, and they tend to figure it out without a book to tell them it exists. And of all the kinks, I feel like dominance/submission has to be one of the oldest. In any case, those criticisms seem pretty dumb to me. And I think it's dangerous, because it's a kink (can you even really call it a kink? It always just seemed kind of... idk. There. Part of sex.) that lots of people are bound to share, and their first introduction to the scene is unsafe and bound up in a lot of really problematic things, and part of me does worry about that. But, idk, I don't mean to concern troll, it just seems kind of sad that people read this instead of good, sexy, accurate fiction.
So... a longwinded way of saying I agree with you.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-12-30 01:28 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2012-12-31 08:48 am (UTC)(link)srsly wtf
no subject
Did he make the phrase up, though? I know "Supermasochist" was his, but I didn't think SAM was his invention.
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(Anonymous) 2012-12-30 01:49 am (UTC)(link)There also seems to be a dose of "not like those girls/women" in there, too.
Women and girls need to be protected from these things because they may try to emulate them in real life. It's okay for me to enjoy problematic things
targeted at guysand indulge in submission fantasies because I'm not like those women and know it's fantasy.no subject
This is EXACTLY how a lot of the criticisms read to me. "You must be THIS well-versed in BDSM to ride this
guyride."