fembot

[lobelia321]

Is slash compatible with feminism?

And do you want it to be?

And do you care?

Comments

[msilverstar]

I see feminism as freeing women from the traditional roles and limits. So yeah, slash is very much feminist.

Slash is a powerful way of for us to explore sexuality and work through issues of men and sex outside of the mainstream. I think the least-feminist slashers simply put one man in the traditional "female" role in their stories, but even then, it's transgressive that they're writing slash at all.

I'm old enough to know that the opposite of feminism is oppression, and that women who say they're not feminists tend to define it in the silly reductionist bra-burning way. That's a shame, feminism is bigger and more important than any one issue, even something like abortion choice. So there's room for all kinds of sexuality in my big-tent feminism.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

|The thing is I'm not sure about what I understand feminism to be any more. It seems to have split into a lot of factions since last I looked (1980s). But the thing about freeing us from constraints (as you say) is absolutely at the core of anything I'd want feminism to be. Only I suppose, I've gone beyond feminism in how I understand the freeing-up of constraints.

[thamiris.livejournal.com]

Part of my problem in answering this question is that the term "feminism" is so overstuffed with meaning that it nearly means nothing at all. My feminism might not be your feminism, etc. That said, I think that slash (and I'm thinking in particular of NC-17 m/m slash, since that's primarily what I read and write) is both compatible and incompatible with my own interpretation of the term. It's compatible because as writers women are reclaimining erotic desire, something from which we've been culturally marginalized, with desire at odds with our "purity" and all that other shit. Slashers are objectifying men, and of course the act of objectification has traditionally belong to men, so if feminism is about equality, then we're becoming equal, although maybe objectification of anyone isn't something we should be championing, despite the power it gives the objectifier.

At the same time, I think that slash is at odds with "feminism" because we've removed female bodies from the playing field of desire, marginalizing women in favor of men, and this is often not a product of sexual orientation as many slashers are sexually queer in some way. While it's arguably protective to exclude women because this exclusion means that we won't sexually exploit ourselves, exclusion is still exclusion, if you follow me: we're still marginalizing ourselves as fitting narrative subjects, and this applies whatever rating you give the slash in question. We might not be consciously thinking, "We're not worthy," but combined with the common thread of women's absence or even villainization within the texts, it's hard to argue that this is a feminist good.

Slash to me, then, is both empowering and disempowering. I'd like to live in a world where I was as happy writing m/f or f/f as I am writing slash.

Damn phone interrupted my train of thought, so I'm going to end here.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, it's the term 'feminism' that bothers me. I know what slash is but what the heck is feminism? Or what has it become since the early 1980s when I still had a fairly good idea of what it was and what I wanted it to be? And is it even an 'it' now or only available in the plural?

It's compatible because as writers women are reclaimining erotic desire, something from which we've been culturally marginalized, with desire at odds with our "purity" and all that other shit.
Yup, with you there.

Slashers are objectifying men, and of course the act of objectification has traditionally belong to men, so if feminism is about equality, then we're becoming equal, although maybe objectification of anyone isn't something we should be championing,
Here I'm more dubious. The act of objectification is wrong in some circumstances but it is entirely appropriate in writing and also in sexual desire. I can't see how either writing or desire could operate without objectifiying the object of desire (and then, I guess, we're into having to define 'objectifiy'). Otoh, slashers are also romantics, and slash is a romantic genre, and writers and readers try and crawl into the heads and emotional centres of their characters, and that is trying to 'subjectify' them, if anything.

Also, I think women have always objectified men. It just hasn't been as visible within the archives of patriarchy but I bet all those mediaeval nuns were ogling Christ's thighs in highly objectifiying fashion and oh, the fetishisms! And in the Arabian Nights (to pluck one long-gone example out of the ether) there are constant references to girls ogling boys and noting their 'sapling waists'.

While it's arguably protective to exclude women because this exclusion means that we won't sexually exploit ourselves, exclusion is still exclusion, if you follow me:
Yes, it's like hiding behind male bodies.

[pecos.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there's a definitve answer to your question, but I know that I enjoy slash, and to me feminism is about people being free to do whatever they want, without artificial restrictions placed on them by reason of gender.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there's a definitve answer to your question
I am fairly sure there is not.

But that's why I like you: you're a true free spirit of the old school.

[freyafloyd.livejournal.com]

A psychologist once told me that people behave, even when other people aren't around, in a way that fits in with their perception of other people's expectations. I don't know if it is true that we all behave as if we are constantly in front of an audience, but if it is true, then slash is a feminist act.

I believe that most men, if they knew about slash, would be utterly horrified, or at the very least, mildly uncomfortable with the idea of it. Slash goes beyond the point of not pleasing men to the point of doing something that many men would hate women to do.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that the fact of men being horrified by an act necessarily makes that act feminist. So while i my experience men are fairly bamboozled (not horrified, just 'huh?') that doesn't really come into the question about feminism.

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Yes.
Yes.
Not particularly.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

:-)

[maralily.livejournal.com]

I think of slash or homoerotic fiction that is primarily written by women as a very unusual way that women express creativity, fantasies, ideas and say things that most would find "strange." Since my idea of feminism is "being able to do as I please and express myself and my sexuality freely" then yes, I think slash is very feminist.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The problem is that I have no fixed idea of what feminism is at the moment. And while I like yours, I'm not even sure it is compatible with what feminism has become these days. 'Doing as I please', e.g., is a very problematic category, not only in terms of feminism but also in terms of living in society in general. First, we can't always do what we please, not when it obstructs others. Second, how do we always know what will please us? I certainly don't always know.

[cupiscent.livejournal.com]

Feminism is the ultimate incompatibility. It won't compromise with anything. (Attack with hatchets in 500 words or less...)

Truthfully? Yes, meh, no.

If I got nothing else out of my university career, I got a blithe disdain for the F word. It makes me go from 0 to 100 on the apathy scale in precisely as long as it takes to say the three syllables.

That said - everything about questions like that depend on how you're approaching slash. Why you're doing it and why you love it. There are ways of approaching slash that make it very healthy from a "feminist" viewpoint, and there are almost diametrically opposed ways of approaching it that I think are very unhealthy from that viewpoint - neither "men are glorious, all hail the cock, and thus we write slash and ignore women" nor "women are glorious, all hail the cunt, and thus not to be exploited for gratuitous entertainment and we only write about men" is very good from a "hey, aren't we all people?" viewpoint.

I'll put away my quotation mark key and shut up, now.

[kribban.livejournal.com]

Feminism is the ultimate incompatibility. It won't compromise with anything. (Attack with hatchets in 500 words or less...)

No, no hatches... LOL. I used to be like you until I became about eighteen and claimed the F word as my own. It can mean whatever you want it to, that's the beauty of it. Then again I'm swedish, and over here we've had our prime minister (a white, heterosexual middle aged man) say "I am a feminist" on national television so it's been pretty de-dramatized.

There are ways of approaching slash that make it very healthy from a "feminist" viewpoint, and there are almost diametrically opposed ways of approaching it that I think are very unhealthy from that viewpoint - neither "men are glorious, all hail the cock, and thus we write slash and ignore women" nor "women are glorious, all hail the cunt, and thus not to be exploited for gratuitous entertainment and we only write about men" is very good from a "hey, aren't we all people?" viewpoint.

Yes, it all depends on why you write it. Personally, I'm turned on by men with men. That's why I write it. It is not the only way I get off, however, nor the only thing that can turn me on. I also enjoy het (on occasion) and f/f - when I find a fandom where the characters intrigue me (and arouse) me as much as the men I read slash about do. (E.g. Buffy and Angel.)

I think it's very disturbing however when women only get their kicks from reading slash and react strongly towards the mere mention of women. On some mailing lists I'm on I've seen a rather violent reaction towards het content in fics, or mention of women in canon. I've always thought it to be jealousy.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is precisely my problem. I'm not sure of the definition of feminism (feminisms?) any more, and I also don't know whether 'feminism' (whatever it is) is an unalloyed Good or an alloyed Good. (I still want to recuperate some form of Good for it.) I'm just worried that I used to be a political feminist and interfere with institutions and now I've withdrawn into this private realm of fantasising about cocks.

[the-oscar-cat.livejournal.com]

"If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist."

too a while to hunt it out, but this is worth reading, imho.

I'm just worried that I used to be a political feminist and interfere with institutions and now I've withdrawn into this private realm of fantasising about cocks.

*laughs* Why can't you do both? They aren't mutually exclusive.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

But what is equality of the sexes? This, too, I'm not as certain of as I once was. Not the sexes part -- I think (think!) I'm fairly sure of what the sexes are but the equality part. Equal pay? yes. Equal representation on political parties and in parliament? Yes, abso-fucking-lutely yes. Except my adoration of curls or cocks makes no difference to that at all. Which means possibly that it *is* incompatible. (And it doesn't *have* to be compatible. I'm not seeking harmony at all costs.)

Anyway, 'believing' in the equality of the sexes is too vague for me. I don't believe the sexes *equal*. I think there should be parity in government (e.g.) but I don't actually "believe" that the sexes are equal.

Okay, I can see how it's political to assume that the only reason we have a war in Iraq is that Tony secretly wants to be buggered by George, and badly. But that explanation only goes so far...

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

This is why I think slash is so difficult to talk about to non-slashers. There are so many different elements... I was at a small party at a friend's house recently, and the conversation turned to pornography and feminism, and the question of whether women use pornography in the same way as men. And one of my friends who knows about slash looked at me, as if expecting me to launch into the Big Slash Explanation. Which I didn't. I just really didn't feel like being the spokesperson for slash, or attempting to defend it from a feminist viewpoint or whatever. I realised I wanted to leave it lurking in the shadows.

I think for some people slash can be a feminist act, it can be subversive. And for some people it really isn't. For instance there's that strange, misogynistic attitude you come across on lists sometimes ('yuck, girls!').

And now I've run out of things to say, so we'll just pretend there's a proper ending to this comment. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I *hate* being made to be spokesperson when I don't want to be. It's being ambushed without my permission. And it's the whole spokesperson thing: it must get on minority's nerves something big. "Oh, you're black, aren't you? Tell us, how do you feel about the representation of African Americans in this movie?" At least we're an invisible minority.

pomo cheesecake

[office-ennui.livejournal.com]

what great questions to ask and what amazing responses! my main attraction to slash is its deconstruction of popular narative which i link to feminism at least to literary theory that feminism has advanced. i think that you have had very articulate responses about other aspects i find fascinating (audience, desire, objectifying gaze, etc) which would also link it to themes found in most feminist thought. as someone who reads and does not write, if i did not find the practice feminist i doubt i would continute to be a reader. i dont know how conscious writers are in making their work about feminism though most writers i have contacted would identify with being feminist in some way. it becomes a question of authorship right? i mean most criticism of slash always positions it as feminist enterprise, but how relevant is that to the writers of slash. i dont think most critics or theorists audience is their subject, which is rather unfortuante...

Re: pomo cheesecake

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

deconstruction of popular narative which i link to feminism at least to literary theory that feminism has advanced.
Well, I love the whole narrative theory thing, as you know, but I am uncomfortable with the feminist parts of it that I know. I may be hopelessly out of date here but isn't it all about daytime soaps and pulp romance? And I'm not sure to what extent slash *does* deconstruct popular narrative; it seems to me very firmly part of general pop narr trends. But I have to ponder on this some more. The one thing that is different is the identification of readers/writers with their characters (the fandom aspect of it) but then I'm not sure how "feminist" fandom is. It seems abjectly non-empowering to drool over Orlando's curls. Possibly it is empowering to be able to say to everyone 'hey, I'm drooling over Orlando's curls' but it still does not feel very political. And feminism is to me (though I'm unsure what exactly it is) still about politics.

most criticism of slash always positions it as feminist enterprise,
The academics on slash are singularly un-useful, I find. They go on about the feminism because that is the only thing they can think of as they continue to be amazed at the sheer m/m-ness of it all. Get over it, I find myself mumbling.

Re: pomo beefcake

[office-ennui.livejournal.com]

what makes you uncomfortable with teh feminist parts of literary theory? i am thinking of a good response to the whole empowering bit cause i read something really interesting about that recently but i'll have to get back to you once i'm more sober.