Re: the Graham Norton thing:

Martin Freeman was splendid. Really, he’s such a treasure and reacted so well to the entire thing (and I’m sure it wasn’t entirely unexpected, they’ve got to given him some heads up). It obviously wasn’t malicious in its intent and was Martin has seen it all before (he said so himself!). We knew this, so I’m really not concerned for Martin’s sake. He’s a grown man, he can (and did) handle it.

My concern and embarrassment is for the fan artists. Some were apparently consulted and got asked for permission, while others (like bearicle) weren’t contacted at all.

Yes, the art is shared in a public forum and is therefore likely to be viewed by anyone. Yes, shipping John/Sherlock isn’t mainstream and some people really don’t get it and it shocks them, and find it hard to believe - so they laugh. I get it, it’s instant comedy gold.

On the other hand, it just strikes me as disrespectful to publicly ridicule fan art on national television. It makes me squirm. The art is taken out of context, shown to an audience who might never would have found it otherwise, and (save Martin’s lovely commentary) the quality of the work and hours put into it are dismissed because of the risqué content.

No, it’s not mainstream. It’s odd (to the normal, non-fandom person). But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. It doesn’t mean the artists didn’t pour their hearts and creative talent into it. It doesn’t mean the art deserves to be ridiculed - especially if the artists haven’t agreed to have their art displayed on national television for the purposes of that ridicule.

I don’t know - I guess I’m just not very sympathetic to people making fun of things they don’t understand, especially when it’s part of geek/nerd/fannish (i.e. not mainstream) culture. It’s happened for decades, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK. I can’t just brush it off, even if I’m used to it.

I’m sure that some of the artists don’t care. That’s their prerogative. But as someone who participates in a non-normative culture, I do care. I wish I didn’t.

In short: I don’t think it was a decent thing to do. Did it make sense, from a comedic standpoint? Sure. Should we have expected it, considering that it’s Graham Norton and the art was public and anyone with an internet connection could have found it? Of course.

That still doesn’t mean that it was a very nice thing to do, or something I should automatically be OK with. And thus, I have a right to be irked/upset about Graham Norton’s choice of comedic tactic.

I don’t care where they came from, don’t spread them around.

professorfangirl:

Someone just reblogged a post of mine pitching a fit about private photos of Whishaw circulating, commenting that some such photos “were already worldwide,” or that these had possibly been taken and posted before Whishaw was famous, or had been posted by a friend “who should have cared more about his privacy.” Given all this, the reblogger said, “there’s blame on both sides” that the photos got out, and Ben should just take a painful lesson from it.

I categorically disagree. Once a person has made their desire for privacy known, you just don’t post private photos. Period. If they were posted by mistake, or before the person was famous, or if they’re already everywhere anyhow—does. not. matter. Because we all know how hard it is to enforce or protect privacy on the Internet. Enforcement and protection tend to be big bureacratic forces that stifle freedom. So what’s our best weapon? Respect. Respect is something we do together,  collaborating together to create a healthy non-exploitative fanspace. Respect the man’s privacy. Don’t post private photos, no matter where they came from, how you got them, how long they’ve been around, or how many people have seen them. Just don’t. That’s how we build a fan culture that stars can trust.

(Note: the reblog was deleted before I was able to finish commenting, and I’m thinking maybe the reblogger heard that yes, the photos were stolen from a protected site, and that their objection couldn’t really stand. I think that’s the case because the blog in question is fine and thoughtful and completely without ick. I’m posting this because I hear this claim made often to excuse fans who want to circulate private or paparazzi photos, and I’m hoping that this argument against it makes sense…) 

Reblogging for the amazing bolded bits above. I’m not in the Ben Whishaw fandom whatsoever, but I think this is an important thing to be reminded about.

Respect is the building block of good relationships, whether they be intimate or distant (i.e. fan/celebrity). Fandom still a relationship (well, actually, a multitude of relationships), and for any positive dialogue and interactions to be had between fans and their idols, respect needs to be shown, on both sides. For all that celebrities seem impervious or untouchable, they are more vulnerable in that their privacy and personal lives get invaded and questioned infinitely more often than ours.

afrogeekgoddess:

songstersmiscellany:

nympheline:

pennypaperbrain:

thescienceofobsession:

professorfangirl: [actually it’s nympheline - Penny]

Fandom is not a place of feminism, try as it does to be so. I view feminism as equality: equality of time, of treatment, and of respect. I do appreciate that fandom is a place where the creators are the consumers, and both are nearly all women; but in my experience, this place still gives greater importance to the characters, the personalities, and points of view of men. I see little parity among the genders, and even less among the races. I have read the argument that our canon material overwhelmingly features white, cis men, and that a focus on creating fics that features those characters is a natural one. But given that fandom is a place not only of celebration, but also a place where we have the opportunity to fix those aspects of canon that we find most problematic, I think our choice to fixate on, and write about, white, cis men is a telling one. We feel that the canon doesn’t have enough tenderness or sex, and we fix it. We think, usually distantly and vaguely, that the canon doesn’t have enough women and people of colour—and we, as women and as people of colour, almost uniformly do nothing about it.

And when a man appears on the scene, writing and commenting and creating art, that man is still afforded status due to his gender: he is so sensitive, he is so levelheaded, he is so creative and open-minded. Are these plaudits given to women who exhibit these characteristics and more? Oh, a little bit, sure. But I’ve never known a fic writer or artist to reveal herself a woman and subsequently be inundated with praise. But when someone finds out that (a fandom writer) is male, don’t the congratulations just come pouring in! And he is held up as a paragon not solely on the basis of his opinions and artistic contributions, but also because those opinions and contributions come from a man, and all of us have been raised in a culture that believes that men are heroes and are worthy of hero worship.

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I would love to jump into this positively, but I seem destined to be contrary here. Apologies in advance.

My most potent thought while reading this was: Why would we expect to see non white-cis-male characters in fanfic based on a show that predominantly features white-cis-male characters? To expect otherwise seems unreasonable. (Obviously this is part of a larger discussion about the phobic restrictions of today’s mass media culture and the nature of the canon available to us.)

PFG, in your example about Avengers fic - wouldn’t you expect the ratios to carry? As in, a movie that features males on-screen 90% of the time would inspire fic that remains predominately male?

I don’t know if it’s fandom’s obligation to provide an outlet for a yearning to see femslash/queer/PoCs in fic. If people want more diverse characters, why go to a canon source that by definition contains non-diverse characters? I agree that fandom is subversive, and yes, it does celebrate the freedom to produce gender/race-bent alternatives (and I love that about fandom!) But if it’s not organically happening… perhaps we’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole? Why is it not happening?

I shudder to say we’re not that imaginative, because fandom as a whole is full of amazing talent and boundless imagination. So… what is it?

NB folks, tumblr is playing its tricks on us. The original text here isn’t from professorfangirl, but from nympheline, in a submission to PFG’s journal. I’m mentioning this as I know PFG is down with physical ailments at the moment so may not be seeing it and able to comment.

It is absolutely I who penned the original post, and not Professorfangirl (Are you still feeling awful, dear? Poor thing). 

Thescienceofobsession, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope that fanfic will contain elements that the canon material ignores or marginalises, be they sexual elements, relationships between characters who’ve never shared screen time (or off-screen time), women, or POC. Aside from wanting to immerse ourselves further in the shows and books we love, I think that is the purpose to which most writers put fanfic: to explore, explain, and “fix” those elements of the canon that don’t satisfy us. As such, I don’t expect screen time ratios to carry over to fic counts. If they did, there would be exactly zero Sherlock stories with Sebastian Moran, Mary Morstan, and Harry Watson in them; as it turns out, there are not. Obviously we have the benefit of the source material for the canon (and isn’t that an interesting concept, “the source material for the canon”?), from which we can and do pull characters. Sebastian Moran, for instance, who has had no confirmed screen time, whose name has not even been mentioned in the series, features in 1,669 works on AO3. Sally Donovan, on the other hand, who does have significant screen time and lines, appears in 1,377. I want to emphasise this: a man who, for all intents and purposes, does not exist in the world we’re writing about, has more fics to his name than an established female character. In my mind, that means that there is little to no direct relationship between what we watch and what we write about. Why then do we not write about women? It isn’t because they aren’t onscreen as much as the men. It’s something else.

I agree that fandom and the writers within it are under no obligation to provide fodder for those who want to read fics about women and people of colour. I don’t think fandom has any obligations at all, beyond those that we all have as human beings operating in a society. But, as you say, neither does fandom have an obligation to “provide an outlet for a yearning” for queer fics—yet fandom does provide that outlet. Why is that? Why does fandom see fit to make a celebratory space for queer people, but not women and people of colour? I said in my response to Moranion’s comments on the subject that I don’t think it’s fandom’s job to right the wrongs of the world, and I am not trying to tell people what to create. But I can’t help but notice, when I look at what we’re creating, that we are ignoring or marginalising women and people of colour too often for it to be a statistical anomaly. There is a reason why we are doing what we’re doing, why we’re writing what we’re writing. And whatever those reasons are, I will not call a space that focuses on white cismen to the degree ours does a “feminist” one.

Reblogging this as I pen my own submission.  Lots of food for thought.  If I was analyzing a fandom, the results would be impoverished and inaccurate if I did not notice trends and ask WHY.  ”Why” often opens us open to both the ugliness and beauty in all human cultures and societies.  Most especially when it is our own society, our own culture, we must not shrink from looking at the entire portrait, enticing as it is to linger only on our best features… 

I started this off as a response to thescienceofobsession’s reblog, and am now incorporating some other thoughts. I think fandom absolutely has to be a place where these things can be examined and possibly corrected. Because (and this is dependent on the richness of the source material) if the creators of the media we love aren’t going to do it, if they aren’t going to add more non-stereotypical characters who are any permutation of brown/gay/trans*/disabled/female/etc., if they aren’t going to depict a world that in some way, shape, or form reflects us truthfully, if we as the consumers/audience/lovers of this work don’t, then…who will? I don’t mean to say that the sole responsibility for this work has to go to fandom, but I think a good portion of it  needs to. 

Not all of us will approach this work in the same way. Some of us will do it through writing femslash, or through drawing more art of POC characters from our favorite shows. Some of us will do it through running rec blogs for fics re: asexuality, or writing letters to studio execs re: the depiction of autistic folks on TV. Some of us will write analysis of sexuality in young adult fiction, or donate the proceeds of their fanworks sales to QUILTBAG organizations. Regardless of how it happens, this corrective energy is an essential part of fandom. It’s another form of call-and-response, of remixing and reimagining. There is a reason they’re called transformative works.

There’s that wonderful quote from Junot Diaz re: the visibility of the self in the media we consume. If we don’t see ourselves in the media we watch, then it’s as if we never existed at all, that there’s something wrong with us, that we’re monsters. I refuse to be invisible. And, in the case of the Sherlock fandom, I refuse to be part of a fandom that consistently tells me, through its treatment of Black women characters, that I, as a Black woman, should not exist. I don’t want to be part of a fandom that tells any of us that we don’t exist, that we are not worthy of having our stories told. 

What holds us back, IMO? All of this oppression we’re swimming in. Fandom is just another subculture of our current one, with all of the bullshit that influences us whether we’re conscious of it or not (sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, Islamophobia, etc.). It is this shit that’s keeping the creators of the media we consume from creating the fully respectful, fully rich stories we deserve, and it’s fandom’s internalization of these things that’s keeping us from responding in the way we want to so that we can correct these imbalances.

We cannot be complacent. We cannot allow our preferences to be “just preferences.” If fandom can create detailed back stories and silly fic for a pair of fucking striped Sherlock and John mugs, or ship Sherlock/cranberry, or analyze a gif expression to hell and back, if it can expend that kind of intense energy on those ridiculous things, then it’s damn fucking capable of creating a rich back story for Sally Donovan, or writing an analysis of the racism in The Blind Banker, or creating a gif set of all the women in Sherlock, or questioning why it doesn’t want to read stories about WOC, by-and-large.

I know some folks just want their fandom fluff, or are casual lovers of a show, or don’t have the time/energy to take on these issues for the sake of their mental/physical/spiritual health—and that’s okay. I want Sherlock fluff, too—hell, my newest love are those little Bat!John things going around—but I also want Sally fluff, and Soo Lin Yao femslash, and Ella hurt/comfort fic. I want my fandom to think these characters are worthy of all the love and time and energy that they lavish on the main, white/cis/dudebro characters. I want to know that they would lavish that same attention on me and other Black women. And right now…looking at fandom as a whole…it looks like we’re worth nothing. This should not be a zero-sum game, with WOC as the losers.

This entire discussion has been incredibly insightful. I’m thankful for everyone who has voiced their opinions and perspectives - it has given me a lot to think about.

I’m going to add a few thoughts.

I don’t actually think that qualifying fandom as inherently “feminist” or “not feminist” is particularly productive or accurate. The truth of the matter is that the situation is more complicated. It isn’t, as AGG stated, a zero-sum game. 

I acknowledge that we have a long way to go towards making our fandoms more egalitarian, more inclusive of positive representations of women’s bodies and experiences, as well as those of people of colour. I think that it is certainly important for those who proclaim themselves as feminist to try and pay attention to the trends in their fandoms. The fact that we, as an entirety, tend to focus on white men’s bodies, and constantly vilify female characters (saying they “get in the way”, portraying them as unintelligent, morally dubious, etc.) is very troubling and warrants our attention. The fact that almost not people of colour are present in fanfiction, and almost never appear as main characters, is worrisome. Part of it has to do with the source material, but as creators we certainly have the ability to adapt that material in feminist ways (which we sadly seem to be avoiding).

However, I can’t say that I agree with you, nympheline, when you say that “women in fandoms proclaiming fandom a feminist place, and themselves promoters of feminism within it, is horribly self-delusional.”

I truly think it’s possible to express one’s desire, while also simultaneously recognizing that the tendency of one’s and others’ desires are problematic. These two impulses aren’t mutually exclusive. Even as readers and writers promote white m/m pairings, this doesn’t exclude them from feeling guilty about it, especially if they consistently participate in dialogue about the lack of equal representation in fandom. I myself am guilty of writing singularly about John/Sherlock, in exclusion to almost any other character. BAM, white middle-class men doing dirty things to one another.

Do I feel guilty about this? Incredibly. Almost every day. Am I working on a lengthy, multi-character, multi-relationship, multi-chaptered post-Reichenbach fic wherein one of the protagonists is a biracial woman? Yes, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at my AO3 profile, or my blog, because it’s a work in progress. I’m being careful and taking time to provide respectful representation and I am very wary of showing people my written work before it’s ready to be published. To people who have never spoken to me about my writing, I look like someone who is “all talk” and doesn’t apply her feminist values and rants to her artistic work.

Overriding our cultural programming, the internalization of hatred for our own bodies, and our gendered and racially-biased desires, is difficult. If it were easy, I think we would completely right to unabashedly criticize the tendency for fandom (primarily female, some straight and some queer, and including WoC) to focus on white men’s erotic and romantic experiences. However, many of us use fandom as a means of escape, a way to express and celebrate our desires that fall outside the mainstream, and to play out these desires using characters to whom we can relate, but also from whom we can disengage. There’s a safety in using strange bodies, bodies we have no experience with, to enact desires we have been programmed to keep hidden, desires we might not still have recognized as acceptable.

Our biases should be acknowledged, and we should work toward including women and especially WoC in our fanfiction, but desire and fantasy are deeply personal and not as easily changed as we might hope. Perhaps, then, we start with the outside world, the political and fact-based corners of the internet and of Tumblr, which we see as separate from our inner selves. Perhaps that’s an easier beginnng for many, and the reason why so many of us promote feminism yet continue to exclude women and people of colour from our fiction.

Let’s not forget that fandom isn’t exclusively fanfiction, either. It also incudes myriad of ongoing discussions, deconstructions, analyses and debates about female characters and people of colour in the original works. These, I think, are equally valuable and need to be fostered if we hope to see changes in the artistic side of fandom. Changes in the outer dialogue lead to these changes being internalized and expressed in our art.

Therefore, I can’t agree that fandom isn’t a place for feminism. Some work in fandom, I would say, is certainly feminist. Some isn’t. Criticizing one’s own desire, questioning the source material, and promoting feminist dialogue about media and representation, is all feminist work. Each has its part to play. Not everyone in fandom is doing it, which means we can’t quite categorize fandom as a whole as feminist, but I think the largely female composition of fandom gives it the potential to be a feminist space, more so than the rest of the internet.

Fandom certainly has bias and inequality, and I recognize your frustration. However, I don’t think the solution is to write off fandom as a potential source of feminism, but rather to nurture those feminist aspects that do exist and to continue to prompt people to go further, to delve into the murky landscape of their own biased desires, and to examine them in the light of their feminist values. Doing these things, I think, will send us on our way to more equal representation in the artistic side of fandom.

On the elusive appeal of F/F

havingbeenbreathedout:

tartanfics:

havingbeenbreathedout:

zwischendenstuehlen:

[snip] I think that’s exactly what it comes down to, for me too - I can never fully turn off the gender dynamics in hetfic, even if they are only in my head while I read.

Only remaining question: Why only slash and no femslash (at least in my case)? Only for the lovely cocks?

I too am interested in the question of why a lot of fanfic readers skew so heavily toward M/M and away from F/F.

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I think why fans come to fandom is a huge part of what we choose to do with the characters we’re given.

From what I’ve heard you say about this, HBBO, you got to fandom through the themes that fanfiction focuses on. That is really awesome. I can’t think of anyone else off the top of my head who has that perspective on fanfic. I came to fandom because I saw a tv show and wanted more of that tv show. I think most people’s participation in fandom is inextricably founded on the particular canon they’re working with, and that restricts us in what we want to or are able to read. I can’t read fic in fandoms I’m not familiar with, for example, no matter how interesting the story is or how relevant to my interests its subject matter. Doing so makes me frustrated and grumpy the way being forced to read the last chapter of a book first would. I also would have trouble getting myself to read fic about a minor character I wasn’t already interested in, even if that fic was well-written and about things I want to read about. (All my favorite Sherlock femslash is genderswapped Sherlock/John, because I care about Sherlock and John more than I care about most of the canonically female characters. I am not sure how I feel about this.) There are a lot of tv shows/movies/books that I love but have no urge to read fanfic of. I just can’t unlink fanfic on the individual story level from the fandom as a whole.

I think this is pretty common, and I don’t think it’s avoidable. But it means that we are restricted by the fact that many fandoms don’t have enough popular and central female characters to pair up, and that we’re interested on some level in what the canon has told us to find interesting. We’re hemmed in by the media we’re given, even when we want to be writing about awesome women having relationships. Writing m/m slash is a way to work with what we’re given while still subverting it to some degree, but it takes more work to find a fandom with female characters that interest us as fanfic writers (or to write genderswap). 

The more I become interested in using fanfic to explore themes like female sexuality, the more I’m able to read about characters I wouldn’t otherwise find interesting—meaning I start reading from the basis of themes rather than canon. I feel a little like I’m escaping from what canon has told me is important, but I also really understand firmly canon-based fanfic reading, and I understand how it makes me (and probably other people) feel apathetic towards characters that canon hasn’t told us are important (i.e. women). I obviously don’t think it’s a bad thing to base your fanfic reading/writing in canon, because at some point if you don’t you’ve stopped writing fanfic, but it’s worth pointing out that canon makes us see our stories and our storytelling in a certain way.

I desperately want more femslash to read, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through to find fic about characters canon hasn’t made me apathetic towards. 

So I don’t think the dearth of femslash is necessarily because people don’t want to read about women’s relationships or sexuality. I think it’s because people want to read about the things that seem significant from inside the fandom and its canon—which, since we usually get inside a canon through the main character’s head and the main character is usually a man, means that the women often seem uninteresting.

These are all excellent, EXCELLENT points. And I realize, belatedly, that as I wrote this post I was just assuming that “F/F” would be read as “genderswapped John/Sherlock”—which now that I think about it is, of course, not necessarily true at all. (Though perhaps understandable given what I spent the last year writing.) I should mention that I too am drawn to extant interpersonal chemistry, and I too care the most about the John/Sherlock relationship. Not that I haven’t read great stories about other characters.

Tartan, your distinction between reading for themes and reading for (some variation on) canon is a great one, and a useful thing for me to keep in mind not just on this issue but in general. A light bulb kind of went off for me when you talked about not reading fic for fandoms you’re not familiar with, because I do that pretty much constantly (and in fact…I don’t think I’ve ever started reading in a major fandom already knowing the source material), but I know that a lot of people don’t. This kind of put that in context for me.

And this idea of having a kind of split consciousness—part of me perceiving the canon as if from inside its intentions, while at the same time another part has a different or even alienated set of priorities—I very much relate to that, even if maybe it manifests a little differently for me—and really, I’m sure, for everybody.

Anyway, thanks to you and everyone who’s written such interesting responses to my little rant! :-)

It’s 1am, so I can’t contribute coherently to this conversation at the moment, so I’m just going to reblog to get this delicious intellectual stuff in your noggin’.

Damn, I love the internet.

(Source: professorfangirl)

professorfangirl:

I’ve thought about this a lot:

I see fandom as a way to redefine sexuality and take control of it.  I rarely read het fanfiction and barely have any het OTPs.  One of the things I appreciate about slash is that the men involved are on an equal footing.  There is no predefined social stigma that one partner is the “powerful one” and one is the “emotional one”.  There is no line drawn between the two.  One man can be on the “receiving end” of sex in one scene, then turn around and top in the next.  There isn’t the power dynamic that exists in even the best written of het sex.  Even when the woman is the one with power it feels as if the writer is saying “look at this woman in the man’s role”.  With good slash, they are both “the man” in the relationship (how I cringe just writing that phrase) and are allowed to be truly equal partners in everything.

YES. THIS.

This is a strong component of why slash fanfiction appeals to me so much. There’s a certain safety to it, especially in instances of power play (D/s, bondage, etc.), because both characters already possess the same social power assigned to them by virtue of their gender (terrible, but true).

Also:

Having a man dominating a woman in a fanfiction sex scene isn’t erotic to me - it’s just reminding me of the norm, the circumstances wherein I am viewed as inherently and rightly submissive because of my gender. There’s a tension, an imbalance, an uneasiness, that has been instilled into me through stories of rape, physical abuse, and the imagining of women as manipulatable sex objects, that makes me find this kind of pairing unappealing.

If a woman dominates a man in the scene, it reads politically to me - which, to be fair, has its time and place. It is not really the kind of material I find sexually titillating, though.

The magic happens when you pair two men or two women - the playing field is levelled (at least in my mind) and I, as a female reader, can enjoy the sex. I imagine it in my mind’s eye as unpolitical, egalitarian, ideal. Whether or not this is the reality of same-sex pairings isn’t the point - it opens up my expectations and my will to read, and lets my fantasy runs its course without worry or over-analysis. 

A Love Letter to *All* Sherlockians

When I first read Phillip Shreffler’s degrading essay on the “differences” between Sherlockian “devotees” and Sherlockian “fans”, I was tempted to write a snarky, bitter reply to him - to publicly denounce him on his elitist, ageist, and sexist notions, and tear apart his argument limb by limb to show how it simply cannot stand as a valid argument.

Then I realized that he probably didn’t gives two shits about my opinions. Not only am I a self-identified fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories and of subsequent film and television incarnations, I am also under the age of 45, have a vagina, and happen to admire Benedict Cumberbatch’s acting skills. I also haven’t yet had the chance to pore over every original story and every copy of the Baker Street Journal as, Mr. Shreffler implies, I should do if I would like to be considered by white, middle class, educated people (primarily men, by the looks of it) as a legitimate “devotee” to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Still, the temptation to be bitter and resentful was strong. I started writing a really nasty reply. But about halfway through, I decided that I didn’t want to spend all that energy in being angry. Others here on Tumblr have expressed my own anger so well in their reactions to the article, and I wouldn’t be able to provide better arguments.

So, instead, I spent my energy writing a love letter to all Sherlockians.

If you are not sure if this applies to you, answer this question:

Do you love Sherlock Holmes?

If yes, you’re a “real” Sherlockian.

And this is for you.

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on the writing of slash

cranberryloops:

I think there’s quite a discussion about the female authorship of slash fan fiction going on right now, and every voice I hear on my dash is incredibly informative and fascinating. It’s truly a pleasure to keep such company, and it brightens my day to have interesting complex ideas as part of my fangirl experience.

A lot of what’s being said, or at least of what I’ve read, tends to address the reasons and the legitimacy of a woman choosing to write two character in love, or in lust, when she can’t identify with the gender of neither.  I think it’s being pretty thoroughly discussed, not to say there’s nothing more to add. Personally, I’m still waiting for someone to pipe in and admit that we’re all living in a very masculine world where male sexuality is a much more common tool than the marginalized female sexuality. But that’s not what I wanted to say.

What I wanted to say was that while the whys are interesting enough, what’s really captivating to me are the results. I’d really really like to get my hands on some meaty analysis of the dichotomy of a woman writing a male sexuality. It just seems that it creates a new way of looking at gender, and attraction, and orgasms.

A narrative that’s genderqueer by default in a way.

And while I’m probably too silly to discuss either causes or results, there’s one thing I can do: I will vehemently defend mine and every women’s right to write slash fiction.

Because it’s not about personal experience, or definite knowledge. It’s more than writing a voyeuristic fantasy: it’s a woman in charge, by the power of her pen or keyboard, of two penises. It’s letting ourselves question the line between reality and fantasy for a while just to tell a story. It’s Viola dressed as Cesario, falling in love with Orsino, if you pardon my Shakespeare. And who is to say that a woman getting off on reading two men fucking doesn’t experience a desire and lust that’s male in that moment?

True, I’m more of an actress than a writer. But above all that I’m a storyteller, and as every good storyteller I put on disguises to amuse and entertain my audience. And that’s why in my writing (and on stage) I can be anything and anyone, and I have every fucking right to do it.

If storytellers only told stories that they experienced themselves, the world would be so much less rich.

A space should be left for those normally denied a voice, and those in privileged positions should acknowledge mistakes and work to represent the experiences of the disadvantaged, yes… but to say that a person’s imagination and creative spirit must be confined to their physical bodies and associated experiences? Seems reductive to me.

the both/and proposition: we can BOTH love AND criticize art

politelylewd:

emmadelosnardos:

professorfangirl:

Off with their heads (they aren’t perfect)

politelylewd:

One Hell of a Steep Learning Curve: Off with their heads (they aren’t perfect)

salsify:

I’ve been following this discussion today, on top of several related ones over the past few weeks, usually a complaint that such and such writing or episode or character or…

In this smart and useful exchange, salsify and politelylewd go over the arguments about the political faults in Sherlock, and whether we should take the show to task for the ethical lapses we see in it. I really want to engage these ideas, but I don’t have time here to reword my opinions from the academic position, so please forgive me for bringing up some cultural-theory terms. I truly don’t want to be pedantic or presumptuous, but these are important ideas to me, and I honestly would like to hear what people think. (If you don’t like this kind of academic talk, please just skip it rather than calling me names, ‘kay?)

“New Historicism” is the school of criticism claiming that “images and narratives do important cultural work. They function as a kind of workshop (or playroom) where
cultural problems, hopes, and obsessions are addressed or avoided…New Historicist critics often point out places in artists’ work where their attitudes do not anticipate or reflect our own, or may even be distasteful to us.” And here is my position, which I confess I learned from a prof I dearly loved and may be prejudiced toward): “At its worst, New Historicism’s emphasis on connecting literature to politics can resemble what Eve Sedgwick calls “good dog/ bad dog” criticism, where critics praise artists for their progressive views and chastise them for reactionary ones, instead of accepting that cultures have problems, those problems are complicated, and we can learn from how artists tried to grapple with those problems without giving them a grade card.”

So I have to say that while I politically agree with politelylewd’s passionate and well-stated argument, that we need to see marginalized people and experiences represented and valued, I also agree with salsify, that strident criticism of art is more effective when it’s tempered with this larger view of howart addresses social problems. That is, understanding the techniques and approaches artists used can enable the creation of new and better art, and sometimes this understanding is hampered by moralizing criticism.

I wish I could reblog ALL of this discussion, but if you are another person who is interested in art and morality, I suggest that you read through it. Afrogeekgoddess and I have had similar sorts of convos in the past. AGG, anything to add?

My inclination is to say that art and morality isn’t necessarily an either/or proposition. I think we can like art that is flawed (e.g., Sherlock) AND criticize it for its flaws. In fact, both are necessary if we are going to understand why wet have strong reactions (both positive and negative) to certain kinds of art. If we only consume art that meets our moral standard for how humans and artists should behave, then what we watch/read/listen to may be pitifully small, for the reasons that people have discussed above: artists are not perfect and the world they live in is not perfect, and art reflects that world. But another level of engagement with art requires that we do criticize it, question it, rage against it, because art represents so many things that are wrong with the world.

So I think that it’s extremely helpful and eye-opening to have discussions about how the POC characters on Sherlock are portrayed (or excluded), and how Irene Adler represents or does not represent a ‘modern’ woman in line with feminist beliefs. I think we should not hesitate to criticize art, and I welcome reading others’ criticisms, regardless of whether I hold the same beliefs, because such criticism opens up my mind to other ways of reading and thinking about the world, and to multiple interpretations of a work.

The historical argument — that art is a product of its time and should not be judged by our morals — makes sense to me on some levels. Mainly, I don’t want to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater,’ and dismiss valuable works or great thinkers only on the basis of their participation in a morally corrupt society. An example is Freud: I think he was wrong about many things, his understanding of women being a primary example, and many of his ideas work better as metaphors than as actually facts (e.g., penis envy, Oedipal complex, etc.). But if I were to say, ‘Freud is anti-woman, therefore I cannot read him,’ then I would miss everything that I have learned from how Freud views the unconscious, and the technique of free association, and working with dream material and language, all of which contribute so much to psychotherapeutic work. So I’ll take that, and treasure it, while at the same time I’ll be the first to admit that Freud is very problematic. Putting a thinker or artist in the context of his/her time period or culture does not give us an excuse to overlook problematic aspects of canonical works, but it can help us to determine what of the work is still of value today, if any.

Here is where I want to go back to the idea of ‘both/and’: art can be both a product of its historical time and a problematic expression of the status quo. Art can be both admired for its formal innovations, its content, its beauty, etc., and criticized for failing to match our own moral standards. Accepting the both/and mindset when it comes to art is more complex than either/or, because we have to be able to hold on to that hard-won ambiguity. But ultimately, it’s the approach that I strive for, because it allows me to listen to and produce postmodern criticism of art, but to also enjoy that which is problematic. 

Yes, that. I’m not saying that we ought to avoid offensive material - what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t use “product of its time” as an excuse for blind acceptance. It’s perfectly acceptable and in fact encouraged to take “product of its time” works to task, and question why we think that it has historical or artistic value. Blind acceptance is bad. Taking offense is a natural reaction, but instead of avoiding the offending material or trying to censor it, critique it. It’s perfectly fine to enjoy problematic things, but recognizing and talking about why it’s problematic is key. 

If I could make love to this discussion, I would. It’s clever and insightful and I know nothing about the theory of art so I’m ultimately a useless contributor.

I’ll add only this: criticism is only part of the process. Engaging with the problematic and pointing out its failures is a necessary and important task, but without innovation and creativity it amounts to little. We are quick to admonish, but we should also do our part in forming a counter-argument - something positive to fill the space we leave in the wake of critique.

Sometimes I feel like there isn’t enough energy dedicated to encouraging (or creating) the things we want as replacements for or additions to those problematic aspects of art that we denounce. We’re quick to destroy and slow to build… and that makes me sad. 

Not to mention that critique without encouragement to improve stalls progress. Many artists (mainstream and in fandom) try to bring something beautiful and innovative into the world, only to be shot down vehemently - their work is “flawed”, and so to many, it loses its merit. Why don’t we acknowledge its progress, even it’s small?  

If a well-meaning artist makes a mistake, why don’t we say: “Hey, I love you work, but ____ aspect is problematic: here is a way you could be more sensitive/progressive in your next piece?” Without encouragement and direction, people give up on the idea that positive change can be made through art (for fear that they’ll be hated for making mistakes) - and all we’re left with is the products of those who block their ears and ignore criticism full stop.

peninsulamamoenam:

So all the big talk floating around Tumblr this weekend about race and gender and representation has me thinking about queer women in (and by “in” I mean both writing and reading) fandom.

I know why I like reading gay male smut (while being considerably more attracted to women than to men), even though those reasons are fairly complicated. Part of is is that hot people doing hot things are hot, obviously. But I also can’t deny that I (sometimes) enjoy reading about sex that I can’t insert myself into. Without the inclusion of a body I could recognize as my own, I’m able to distance myself temporarily from the messy, unreliable, not-always-sexy realities of sex in a real person’s body.

It’s my suspicion that a lot of female writers write about male bodies to give themselves sexual superpowers that neither they nor many real gay men possess (constant arousal, superhuman blowjob skills, infinite orgasms, the ability to come while receiving anal, etc). That’s not a criticism at all; I’m not really worried about hurting men by objectifying them or using their hypothetical bodies to explore female fantasies. But it’s still fascinating.

Finally getting around to reading more genuinely erotic femmeslash (thanks, HBBO!) has changed my relationship with fandom entirely, making it feel like something I’m actually a part of, rather than escapist fantasy.

I need to spend more time thinking about this, but the more people want to pile on the better.

Women’s investment in M/M slash fanfiction is something I ponder about a LOT. I’m not sure why I find this surprising, but I do.

The notion of there being a level of comfort in reading/writing sex that is enacted through a body different than one’s own is very clever. I would agree that it takes a very vulnerable situation (because in real life, sex can be awkward and embarassing and downright unsexy sometimes) and removes that source of anxiety from the process, therefore making it more enjoyable as a fantasy.

I think that there’s also a difference in the level of expectation between partners in M/M fanfiction as opposed to M/F pairings. In gay fanfiction there is often a distinct kind of versatility that’s acceptable in the bedroom: Men in gay fanfiction are allowed to dislike being penetrated and/or to prefer to penetrate their partner. Non-penetrative sex (blowjobs/handjobs/frottage) are often portrayed as equally satisfying as “full sex”. Caution and consent often (but not always!) accompany each sex act.

I… don’t really see that in M/F fanfic. I don’t ever remember reading het pairings where it was treated as perfectly normal for a woman to dislike penetrative sex, or to want to penetrate her partner (with the help of a dildo). Oral sex and mutual mastubation act as a prelude to “full sex” in a majority of cases, instead of being treated like stand-alone sexual acts. Unless the female is a virgin, there’s usually very little dialogue about preferred sex acts before they couple starts going at it.There’s a real-life pressure on women to crave and  enjoy “traditional” penetrative sex, and that’s reiterated in mainstream fiction and fanfiction. Perhaps… perhaps M/M fic is so attractive to women because it provides an escape from the sex they are supposed to enjoy, which lets them concentrate on the sex they think/know they would enjoy.

Just a side-note: I think the Sherlock fandom is particularly open to non-normative sexual acts and preferences, which is one of the reasons I like their fanfiction so much. Sherlock is often portrayed as having very particular kinks or barriers to his enjoyment of sex, and John (ever-loyal, caring John) takes them in stride. It’s a very accepting fandom and I think it’s probably a major factor in why John/Sherlock is a particularly attractive pairing.

Encouraging Intersectionality in Popular Feminism (And Why Dismissing it as “Stuffy” is Lazy and Problematic)

I’m going to talk about feminism for a second, OK?

So this article by Vagenda Magazine has offended a lot of people. Including me. Their purpose was to defend Caitlin Moran’s flippant tweet from the other day, where she said she “literally couldn’t give a shit about” the lack of representation of women of colour in Lena Durham’s television show Girls. To be honest, Moran’s tweet really bothered me, but the reaction it received from many feminist news sources placated my own, because I quickly saw that I wasn’t the only one who was upset.

However, the way in which the Vagenda article dismiss the concept of intersectionality (the idea that we should take into account experiences of racism,  classism, homophobia, etc. when imagining feminism, therefore making it as inclusive as possible) is… just not on.

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