fembot part 2

[lobelia321]

I asked, Is slash compatible with feminism?, and got some really interesting answers.

It made me think about what my response is and why I asked the question in the first place. I don't have a hard-and-fast answer at all. I'm not even sure what feminism is anymore, although I am sure of what slash is. I suppose I was getting worried about having gone from having been a dyed-in-the-wool feminist in the 1980s and engaging in political activism (well, within my discipline, anyway) and public debate and intervention in institutions, to being a closeted private person who likes reading about movie actors' cocks in the 2000s.

Yes, the 'personal is the political', but I'm wondering where exactly is the politics in Dom's cum or in Draco's quirked brow?

Comments

[ios-pillow-book.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmm, interesting issues ...

I wonder what you're actually worried about, that reading/writing slash might not have political/feminist implications? Or that you've become a "closeted private person" no longer engaged in political activism? Do you feel you're wasting your time on things that have no noble cause behind it?

Drooling over Orli's curls certainly is not a very political act, but I don't think it needs ANY sort of justification. Other women discuss cooking recipees, we discuss cocks - does it make a difference? Should it make a difference? Who defines what's a waste of time/energy/brains and what's not? For my part, I'd like to make that definition myself.

But even if slash and politics don't go hand in hand, it's not that they must exclude each other.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Drooling over Orli's curls certainly is not a very political act, but I don't think it needs ANY sort of justification.
Heh, difficult to argue with that one. I'm not saying that feminism and slash *need* to be made compatible at all costs. I'm getting used to the idea that my life has different facets in it and some of them are *not* compatible. I was just wondering whether these two particular facets were compatible.

And if I am to make my own decisions, as you so wisely advise, I would say that drooling over Orli's curls excessively at the expense of writing my book *is* a waste of time.

[ios-pillow-book.livejournal.com]

And if I am to make my own decisions, as you so wisely advise, I would say that drooling over Orli's curls excessively at the expense of writing my book *is* a waste of time.

Guess the keyword's here excessively. A little drooling won't do any harm, I'm sure. What would life be without a few bits of everyday escapism?

And, oh, I totally fangirl you for managing to write a book on top of work and family and household. *sends you a crown of gilded laurels*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Heh. Send the laurels once the book is actually *finished*. But it's lovely to have a fangirl. *g*

[badgermonkey.livejournal.com]

I don't know what feminism is, really, either. At uni, it seemed to be reading a lot of fairy stories and Jeanette Winterson, which gets boring very quickly. There is too much emphasis on having the freedom to do as one pleases, which is a false eqality, because men do not, after all, have the freedom to do as they choose. So then it becomes a set of dud equivalences.

To say that slash is feminist because it's by women, for women, as has been suggested, is a load of tripe. That just makes it, well, female. And it's problematic, too, because celebrity culture - which is seriously unfeminist - is all about sexualising people even against their will (note; young actresses in compromising positions in photos shoots, casting couches, etc) - which is what RPS is entirely about.

There have been a lot of rumblings at school about the fact that the new staff have been predominantly (about 85%) female in recent years. But all the senior staff are male. I don't think it's institutionalised sexism, I think it's self-imposed lack of amibition from young women. Why? Asking that question, that's feminism. Thinking about slash, not so much.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Absofuckinglutely! This is the question / problem: what in the hell *is* feminism these days, and do I still like it? It's not so much about liking slash (I know I like it and I've come round more or less to accepting that it's not an utter waste of time and may be indulged in manageable doses) and it's not so much about what's valuable and what's not and what can be justified. It's about compatibility and about the definiton of feminism.

At uni, it seemed to be reading a lot of fairy stories and Jeanette Winterson
Yes! *yawns* This is perhaps why we needed to escape into slash because feminism just wasn't offering that special kick?? It used to offer it for me but it's got so *old*. And I hate prescriptive dogmas of any kind, and feminism always had a tendency to do the old soap box. At least, in fandom soap boxing is so absurd as to be easily debunked.

There is too much emphasis on having the freedom to do as one pleases, which is a false eqality,
The 'freedom to do as one pleases' is a total democratic / capitalist ideology that leads to invasions of Iraq. It is an absurdity. Nobody has the freedom to do entirely as they please; nor should they.

To say that slash is feminist because it's by women, for women, as has been suggested, is a load of tripe. That just makes it, well, female.
Exactly! Feminism is not the same as female. And I'm even wondering whether all forms of 'empowering women' are necessarily feminist as well. Pulling political strings behind the scenes by giving your president husband nice blowjobs (example!!) may empower the Missus but is it feminist? No.

Why? Asking that question, that's feminism. Thinking about slash, not so much.
Heh. Well, that's one answer to my question. I'm coming round to the idea that the twain are not compatible and I'll just have to live with that, and tough titties.

[egretplume.livejournal.com]

You could say that slash is feminist to the extent that slash questions or experiments with gender roles and sexual stereotypes. Of course, not all slash does that. But there's slash and then there's slash.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

God, there's slash and there's slash, you can say that again.

There's also feminism and there's feminism.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a fifty-something female, I'd say that slash might not "be" feminist (whatever that might mean) but the very fact of its public existence is a result of feminist thinking and redefinition.

Teenage girls participate gleefully in various fanfiction fandoms with various levels of sexuality; contrast that to when I was that age, you would not only get punished at school for even using the mildest sexual language, you would be punished at home for having been unladylike at school--and often the repercussions were things like being thrown out of clubs, friends' parents forbidding your calls or visits because you had become "a bad influence."

The overriding atmosphere was that "good girls" were not only ashamed of revealing any sexual interest, they should be ashamed of any sexual knowledge. Therefore the fact that this extended network of fandoms can exist at all, in a public forum, for me is something to be celebrated, whether I share their tastes or not.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Ah, so nice to meet someone who's actually older than I am! *laughs* Sometimes hanging round in fandom for too long is like stumbling into a disco (and that word dates me!) among the barely-born.

but the very fact of its public existence is a result of feminist thinking and redefinition.
I agree in part with this. Slash hit the scene in the 1960s, did it not, with Star Trek, and that was right at the beginning of the wimmins' movement so it sort of hit the scene in parallel, not as a result of. And slashy thoughts, I believe, were around way before that, more underground, I grant you that. And hence unprovable. Drat.

I remember reading Nancy Friday's books on women's sexual fantasies and not finding a single bloody woman fantasising about men getting it on. So I thought, ack, I'm a unique weirdo. Hah! The internet put paid to that illusion, and made me realise all those closet slashers were just covering up. Nancy, Nancy, you weren't asking the right questions. Which is where feminism turned out to be a pitfall, because hers was a feminist project -- but the *agenda* was misleading!!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

[grin] Though I love corresponding with young women and finding out what they have to say, it's a relief to find someone closer to my generation!

You are close on Trek fandom. The fiction really got going in the early seventies, when offset became cheaper than those terrible purple Gestetner mimeos. But slash fandom took off after 1974, I'm pretty sure it was, and that first story "August Moon" in which Kirk and Spock are alone on a planet and Spock goes into pon farr. Zowee, it electrified fandome--and caused a tectonic split between the slash readers and writers and the others. Not that some didn't participate in both, but the zines proliferated rapidly thereafter, along those themes.

And they were indeed mostly written by women of my age and a bit older, who had benefitted from the radical movement.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Aha! I stand corrected!

Now that ponfarr fic: do you have it? Have you read it? I'm dying to get my claws on that one. Has anyone ever scanned it in? Typed it up for online proliferation? Who was the author?

Argh, argh, I'm a *historian*, I *must* have that fic!!!!

*heaves breath*

*and laughs at use of expression of 'zowee' which reminds self of Some Like It Hot and makes self sigh happily*

Omg, and I *remember* purple Gestetner mimeos.

I want to know more! Tell all!!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Gotta go to work--writing in haste--

I think that first story was by Gayle Fehrer, but I am not sure. I don't own any of these--I borrowed them all, back in the mid eighties. But check out this site:


http://www.geocities.com/falconprss/Usedzine.html

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Who. That site! I've never even *seen* a zine. (Ooy, that rhymes.)

I googled this. No luck. There was some episode called Teahouse of the August Moon but who cares about canon?

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I am back--don't know if anyone has archived these zines, but if not, they should! I read the Trek ones in one weekend during the eighties, then had to give them back again, so I don't recall details with confidence. Amy Falkowitz Bradley, who was a zined at the time, was my hostess, and filled me in on the history. You really ought to get those slash zines, with their IDIC signs all over--some of the sheer exhilaration of the time still echoes when one looks at the illos and the stories and LOCs.

I also remember seeing a full set of T-Negatives back in, oh, 1974 or so. Maybe even earlier. Those were purple mimeo. The ones that particular fan friend collected were hurt comfort, not slash. (She was heavily into hurt comfort, this kindly older Quaker lady! Her favorite was one where Spock was crucified...) Anyway.

I think the name of that story was "Desert Moon", not "August" but I am reasonably sure that Gayle Fehrer was the author. If she wasn't, she was in there very early with slash stories.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You saw the zines and you didn't *photocopy* them? *splutters*

What's a T-negative? And did those Star Trek slashers invent all those terms hurt/comfort and so forth? Spock crucified! Well, that's thinly disguised... *snorts*

Trekkies are scary.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Well, photocopying was 25 cents a page on that weird paper, in those days...as for my reading in the eighties, the reason I hadn't subbed to any of the zines was a serious lack of fundage. In those days I was so cash-strapped I could only borrow zines, couldn't buy any of my own.

But yes, they invented the terms--it's amazing, looking back, how quickly and efficiently these women sorted out the story elements that worked for them, and subdivided into groups that pursued those particular elements.

One of these days some smart young woman, maybe a teen now, participating in fic fandom somewhere, is going to do her PhD thesis on this phenom, and interview all these various zineds and writers, including the ones who eventually went off into prodom. That is one book I want to read! I was so very on the periphery of things, it was frustrating then, as well as now.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

What's a T-negative? What's a prodom?

And weird photocopying paper! Omg, we are *neanderthalettes*.

The way that these Trekkie-slashers sorted out everything so quickly is gist for my mill that slash is genetically pre-programmed. it just needs that evolutionary nudge and whoosh.

*g*

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry! T-negative was the name of a zine, and I think it was also Spock's blood type, if I remember right.

Prodom is professional publication, a neologism that arose out of fandom.

[I snarfled my tea at the notion of us neanderthalettes, but yup!]

I do think the slash taste is a very interesting phenom...I've seen many definitions, explanations, etc, but either the right one has not occurred--or it functions differently for different people.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Okay, you can be the neanderthalette, and I'll be cro-magnonine.

Prodom! Origfic! I love the way what is generally considered as the norm is being turned into this weird acronymed abbreviationism by fandom.

And yes, definitions of slash: may a thousand flowers bloom.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

I'm correcting the most tangled set of proofs EVER and have no brain cells left, but just wanted to register happiness that feminism is being discussed here as though it might still be a force to be reckoned with. The Young Things with whom I come into frequent contact in my job have the most incredibly reductive bra-burning-in-your-dungarees-at-Greenham-Common idea of feminism. They don't even think it's a spent force, they think it's a joke. What were all those hairy-legged badly-dressed people getting so excited about? Why would anyone get upset about some actress posing in her pants on the front of Loaded? So what?

While I remind myself that this level of what I can only call blahness is testament to the fact that these young women are benefitting from the achievements of feminist activism, their passivity makes me want to shout. Some of them have brains atrophied to the extent that they think Sex and the City is some kind of feminist statement, rather than an empty-headed allegory about shoes.

And I frequently do shout, leading to entire lecture theatres dropping their pens in slack-jawed who-is-that-weirdo? wonder. But then I am still naive enough to think that a working class woman enjoyably dissecting phallus-worship in Lawrence might matter to some one or two of them. My class politics have always been entirely meshed with my feminism through adult ed and literacy teaching and stuff. Which I do far less of these days. Sigh. (Why are one's thirties so tiring?)

Re the compatibility of slash and feminism. Hmmm. I often think about this, though never in relation to my own writing of it, just in relation to the masses of younger women in fandom. While I utterly enjoy the subversive charge of someone taking Gimli and Legolas out of a Serious Manly Battle and making them have a discussion about the future of their relationship while blowing one another behind a convenient hedge, or rewrite Galadriel (surely as damaging a matrix of conventional stereotypes of the feminine as there has ever been) as a mouthy cynic with a taste for domination - there's a lot of writing out there which suggests more worrying trends - fear and disgust of the female body, with its inconvenient fat deposits, bleedings and secretions, for one.

(There was a spate of Legolas and Gimli fics at one point which were quite transparently about being troubled by the hairiness of RL post-puberty, compared to the Touche-Eclat porcelain-ness of Legolas, who functioned less as a male Elf than as a kind of idealised supermodel woman. And I can never quite decide whether this is an understandable, even admirable, way for young women to explore 'issues' - in the same way that the endless popularity of 'first time' fics often turn first-time anal sex into virtual parables about the fear of penetration - or
whether it's a kind of retreat into ....

Oh bother. My brain has entirely deconstructed itself, and I realise I have been at work for nearly 13 hours. Goodnight.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

feminism is being discussed here as though it might still be a force to be reckoned with.
Well, that was what I was wondering: *is* it??

The Young Things with whom I come into frequent contact in my job have the most incredibly reductive bra-burning-in-your-dungarees-at-Greenham-Common idea of feminism.
Yes, exactly!! It's snort-time in seminars. Well, sometimes you can get an ire up. Still, I remember my own student days where we were always told by lecturers 'why are you so politically passive? In my generation, we threw tomatoes', and we rolled our eyes at these old hasbeens from '68 and went 'yeah, yeah'. So maybe I'm just turning into that old hasbeen myself now: 'You young teenies of today, why aren't you more feminist?'

(Why are one's thirties so tiring?)
With me it was the kids. Now they're a bit bigger and I'm coming up for air. :-)

there's a lot of writing out there which suggests more worrying trends - fear and disgust of the female body, with its inconvenient fat deposits, bleedings and secretions, for one.
Yo. This is very interesting. It hadn't occurred to me in quite this precise shape and form. But I think you're onto something here: the cult of Legolas as hairless egg and stand-in for girlies' need to look like the ads.

popularity of 'first time' fics often turn first-time anal sex into virtual parables about the fear of penetration
Oh, this is so interesting. When I first stumbled upon slash, I thought that some of the sex I was reading was utterly heterosexual, masquerading as buggery. Now I'm so inured to it, it's become just another aspect of fanon.