[ SECRET POST #2644 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2644 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #378.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: How is it possible to be anti-gay rights and also ship slash?

[(Anonymous)]

An ex-fandom friend of mine was like this. She was a very religious Muslim and at first justified herself shipping the slash pairing in question because it was "just fantasy" - and she really, really loved this pairing - but eventually got paranoid about religion and stuff, and so took down her yaoi fics, and reposted them with one of the characters genderswapped so it would be het. Then, that wasn't even enough because she felt she shouldn't write about unmarried couples either, so she took them down again and only posted fics where the characters were married. For the pairing in question, them being married is really, really weird, gay, straight or otherwise. Finally she convinced herself she didn't like the pairing or the anime anymore.

Yeah, our friendship kind of dwindled, considering I'm gay. But we were really close, surprisingly, and her religious meltdown was just a trainwreck. I knew that she couldn't force herself to actually stop liking slash, and she liked femmeslash, too.

Re: How is it possible to be anti-gay rights and also ship slash?

[badass_tiger]

I wish I could say religious meltdowns amongst Muslims aren't common, but I'm sad to say that's not an entirely unusual case. There's just a lot of pressure, particularly if your family is very religious, and even more so if you live in a non-Islamic country. I find that a bit extreme as a Muslim myself, though.

Re: How is it possible to be anti-gay rights and also ship slash?

[(Anonymous)]

She was from a Muslim majority country, and when I first met her, I suppose she was a little more "liberal". I mean, her religion was clearly important to her and I definitely respected that, but she was very open minded. Wrote some of the kinkiest, most popular porn in the fandom. But she got a job as a teacher at a very conservative, religious school, and I wonder if that environment isn't what changed her. It got to the point where she felt like she couldn't listen to music anymore, couldn't watch anime (because they are drawn depictions of people), couldn't write any fanfiction that showed anything that went against the Koran.

I definitely don't mean to make this as a connection between Muslims and slash at all - it was just her and her own struggles with her faith and her conservatism. It just really left an impression on me because we would Skype and basically talk every day, but it was hard for me because she confided in me with her struggles. And I'm a lesbian atheist myself, and I never knew how to be supportive of her while disagreeing with her. It became too tough for me to keep up with the friendship, and I'm sure it was tougher for her.

Re: How is it possible to be anti-gay rights and also ship slash?

[(Anonymous)]

I almost wonder if she wasn't pressured to change? I'm not trying to freak you out or anything, but I wonder if someone in her more religious circle didn't find out about her hobbies. :/

Re: How is it possible to be anti-gay rights and also ship slash?

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I wonder that, too. I don't know if she would have been open about liking slash, but she did tell me that she showed the anime in question to her students earlier in her career at the new school, and apparently even asked them "if (x character) was a girl, don't you think they would be a couple?" She didn't tell me if there was any backlash from that, and she said her students really liked her. But she did tell me about her co-workers, who all wore full niqabs (I think?) while she only wore the hijab, would make remarks about not listening to music, and once criticized her for wearing bright lipstick.

It was hard to separate what was religious and what was simply cultural for me, especially since when we talked she came across as "Western" and liberal (sorry to generalize).. until she started changing anyway. I hope she wasn't forced or anything to become more conservative, but I really think at least some of it came from inside of her and her own fears and insecurities. We chatted every day and we always spilled all of our thoughts to each other, so she unloaded all of this to me. At the same time I was coming to terms with my sexuality, and tried to unload that on her, too, and... it was weird and eventually ended in an argument and a "break up." I always wondered what happened to her. I hope she's doing better these days.

Re: How is it possible to be anti-gay rights and also ship slash?

[(Anonymous)]

I think something similar may have happened to some of my friends - in fandom or at college (depending on where I knew them) they were relatively liberal, one of them was even pro-feminist and pro-gay rights. But then they stopped being in fandoms or graduated college, and suddenly they're posting things that they never appeared to think before, or even downright against their former beliefs. I feel like some of it's that they may just be "adapting" to the people they're trying to impress, but I also wonder if they don't feel more pressure to conform now.

(And I don't think you're slighting Muslims - the people I mentioned are Christians, but I know a lot of Christians who don't think that way either.)

Re: How is it possible to be anti-gay rights and also ship slash?

[nyxelestia]

This isn't even just Muslims - I remember reading an essay on the Fanfic Symposium from a Christian struggling with the religiously moral ramifications of reading and writing slashfic and erotica.

I...got the impression the author was trying to either convince herself as much as anyone else, or writing up some kind of defense against conservative criticism of the hobby (herself or others') without necessarily justifying it. But maybe I'm just reading too much into it. *shrugs*

ETA:
http://www.trickster.org/symposium/symp165.htm