~~ why i write slash, queer theory, writing theory, stupid meta, etc.

[reenka]

reading acadine's post on why she writes slash was rather liberating. i'd never actually come up with a single reason, or a very good reason, for why i do. i mean, it must seem like an obvious sort of question for non-slashers to ask... i mean, it wouldn't occur to them, and so on. but to me it's just purely, 100% natural. as soon as i found my pairing, off i went. writing fanfic at -all- is much more difficult and problematic because of the need to find someone else's voice, the need to imitate (i'm not so good at it in any creative medium) to some degree. but slash? totally natural. mmm, queerness. what? queer = hot. everyone knows that, right? well, no, okay, that is just silly, but anyway.

so reading,
that just maybe the reason these straight women like the idea of slash so much is that, really, they'd kind of like to have a dick and be able to fuck people with it and get blowjobs.
totally made me squee, because it's true, i don't see people admit that. sure, people admit two-cocks-are-better-than-one, sure-- but wanting one? how pathetic can you get, right?


    i can tell you straight out that along with a number of other, corollary reasons, that is definitely one of the reasons i write/read/like slash (not the only one, naturally). yes, okay, i admit it (and woo, it feels liberating!)-- i wouldn't mind having a dick for a day or two or ...a year. why not? i'd like to be a fairy and a vampire and a werewolf and an alien and a superhero and why not a guy? *grins*
    i think this thing about not wanting your own body is always seen as so negative-- like, you have to -hate- it in order to want to escape it. personally, i've always wanted to escape anything that i couldn't seem to change. i need that loophole, that -way out-, that possibility of infinity. i want off this damn planet, even though i love it. i want off this plane of existence, though it's been good to me. i want out of this body, out, out, OUT, even though it's served me well. i want out of this town and out of this country and out of my mind, because i get tired of things easily and i need to -move- and movement is -life-.

so what can i do? i -write-. the point she made so eloquently about being everyone you write about really hit home with me-- because they do come -out- of me, and so in many ways that aren't tangible or obviously traceably, they -are- me. i'm not what you think, just flesh and bones and opinions and obsession for gab and boys fucking. i'm so many things i don't even -know- i am, and they come out of me, they come out and play and surprise me, when i write. i don't know -why- i write, just that i -do-. i can't stop anymore than i can fly, but i can -write- about flying, and in a way, make that be the truth. i can create truth by wishing and dreaming and writing it into existence, i can inscribe it onto my body, i can feel its edges out with people who're me and not me at the same time, who're free from the restraints of me and are still bound to me, tug on my heart-strings and return home at night, dreaming right along with me.

acadine could speak for me when she says she can never answer the question of "why slash", because it has to become "why write (fantasy/romance/sex)", "why breathe" and "why exist". there are no answers, only states of being, states of rapture generated by the practice of these things. i write (slash & het & gen) because i -can-, because it's in me, because i am queer and straight and asexual and virginal and slutty and fearless and earthbound and insane and logical and smitten and icy and longing and hopeless and dreaming, always dreaming in someone else's head, someone else's body, some other universe.

yes, my issues translate into my writing. i think they're almost -painfully- obvious. if you read what i write, you would know me too well, would know me -intimately-. because this is the inside of me, where there is no -me-, no everyday me that wears masks as she needs them-- this is the real me, who wears masks because she -wants- them.

i do think that "owning" your writing can be taken too far. you may -know- me by it, but not in a literal sense. just because i write slash/femmeslash/het doesn't mean i'm gay/straight/bi. being bi probably made me more open to exploring various forms of sexuality, but i've always been interested in the workings of sexuality -itself-, way before i was truly comfortable with actually -expressing- my own. in fact, i'm still not comfortable with expressing my own. i'm a shy, hopelessly uncool sort of girl who wears baggy clothes and tries to escape notice, but that never mattered when i wrote smut at age 14 or whatever. it was just about expressing the sexual energy through an outlet, transforming it into something outside me, but something that still -fed- me. i mean, partly it's true-- i do happen to like the idea of having a dick on some level, but i'd write it if it disturbed me, too. i like to explore the things that disturb me. i write about the things that touch me, the things that seem to -matter- somehow, i write about ideas i have or interpretations of other people's stories or a play on words that i cannot resist.

it hadn't always been about the characters-- definitely not before fanfiction. i wrote about -ideas-, and those ideas were more to do with states of pure emotion and fantasy elements and reinterpretations of old stories, games to play. the characters were secondary, cast-off mirrors of me, that barely had -any- personalities. i particularly like acadine's saying that even -bad- fic is -truth-, only not very-well-told truth. yes, i had written badly-told, narrow truth, but it wasn't really the same part of me i express in more character-driven stories. those were just my daydreams, flippant and light, often written because i liked an opening sentence. i barely thought through -any- of my stories, most of my life. they just happened, totally stream-of-consciousness. i usually didn't mean to make any statement about sexuality, gender, reality, myself, or anything else-- and i still don't, most of the time. partly that's why it's so hard to write my perfect h/d fic-- i have so much to say about them, but i'm -really- unused to actually consciously -saying- things with my writing. and while my feelings obviously snuck in anyway, they were usually transformed, reformed, thrown into a crazy kaleidoscope and mixed well until they could've been anyone's. hopefully. that is the universality of fiction itself. that is the beauty of it all.

so while my fiction may be -me-, what does it matter? no one will ever know unless they know me as well as-- or -better-, really-- than i know myself, and there isn't anyone like that. what i adore hearing is that my stories remind people of -them-, that they make them think of what -their- issues are, they seem to reflect their own selves at them. -that- is a true miracle, to me, this discovery of a channel to another person within something that's still somewhat a part of me. while it may not be -why- i write (i'm mostly a cathartic writer, rather than a storyteller), it's large part of what's so -great- about literature, to me, and it's definitely an additional motivation. i write because i want to -communicate-, and not just -me-, i want to communicate -you- to you, too. i want to find some way bind me to all of you, to everyone, to everything. i want to be just another interchangeable splash of atoms in the universe, swirling and reforming and becoming -you-, when you read my story.

what i'm saying is, this isn't only about the writing process-- i think the reading process is -inherent- and a vital ingredient of the writing process. i write and it's -me-, but you read and it's -you-, you see? and i write -because-....
i love to read, because i need to reproduce, because the stories that are out there -aren't enough- and i need to make my own. a lot of writers say that, don't they? they write because they want to see the sort of stories they want to read. and that's true too. tell me a reason why someone said they write, and you know what? most likely, i'll agree with them. i write because of that too, yes, yes, yes. i write for the fame and the glory, i write for -you- and youandyouandyouandyou, i write to escape, i write to reach out, i write to become someone else, i write to discover the truth, i write to get my message across, i write to feel better, i write to get myself off, i write to get -you- off (YES YOU), i write to make you laugh, i write to make myself laugh, i write because i like myself better then, i write because there's nothing else to do, i write because i love words, i write because it's easy, i write because i need to or i'll burst, i write because it's a hobby, i write because it's a dirty habit, i write because WAH i don't want to clean the kitchen and i'm too hyper to go to sleep and i'm lonely and no one's on aim (DAMN YOU ALL), i write because i love feedback and GIVE IT TO ME NOW, DAMMIT, i write because i want to be -better- than you (YES, YOU), i write because i admire you/her/them and want to make tribute to your greatness by imitation, i write to relax, to goof off, to reach transcendence, to find god, to become a better bullshitter, to make friends and influence people, to ....you get the picture :D :D

and of course, acadine says this:
And what I think about good writing, any writing worth doing, is this: it needs no excuses.
very true. i think that's basically what -i've- been saying, but i got carried away with lists-- sometimes i do that. lists are fun, no?
    i am still wary, though, because in a way, "owning" your writing is just another excuse or explanation, in a way. it's too multifaceted and different for every writer to pin down to a generalization of any sort. i think why we write is true for us, whatever the reason is, so acadine's anger with a contradictory stance to hers seems... well... unjustified.

i agree with lasultrix in that both acadine and ivyblossom have valid points, but the truth is, we are all a little bit of that, a little bit of this, and the balance and amount of either or any ingredient depends wholly on the person. it needs no excuse to say we're all different, as writers and as people, correct? so i'm sure that there are nearly as many reasons why someone writes slash as there are slash writers. i myself am particularly egalitarian i suppose, but then, i'm a contradictory not-very-organized person who changes facets of her personality from day to day and hour to hour, kind of. i don't know if you can -tell-, here, 'cause i basically talk about hp all the time, but i'm rather random. so yeah. who was i, again, and why did i write -anything-, ever? i DON'T KNOW :D


actually, what this all boils down to is, to use philosophy class lingo: i am a multiplicity and a singularity both. i am this and that and i am not. i am -me- but i cannot define me, and yet i can redefine me through every story i've ever written. i've never been afraid of this essential unfathomability of self, as switchknife put it in one of the comments-- it seems rather natural and obvious to me.

this is partly why i am almost incapable of making real-life posts. i don't know what to talk about. i think about things all the time, but they're not -me- things. they're -other- things-- things most people most likely wouldn't get, because they're so in-referencey and twisted and obscure and full of emotional meaning more than actual.

the process of definition of anything-- but especially oneself-- is a tricky one. i prefer to trust people with whatever they come up with, because that is definitely part of the truth. whyever you do anything is at least partly influenced by whyever you -think- you do that thing. i've defined and redefined myself a -zillion- times, and i still don't fit anywhere. everywhere is a peg, and i'm a five-pointed star, because whenever i think about being just one thing, i discover a way to be its opposite.
    i myself have never even -wondered- if i "was" my characters (what in the hell does that even -mean-, anyway?)-- the disturbing ones, the male ones, whatever-- i can -see- the bits that are recognizable emotional territory and the bits i've made up. i can see where i was forgetting character altogether (what is it with the character-driven stories, here? can't one have silly-bunny-driven stories? i had at least one). i can see and not see -enough-, usually. the amount of conscious awareness with me is really rather variable.

to finally give in and give an actual reason for why i tend to write slash: i also love alara_r's comment which basically says that there are these types of dynamics between characters that appeal to her-- ie, villain/hero or hero/second-in-command, and these dynamics in popular culture tend to be unisexual (and when they're not, i'm -so there-, like with mulder/scully, yesplease). i'm aware some people slash just to slash. they exist. i'm not one of them. so yes-- i am on that wagon, sign me up. whenever there is tension between characters who exist within an interesting balance of power (hello, buffy/spike, let me now drool all over you), i am -right there- with my "omg, HET!!" banner. i think boys fucking is the sexiest thing since adam got a dick, but what i'm really in it for is the -chemistry-, whoever it's between. i lust after ideas, ways of behaving, emotional states. if lex was a girl, i'd be shipping girl!lex/clarke in a new york minute. but he's not. if draco was a girl, likewise, but he's not. let me just tell you right now that i'm a shipper of girl!draco/blond!harry any day. this is a common view as well, and i happen to share it. hotness is nice, but chemistry is spice. or something,

basically, this is another way to say the following, which came to me as i read ivy's post on the subject:
    i have no knee-jerk idea what it means to be "gay" or "male" in society at large. i only know what it's supposed to mean to be "female" rather vaguely-- i think i -am- rather typically female (with hidden male attributes you see if you get me to relax), but i don't feel conscious of it at all. i never thought of queer men at any length before college, probably, and not really before i found slash. i mean, i thought of lesbians-- i wondered if i -was- one, but gay men were totally on another planet. they're not really in pop-culture much, and i never -knew- any, so i really wouldn't know -what- to expect. these stereotypes ivy mentions are surely there, i just had no awareness of them during my formative years, luckily or unluckily as that might be.

    while i knew, theoretically, that men are "supposed to be" buff and tuff and gentlemanly and so on, i just -rejected- that idea out of hand. "real" men aren't like that, i knew that much. i come from a fairly testosterone-high, emotional country. russian women are rather... uh... *coughs*... butch. russian men are emotionally explosive and drink a lot and cry into their vodka when they're not pumping iron and engaging in gang wars (unless they're being delicate intellectuals). my mother is (a very straight) butch, bossy, logical iron maiden type (when she's not being sensitive), so are both my grandmas. my grandparents and father are butch-yet-sensitive too. er. so am i. sorta. i come from a family of tough-minded, stubborn, atheist odd-balls, basically. friends of the family tended to be intellectuals and writers and professionals like teachers and doctors and scientists and such. um. a "real man" got a ph.d., knew several languages, and knew how to cook but didn't because he could bully his wife into it. his wife probably knew how to cook badly, but did it for her husband because she liked to play along and pacify the silly man. the "silly man" exists in every culture.

so yeah. traditional, christian, old-style gender-stereotypes? what are those? i come from a communist-wannabe atheist country, man. heheh. sometimes it shows, i guess.
    so. gay men (or women) didn't exist in my childhood. just. didn't exist. i didn't -think- about it. and then, in my adolescence here in the 90s, they didn't really exist on network tv or fantasy and `star trek' novels much either. and no, i didn't talk to people in high school, why, does it show? plus, i went to an all-girls school for part of it, so. yeah.
    queer relationships are mostly about the emotional chemistry and the cock, but you can say the same about my take on het relationships (always loved the cock, man-- who cares who's using it?? IT'S COCK!!... same with tits & ass & so on.)

got carried away there. mmmm, the joy of cock. smut, what?

so yeah, i like to write/read about personalities without genders, except from a less... um... theoretically based angle. i realize some people think it's denial or whatever (am i escaping from my icky female body?) but i don't think so. gender-roles are just that. roles. people transcend roles even if they try to fit them. er. and if they don't, they may be realistic but they're boring. even so, doesn't mean i write because i want to write role-transcending super-real!boys or something. no, i love certain types of chemistry and i love cock (will i ever get tired of saying that? no. say it again, say it out loud, say it proud, it's fun: i love cock!!... though the truth is, i have loved boys and how they are with each other homosocially, platonically, for a longer time and probably for deeper reasons, but essentially i like both-- boy & cock, what can i say? they're-- uh... linked.) and i love to write most of all, for a zillion reasons. it's just that simple, man, even though it's never really "simple", it's true, for me anyway. because i said so. (and yes, i know i went on and on about it. i wrote this around 4am. why are you -reading- it??)

Comments

[morganmuffle]

why are you -reading- it??
Possibly because it's 1am...

I need to reread all this when I'm slightly more coherent but from my sleep deprived perspective it sounds very much like what I would like to articulate. The idea of liking personality without gender particularly. I read slash and het of all ratings but when I write I tend to stay away from sex (explicit sex anyway) meaning that it is the relationship dynamics that I'm interested in. I ship Dean/Seamus because I am fascinated by how we balance their personalities, and I love reading about Harry in any pairing because he has such an odd upbringing he doesn't seem to have many ideas of exactly how relationships (of any kind) actually practically work.

Sorry for spamming you, as I say it's late, maybe I'll be more coherent tomorrow.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! You are so me! I don't actually write slash, but I do write boy. Kid mass-market wise, I mean. But I've thought about why I read slash, specifically the whole body-image idea. I realized I always identified more with boy characters, usually ones that sort of had similar body-types to me. Meaning I didn't like strongman Batman I liked Robin who was light but still strong. Feminist girls are presumably supposed to like female superheroes like Wonder Woman but I didn't and still don't. I think part of it was...well, I'll live the cock aside for a moment just because I might not have been thinking about that first as a kid but symbolically it's the cock. Robin could fly around in his outfit and be sexy in a different way than Batgirl could. He was boy-sexy, male-sexy. He didn't wear high heels or have big boobs. Not that I had anything against those things, it just seemed like the boy was more free or stronger or whatever.

I'm also totally with you on real life posts. When I make one I'm usually making an effort because left to myself I'd probably just talk about ideas or fictional things. Other people are able to make their lives very interesting on lj, I think. That's just not a real mode of expression for me. Anyway, I guess this another one of my longwinded "me too" posts. Heh. But now I really want to read that other discussion!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

hee. but i like it when you say "me too" because it makes me feel like i'm being understood :D :D

which is very reassuring, especially when one is a bit wibbly about posting these rambling messes of things that even -i- would have trouble following if i wasn't me -.-
i totally dig boys. i dunno why i only remembered that at the end, man! no one mentions it in these discussions! no one! no one!! *WEEPS*

people mention love for -cock-, yes.
but love for -boy-? no.
and since it was a response-post, my one "original" purely-me idea hadn't occurred to me at the end, and then only because saying "it's about the cock" sounded somehow wrong, because obviously it isn't.

i love girls too, but for slightly different reasons and it -feels- different, girlness, girlhood, somehow. i dunno, it's not a better/worse thing, it's a -different- thing. and i don't think this is about gender-roles-- 'cause it's true, i -don't- have much of them in my head. it's like, internal gender which isn't the same as societal gender. my internal perception of maleness and femaleness certainly is there.

i love girl stories, too. most of my life i've -written- girl-stories, me-stories, too. i've always identified with girls because i -read- more about girls, partly on purpose. but when a good boy-story came along, sometimes i'd identify more, but there'd be that element of crushing, too (the cock element, eheh). because-- well-- i think partly it's that our reading lists were different. i didn't read epic fantasy so much, and more little quirky introspective fairy-tale fantasies, which have more girls.

but if i think about my favorite characters, they're almost all boys, and that's sad but it says something, doesn't it?
the ones i've -understood-, the ones i've really -loved-...
tim hunter, spock, peter pan, sherlock holmes, christopher chant, shion/rin from `please save my earth', kyou from `fruits basket' and hayama from `child's toy' (anime), jim kirk, mulder, dream from `sandman'... etcetc.

as for girls... welllll...
there's witchbaby, molly from `books of magic' (though i love tim more), luna, mokuren from `please save my earth', delirium, and a lot of leading girls i don't -remember- because i identified with them so much they -were- me for the duration of the story, kinda.

it's just-- i -love- boys partly because they're other and yet i can still feel what they feel. still, there's that otherness. i love that.
and i love similar body-types for girls and boys-- slender and light and springy and maybe tall. i love the boyish superheroes too, although definitely not because it's my body-type (i look pretty much like a female all right, hehehe) :D

wow, i can't believe i've babbled on about nothing, -again- >

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes! Very similar experience there. I realize that it's only now that I say "I write boy" but when I say that I mean I write mass market middle-grade boy as opposed to mass market middle-grade girl. The problem is that my version of girl is totally different than the narrow things they want in those kinds of series which is basically that they are very focused on boys and jealousy. I always liked girl adventure books and I think Zylpha Keatly Snider writes great girl stuff like in The Changeling or The Witches of Worm. But the characters I've loved have usually been boys: Will Stanton, Dick Grayson, Robin Hood (Disney's version!), Frodo. I loved the Lost Boys!

I'll bet most of the girls I liked dressed up as boys at some point. It's just really strange that the characters I more or less co-opted into my list of identities were usually boys (or male--when I was little they were often animals). Having now read the other discussion I wonder if it's really about not wanting to be a girl but I really don't think so. I do like being a girl and I like girls in general. I went of a women's college for goodness' sake--I had to enjoy the company of women! But for whatever reason I usually identified with the boy characters, even if I then, in my head, probably feminized the hell out of them. That's why it probably doesn't bother me overmuch when people do it in slash. For me slash isn't about making sure the characters are realistically male just that they are...whatever it is I want them to be. Maybe I want them to be feminine in that I want to relate to their emotional life or something while still having upper body strength.

Also I just have to laugh because I have Dream all over my desk at work. A few different versions of him, and Death and Desire (Delirium is next) and Daniel. Then I have a whole shelf that's all the Endless and characters from Dream's World. Now I am coveting this new set of l'il endless figurines. Why do I have this need to obsessively have them all? Oh wait, I know. Because I'm hoping one day I'll walk into my office and be in that world. How could I forget?:-)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

oooh yeah! liking boyish girls...! wow. it's true. *boggles* i do :D

and girlish boys for that matter :D

not so much into -gender-bending- so much as... i dunno. i think people with unconventional gender characteristics tend to be more intelligent and flexible and interesting to imagine. heheheh. so i say :D
unless they're ron. ron = woobie. and i don't know -why- i think so, either :D

dream & endless is the only commercial fanart i've actually put up on my walls, heheh. i've never gotten any figurines 'cause they make 'em so expensive, not like harry potter where it's like, $13, but like, $50, it's awful. i lust after those sandman figurines, man. LUST!!
(although honestly, my "commercial fanart" mostly consists of me printing things out that i find online, but i never really did that for hp. i mean, i have a couple of hp pics, but i have printed out -dozens- of sandman pics over the years, heheh).

and there'll be a new book out this september!! O_o

yah, i definitely mean -boys- when i say "i love"... i mean, i love maleness, but in a sort of "animus is a good thing" sort of way. i love adolescence and childhood in humans more than adulthood, ehehehe. that's why i totally like the underaged sexuality, 'cause otherwise it'd have to be... *shudder* men. with like, hair on their chest, and deep voices, and mature motivations like mortgages and cheating lovers and the need to earn a living. wah. *is stuck in time-warp*

i can never truly sexualize any of the hp adults partly for this reason. they're all so.... adult, even in their childishness. i may love adults, but er... they're not too sexy.
see, not -all- adults are `adult'-- some adults retain a sense of play, of childishness, or fun and adventure and emotional volatility. those are the adults i like.

well, i suppose dumbledore is like that.
but no. just no :D

[shatterglass.livejournal.com]

...because i am queer and straight and asexual and virginal and slutty and fearless and earthbound and insane and logical and smitten and icy and longing and hopeless and dreaming, always dreaming in someone else's head, someone else's body, some other universe.
Lovely. *applauds* You write beautifully at four in the morning. Either that or it reads beautifully at *checks* seven past midnight. But either way, I loved it. I completely agree with the section about how the chemistry between the characters is really what does it for you - reading about boys shagging is nice, *g* but if Draco was a girl I would be all about da het. :D
Also especially liked the paragraph starting with reading being inherently part of the writing process. Wow, that you can just write this and it will reach me so thoroughly. That's exactly what I feel on so many occasions. Sheesh.