Why can't we all just get alooooong?

[mothwing]

I just found this post on queer_rage  , and I remembered why I stopped following this speeding failtrain. Ann Somerville continues to annoy me. Ever since Lambda Fail, the more I read about and by m/m writers, the less patience I have for these straight women (well, female and straight male M/M writers in general, to be honest) and their quest to write male-on-male porn or ~romance~ in peace. This "romance" usually is a type of porn, too, the only difference being that the emotional vulnerability of the characters is fetishized rather than their sexuality.

EDIT: I think it'd be a good idea to edit this because what has started out as a rant in response to reading a blog entry has grown into something completely different, so I ought to be making my points more concisely on here to save everybody from digging through the comments.

Just.... EUGH.

"Slash started out as a subversion of the overwhelmingly heteronormative fictional narrative in books, films and television. To slashers, that subversion was enough justification for the existence of slash fiction, and realism, because of the reliance on canon, secondary."

Ah, so long as we are ~subverting~ stuff, surely no one is being offensive! Also, I may not be that familiar with the history of slash, but I seriously doubt that that was always the main idea of writing slash fiction - sticking it to the man by cleverly subverting a mainly heterosexual literary landscape.

"Accusations of inauthenticity are bound up with accusations of appropriation and objectification, without any attempt to recognise that many attempt to write authentically – not attempting to imitate the voice of gay men, but by creating credible characters. That lack of recognition weakens the critics’ valid argument and leads to it being dismissed in toto."

Yeah, go girls, show those uppity fags! You are trying, so how can they be so meeen as to dismiss their valid herculean efforts? I bet those blokes who do the lesbian porn movies are trying, too.

"Critics also frequently accuse m/m authors and fans of fetishisation without qualifying it or examining the accuracy of the accusation. There is a lot of fetishisation in the way m/m readers and authors talk and write about gay men, but not all m/m readers/writers use m/m to get off (many readers/writers are lesbians, in fact), or consider the sexual content important or essential. Women write m/m for all kinds of reasons, and even erotic narrative may be much more about women’s alienation from their own sexuality or their own gender, or about exploring sexually explicit ideas and imagery in a non-threatening manner, than titillation."

Oh, really, that's cool now?

Well, then I think I'm going to go exploring my alienation from my own race and culture through writing a book about ~exotic~ POCs. Credible exotic POCs, of course.

"Yet without one, m/m will continue to be despised and derided by gay men angry at yet another betrayal by the straights, and by others who will dismiss it as porn or fluff and unworthy of serious dissection or analysis, while reinforcing straight privilege and discouraging self-examination among those who continue to write and read it. This is not the way that m/m will gain acceptance or excellence. Those whose first contact with the genre is through things like Lambda Fail are never going to delve further to discover the treasures the genre produces."

I... just... Seriously?

Dismissing mushy romance failbooks designed to make straight women and people who subscribe to the opinion that the only good sexuality MUST involve at least one penis and one scene depicting male tears feel all mushy and warm in their genital region is reinforcing straight privilege? Seriously, if that's all that takes to discourage these people who are, as she says later on, "devoted to equal rights" from examining their straight privilege and self-examination, why does she think that they don't deserve every bit of criticism they're getting...?

It's a shame that there might be people who try and steer clear of this genre entirely and read books written gay men which focus on gay men instead?

Wow. Just... Wow.

"Most are well-meaning. Most consider themselves devoted to social justice and equal rights, even if their reasoning and execution remain shaky. Many are clueless. Many of us are dripping with straight privilege. Where we’re not straight, we’re still not gay men. We are still writing the other. That’s why it’s both exciting and laden with pitfalls."

Oh, they are well-meaning? Oh, I guess that's ok, then.
Because it is totally necessary to write an other while self-exploring. And lesbians are doing it, too, and they are, like, also in the LGBT acronym, so it's totally fine, u guise!


For clarification, here is a summary of my problems with the M/M genre specifically (as opposed to slash within fanfic, which is a different kettle of fish in my opinion):

Good intentions can have bad outcomes. I don't think any of the straight people who write M/M are bad people. I don't doubt that no one purposefully sets out and writes something that is appropriative. Most of this seems to happen due to ignorance and the fact that this genre is so broadly accepted online.Still, good intentions do not prevent harm.
Even if the individuals concerned have good intentions, this does not guarantee that the cumulative effect is not negative for the minority they are writing about - and having to come across fetishised versions of yourself over and over again is definitely a negative effect, so are the blatant stereotypes that some writers are using in their writing.
 

Members of a majority writing about a minority is always problematic.
On a societal level, if a majority writes a minority, there is always the danger that this version becomes the definitive version and replaces voices of real gay men in the minds of the readers. Until the respective genres are dominated by the minorities they focus on, I think they continue to be extremely problematic, because it is easier for a privileged group to drown out minorities. So in my ideal version of the world, stories about minorities would be dominated by minorities and it would not matter much if the odd member of a majority chimed in. However, this is not the case in this reality at all. 
Of course individual authors can write whatever they want, but the freedom to write what you (general you) write ends where the freedom of another person to be protected from e.g. homophobia and objectification begins. And that includes being fetishised, othered, and exotised. No one can physically restrain people and keep them from writing, but people should critically examine why they feel it necessary to write a story about a minority they are not a part of, appropriating their experiences, fetishizing their relationship in the case of m/m romances.
There may be solid reasons for doing so, but apart from purposefully subverting these fetishistic tendencies in the story at some point or therapeutic exercises I can't see many.

Gay characters in stories written by straight people in particular are problematic, because
Of course I am not arguing that no straight person anywhere should ever think of writing a gay character, far from it. My main beef is with are two specific constellations, motivations and their implications

gayness is not a metaphor for straight experience 
Yes, I do think a story that is basically a straight women writing a story about straight women through gay men is wrong and should find other means to express herself that are less colonising. This is constellation is questionable on a fundamental level. There might be enough similarity between gay people and straight people to allow empathy, but to equate the two to such a degree that a story about gay life becomes a metaphor for straight experience is appropriative and insulting.
I deeply sympathise with the need to disassociate yourself so completely from your sexuality that you need to project it onto another person who doesn't resemble you entirely, I was like that when I was coming to grips with my own dykeness, but I never considered that that was a good thing and meant I was being all subversive and exploring. The way its done in M/M reminds me eerily of projecting sexual desires and fantasies on POC by white colonial authors. Icky and wrong. Using minority experience as a colourful metaphor for your majority experience comes from a place of privilege and can't prevent being informed by that privilege. And no, just because you also love men, you are not a gay man inside

the fetishisation of gay men is wrong. 
Of course this point may well be moot since we are essentially discussing porn, but if a particular trait of a character (gayness, in this case) becomes more important for your arousal or your sympathies than the character itself, that is dehumanising. Consider the very title of the genre - "gay romance" or "m/m" in itself are simplistic because they reduce complex people to their sexual orientation. This may be a part of being gay, but no character one outside of extremely simplex PWP can be successfully subsumed under this label.
M/M authors themselves have pointed out that they use m/m to make conventional stories more interesting, or that they prefer them because their lives are "more interesting". This is exotising gay men. Gay people are not inherently more interesting than straight people, I can promise you that. In that vein, I am deeply suspicious of people who describe m/m relationships as their "kink" - how can you have a relationship between two people as a kink? The mind boggles. 

Even though exploring female sexuality is necessary and good, doing so through gay romance is troubling. 
Another problem that ties in with this is that there are still women who can't explore their sexuality freely because they live in a what the mainstream media says is sex does not encompass all that is sex. I think it is valid and necessary that women explore sexualities that lie beyond the mainstream view of what is sexual - the realisation that things like hurt/comfort can be a valid sexual kink is one of the best byproducts of fandom.
Still, I maintain that doing so at the expense of minorities is wrong. Sometimes, people do wrong things for good reasons - as in the case of therapeutic writing, but on the a whole it remains very questionable.

Fiction is fiction, reality is reality: it's not that simple.
Of course you can distinguish between fiction and reality in a way that allows you to distinguish between the non-fiction and the fiction section in the bookstore. Still, books and stories exist in the real world, and I don't believe that everybody, or, indeed, anybody can make a clear distinction between fiction and reality so effectively that they can prevent a straight, female narrative from influencing their view of gay men.

 

Claiming that writing m/m is an LGBT activism is completely out there.
The nerve! Especially if the demography you're writing about says that what you are writing is unrealistic and offensive, you really might reconsider awarding ally cookies...! I can't even begin to understand this position. Especially considering people keep pointing out the genre was totally and absolutely not about gay males, but for and by straight writers to explore themselves.

Tone arguments used against gay critics are wrong.
I despise misogynistic commentary and I think that anyone inclined to make them can go screw themselves, but that does not mean that any concerns raised by the people you are writing about is to be completely dismissed.
Slash as a means for exploring and liberating female sexuality specifically strikes me as problematic as long as it is not done for purely therapeutic purposes. How can any genre that eradicates your own experience as a woman so entirely be liberating?
 

The genre is not subversive, it's porn. And it does not subvert gender roles.
Subversiveness" and a genre written by women for women - in romance writing, this is new how? I am not that familiar with the genre, but as far as I am aware, it has a loooong tradition of being a genre primarily written by and for women. Although usually it included, well, women somewhere.
There have been some claims that using M/M instead of M/F helps subverting gender roles - this works only if you have a very static view and expectation of how gender works. In many of the (without a doubt low-quality) stories I have read male characters were thinly veiled female avatars, and there was no reason in the world why the author did not just use a female character instead.

 

So, what am I saying to you M/M writers? You can, of course, write whatever you want and no one can keep you from it.
I would like you to know what it means that you are writing, however, and critically and thoroughly examine why you are writing a minority and what implications your writing may have for the minority you are writing about.

Comments

[lordhellebore]

I...am not understanding a word of this -_- Meaning: please explain your rage to me, please? I mean, I immediately winced when I read

1. Slash – fanfiction which subverts a heteronormative canon established by books, film and television.

I'm asking myself why it has to be subversive int he first place.

But other than that...I'm sorry to say, that this:

Those who think women should be allowed to express their sexual preferences and fetishes and kinks openly without interference from men or moral minority, and because the genre is by women and for women – in other words, not making any pretence of being aimed at real gay men – it’s not necessary or even beneficial to make it realistic.

is precisely my opinion. And I wouldn't mind if someone wrote that way about my sexuality either, because - here it comes - it is fictional. Maybe you and I have different opinions about what is allowed in fiction and what not, and what fiction is for.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

It's possible that we've just got different opinions there. This is not even about what is "allowed" in fiction or what fiction "is for", but about how people behave when they are being pointed to the fact that their fictional stories harm real people. I think this particular kind of literature is about writing about a literary Other, in part so as to deflect of their own sexuality, exploring a fictional trope, and to enjoy yourself. Reading is also about enjoyment, reading about men engaging in potentially titillating activities, and exploring a fictional trope. What do you think it’s for?

My problem with this entire thing is that if its not fun for members of the demography you are writing about, then there’s something wrong. I also believe that if people are pointed towards this and don’t take this into consideration, they’re just being ignorant fools. Especially if the people who received those comments then start pointing out that they are free to write everything they want. That is true, of course, but it’s also true that their readers should be free from stumbling upon fetishized, unrealistic versions of themselves while trying to enjoy themselves.

Of course not all fiction has to be realistic, but if you look at the rants on lube and anal sex, or yuke/seme stereotyping on FFR, people seem somewhat invested in "getting it right" and being realistic. There appears to be a whole lot of effort make things as realistic as possible, but that stops right where it would start taking real gay men and the concernes they raised seriously.

Especially describing male-on-male relationships as a "kink" or a "fetish" rubs me the wrong way because it is demeaning and dehumanizing to people who are in a male/male relationship. Yes, even if it is fictional. Even then I would still be fine with that if they would agree to this fact when pointed out instead of trying to defend their skeevy views with "morality" and "being an ally" and "subverting heteronormativity" written on their flags (it’s as though the people who make lesbian porn saw that as a contribution to fighting the good fight against homophobia).

I strongly believe that the M/M writers know this difference, too. If you are writing about a kink, there is generally some sort of mentioning of it – in fanfiction, there are the warnings or tags, but here, I don’t see anything that suggests “distinctly off M/M written by and for (straight) women”. To avoid people stumbling upon anything triggering or distasteful there are plenty of warnings that point out “rape”, “torture”, etc., but there’s no “exotized version of gay men for the straight eye”. That fact in itself is a problem – if something becomes so common that it does not need to be pointed out, people stop being aware of the fact that it is a problem at all.

I don’t agree with using people as kinks, but they’re not even really going with that, either. If exotizing gay men is a kink, then it should be treated like one, too. It's like the difference between gratuitous torture scenes in BDSM fiction, where it is fully understood and disclosed that these things are written for sexual or romantic benefits and torture porn in mainstream literature that is written with similar, yet unconscious or at least non-voiced views. If someone writing the second kind of story were to point out the great compassion they have for survivors of abuse and how much they can empathi
se with their struggle, I would be similarly repulsed.

This kind of disclosure, however, does not seem to happen among the writers of M/M fiction - or at least not from what I have seen. There were plenty of people pointing out that what they are doing was in some way supposed to help equality, though, and that is just nonsense.

I hope that makes my position a bit clearer. I'm a bit woozy in the head from my flu meds. :)

[lordhellebore]

so as to deflect of their own sexuality

Sorry, my English is leaving me. Could you please re-phrase that?


Reading is also about enjoyment, reading about men engaging in potentially titillating activities, and exploring a fictional trope. What do you think it’s for?

Basically, that's what it is for for me.


their fictional stories harm real people[...] My problem with this entire thing is that if its not fun for members of the demography you are writing about, then there’s something wrong.

And I think there is where our disagreement lies. Fiction is fiction is fiction is fiction. Reality is reality is reality. The two are different. Ideally, everybody would know that. Now, I realise that sadly, that is not the case, but still, I don't want to censure fiction writing because of what the readers do with it. There was literature that drove people to suicide (Werther), and even back then, it was "only" forbidden in a few regions.


if you look at the rants on lube and anal sex, or yuke/seme stereotyping on FFR, people seem somewhat invested in "getting it right" and being realistic

Some people, not all of them, or else the rants couldn't exist to begin with. There was a lengthy discussion on D/s and BDSM recently in some fanfic circles - someone who lived in that lifestyle (at least I think I remember it was that way) made a post and ranted about how it had to be all realistic, all the way, 100%, and that the writers got this, that, and that wrong, and how it was so frustrating etc. etc. The general reaction was either "WORD!" or: "Er, excuse me, but I don't want this to be realistic, I want it to be hot, and we don't want to read about every little realistic detail. It doesn't have to be realistic, because it is fiction, and we know that it is fiction.


Especially describing male-on-male relationships as a "kink" or a "fetish" rubs me the wrong way because it is demeaning and dehumanizing to people who are in a male/male relationship.


Sorry, but it is a kink. Same as rape porn is a kink - would yous say rape and torture porn is dehumanising rape victims? I don't feel dehumanised, just FYI. (On the contrary, it's one of my own kinks, even.) Of course, other people see it differently, but not everybody has to have the same opinion on this. Indeed, why can't we not just get along and let the other one have their fictional kink? It's not reality.



I strongly believe that the M/M writers know this difference, too.

I'm sure of it, but does it have to be written on every book?


but here, I don’t see anything that suggests “distinctly off M/M written by and for (straight) women”. [...] there’s no “exotized version of gay men for the straight eye”

Well, I'm not sure I follow you here. Isn't it relatively easy to inform yourself about what happens in a book before you buy and read it? The blurb, reviews on the net...these alone make it quite obvious, I think. Take Remastering Jerna from ann Summervile.

In a world not unlike our own, Jerna Setiq has a perfect life, a beloved wife and two adored children, with his past desires and needs firmly put behind him. But when he's falsely accused of child abuse and imprisoned, he's cast into hell, with no apparent means of redemption, or regaining all that he's lost. In the most unlikely of places, in the most unpromising of circumstances, fate offers Jerna his second chance and a path to freedom. With the cruelly fascinating Tolomy, a dominant in need of education and a patient submissive, Jerna dares to satisfy the long denied passions of his dual nature - but will he risk losing what has become so dear to him, all over again? Remastering Jerna is a complex, erotic story of redemption, love, and the contract of trust in a relationship of control and submission.

This summary is imho very clearly showing who the audience is - women who get off at reading about men in D/s relationships.

[lordhellebore]

And also, other fiction genres also don't have warnings for who is painted in which light in the book, and why. Warnings happen only in fandom culture, as far as I know.


If someone writing the second kind of story were to point out the great compassion they have for survivors of abuse and how much they can empathise with their struggle, I would be similarly repulsed.

Why? It could be true, after all. Would you be repulsed if someone who was an abuse victim wrote torture and rape porn on the mainstream market, too?

In conclusion, it seems to me that there are two opposing camps, and maybe you and I each belong to one of them.


There were plenty of people pointing out that what they are doing was in some way supposed to help equality, though, and that is just nonsense.

THIS is the one thing we completely agree on. It's absolute hogwash. Its a KINK, it's supposed to get people off, at least mentally, and that should be clear to everyone.

[crocky-wock.livejournal.com]

In conclusion, it seems to me that there are two opposing camps, and maybe you and I each belong to one of them.

Isn't this what Anne Summerville was trying to avoid? *g*
Sorry to barge in. Moth was buried in her room for so long earlier that I took it upon myself to see what she was doing and now I got curious. But perhaps I can help shedding some light on a few things you two have been discussing.

The problems with Summerville
Summerville is doing two things.
a) She is advocating her own position in the two-camp fight by positioning herself among those fighting for women's liberation and literary freedom.
b) She is trying, as best as she can, to come up with explanations why she thinks it's perfectly okay to write m/m slash stories, regardless the offence taken by the group of people she claims to write about.

Personally, I agree with her notion that women should be allowed to write their sexual fantasies and occasionally I even find a story or fanfic of this genre, which is appealing enough for me to read and finish it.
What I don't agree with (and I have a hunch that Moth shares this opinion) is the obvious delusion that this kind of work is anything other than a sexual fantasy.
Summerville emphasises that most m/m slash writers never claim that they are writing gay literature (which is frankly untrue, considering Lambda Fail) and almost in the same paragraph, she herself claims that her writing deserves "serious dissection or analysis" and whines about how, with all this fighting, m/m slash fiction will never "gain acceptance or excellence", which she appears to think it deserves.
She refers to her genre as follows:
Those whose first contact with the genre is through things like Lambda Fail are never going to delve further to discover the treasures the genre produces. And there are treasures – book which illuminate and elevate the human spirit, masterpieces of emotional richness and literary style.

Now, I'll bet you two apples and a twig that this person would not, never, speak about standard misogynistic pornography this way. She does not consider her work (and others) a mere expression of straight female sexuality. She considers it to be erotic art. And this is where her statement gets annoying. It is hypocritical to the utmost extreme. On the one hand, she points out that everyone should have the right to express their sexuality, on the other hand, she wants to be read and understood as something else. She wants literary credit, she wants others to see the "spirit" and "emotional richness" in her works. If she didn't, she wouldn't try so very hard to convince people that what she writes is essentially good quality literature.

"Fiction is fiction and reality is reality"
Summerville tries to position those who fight over what they perceive to be an attack on their identity (gay men) as aggressors over something that is really just harmless and a well-meant effort by women to write for other women. Now, we all know that fiction doesn't work this way. By writing fiction, especially widely-received fiction, you are shaping society. You are creating conceptual frames for hundreds of people. Fantastic source for this: George Lakoff's work on cognitive theory.
The gay stereotypes that are created through m/m fiction threaten the real life LGBT movement much more than the authors' supposed undermining of heteronormativity in literature helps the cause.

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

Misappropriation fail. I just don't even...

Seriously, when the people you're exoticizing and othering say "We don't like you doing that" the best response is not to blame them for your* bullshit.

* Not your bullshit, 'cause you're bullshit-free and brilliant. Theirs, I mean.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Seriously! In their position, going "well, this isn't about you, now, is it?" would have never even occurred to me. o.O

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Man, the whole m/m romance genre icks me out even more than the m/f one. It's weird, because it seems to have come out of slash fandom, but out of a particular subset thereof heavily influenced by m/f romance novels with a dose of "but I'm bisexual so I understaaaaaand gay men!" thrown in. They talk a lot about being subversive, but they mostly map stereotyped heterosexual gender roles (which I don't like in the first place!) onto "gay" men, which doesn't seem very "subversive" to me.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yep, I got the same vibes about the bisexual women involved in that, and I don't get it. About the subversiveness - I don't believe for a minute that they're even they themselves seriously believe that nonsense. It seems so much like something she just included to make the genre look better.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think it's quite possible they DO believe it. Certainly a lot of slashers do. But I'd respect these authors a lot more if they admitted they're writing about pseudo-gay men about as authentically as most het romance writers write about het romance, for the purposes of emotional/physical stroke material, and just leave it at that. Trying to dress it all up as Important and Special and Subversive, and all the whining about how unfair it is to be excluded from the LAMBDAs (I kind of doubt any of them were in the running) = yuck yuck yuck.

I am hesitant to label any genre wholesale subversive, personally.

[linkspam-mod.livejournal.com]

Your post has been added to a Linkspam roundup (http://linkspam.dreamwidth.org/15339.html).

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

I keep typing responses to this, and they keep turning into "Let me make this all about my straight self." So, I'm just going to signal my agreement that the fetishizing and othering going on is not cool, and otherwise keep my mouth shut.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. =( Thanks for your agreement on that issue, and I'm very sorry if you felt attacked by any of this, because it's certainly not my intention to attack straight writers. I'd like to hear what you have to say on the issue, though, so I'd be happy if you'd PM or e-mail me.

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

Argh. No, I don't feel attacked. Please don't feel like you need to apologize to me. Since you asked though, I may PM you after I get back from work. I just didn't want to derail the conversation.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see! Thanks for that. I'm looking forward to the PM.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Er, the reasons I did specify below. Thanks that you did bother to stay and explain, I thought that was very helpful.

[herongale]

Your post got me thinking, and I ended up writing a long response to it. At first I was going to post it as a reply to you here, but then I decided that it was better for me to post it in my own LJ. If you'd like to read it, it's here.

I have no expectation for you to read a reply that is not made at your own LJ, but since the post is addressed to you, you have a right to know about it.

My basic question to you, as included in my post, is this: what do you want, from women who write slash? What do you want from me, as a woman who writes slash? I get that you see problems. What are your solutions? I don't consider what I do a "kink," so beyond suggesting that I call it that, what else would you recommend? I want to know.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

I answered in your own journal as well as on here. Hope it helps. Basically, it boils down to critical thinking, self-awareness and -reflection, consciousness for issues this might raise for real gay men.

[senior-witch.livejournal.com]

I have read your post, and all the comments, and the next post, and all the comments...

What I am interested in: Why do you think that fanfic is a different kettle of fish?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

First of all, thanks for your patience for what must have been a quite convoluted read at this point! Secondly, hello, fellow Hanoverian! [/stalker]
Fanfiction, as opposed to original fiction, uses characters that already exist in other canons. In many fandoms, the majority of main characters are male, and if people want to write romance about their favourite characters, these often turn out to be male.

Not only are many female characters two-dimensional all too often, which means that exploring meaningful relationships or romantic relationships which your two favourite characters will mean you are dealing with two male characters in many fandoms. Still, writers who ship two main characters seem to be attached to the characters rather than their gender and would still ship them if they had a different gender (I know I would with my OTP). That does not mean that othering and fetishisation of gay male sexuality are not still problematic, but I'd still say that the case of FF is slightly different.

Developing female characters into something more interesting in your fic or adding OCs so as to write heterosexual romance stories is discouraged in many fandoms due to rampant Sue witch hunts. It seems to be safer and more compliant with reader expectations to either write romance about the two men instead, or to take minor male characters and use them as a self-inserts instead.

Sue witch hunts evidently don't exist in original writing (otherwise, the Ayla series nor Twilight would be so popular :P), and authors are not restricted by pre-existing characters, they are free to write anything they want, choose any main character they want, any plot they like.

[senior-witch.livejournal.com]

Hello to my fellow Hanoverian! (erm, yes I stalked you too.) And sorry for taking so long to answering to you...

And, yes, I spent the whole Sunday reading the comments both to your and herongale's and lordhellebore's posts, just to understand the main lines of arguments... Now I have read your new post, but I don't have to add much to it.

Not only are many female characters two-dimensional all too often, which means that exploring meaningful relationships or romantic relationships which your two favourite characters will mean you are dealing with two male characters in many fandoms. Still, writers who ship two main characters seem to be attached to the characters rather than their gender and would still ship them if they had a different gender (I know I would with my OTP). That does not mean that othering and fetishisation of gay male sexuality are not still problematic, but I'd still say that the case of FF is slightly different.

Well, yes, I have a OTP too...

Before I came across these two characters it I was extremely suspicious of fanfiction and found it weird for women to write slash/gay porn. Now I write fanfiction myself, and it's about male characters, and I slash them. I feel embarrassed about it, but I think that for a variety of reasons it was a good idea to take a break from trying to write original fiction. (Though I still think I should return to it one day.)

Still I try to write in a responsible way, which includes listening to genuine queer voices before starting to write, and also being aware of my own limitations as a straight woman. My experience is that there is a lot one can do in ways of listening and empathizing, but that there is also a line one cannot cross.

Well, yes, three years ago I would have agreed wholeheartedly to you: If you want to know about a group of people read books written by members of the group, and if you write you should stick to your own experience, which does not necessarily mean that you should only write about yourself. Now I have to deal with the fact that I am writing fanfiction myself...

Btw, is that Granny Weatherwax on your icon? In my opinion, TP is an example of an author who has inventend great female characters, even though they are a bit cliched. He gets them wrong when he tries to write about specifically female experiences, but he gets them right when he writes about what is human.