Why can't we all just get alooooong?
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mothwingI just found this post on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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Re: Answer part 3
Date: Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 11:38 am (UTC)I'd want that for my genre, I can sympathise. I'd also very much like recs for the masterpieces you mentioned in your other post.
As for porn - you say you do not write porn, but I you two might have different viewpoints on what constitutes porn and what purpose porn serves. Romances, in a way, are porn for women.
As an exploited group, women know what exploitation looks and feels like, and rightly or wrongly, believe they are can judge if they are doing it to someone else.
First of all, I deeply sympathise with your frustrations with your fellow writers and their shortcomings, and it was probably wrong of me to pick your post as an example of a mess which does contain things that are far more annoying - but the thing is, I can see that you are honestly trying, and that you have good intentions, but you still... well, you don't get it right, IMHO. If you, and I can see that you are among the more sensible writers in the genre from what I've read, are getting things so wrong, then I'm really pessimistic about the chances of the genre as a whole to have good chances of evolving into something less offensive and exploitative. I'm glad you took it upon yourself to do so.
The thing is, women and gay men are exploited in completely different way, and it is extremely ignorant to suggest that just because they're both not privileged in one area of their life, this does not mean that they can't be privileged in another. This ties in with the "forbidding women to write X"-thing. Yes, women should not be encouraged to write certain things, much like everybody else. Being a woman does not inoculate one against being homophobic, transphobic, ablist, racist, classist, etc., and since these different epxloitations differ so wildly, its impossible to sensibly transfer the experiences of one of them to another level of privilege. You know?
It's possible to change hearts and minds, surely, but I don't see how anyone can do that but the people who the hearts and minds belong to.
Re: Answer part 3
Date: Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 12:51 pm (UTC)Even under that assumption it's still not possible for women to fully explore their sexuality within the romance genre due to societal constraints, which in itself is terribly sad.
As for privilege and exploitation working differently, that is true, and yet, you state that as a reason for why you yourself think that gay life resonates with yourself. I get that feeling of resonance, and I can't speak for you here, obviously, but whenever people point that out as a reason for writing experiences other than their own, and specifically writing experiences about an other, I get scared that they treat the experiences as equal. I may have gotten you completely wrong there, of course.
My sympathies for having to deal with people within your own genre who don't listen on the grounds of having to deal with exploitation themselves, I've seen a lot of that with white feminists and feminists of colour, for example. It's so annoying. -_-
Oh, get well, soon, and good night.