herongale: Reality is reality and fiction is fiction

[mothwing]

That's part of what you said. It is not that simple. Fiction exists in the real world, and influences real-world people. This is not an issue of "some people" not being able to distinguish between fiction and reality. Even if everybody were able to do so, this would still be an issue. Language influences people. Fiction influences people - and not just those mythical creatures who can't distinguish between fiction and non-fiction accounts - and a strong version of my claim here is that no one can.

Your claim seems to be that since because fiction is fiction, it is somehow less harmful, because it can't be taken as seriously and it is not reality. But how much of what you write is fiction? What you write is informed by your real-world experiences, too. Are houses fictional? No. Is it fictional that people have heads and arms? No. Is it fictional that gay people exist? No. What else is fictional, what mirrors your own experience with gay characters? There is no way to draw the line, even for people who are very well capable of distinguishing fiction from reality.

The narratives you come across organise your thinking, and if you come across one particular narrative over and over again, it is difficult or even impossible not to have that part of your narrative enter your brain and become the definitive narrative. This is my problem with a majority writing a minority. M/M, as I am told, is a genre by and for straight women - it influences their narrative of what gay men are like.

It is common knowledge that advertising is fiction, and still it is as commonly known or suspected that advertising can have a very direct negative effect on the self-esteem of women. Fictional stories in which women are presented as flat characters only there for the gratification of men, like porn movies, are questionable, because they present men and women alike with scripts of sexuality that are unrealistic, but still change the narrative of what sex is "supposed to" work like. This is not conscious, no one sits down and goes, "Oh, I'd like to watch a movie in which women are objectified right now!". That, in parts, is the problem, and if this were what people are doing, this would be less problematic.

Now, with the stories written by straight women and informed by their experience as straight women which are about gay men, the problem I see is that they start replacing the narratives of and by gay men about gay men for the women who read these stories (simple because there are so many straight women who write these kinds of stories - from my experience, though this might be wrong, even more than queer women). There are, as it is, many negative stereotypes of gay men permeating the media which are influencing people's narratives of what a gay man is. This is another one that cannot ever be accurate. So yes, I believe that all stories written my people who are not a member of a minority about a minority are appropriative to some degree, and I believe that romance stories which strongly focus on an idealised version is especially appropriative.

What I want?
I want more self-reflection, self-awareness and critical thinking skills for both readers and writers.
I want people to examine their own reasons for writing what they are writing, and
I want readers to examine for what reason they are reading it.
I want genres about minorities to be dominated by those minorities instead of majorities - I want more original slash fiction about gay men to be written by gay men than by straight women.
I want the story of the minority people write about to be the definitive story.

I want you, herongale, to ask yourself, "why am I writing slash? What does it do for me that other genres don't? Why do I find the tales of two men together more interesting than others? Why is it ok for me to appropriate another person's experience for my own ends?"
And I want your readers to do the same.

I'm genuinely curious what people say here, by the way. I know that there are reasons that are therapeutic writing-related, but I am curious what other reasons there are.

And I am not saying to anyone that they are not allowed to write whatever they want, because of course they are, but I don't want them to get away with it easily if it seems that they are writing about an other without reflection of why they feel it is appropriate to do so.

Comments

Re: Part 3 (last part)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Hm, yeah, might be the paraphrasing. I still think I'd be more interested in what a POC gay columnist has to say on this rather than a white dude.

About preferences being hardwired - I sincerely doubt that. They develop within your culture and are shaped by it. You can't really have a preference for chocolate over vanilla ice cream if you don't have ice cream.

Publishers usually publish what is going to sell. They operate in a business, and unless they actively focus on gay men's concerns, like the German Männerschwarm Verlag, they are not necessarily going to care much about gay male authenticity and whether the author got it right. That, in my opinion, is part of the problem, because they don't help the exploitation that's going on.

Why don't you think that gay people have a right to be the dominant voice when it comes to stories about gay relationships? How is it really anyone's business but their own, really? There are so many other voices telling LGBT individuals what their life should look like already, there really don't need to be even more of them. And for straight readers reading gay romance - I still maintain that this is voyeuristic and exploitative, especially if they leave this reading experience with reinforced stereotyped views and ideas.

and should not feel obligated to write about sexuality if that is not a topic that interests them
I couldn't agree more; I just don't see why it's anyone's business what their romantic or sex life looks like than their own.

Female sexual empowerment is important, yes, but it does not occur in a vacuum, and there is an intersectionality in regards to privilege which allows for the fact that almost all individuals within any given minority group also have some privileges, too.
Very true, I agree. I also understand that many women feel it necessary to appropriate male experience in order to talk about sexuality at all, because that is still a very touchy subject for many people. Especially sexuality that lies outside the mainstream, male-gaze view of what sex is is difficult to pinpoint and hard to grasp as sexual for many women (like hurt/comfort, for example - it does seem to have a sexual component for many women, but I have yet to see that commonly referred to as one). Due to the fact that men are a privileged group who dominate discourses on sexuality, it is only natural that women should feel it difficult to write about sexuality in a way that relates to them.
In spite of all that understanding, I don't feel it's a good way to ignore the exploitation of another minority for the benefit of another, and straight women are in a position of privilege over gay men.

Now, queer women write m/m, too, and while they are in similar positions as their subjects, I don't think a minority exploiting another minority should be encouraged, either. Even though many people seem to feel that male privilege trumps the right of gay men not to be exploited. It is not as simple as that.

I think an important step for women is to create spaces in which they can explore sexuality and gender roles freely without feeling tied down by social constraints. As far as I can see, the romance genre has been a space to do this for generations already, so that space already exists and while I agree that these spaces should be more common and need to be expanded, I don't think that there is no way other than to write m/m.

Re: Part 3 (last part)

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

I think an important step for women is to create spaces in which they can explore sexuality and gender roles freely without feeling tied down by social constraints.

...as long as we keep it to certain areas, right? No "what if I were someone else", in your ideal reality, no one would write about anything they haven't experienced personally. Which makes it a little hard to explore, I'd think.

Re: Part 3 (last part)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that even while exploring you ought to be mindful of the effect your exploration has for others. Not being in a position of privilege in one area does not mean that this cancels out all other privilege you might have.

in your ideal reality, no one would write about anything they haven't experienced personally.
Not true.

Re: Part 3 (last part)

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

How is that not true? You're saying that the stories of a particular group should be told only by members of that group. I'm not sure how else to interpret the idea that I should not write stories about gay men, since I am not a gay man--and that regardless of the actual contents of my writing, it's automatically appropriation and therefore wrong?

Re: Part 3 (last part)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

The difference between your original statement and this statement is exactly what made the first one not true. Yes, I think that writing about an othered minority (like MSM) is different from writing about a minority that is not othered (like chess players), especially if there are more accounts about intimate details of the lives of that minority told by people who are not parts of that minority - more women and straight men writing stories about MSM than MSM themselves, for instance. This may not cheapen their experiences, but it does mean that more people who don't have an inside view have more influence in forming the concept of what a MSM is than themselves, and I personally can't see how that would be a good thing, for anyone involved.

Re: Part 3 (last part)

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

You seem to be assuming that there is One True Gay Male Experience, which makes me laugh the same way I do when people talk about The Black Community as though we're the Borg or something.

I don't believe that there's a finite pool of stories to be told, and that if I tell stories about gay male characters, there's less in the pool for gay men to write about themselves. That's especially true when I'm not in any way trying to speak on behalf of All Gay Men, and I'm not speaking to the entire world; I'm trying to tell a story about John and Ronon to an audience of people who like those two characters.

And now I'm going to go back to writing about Alec Hardison, who's black, which I am, and male, which I'm not, and who grew up in foster care, which I didn't...and who was created by an Irish-American screenwriter. I'm very glad that he didn't feel like he shouldn't write Hardison, because then I wouldn't be able to watch a show and see someone I can identify with.

Re: Part 3 (last part)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

No, I am not arguing that, at least I hope it doesn't come across as that. D= It annoys me as much when people Borgify lesbians (all butch lesbians must like motorbikes! No lesbians can ever have long nails! Resistance to the stereotypes is futile!).

What I am saying is that while there are infinite gay stories to be told, there is a finite number of readers and a finite number of authors. Who is read, who reads, and who gets published is very much influenced by real-life power structures - and I see the danger as soon as the majority of stories that are read are written by people who are not a member of that minority they are writing about and therefore are not only more likely to write things that would not feel true for MSM, but also take up space that could just as easily be filled with a MSM's unique story about his romance.
You see what I mean? It is easier for people who match certain criteria in the real world to get heard, and that is not a good.

I am glad that you have found someone you can identify with; I have never found a lesbian woman written by anyone other than a woman who is also into women that didn't feel off to me.

Re: Part 3 (last part)

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

You see what I mean? It is easier for people who match certain criteria in the real world to get heard, and that is not a good.

I do get that, and I think part of the problem is that there are two separate conversations happening here. I don't read slash because I want to read a gay man's unique story about his romance. I read slash because I want to read about John and Rodney, or Alec and Eliot, or Jason and Liam and Bill and Sean. If you deleted everything tagged "M/M" in An Archive of Our Own, we wouldn't all suddenly start reading professional gay romances written by gay men, because that's not what we're looking for. The problem, to me at least, is when straight women try to claim that reading or writing slash is queering them, and not just the text.