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reenkaI'm so with imadra_blue & Kassie on this one, even if there were more meta-y and in-depth comments-- but my reason for posting this is just to reiterate that YES, I think going 'I don't mind gay people but OMG I CAN'T READ ABOUT STRAIGHT PEOPLE STRETCHING PAST THEIR EXISTING OR IMPLIED SEXUALITY, IT'S JUST WRONG!!1'-- that's definitely homophobic in a really passive sense that's more... being undereducated, maybe?
I mean, it's fine if you don't find two guys hot and it's also fine to snark on badfic where there's character-rape-- however, if you're a normal, totally non-prejudiced person, you wouldn't care if a fic involved two guys, two girls or two gorillas together, given it was a good story. You may not seek it out-- I myself don't seek out plenty of genre/types of stories-- but you wouldn't actively feel the need to rant about how omg-wrong it was unless there was something rotten in the state of Denmark, etc. More specifically, thinking you know something about a subject when you admit you don't like it & thus haven't looked into it in depth-- that's the VERY DEFINITION of prejudice, man.
My big case-study back-up for this is my last ex-boyfriend. He's a big geek, sort of a fanboy type without ever being in fandom, you know, the usual-- and he's also just about the straightest (yet still nice & not macho/assholish, sensitive, etc) boy I know, and he's totally interested in girls more in an intellectual/social-hanging-out way too. Anyway, he's got noooo interest in reading about hot boysex or even the wondrous non-slashy dynamics of adolescent boys-- but he was totally able to read all the Harry/Draco slash fics of mine I sent him and discuss the nature of their relationship with me and how the sex would be most IC(!!)-- anything at all.
You know why? I'll tell you why. He's what I like to call an intellectually free individual. I mean, he's got issues and he's a dork and a loser, fine; my point is that he's an example of what someone's like when they don't have heteronormativity & notable-level egocentrism issues. He's capable of seeing people as, you know, WOW, human beings without needing to put them in boxes all the time. GOD.
...Or perhaps this has nothing -necessarily- to do with homosexuality one way or another (though I think it's a facet!) and it's all just general-use judgmental assholery. I'm down with that; the OP definitely seemed to be into judging things rashly & acting like it's what other people must be doing too ('oh noes, they think I'm like X because they probably think X about my feelings on not reading slash!'). ><;; (...this is really make me think you need a higher threshold level of intelligence not to seem like an asshole if you're a J in Myers-Briggs than if you're a P. But then, most Js I know like being assholes, so what do I know, hahaha...ha. DON'T HURT ME, I'M SMALL & FLUFFY & ALSO I LIKE ASSHOLES ANYWAY!!1 *runs away*)
PS: the next person who says 'one should snark responsibly' better not come within up-close snarking range with me, that's all I'm sayin'.
PPS: I really like these quotes from 'On Writing' by Stephen King... especially 'cause currently I -am- usually just 'shoveling shit from a sitting position' -.-
I mean, it's fine if you don't find two guys hot and it's also fine to snark on badfic where there's character-rape-- however, if you're a normal, totally non-prejudiced person, you wouldn't care if a fic involved two guys, two girls or two gorillas together, given it was a good story. You may not seek it out-- I myself don't seek out plenty of genre/types of stories-- but you wouldn't actively feel the need to rant about how omg-wrong it was unless there was something rotten in the state of Denmark, etc. More specifically, thinking you know something about a subject when you admit you don't like it & thus haven't looked into it in depth-- that's the VERY DEFINITION of prejudice, man.
My big case-study back-up for this is my last ex-boyfriend. He's a big geek, sort of a fanboy type without ever being in fandom, you know, the usual-- and he's also just about the straightest (yet still nice & not macho/assholish, sensitive, etc) boy I know, and he's totally interested in girls more in an intellectual/social-hanging-out way too. Anyway, he's got noooo interest in reading about hot boysex or even the wondrous non-slashy dynamics of adolescent boys-- but he was totally able to read all the Harry/Draco slash fics of mine I sent him and discuss the nature of their relationship with me and how the sex would be most IC(!!)-- anything at all.
You know why? I'll tell you why. He's what I like to call an intellectually free individual. I mean, he's got issues and he's a dork and a loser, fine; my point is that he's an example of what someone's like when they don't have heteronormativity & notable-level egocentrism issues. He's capable of seeing people as, you know, WOW, human beings without needing to put them in boxes all the time. GOD.
...Or perhaps this has nothing -necessarily- to do with homosexuality one way or another (though I think it's a facet!) and it's all just general-use judgmental assholery. I'm down with that; the OP definitely seemed to be into judging things rashly & acting like it's what other people must be doing too ('oh noes, they think I'm like X because they probably think X about my feelings on not reading slash!'). ><;; (...this is really make me think you need a higher threshold level of intelligence not to seem like an asshole if you're a J in Myers-Briggs than if you're a P. But then, most Js I know like being assholes, so what do I know, hahaha...ha. DON'T HURT ME, I'M SMALL & FLUFFY & ALSO I LIKE ASSHOLES ANYWAY!!1 *runs away*)
PS: the next person who says 'one should snark responsibly' better not come within up-close snarking range with me, that's all I'm sayin'.
PPS: I really like these quotes from 'On Writing' by Stephen King... especially 'cause currently I -am- usually just 'shoveling shit from a sitting position' -.-
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Date: 2006-07-26 08:57 am (UTC)As for the 'seeing a character's sexuality as a crucial part of their characterization'-- I think this sort of ties into it being fine to dislike what you see as 'character-rape'; it's really in how you approach it? It's one thing to have an opinion or an interpretation of canon-- for instance, my James & Ron are also totally straight-- and another thing to call people things for not seeing that & act like you -know- why they disagree (if you don't) and you -know- what they like or see in the fics (if you don't read them).
I think it's shades of homophobic if you make it a -general- statement about slash and not just 'that particular character', making a blanket statement about 'this is how things are' without even being willing to entertain the possibility of nuance or loopholes, like everyone's as canonically straight as James. She didn't just say 'I think slash about Jack O'Neill is OOC', though she used him as an example, so any specific example wouldn't quite address the issue, you know? Obviously slashing a canonically uber-straight character is a different kettle of fish (or slash) than slashing an ambiguous, asexual or 'gay-reading' character, but that's not the issue 'cause in this case slash itself is the problem.
It's not that you can't think sexuality is not fluid; it's that if you've got no problems with Teh Gay, you're going to be able to read at least some of it if it's good without huge emotional/intellectual things stopping you, even if you wouldn't enjoy it as much as someone whose kink it is. So it's really like... I would never argue about specifics or people's experience-based (specific) characterization preferences/beliefs, it's only when there's generalized judgments without any experience/knowledge of the subject involved that I would cry foul. When someone says in general terms that your character has to be explicitly canonically stated to be gay before it's "artistically okay" to imply any character might be bi... just, I think in most cases if you're all uber-certain about that, there's a prejudice problem in there somewhere, but. You don't fit that scenario (if anything 'cause you know too much about slash) :P heh :)