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

Re: Answer part 3

[crocky-wock.livejournal.com]

And that's where I get a bit - well very - pissed off. Because I do not write porn. A good number of my stories don't include any sex, or very short, very unerotic scenes for the purpose of the plot. I'm not the only writer who can say that.
It is not my intention to piss you off. Do you prefer the term fetishisation and objectification because it doesn't bear the stigma of social inacceptance?
This is a serious question. I use the term pornography because judging from many women's reactions to m/m slash, sexual gratification is exactly what they are getting out of it, even and especially when there is no graphic sex involved. How can you fail to notice that?

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.
Sorry, but this is bullshit. If this was true, there wouldn't be any racism among white women, there wouldn't be sexism within African American or Asian American or Hispanic societies in the USA, etc. People are people. Writers are writers. And an exploited group of people can still write exploitative crap.

I don't want you to feel as though I am not respecting your efforts of finding middle ground and compromises. But compromising can only exist in people recognising and accepting existing problems to then meet in the middle. That process, I believe, is hindered by two important things. The historical problem of sexism on the one hand, which hinders the exploited group here to voice their concerns without sounding sexist - in addition to a lack of awareness on their side that this is, in fact, a major problem. On the other hand, the lack of understanding on the authors' side of how priorities sometimes have to be shifted to avert even potential damage. When there is a discrepancy between one's right to express oneself and another person's right not to be harmed by it, I think it is only logical to choose the way of caution, at least initially, to prevent continuing and/or possibly lasting damage.

Re: Answer part 3

[crocky-wock.livejournal.com]

I would appreciate it if you didn't condescend to me. It doesn't help to understand your points.
I was being very serious when I asked this question. You seem to aggressively defend a certain kind of story from the label pornography and I can understand that because in our society, women get taught that it is shameful to get involved with this kind of thing/genre/whatever. I wasn't being condescending, I was being impatient. You are so busy trying to defend yourself and others from the "accusation" that what you write might be sexual to your readers (not even necessarily to you, but to your readers) that you completely overlook my main point of how it shouldn't be shameful and how I don't think women should be forced to justify things they find sexy (m/m interaction, not necessarily explicitly sexual in nature) by saying "I find it cute" or "oh, but it's so romantic". Those are forms of sexuality, too, it's just not the (male-dominated) sexuality advertised in the media.

This, in my view, is the central problem on the authors' side, you see. Of course they'd reject even the notion that non-sex-involving m/m might be sexual. Certain feelings (cuteness-sensation, a certain kind of pity, sympathy with the submissive in a s/D relationship, etc.) are never labeled sexual in our society. But they are!
Gosh, I wonder where I heard this before. Oh right - that's what I *said* in my post!
No, you have not. You called the authors out on some things (very justified criticism, too) but you didn't say that it was necessary for them to reconsider their priorities and for some to reconsider writing at all. You told me specifically in one of these threads that I was wrong to assume that you said only allies could write because what you really said was that anyone writing m/m should try to be an ally, the difference being that you, apparently, would never say that someone shouldn't write at all.

The difference is the acceptance of the fact that, if we, as readers, don't want to accept some of the crap that is put out there in the m/m genre (or in any others) we might have to voice the opinion that "this author really shouldn't write". I am not saying we need censure, but I am saying that, as readers and critics, we need to be allowed to state exactly this: if an author produces exclusively these exploitative stories, which we all seem to agree on are neither a good read nor morally justifiable, he or she should consider changing professions. Not talking about governmental power here, but about the target (or not-so-target) audience. We need to be allowed to tell an author to stop writing if everything they write is hurtful and damaging in our view. And we need to be allowed to tell a group of authors, who share the trait of being women not accidentally but for a very specific reason in this case, that maybe what they are doing is a structural flaw and that therefore the group of women should stop for a moment and consider what they are collectively doing wrong. And I am saying this as a feminist genderqueer in a lesbian marriage. There are some things that are sexist, and there are some things women as a category don't do very well and should therefore stop. This always allows for exceptions, especially since I consider myself a gender constructivist. But we have to acknowledge that there is a specific way our society deals with women's sexuality and that this way of dealing has now created a problem with the labeling of the m/m genre.

Listen, I think we agree on too many things to be fighting over the details. I'll try to find your list of things that are your opinion, all of which I agree with. Maybe we'll have a better chance to come to some sort of conclusion there.

Re: Answer part 3

[crocky-wock.livejournal.com]

I don't agree.
That's my entire point. You wouldn't. We don't have to agree on this either. But this is how I explain my viewpoint. Hope that came across.

And that's for me to say, why?
This is for you to say as much as for any other writer or reader, in my opinion. It's hardly any different from saying: "This is crap writing, I'm not gonna read it." The only difference is that this kind of wording attacks the "freedom of speech" flag so many people seem to be holding up these days at all costs. I just think that as long as one isn't in a position to make actual laws, it's perfectly fine to attack appropriative, damaging, hurtful writing with something along the lines of "whoever writes this should stop". I don't think it's crossing a line, which hasn't been crossed before. Both is inconsiderate, both is wrong. But there are instances where inconsiderate behaviour needs to be answered with very direct, possibly uncomfortable language. That's just my personal view, of course.

I'm already toast for speaking up as much as I am. I can live without the misery, especially when I don't believe in your demand.
I respect that. I wouldn't want to get caught up in online fights to this extent. What I am saying is that, personally, I grant people the right to respond harshly to things that matter to them emotionally. That I grant myself the right. That I would grant you the right if you chose to. It's perfectly okay not to want to do it.

And I am going to stop replying to you now. You're attacking me, misrepresenting my position, and telling me I've said or not said things when the opposite is true, and all the time I am looking at the other writers in this genre, what they have said and done and are still doing, and wondering - why the fucking hell am *I* the enemy here?
I don't see you as an enemy. I don't want to attack you and if I have, I am very sorry. I was discussing with you because I see a chance that you are going to understand what I am trying to say. Many people out there won't. Fighting with them - that would be a waste of time.
Thanks for the conversation. I completely respect your decision to move away from it. Get better soon.

Re: Answer part 3

[crocky-wock.livejournal.com]

Hey there,
thanks a lot for replying again. It it greatly appreciated.
Don't worry about the wife-fiance thing. I know my profile is outdated, but I can say in my defence that the marriage lies back only a few weeks. :)

I'm very glad you're feeling better, too. I was sad to hear that the conversation was hurtful and straining to you, but it's totally understandable if you've been dealing with this kind of thing for such a long time now. I know Moth tends to get very invested in these things. I mostly just... react to entries I like or dislike a lot and then leave livejournal when there's nothing else to do or say.

It feels a little as though my approach was, perhaps, a little too theoretical for the situation at hand. I think because is this a sociological issue, among other things, it may be difficult to talk across generations (although twenty years is really not much, when I think about it now - then again, it might be the combination of age and culture - I'm in Europe, btw. I don't know if it says that on my profile). It is also clear that the plea on the side of the gay men (and allies) for straight women to stop the appropriation will always be very theoretical because one cannot uncover a sociological tendency (too many majority writers in a minority field distorting the image) and translate it to individual writers' real life situation.
It is difficult. I think the issue nees a lot of time to sink in on the authors' side. And I think some effort is required on camp 2's side to keep the discussion on fairly friendly grounds until this time was given.

But I'm rambling. Oh, a gender constructivist... if you know what constructionism is (I looked it up on Wikipedia the first time I heard it), things get a bit clearer. Basically, it says that I think masculinity and femininity are completely constructed as opposed to inherent qualities in a human being. It's the opposite of a gender essentialist, I think.

Re: Answer part 3

[lordhellebore]

I don't think women should be forced to justify things they find sexy (m/m interaction, not necessarily explicitly sexual in nature) by saying "I find it cute" or "oh, but it's so romantic". Those are forms of sexuality, too, it's just not the (male-dominated) sexuality advertised in the media.<7I>

Just butting in to say how much I appreciate all your explaining. Especially this sentence made a whole chandelier in my head light up, and I'm really glad about this, because it explains a lot and doesn't only help me in this theoretical debate, but also personally.

Re: Answer part 3

[crocky-wock.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic!
This happens to me sometimes and I love it. :)