Why should het women be allowed to write m/m romance?
I keep coming back to this because it keeps being something I am asked to justify. But I was browsing Metafandom on LJ this morning and I discover in this post about fandom’s skeevy behaviour towards GLBT people that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rm has already answered it fully and completely. I will be adopting this answer myself in future. Thanks RM!
I am _not_ saying that het people shouldn’t be writing slash (one unfortunate drama I’ve seen on the Internet lately), because hey, what turns you on, what interests you, no matter who you are, THAT’S PART OF YOUR SEXUAL AND EMOTIONAL IDENTITY TOO and I’m all for it.
July 3rd, 2009 in
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Thanks for that link, Alex!
Thankfully I have no experience of the weirder parts of fandom (is this "slash is OK but RL gayness is icky" crowd American by any chance?), as I tend to stick to the obscurer titles that have a more intelligent fandom. I do worry a little about my portrayal of gay men in my fiction, however – I guess I need a gay friend or two to critique that angle!
On the other hand, as someone whose gender identity is far more complex than mere sexual orientation, I don't see myself as falling into the "het woman who writes about gay men" category anyway 🙂
I've actually, in my ten years in fandom, only ever seen this reaction once. But I admit that I briefly passed through it myself in my attempts to get my Christianity and my m/m reading to match. It's the same theory as 'yes, but murder is wrong in real life too, but we are allowed to read about it.' It doesn't take much thought to realize that it's an untenable position, but when you're desperately looking for something that will justify you, so you don't have to face the problem that if homosexuality is wrong then you are going to hell for the sins of your imagination, it can come as a very attractive temporary relief.
*g* It's funny. I'm very much the same way. Gender wise, I've been looking for an appropriate category that really described me for years. I thought initially I was transgender male, but now I've come to accept various female attributes as well. Could be bi-gender, except that I'd much rather not have a gender at all, rather than having two.
But the 'het woman who writes about gay men' thing impacts me because that's what people see when they look at me. When False Colors came out, two American newspapers interviewed me, and wanted me to talk about why straight women did this peculiar thing, and I really didn't want to launch into a history of my lifetime of gender confusion to these strangers. And even if I had, it wouldn't have answered their question. So I feel kind of obliged to have an answer.
Of course it may be that the answer is 'because some of these women are a little more gender queer than is dreamed of in your philosophy.' I don't know. Sheesh! I just want to write about what I want to write about. It wasn't meant to be a daring exercise in gender politics!
*Everything* social is inherently political… Unfortunately. I get the feeling that this 'brave new world' in writing will be studied to death about a century from now. Hopefully, from the angle of how humanity was liberated ;p
Ooh, what a thought! I should be a bit more careful in what I say, in that case! Or not… I doubt if history is ever completely accurate. But yes, it's all so complicated! I thought I'd have most trouble from people going "gay romance is disgusting and sinful! What are you, a Christian, doing writing it?!" I didn't think my reproductive organs were particularly relevant to anything. Who'd have thought? 🙂