(no subject)

[reenka]

Skimming the comments to this post about the increasing potential for slash mainstreaming, it occurs to me that there's a difference between not liking to read slash as a genre ('cause you're just so painfully hetero it hurts or are a canon whore... and I say that lovingly) and not supporting it. :/

Maybe I've just lost what little patience I had after seeing this post by Mairead/Aristide (one of my favorite Highlander/Sentinel writers) about the homophobia rampant in Santa Barbara. I know it's unrelated, but it's exactly the sort of thing that's related to absolutely everything, every little detail in terms of how people think on many issues. Prejudice in general, no matter what kind, is such a wide-ranging and complex issue; you can't pinpoint it and eliminate it in one place-- it'll always pop up in another. And people are so well-meaning these days, so blase and PC about it, but that doesn't change my feeling that you should support slash (with whatever literary caveats) just on principle. Just to say it's, you know, okay and not take that for granted.

I dunno.

On the other hand, I don't want slash to go mainstream; I don't want the media attention, and even moreso the courts' attention. Then again, I don't think we -need- the mainstream-- it's not like they can give us anything we don't already have quite enough of, 'cause the people who were going to find that obscure little manga fandom probably would anyway and the 25-30% new laypeople into HP or like, House or something who might join... uh, well, I'm not so enamoured of fandom size/loudness/etc that I think it should grow and multiply like the proverbial Blob from Outer Space. Plus, the more mainstream you go the more people try to make money off you, and that... they already do enough of that. I mean, in many ways, fandom (the cons, the self-produced zines, the net community-- all of it) is by definition a grass-roots sort of thing; it's 'for the people by the people', and going mainstream definitely means tempting The Powers That Be to mess with this dynamic & our freedoms. Privacy isn't even an issue here; give the mainstream media a bone & they'll take your leg off, that's the issue. :/

Oh, and I feel the mainstreaming of BL manga & manga in general is totally different-- it's not a grass-roots thing by nature so much as necessity; while I still prefer to get my manga for free and feel there's still not enough diversity & market competition to make sure I get the translation/editing quality & selection I want to see-- manga is by nature a product. I like the BL fandom but can really take it or leave it-- I mean, it mostly consists of fangirl squeeing about hotness anyway. Slash is qualitatively different; while it's not original the way one's own novel would be, the writing/reading is only one part of a triad-- watching/reading canon, interacting with fans and fanfic/vids/art. With manga scanlations, there's just... y'know, manga, whether or not it's professional or amateur (sort of the way you have amateur porn even though there's tons of 'professional' porn, ahahah).

Comments

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I guess I wasn't using it as a litmus test or a foolproof 'answer'-- I just make a differentiation between 'not reading'-- which people do by just not mentioning it or not being into it or whatever-- and 'not supporting', which means if asked and in the [rare] situation where it matters in a social context, then it becomes... still not the same as 'gay fiction' (though actually, these days people do write 'original slash', but that's beside the point) but related to the sort of discomfort people have with gay-related issues (I wouldn't necessarily say 'homophobia' or being 'anti-gay so much as 'prejudice', maybe, because the range of subtle prejudices has gotten so much greater in this PC whitebread age).

I suppose it's the difference between minding your own business (always fine by me) & actively making a stance that is anti-slash in relationship between fandom at large & the society at large. That seems problematic.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

I don't really have any idea what you mean here. Do you mean support as in, support the right of people to write about it? Because I am a strong free speech supporter, and I think other people should be too. So I 'support' all forms of fiction. I mean, in this sense, I support incest fic too. Yeah, and noncon. So, I support all these kinds of fiction in the sense that I'm not going to flame someone, and will defend the right of people to write them. So, if you want to say I support the incest-fic as a viewpoint, and a way of interpretation, you could say I kind of do... although I don't really, in that I think most of it is kink that I share not, and don't really feel that it is a perspective that adds much to fandom, which is of course a personal view.

What does this say about my views of RL incest? Some may say I am a hypocrite because I am strongly against RL incest. But I am. I am not saying that incest is morally like homosexuality. I am just saying the relation between opinions of a fantasy genre of romance/erotica and real life opinions is just not very clear.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think I may have clarified myself (...or not) in my comments to theredepainted below, but yeah, I realize my definition of 'support' is a little muddy. The 'free speech' thing is part of it, yeah; I'd like to feel anyone 'against' slash is still for its existence as speech. But it'd be nice to feel (on a more emotional/communal level) reassured that the person isn't homophobic in some way, because I can't quite assume they're not-- and also, perhaps, I'd like to feel a part of a larger community with the non-slashers in fandom, and it'd be nice to be supported in principle by people who aren't already involved for whatever reason. But 'support' here is very limited & not inclusive of 'approval', plus mostly applicable to discussions with/about the mainstream or just outsiders. If we understand -each other- across subsections of fandom, the mainstream is less likely to totally demonize & maybe antagonize/use us poorly, too.

So yeah, I agree the relationship between the genre & real life aren't clear in terms of clear-cut theory, but at the same time, I'm talking about the idea that people in the mainstream, who're mostly ignorant about slash, would be likely to see it as related and therefore support on some level seems important to me. Perhaps merely on the 'not spreading misinformation' level or the 'well, they're a valid part of fandom' level-- hey, whatever works. I'm mostly just feeling tetchy/touchy 'cause of specific comments (...well, one comment, really) to that post I linked to where the person didn't want to be associated with slashers if we did go mainstream. If we did, btw, the line between 'real life' and slash would blur in a whole 'nother way, too. ^^;

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see how you might wonder if someone is homophobic, depending on how they express themselves, but then I'd say, ask them if they have a problem with gays. That might help them clarify the difference between a genre and real people.

I think looking for community in fandom is not really going to work out very well. I don't understand why you need their support anyway: if you're going to get it, generally it's going to be the support of free speech. But, I have to point out it's not all on the non slashers (het and gen) side. A lot of people in the slash are dismissive or rude about het and gen, deriding it as boring. I remember a meta post in which a slash fan took other slashers to task for... squeeing over a het couple. Apparently just squeeing over a canon het couple is oppressing other slashers. They have to band together against the evil force of canon het! And the writer sort of elided fans in a way such that fan=slash fan. It seems a lot of the time many people, slash or het, are not interested in anything outside of their interests. If community are the people you actually associate with, if you don't associate with some people, can you really say they are your community?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, I think asking people if 'they have a problem' is less likely to lead to new understanding & more likely to lead to them being offended. Well, I would be, and I've seen it happen. Not like I even need to know so much as I wish they'd feel less like 'sharing' how much slash is the boil on their buttock or whatever, heh. In a discussion on mainstream reactions to it, especially. In that scenario, I'm worried less for theoretical gay people and more for my own connection to it all as a slasher... subjective but there. I dunno if that makes sense, either, but I wanted to clarify it wasn't just about unrelated, real-life gay people except for the mainstream's reaction to slash fandom.

Oh, and I don't need 'their' support, hahah... I mean, it'd be nice and it just annoys me when people act like asses & I want to think the best of them so... wouldn't it be great if they were more conscious of community? Whatever it takes, man; I'm also pissed at slashers who're all 'ewww, het/gen' in a similar fashion, actually, though not quite the same since the mainstreaming thing has more implications for slash fandom than het or gen.

You're right that a single fandom in general isn't much of a community, much less 'fandom' itself, though... well, I've been to cons (okay, one con seriously & one way back ago for a few hours), and I got that feeling of cross-genre community there. People just all liked Harry Potter-- we were all squeeing geeks. If you meet in real life, both liking manga/anime or HP or even fantasy novels is likely to be a bonding thing, something to make you interested or at least predisposed to be friendly to the other person. And since I've met a lot of fandom people (not necessarily slashers or H/D shippers), I may feel more... 'personal' towards just 'fans' than is entirely reasonable, especially online.

So I mean, I personally do associate with non-slashers, if that's what you mean; I certainly don't only slash-- I'm a huge Buffy/Spike shipper, for instance, though I'm not in any fandom but HP so effectively (if you go by active fandom involvement) I'm not a 'slasher' since all I'm actively in fandom for is one singular slash pairing, and I like it for many reasons outside it being slash. So... while many people are pretty exclusionary and specialized, in turn many slashers are cross-fandom, too-- and the older/more experienced slashers tend to like at least some gen & het too. I suppose this is also heavily influenced by me being around for awhile & reading (if not participating) in enough fandoms and observing enough cross-fandom communities online that I can't help but get a larger-scale view of it.... But yeah, I realize it's not the most common; though still, the loud anti-het people or whatever are generally the newbies.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

But I think it's valid to say that you consider het, gen, or slash your community. I am not discomforted by people not counting me as part of their community because I'm not a slasher, I'm just annoyed they don't seem to see I exist as a fan.

I think community is an overidealized thing. It's like being part of a nation. Abroad you meet other Americans. But it's not like that means you can't criticize America to the French, or say that you don't like certain types of Americans.