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Oct. 17th, 2002 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhAs my name is neither Engels nor Marinetti nor yet Kaczynski, I am not inclined to write manifestos. I also am not inclined to post about what my fic means (if you ain't getting that from the story itself, then I'm not doing my job) or why I write what I write (I think I've done that as much as I care to). But in the fandom of late there has been a nasty little undercurrent of disdain for females who write slash. It strikes me as identity politics of the worst order, and it has made me rather defensive.
The extent to which I am a slasher has been greatly exaggerated. Three of the four pairings in my story are het. Are we going by some one-drop rule? Are all fics that have a gay character in them necessarily slash? Isn't there something in between? Must I choose sides?
Yes, I am a mostly straight girl. I shouldn't have to give anyone my qualifications for writing about gay men. I will only say:
Gay men:Clio::Twins:Anne Shirley
The reason I have gay characters in my fic is that I have gay people in my life. (There isn't enough femslash in the fic, actually, but we all know the reasons for that, and I hope to correct it in sequels.) I could never write any story that didn't have prominent gay characters, just as I could never write any story that didn't have prominent het characters. I don't slash them because I want to make a political point (though I could) or because I think two men kissing is hot (it is, but actually two straight men kissing is a lot hotter) but because the Seamus in my head is gay, just like the Harry in my head is straight.
A point was made recently that gay male slashers tend to spend a bit more time on the coming out process and women slashers tend to not focus on it. I concede that. I decided to have it both ways in my story--Seamus comes out to his family and there is a good bit of difficulty, but then I skip ahead a year to when things have calmed down. I didn't want to write a "coming out" fic, because it's been done, and better, by others, and because it wasn't what I wanted to concentrate on. However, it was very important to me to establish that both Seamus and Dean had come out some time before they got together, that their sexuality was separate from their feelings for each other, that they were not just two friends who come together, but two gay men who relate to each other as such.
Identity politics is a very tricky thing. It may unite on one level, but it surely divides on another. If you reduce us all to our constituent parts, you overlook the whole person. Of course writers should have some sense of what the hell they are writing about, and I can't imagine writing slash if I weren't really quite familiar with the gay community. But that isn't to say that the slash written by women is by definition somehow less real than that written by men.
Poor![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alexmalfoy had to bear the brunt of it this morning when it really wasn't him, so I thought I'd share the grouchiness with the rest of you. I do want to state very specifically that this is NOT a reaction to his earlier post, but to something I've seen floating around for a while.
The extent to which I am a slasher has been greatly exaggerated. Three of the four pairings in my story are het. Are we going by some one-drop rule? Are all fics that have a gay character in them necessarily slash? Isn't there something in between? Must I choose sides?
Yes, I am a mostly straight girl. I shouldn't have to give anyone my qualifications for writing about gay men. I will only say:
Gay men:Clio::Twins:Anne Shirley
The reason I have gay characters in my fic is that I have gay people in my life. (There isn't enough femslash in the fic, actually, but we all know the reasons for that, and I hope to correct it in sequels.) I could never write any story that didn't have prominent gay characters, just as I could never write any story that didn't have prominent het characters. I don't slash them because I want to make a political point (though I could) or because I think two men kissing is hot (it is, but actually two straight men kissing is a lot hotter) but because the Seamus in my head is gay, just like the Harry in my head is straight.
A point was made recently that gay male slashers tend to spend a bit more time on the coming out process and women slashers tend to not focus on it. I concede that. I decided to have it both ways in my story--Seamus comes out to his family and there is a good bit of difficulty, but then I skip ahead a year to when things have calmed down. I didn't want to write a "coming out" fic, because it's been done, and better, by others, and because it wasn't what I wanted to concentrate on. However, it was very important to me to establish that both Seamus and Dean had come out some time before they got together, that their sexuality was separate from their feelings for each other, that they were not just two friends who come together, but two gay men who relate to each other as such.
Identity politics is a very tricky thing. It may unite on one level, but it surely divides on another. If you reduce us all to our constituent parts, you overlook the whole person. Of course writers should have some sense of what the hell they are writing about, and I can't imagine writing slash if I weren't really quite familiar with the gay community. But that isn't to say that the slash written by women is by definition somehow less real than that written by men.
Poor
alexmalfoy had to bear the brunt of it this morning when it really wasn't him, so I thought I'd share the grouchiness with the rest of you. I do want to state very specifically that this is NOT a reaction to his earlier post, but to something I've seen floating around for a while.
