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: continuation

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

You can't research everything, and everything you research will automatically be tinted by your own experiences when you write about it unless you copy it down word-for word.

As for the demise of the author - fine, but as far as I'm concerned, the production subject whose output is informed by their social context is very much alive.

As for being told to bugger off and possible embargos- it's not as though I have any kind of power here anyway, and yet, people keep telling me that I can't tell them to stop writing, and I wonder where I even said that. What I am saying is that M/M written by straight women is exploitative and appropriative on a fundamental level and I consider that to be wrong, as fundamentally wrong as white people exploring their whiteness through in the guise of characters of colour.

This does not mean that I am saying anyone ought to stop writing, I just want them to be aware of this fact and examine why they still feel it's necessary to write fiction like that.

Re: continuation

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

So you are arguing that because since some people can get it right in the eyes of some members of the minority they are writing about, this should be a reason not to raise issues with the genre as a whole?

Of course it's hard as to listen to attacks on the genre as someone who thinks they are getting things right, but there are so many who are getting things wrong, whose views are informed by stereotypes they picked up, who don't make an effort, who are getting it wrong in spite of the efforts, who have gay friends who are fine with what other gay men would despise. As far as my experience with majorities writing about minorities goes, this is far more likely than the event of some members of the majorities getting it right.

I think until we have a case where writing that focuses on minority experience is so dominated by minority accounts that a majority's views of what that minority experience is is wholly informed by reading minority writing that they aren't as likely to pick up on stereotypes while writing, I stand by my view that the genre as a whole is exploitative.

Re: continuation

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

If I believed that, would I have written the post that pissed you off so much?
No, but it sounded for a moment as though you didn't think so.

Which is an argument for writers learning to get it right, not for them not to write at all.
Which is precisely my view and the reason why I don't write that much these days - I don't get it right enough for my taste. Still, there is the "you should be able to write what you want"-argument, and that includes writing what you want and getting it totally wrong.

I was arguing for best practice and improvement of attitudes, and above all else, listening to complaints about what has gone wrong (so when a gay man tells you it really upsets him that you called your stupid book 'Beautiful Cocksucker' you don't blow him off with a load of defensive, privilege bullshit. Etc.)
o_O Beautiful Cocksucker...? Why would anyone ever have problems with that...! I think I heard about that one. >_<

I can't estimate the effect of the genre if everybody was writing the way you'd ideally want them to write. I also can't say if that would make anything any better for gay men, I'm not a gay man. I'd still see issues with stories written about an other (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othering) there, simply because we don't live in a cultural vacuum.

Which, as a straight person, should hold greatest influence over my views?
That's entirely up to you. I can only offer my opinion on this, which is a general opinion on minorities, majorities and othering, and what I think is colonising, exotising, fetishisation, and exploitation in this case, although a personal one stemming from what gay friends said on this ties into all of this, too.
I can only hope for critical thinking and consciousness of people's own position in this and how it shapes them and their writing and that people to make informed choices based on that.