Alison wrote
Shane and Fiona effectively made the same point I think -
But this isn't getting rid of the feelings of shame though, it's just displacing them.
I like the idea that women should feel more relaxed about their own feelings, but we don't live in a world of perfect political struggle.
People
want to enjoy themselves, and there has to be room for both challenging
the
conventions of society (for them that want to) and fun. And people have to have fun in ways that accommodate the imperfections of the world we
actually
live in. We can't wait until everything is right before we start enjoying ourselves.
No, but we can change our mindset, and IMO one way to do this is to create fictional universes in which women can do whatever the hell they like.
But is it still deemed 'bad' if a gay man does it?
To women, in general, I'd say not (though there are obvious exceptions). I think women generally feel much less anxiety around male sexual expression than around their own, and that extends to gay men. This is just my impression.
Fair enough, but it has also been said that slash denies gay identity (i.e. the stories along the lines of "Blake's not gay, he just has sex with Avon") and doesn't give much of a voice to lesbians, or address the real political issues which I'm sure gay people face even in a future society. I know, it's all a fantasy, but IMO it raises some disturbing questions about RL politics.
Shane
"Resist the host or your oneness will be absorbed!" --Zil
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Fair enough, but it has also been said that slash denies gay identity (i.e. the stories along the lines of "Blake's not gay, he just has sex with Avon")
I'm not sure this is true any more: early slash in any fandom falls victim to that particular syndrome (originally described for K/S as "Kirk's not gay, he just wants to suck Spock's cock"). In K/S's case, I suppose the writer has to retcon the Dead-Girlfriend-of-the-Week thing *somehow*. Nowadays, there are any number of ways to deal with sexual identity--and slash writing does sometimes deal with them. Read Executrix's Pink-Triangle-Avon stories for writing where sexual identity is the heart of the story, for example. There are quite a few Julia Stamford stories where the politics of sex are an integral part of the story. My stories tend to assume that Blake is gay or bi and Avon is bi and leave it like that, I suppose, because I'm more interested in sex than politics and I find the concept of bisexuality more understandable than the sort of writing you're talking about where neither of them has ever thought about another man until they're in bed together.
and doesn't give much of a voice to lesbians, or address the real
political issues
Am nonplussed. I'm straight myself, but I know of several gay women (including the writer Joanna Russ, viz one of her essays) who have been known to turn on to slash, because slash is a mental kink (like h/c or torture or rape-fantasy) which isn't clearly about what one wants to happen to oneself. Do you also dislike gay men who have a (not necessarily sexual) fantasy about women (Dave W having a thing about Servalan, for example?)?
I'll admit that slash sensibility is much more to do with the women writing it than it's to do with gay sensibility in writing by gay men, but is that really so bad?
Cheers, Pred'x
Predatrix said:
In K/S's case, I suppose the writer has to retcon the Dead-Girlfriend-of-the-Week thing *somehow*.
Hey, maybe that's why Blake never goes to bed with Jenna--because if he did that the scriptwriters would have to kill her (as per Bonanza Syndrome).
Nowadays, there are any number of ways to deal with sexual identity--and slash writing does sometimes deal with them. Read Executrix's Pink-Triangle-Avon stories for writing where sexual identity is the heart
of
the story, for example. There are quite a few Julia Stamford stories where the politics of sex are an integral part of the story. My stories tend to assume that Blake is gay or bi and Avon is bi and leave it like that, I suppose, because I'm more interested in sex than politics and I find the concept of bisexuality more understandable than the sort of writing you're talking about where neither of them has ever thought about another man
until
they're in bed together.
and doesn't give much of a voice to lesbians, or address the real
political issues
It's very tough to do a good lesbian story when you don't have good female characters to work with...
Am nonplussed. I'm straight myself, but I know of several gay women (including the writer Joanna Russ, viz one of her essays) who have been known to turn on to slash, because slash is a mental kink (like h/c or torture or rape-fantasy) which isn't clearly about what one wants to
happen
to oneself.
There's the whole Twelfth Night thing of being simultaneously one'sself and other-sex sibling though--and the question of whether the reader of any kind of pornography considers him/herself a spectator or a participant
I'll admit that slash sensibility is much more to do with the women
writing
it than it's to do with gay sensibility in writing by gay men, but is that really so bad?
On the Other List, whenever somebody says "Gee, your story should have said this or been about that" the answer is "OK, then YOU write it."
-(Y)
On Sun, Mar 25, 2001 at 10:34:07AM -0500, Dana Shilling wrote:
Predatrix said:
I'll admit that slash sensibility is much more to do with the women writing it than it's to do with gay sensibility in writing by gay men, but is that really so bad?
On the Other List, whenever somebody says "Gee, your story should have said this or been about that" the answer is "OK, then YOU write it."
What an apt answer!
Kathryn Andersen -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Havant: You're obviously suffering from a severe emotional disturbance. We must try to unravel this fantasy. Blake: It is NOT a fantasy. Havant: Of course it isn't. Blake: Do you believe me? Havant: To you it isn't a fantasy. (Blake's 7: The Way Back [A1])
From: Dana Shilling dshilling@worldnet.att.net
It's very tough to do a good lesbian story when you don't have good female characters to work with...
Are the male ones really that much better? We've got about as much background, on average, for them as we have for the women. True, the men hogged more than their fair share of the dialogue and the action, but I don't think that tells us a great deal more about them, especially in a slash context when much has to be invented anyway. The women may have been underwritten, on the whole, but not to the point where they were squeezed out entirely. The raw material is there. If writers don't pick up on it, as most appear not to, then that might simply be because they're just disinterested.
Neil
-
Dana Shilling -
Kathryn Andersen -
Neil Faulkner -
Predatrix -
Shane Little