Slash rant
Jun. 16th, 2005 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieI hate the main idea of slash. I really do.
Nope, not homophobic. I exclude from my loathing of slash stories about same sex couples where it is merely continuing canon. All the fic in the world writing about Renault's Alexander and Hephaistion, or the two female leads of Deepa Mehta's "Fire" or even something where you could concievably read in a lover's relationship (e.g. Sirius and Remus. I don't see it, but I can see how one would) does not bother me one whit.
I mean all these stories where there is NO indication the canon characters are anything other than straight (and/or violently hate each other). Aragorn has faithfully loved Arwen for 60 years? Too bad, as in fanfic he is paired with Legolas. Harry Potter likes girls? Too bad. In fanfic he is Draco Malfoy's love slave (even though there is nothing redeemable about Draco in canon and the boys loathe each other. Harry/Neville would even be more plausible). Anakin is obsessive about Padme, and went to the Dark Side for her? But what do you know, fanon Anakin is too busy boinking Obi-Wan to care. Apparently, so many men are gay that it's amazing that the human race is managing to reproduce at all.
Basically, I find the notion that one cannot be really good friends (or even have a strong emotion like hatred) with a person of the same gender without wanting their naughty bits in one's mouth utterly revolting and a horrible (not to mention oversexed) view of the human nature.
I am very close to my best friend, who is female. We have been friends for almost a decade, talk on the phone every day, and share a hive mind on a lot of books, movies and other minutia. We help each other through problems and are hopefully there for each other. Yet, somehow we managed to avoid an unbridled lesbian orgy. I certainly don't think men are any different.
Hey, teenybopper girls who revel in slash between characters whose only claim to slashiness is that they are friends. How would you feel if everyone assumed you had sex with all your girlfriends merely because you hung out with them and were good friends? See? Absurd.
/rant
Flame away.
Nope, not homophobic. I exclude from my loathing of slash stories about same sex couples where it is merely continuing canon. All the fic in the world writing about Renault's Alexander and Hephaistion, or the two female leads of Deepa Mehta's "Fire" or even something where you could concievably read in a lover's relationship (e.g. Sirius and Remus. I don't see it, but I can see how one would) does not bother me one whit.
I mean all these stories where there is NO indication the canon characters are anything other than straight (and/or violently hate each other). Aragorn has faithfully loved Arwen for 60 years? Too bad, as in fanfic he is paired with Legolas. Harry Potter likes girls? Too bad. In fanfic he is Draco Malfoy's love slave (even though there is nothing redeemable about Draco in canon and the boys loathe each other. Harry/Neville would even be more plausible). Anakin is obsessive about Padme, and went to the Dark Side for her? But what do you know, fanon Anakin is too busy boinking Obi-Wan to care. Apparently, so many men are gay that it's amazing that the human race is managing to reproduce at all.
Basically, I find the notion that one cannot be really good friends (or even have a strong emotion like hatred) with a person of the same gender without wanting their naughty bits in one's mouth utterly revolting and a horrible (not to mention oversexed) view of the human nature.
I am very close to my best friend, who is female. We have been friends for almost a decade, talk on the phone every day, and share a hive mind on a lot of books, movies and other minutia. We help each other through problems and are hopefully there for each other. Yet, somehow we managed to avoid an unbridled lesbian orgy. I certainly don't think men are any different.
Hey, teenybopper girls who revel in slash between characters whose only claim to slashiness is that they are friends. How would you feel if everyone assumed you had sex with all your girlfriends merely because you hung out with them and were good friends? See? Absurd.
/rant
Flame away.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 07:55 pm (UTC)I believe in bisexuality, and the way you can go for years not knowing until bammo! you fall in love with someone who is of the same sex.
Well, yes, obviously bisexuality is real. But statistically speaking, it's a small percentage of the population. However, according to fanfic, it would appear that 90% of men are bisexual which is just plain dumb.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 08:20 pm (UTC)I disagree with that. If somebody writes a slash pairing, then for the sake of the story, these are the only homosexual/bisexual people in that universe. If writer A pairs up Draco/Harry and writer B pairs Ginny/Hermoine and C pairs Hagrid/Snape, each story is its own universe. If these characters were having sex in the same story, then I would agree, the percentage is too high and it's unrealistic. But if it's different stories, then you have to take the gay ratio for each story, not all stories combined. Just becaue Snape is gay in one authors story, doesn't mean that he is gay in the next story that features another slash pairing.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 08:44 pm (UTC)If you look at fandom as a whole if just tells you that there is an unusually high percentage of people who like gay/biseuxal stories. But still each story has to be viewed seperatedly as its individual percentage goes.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 08:47 pm (UTC)Sorry, I just write too fast. I like to blame it on my non native speaking, but the sad truth is that I'm usually too
lazymuch in a hurry to hit the preview button and examine the post again.has to be viewed seperatedly as fas as its individual percentage goes. and that kind of thing. Sniff, I want an edit button!
no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 08:35 pm (UTC)Only 3% are exclusively straight and 2% are exclusively gay.
Everyone else fits somewhere in-between, whether a fleeting snugglebunny thought of a member of the inappropriate sex or actively taking an equal number of lovers of both sexes. (I'm in the "committed to a het relationship but has girl-crushes anyway" category)
Most people who identify as straight are only primarily straight. Ditto most gayfolk. They consider that one kiss or the adolescent experimentation to be a transient thing. Even my husband, who is absolutely straight, cannot conceive of loving a man, has had night dreams about it.
Add to that how much it costs (still) socially and personally to come out of the closet, and you see why people identify as gay more readily than bi.
HP only came up with the name. We've been writing Luke/Leia since 1977. Althought it only became twincest in 83.
And for me the Sirius/Remus big clue was joint Christmas present.
I think much slash comes out of the queer gaze. Women in fandom (the primary producers of fanfic) identify as lesbian or bisexual about 30% of the time, as opposed to about 2% of the time in the real world. (Some lists I've been on, it's been closer to 70-90%)
We spend much of our lives looking for representations of ourselves in the media. So we get attuned to subtext and clothing cues. (Dr. McCoy is obviously gay, as no straight men wear ascots and blue fluffy coats. Add in his regular bitchiness, his Spock-fixation and you've got slash)
But this is all better covered in The Celluloid Closet.